Thank you to MagicRose13, my only reviewer and favorite *hint, hint to the rest of you out there*!
Disclaimer: I do not profit from 'Can't Fight the Moonlight,' Coyote Ugly, Kingdom Hearts, or any other mentions I might have thrown in.
With whatever remained of his drained energy, the Cloaked Schemer portaled into the Grey Area and collapsed onto a couch, the swirling void still misting and spluttering, for he lacked the care to even close it. Zexion's eyes closed of their own volition, though he wasn't going to fight it at the moment.
"Darkness below! Zexion, what happened?"
Cracking one eye open, the illusionist sighed as Juliet began to fuss over him, wiping at the drying blood that ran from his split lip down his chin. He gathered that he must've been a sight for sore eyes, but at the moment, he really didn't worry.
"Riku… and I… had a bit of… a run in… you could say," Zexion finally managed, his words slightly slurred around the swelling of his lower lip. After wiping some of the crimson liquid out of his eyes, he used his elbow to prop himself up and was displeased to find that Juliet was still wearing her very ruined dress. He frowned as she ripped a piece of the end off and placed the scrap of fabric over his brow.
"What were you doing!?" Juliet scolded, her eyes shining in anger. He went to remove the pseudo-bandage, but the brunette slapped his hand away. Her fingers dug into his forehead as she went on cleaning, most likely in retribution for his getting himself injured.
With more venom than he intended, the schemer snapped, "What do you think I was doing, Juliet?"
She shook her head, eyes closed in what Zexion chocked up to mounting frustration. "I honestly have no idea!"
He raised up on his elbows to look her in the eyes again. It somewhat irked him that he had to spell it out for her. "I beat up Riku."
"Yeah, I got that, but why did you—"
"I beat up Riku." She continued to frown at him in confusion, her fine eyebrows knitted in concern.
It was at that moment that Saїx made himself, Axel, and Larxene known by stating, "Well, he certainly got what he had coming." Zexion watched the trio enter from the hall, all of them wearing similar smirks as they took in his and Juliet's appearance.
Larxene nodded in approval of the diviner's statement, then finally asked the question that the schemer knew they all wanted answered. "Why did you do it?"
Zexion looked away, closing his eyes and fighting the need to pinch the bridge of his nose. If they honestly kept this going until he confessed, he was sure he'd turn the same shade as Axel's hair. "Juliet is my friend, what other reason do I need?"
Larxene grumbled, "Oh really? That's all, huh?" The look in her eyes said she knew more.
Turning his head to Axel with a very obvious cry for help in his blue eyes, Zexion fidgeted a little in his seat. The redhead simply smirked, a slight shake of his head signaling that he would not interfere with this one.
"Come on, guys. Let's go get some potions and rags to clean Zexion up," Juliet advised. The illusionist could tell that the brunette was tired of the chit-chat, wanted to punch someone after everything she'd endured, and just plain fed up. Frankly, he was relieved.
The group got the message and left Juliet to face Zexion. The Cloaked Schemer braced himself for what was sure to be the talking-to of the century.
"Zexion, you shouldn't have done that! You could've gotten hurt! Or- or killed, seeing as to you've already accomplished the first one!" Juliet seethed. Her eyes were ablaze with a fire that could rival the Flurry of the Dancing Flames himself.
A sigh escaped his lips as he ran a hand through his hair. "I did it because I care for you." At this, he turned back to her and gave her the most deadpan, don't-you-see-what-I-see face he could muster.
At first Juliet didn't get it, as she had a tendency to overlook the obvious and complicate things further. "I understand that you care for me but that doesn't—"
"No," Zexion interrupted, "When I say that I care for you, Juliet, *inquam is mitis."
When the girl stared back at him, blinking, the Cloaked Schemer let out a deep breath and explained, "It's Latin, Juliet." She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout, something he was sure she wasn't aware she even did when she wanted something, but Darkness did it make his heart beat faster!
Expectedly, he gave in.
Zexion leaned forward and caught her lips with his own, a small smile forming at the look of shock that crossed her cake-smudged face. She tasted slightly of strawberry punch and coconut milk, but the schemer didn't mind. When he finally pulled away to breath, Zexion whispered, "Inquam is mitis, Juliet. It means that saying I 'care' for you is an understatement."
Juliet smiled, her fingertip pressing to her mouth. Once she'd recovered from the moment, she pressed another kiss to the schemer's lips and breathed, "I think I can live with that."
Zexion found a grin forming on his face, and in the heat of the moment, threw caution to the wind. Deviously, he asked with a smirk, "You want to crash a party?"
"Huh?"
Zexion grabbed the girl's wrist and tugged her up, summoning a Dark Corridor and then pushing her in. Seconds after, the schemer was pulling his comrade out of the darkness and back into the crowd of party-goers on the white sand beach. Namine spotted him immediately, grinning at the way his fingers intertwined with Juliet's.
In the midst of couples dancing to the music, a boy covered in blood, mud, and bruises wrapped his arms around the waist of a girl whose dress was splattered in cake and punch. The kids around them looked on in confusion, but Namine, Roxas, Kairi, and Sora just smiled.
The two rugged teenagers looked ever out of place amid the dolled-up dancers, but they complemented each other's filthy outfits and mussed hair as they danced on the sunset-bathed sand of Destiny Islands.
Laughter filled the air as Juliet walked into Nothing's Call with Zexion's arm around her waist.
"And did you see the looks on their faces? Priceless!"
Zexion smiled softly as Juliet recounted the tale to Larxene and Axel, her excitement a contagion that floated in the air and infected everyone who gathered around her to hear the story.
From across the room Saix smiled. "And to think we had just been heading down to do exactly what Zexion already had."
Zexion just blinked. "How do you mean?"
Larxene's sadistic grin appeared on her face as she pulled out a kunai and stroked its edge. "Didn't you wonder why we all happened to be walking into the Grey Area in a group?"
Zexion looked curiously at her. No, he couldn't say the thought had really crossed his mind, but he allowed them to carry on anyhow. "Continue."
Axel jumped in, picking up where the story left off. "When Juliet got here, Saїx was worried sick! He made her tell us what happened—"
"About me being publicly humiliated," Juliet piped in.
"And of course, we were furious!" Axel finished.
"Yes, quite," added Saix. "In fact, when you walked in, we were heading down to Kairi's party to give that Riku a stern talking to."
"That's what you think," said Larxene. "I was gonna 'talk' with my kunai!" She let out a malicious cackle, and Axel shook his head at her antics. Saix smirked.
"But, since you stole our thunder and socked it to Riku for us," Axel went on, nodding at Zexion, "we had no need to go down there."
Zexion looked inquisitively at them. "Oh," was all he ended up saying.
Juliet sighed. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to my room to change. I smell like pineapple and mango punch mixed with strawberry icing."
Larxene made a retching sound. "Yeah, see you!"
Before she walked away, Juliet paused beside Zexion and bid him goodnight with a knowing smile. He nodded at her and repeated the endearment, watching as she portaled away. When the Dark Corridor closed, an eerie silence fell over the remaining group. A silence Larxene could all but let continue, much to the Cloaked Schemer's chagrin.
"So Zexy, I noticed your 'subtle' glance at Juliet. What really happened, my little silvery-haired friend?" Larxene finally asked. Axel jabbed her in the ribs, but she only let out a giddy, evil laugh.
"Oh, um, nothing," Zexion stuttered. He abruptly stood and opened a dark portal. "Well, I'm just going to turn in." He vanished quicker than lightning.
"Larxene!" Axel chided. "Leave those poor kids alone!" He reached over and pulled one of her antennae-like bangs, and she slapped his hand away, scrunching up her nose.
"Unlikely." And with that, she too vanished into a swirling purple mist.
Saїx sat down next to Axel on the couch, his face blank but his eyes holding a humorous light. "Lea, you should train your girlfriend not to pry."
Axel smirked. "Unlikely," he said, mimicking Larxene.
As Juliet stepped out of her steaming hot shower and pulled on her black nightgown, she heard a quiet shuffling in her room.
It could be only one person.
She called with all of the nastiness she could muster, "Larxene, get out of my room! I'll tell you what I want to tell you, when I want to tell you!"
A huff carried through the door. "Is that anyway to treat a— Hey! You can't machine wash that dress! It's dry clean only, moron!"
Juliet stepped out, rolling her eyes at the lightning mistress as she wrapped a towel around her hair and wiped away some steam from her vanity mirror.
"Please, get out. I'm tired and I've had a long day." The look in her eyes must have been enough to convince the nymph to give up.
Larxene sighed haughtily, crossing her arms in defiance. "Fine, but I'm taking that dress and washing it the proper way."
Juliet smiled sickeningly-sweetly. "Take your time."
Larxene snatched up the garment and spun on her heel, calling back, "Don't choke on your attitude."
When Larxene stepped into the hall, Axel was leaning against a pillar with a very disappointed look on his face. As the blonde pursed her lips and strutted past him, he tsked and pulled her back to his body.
"I thought I told you to leave those two alone," he scolded.
Larxene stuck her lip out in a pout. "Ah, are you mad at me?" She did her best to look up from under her eyelashes at him. She widened her eyes and made her lip tremble. It didn't take a Vexen to know that Axel was having trouble reprimanding Larxene with her kicked-puppy act.
"Yes...Uh, no! I'm not mad at you!" Axel sighed as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close.
Larxene's sad act dissipated, and a mischievous grin broke out. "Good, cause if you were mad at me, I'd have to break up with you and date your ex-best friend."
Axel hissed. "You would never!"
"Wanna bet? Where is ol' werewolf boy anyways?"
"Who cares?" he answered, a hint of jealousy coloring his voice as he dragged her off to Twilight Town for dinner.
Just as the couple disappeared, Saїx and Marluxia rounded the corner, the former wearing a very blank expression and the latter cackling at the blonde's nickname for him.
"Did Larxene just call me werewolf boy?" Saїx asked, confused.
With a smirk, Marluxia replied, "Can't fight the moonlight, Berserker Boy."
Although it was morning, the perpetual twilight in all its glory shone down through the huge windows of the Grey Area. Saїx stood in the front of the room, his usual station on mornings like these when the Superior handed him the mission assignments for the members.
Xigbar came gallivanting into the Grey Area, arrowguns in tow. When Saїx spotted the cocky sharpshooter, his neutral expression morphed into an out-right grimace.
"Hello, number II," Saїx greeted dully. "I see you're looking even more hideous than usual on this fine morning. Put away the Halloween Costume, that's not for another two months."
"You're just sour because I'm number II, and you're number VII, even though you're second in command!" Xigbar replied with cocky smirk. He placed an arrowgun barrel up against his shoulder, the other hand on his hip.
Saїx answered not. "Mission in Halloween Town, eliminate the Carrier Ghost—"
"Piece o' cake!" Xigbar cried with an arrogant grin. He began to turn away before the diviner interrupted him.
"And the seven windstorms," Saїx finished with a satisfied smile. Xigbar's smirk fell into a little 'o' of horror.
"Morning chaps!" Luxord greeted cheerfully, ever the gentleman. "Have fun on your mission Xigbar, since it'll be a 'piece of cake!'" Luxord laughed at Xigbar's expense, and Saїx merely turned one corner of his mouth up by a fraction of a degree. The older man huffed and slumped over to fill up on hi-potions from the moogle.
The moogle greeted him with the usual, "Hello kupo, take a look at my wares, kupo."
As Xigbar reached in his pocket for munny, a soft knock echoed down the hall. He looked up at numbers seven and ten, who looked equally baffled. They rarely got visitors at the World that Never Was, and especially not at this time of the morning.
Xigbar shrugged and waltzed down the hall to the door. He opened it slightly, revealing it to be non-other than Kairi.
"What's the password?" he asked with a snigger. He gazed down at the redhead with a very sarcastic grin, one that had Kairi scowling.
"Let me in or I'll have Sora chop of your—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hey, Barbie, no need to get testy," Xigbar said with a nervous chuckle as he pushed the door open further for the girl to come in.
"'Testy' is right, and I'm not talking about the adjective," Kairi replied sardonically. To Saїx's amusement, the sharpshooter portaled away faster than what could be considered usual.
At that moment, Juliet had just arrived via a Dark Corridor to head off for her "tutoring" session with Vexen, which usually entailed the elder scribbling on a chalkboard and doing the worm with his eyebrows, while the brunette scribbled 'How Babies Are Made' atop her worksheet and proceeded to fill it in with various forms of explicit content that she'd discovered on something called the "FanFiction." It was a rather informative site.
"Hey!" Juliet exclaimed, spotting her friend sitting on a couch in the Grey Area. Up until the brunette had spoken, Kairi had a sour look on her face. "What are you doing here?"
Kairi replied in expressive relief, "Nami and I are going shopping, and we wanted to know if you could come with us."
At this, Juliet jumped and spun around to face the Luna Diviner, her lip stuck out and her eyes large as she clasped her hands together and cried, "Please! Come on, Saїx, I don't learn anything in Vexen's lessons, anyways, except maybe that his face invented a new shade of red the last time I turned in my classwork assignment."
Slowly, Saїx's expression changed from pondering to regret, to many other things, as if fighting some inner battle about the right thing to do. He watched her with narrowed golden eyes, and she threw her hands on her hips and shot him a dirty glare.
"I thought we were friends," she spat, scowling. She knew it was below the belt to pull the "unfriend you" card, especially since his relationship with Axel had been on the rocks since 358, but she really couldn't care less at the moment. She got kicked out of two schools for a reason, and it wasn't because of the cafeteria food.
Although that did play a deciding factor.
Finally, Saїx sighed. "Alright, Juliet. Run along and I will tell Vexen that you are attending the school in another world or something. Perhaps, Namine took you to show and tell?"
Juliet threw her arms around Saїx and exclaimed, "Thank you Saїx-puppy!"
His eye twitched. "Why does everyone call me that?"
Marluxia spoke up from his spot before the moogle and answered, "Can't fight the moonlight, Berserker Boy."
As Juliet pulled on her pale olive-green sundress and walked out of the dressing room door, Kairi waved a gold credit card in her face, smirking.
"Remember, if you find something you want, buy it. My boyfriend's paying, which really means King Mickey's paying cause he covers Sora expenses. And you know how rich that mouse is!"
Kairi and Namine cracked up, but Juliet just looked pitifully at the card.
That poor mouse, she thought, what did he ever do to deserve this? But then she looked back at the pile of Final Fantasy video games she'd acquired at the entertainment store, and her pity vanished into a sensation of overwhelming delight.
Whatever you did, Mickey, thought Juliet with a smirk, thank you so very, very much!
As the girls exited the little boutique in Traverse Town, Namine brought up that she and Roxas had an ice cream date with Axel and Larxene on the clock tower. The girls elected to walk with Namine to the gate of Traverse Town, and the brunette switched the rather heavy shopping bags from one hand to the other, still grinning at not paying the hefty price of a few hundred-thousand munny, but frowning at the thought of having to walk much further.
When they neared the meeting spot at the front of the town and the two girls began to bid their blonde friend goodbye, everybody-look-at-me-please laughter filled the air. What could they do but look to the source?
Juliet growled.
It was her! She was draped over Riku again, and they were showing sickening amounts of PDA. Juliet's nails bit into her palm as she clenched her fist. Now, Juliet didn't care that Riku was still with the chick, because she and Zexion had obviously shared something the night before (though neither had discussed what they shared or what it meant, and they wouldn't if Juliet could avoid the schemer), but she still felt the need to avenge her honor.
She appreciated Zexion's effort, but she was a big girl, and she could throw a damn good punch if angered enough.
And oh, was she angry.
Suddenly, the girl looked up, meeting Juliet's chocolate-colored eyes with her own piercing, purple-sapphire ones. She pushed off of Riku, skipping up to the three girls as Kairi and Namine groaned a little. Juliet just sighed and found an interesting sign to read to avoid listening to this airhead rot her brain cells.
Ignoring Juliet completely, much to her relief, the girl grinned at Kairi and gushed, "Hey, Kai! Did you hear? My parents just bought the sickest pad in all the worlds! Ya, it's in Atlantica! You should've heard Ariel! She was all, 'Omg! My castle's supposed to be the biggest!' Ya, my parents opened up their country clubs in every world, and they have night clubs that only teenagers can get in to if they're my friends! It's like, so cool!"
Just the way she talked had the brunette cringing. Hello, Darkness to Blondie, nobody talks that way anymore.
Kairi gasped, "Ohmigosh! No way! You have to take me!" In seconds, Kairi had latched onto the platinum blonde's arm and began chatting animatedly as they walked away towards a shop, Riku in tow. Juliet stood shell-shocked, wondering what the heck her friend was doing. They had plans to go see the new heartless breed in Agrabah!
Lousy-Friend-O-Meter going off the freaking charts! Juliet crossed her arms and slit her eyes at the duo as they disappeared into a candy store.
She was about to say something crass, but Riku walked up to her then. "Isn't Cecilia great?"
Cecilia? Her name's Cecilia? It sounds slithery, like a snake. Saaa-siiiiii-lllll-yyyyaaaa!
The blonde-haired, purple-eyed demon stuck her head out of the shop and called, "Riku-kun, are you coming?" She closed the door behind her as she then returned to her boyfriend's side, finally looking Juliet up and down with a look on her face as though she'd tasted something rancid.
"Oh, it's you," she stated dumbly. Turning to Riku, she chimed, "Come on, Ku, my parents just bought me a new gummiship, and Kairi and I were talking about going to Agrabah to see that new breed of heartless that's just been discovered!"
Oh, that fruh-eaking does it. I mean, for real? Kairi doesn't stand a chance fighting the heartless, she needs me! She-she doesn't even like to fight! But oh, now she's great big friends with bimbo over here and they're going to go take down the heartless with Riku?
N-O spells no.
With no forethought on the subject, Juliet scoffed, "Oh, you think you're miss priss because your parents own a castle in Atlantica!? Ha! I don't even live with my parents. I live on my own with some friends, and we own our own world. Plus, our castle is bigger than King Mickey's and the Beast's combined!"
Her words caught up to her then, and Juliet slowly began to retreat into herself like one of the baby turtles on Xemnas' donations list. "Oops…"
Stupid move, stupid move!
"Oh, really?" Cecilia hissed. "You strike me as the kind of girl who lives in a cardboard box."
Well, Juliet thought, steaming, I've already screwed up, so it can't get much worse. Might as well play the hand I was dealt!
"That's fine. Believe what you will. It doesn't change the fact that everything I said was true, and we throw parties that I won't even invite Kairi to, per request of my maid and butler — they think she's shallow. Oh, and for the record, my head of the household didn't buy me a souped-up gummiship, he bought me what I like to refer to as the 'dragon-mobile.'" As an afterthought, Juliet responded, "Oh, and I can portal."
There, teach that no good, boy-seducing, friend-stealing, eyelash-batting twit to mess with me!
Cecilia shrugged, as if the whole story sounded as false as her own laughter. "Then I expect you to prove it. I'll give you a little while to plan this 'big party' of yours, and then I'll expect to see it for myself. A-buh-bye!" And with that she and her group walked away, leaving Juliet to wonder just what the hell she'd gotten herself into.
Then, after a little reflecting, a huge grin broke out on the brunette's face. "I'm going to throw a party she'll never forget."
*I don't speak Latin. Like, whatsoever, so I apologize if I completely butchered that language DX
Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed, and please, please, PLEASE review and at least tell me what you did or didn't like. If you have the urge to hit the backspace button or stop reading here, can you at least let me know why? I want to improve...
