A Little Less Conversation – Elvis Presley vs. JXL

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He wouldn't… he wouldn't stop talking. Why wouldn't he stop talking?

This had happened for an hour and a half, once a week, for three weeks. Demyx was going mad. His head was angled down, staring wildly, sightlessly, at the papers spread across the low table, able only to focus on the slender hands that shifted from page to page, the background voice droning on, and on, and on… Zexion was a good tutor. Thorough. Insanely intelligent, and surprisingly patient. And utterly, utterly oblivious to the most blatant of hints.

Demyx was full of smiles, flirting, casual touches, and still the man continued to lecture. It didn't matter that the blond had worn his cutest outfit, that he was sitting purposely close, close enough for their knees to be permanently knocking – Zexion.

Kept.

Talking.

And then he had the nerve to look surprised when Demyx let out a strangled cry, flopping his upper body over the table with a gusting sigh of defeat. Worksheets went briefly spilling. The man blinked, a lull developing at last, adjusted the thin frames of his glasses, squinting his visible eye. "…Are you alright, Demyx?"

The blond stiffened, turned his head sharply towards him, smiling brightly. "Perfect! I just – uh – I need a glass of water!" He pushed away, jumped to his feet, socks silent over the carpet as he exited the sitting room into the kitchen. Checking to make sure he was firmly out of sight, he took a deep, calming breath, then formed tight fists and started jumping up and down, mouthing a string of silent curses, all culminated with a hefty punch to his own head. Feeling ever so slightly calmer, he called, voice cracking, "You want a drink, Zexy?"

"Don't call me that," came the response, followed by, "Water will be fine, thank you."

Tempted though he was to slip the man a glass of sparkling-clear vodka, maybe loosen things up a little, the drink he brought out was the one the man had requested. As he set their glasses down, sitting back next to his tutor, Zexion said mildly, "You know, if you're thirsty, you can just ask for a break. You didn't need to be so dramatic." And with this out of the way, he promptly resumed talking.

Talk-talk-talk-talk. Demyx wished he had a sock puppet. He could put it on his hand, colour its hair purplish-blue, open up with a shrill, "Hi, I'm Zexy!" and then just spend a couple hours repeating the word 'yap!' It'd sum things up nicely. Demyx was kind of tempted to grab his crotch out of the blue and see how much talking he got done that way. Heh. Wouldn't Zexion be startled?

…This was, frighteningly, seeming like a better and better idea the more he thought about it.

Sense intervened at a lunging tackle, and instead Dem's hands went to the remote control at the edge of the table, grabbed it and nervously switched on the stereo, flipping through various stations in search of something that would aptly distract him. It took him about a minute to realise Zexion had stopped. He turned curiously to the man, took note of the dry expression, the raised eyebrow. "If I'm boring you, we can always leave it for another time."

The blond brightened. Who knew all he had to do was completely and utterly ignore the man to make him start taking notice? "Sure, okay!" He clapped his hands together, elbows on the table, leaning forward expectantly, a flutter of excitement in his chest. "What should we do instead?" His aim had been sultry suggestive – apparently, he'd missed the mark, considering that Zexion was now packing up in his usual efficient manner.

"Next time, try to find a way that will help you focus more," he was saying, tone clipped. "You've been growing increasingly distracted during these sessions, Demyx, and I don't think there's much more point in me coming here if you and I can't even – "

A good way of stopping someone from talking too damn much is to gag them. Dem was finding lips and tongue to be effective in this particular scenario, and, lo and behold, Zexion really, really did stop. He was silent. For more than a minute, he didn't utter a word, and it wasn't because he was annoyed, or because Demyx wasn't in the room – it was because he couldn't breathe.

Turns out, another good way to stop someone from talking is to smother them unconscious – unknowingly, Demyx's tongue and lips were doing the job nicely. Strange, then, that Zexion didn't struggle or try to shove him off. Instead, in the end, he simply went limp, slid from the blond's grasp, and cracked his head against the table on the way down to the ground. Demyx was left with swollen lips, empty arms, wide eyes gazing down. Wiping his mouth, he leaned over. "…Zexy?"

The paramedics really were kind, and a week after that, Demyx and Zexion became an official couple, after a couple of awkward conversations. Turned out Zexion, though ever-calm externally, was a nervous talker around people he liked – go figure.

Dem was pretty sure he was still gonna make the sock-puppet, though.