Ah, still a sick child, but I have some Turps for you all... Hopefully you guys enjoy this one... once again, much thanks to Mousewolf for beta work on this chapter and giving Marluxia his lovely edge... next chapter will be a treat... Graphic as hell though... so don't throw rocks and sticks at me just yet. Love love love!
:: She Wants Revenge ::
They've been there for a week but this is the first time Demyx has seen the little garden amongst the orange trees, the first time he'd discovered other fruits, and he seeks the god of Flora, the beseeching, hungry ocean, always needing to be filled. Marluxia only smiles.
Demyx stares at the almost translucent red orb all too eagerly. His fingers brush it momentarily and then two pleading aqua eyes catch Marluxia's. The pink haired man smiles, glancing from Demyx to Axel and then to the plant.
"Knock yourself out. Wash it off first, though," he says softly, leaning up to prune one of the orange trees in the row.
"Thanks so much!" Demyx sings, plucking the fist-sized fruit from the vine, clutching at it as though it were a lump of pure gold. He tugs at Axel's shirt sleeve and gets the redhead moving behind him, sprints down the row toward the water pump.
He skids to a stop on his knees before the tap, twists it impatiently and rinses the fruit beneath the cold water rushing out of the metal tap.
"You think it'll be good?" Axel asks, loping up at a lazy pace. "He said it was a little early for those ones to be ripe."
"A tomato," Demyx replies in an old, wise tone, "is a tomato. I eat them green on occasion…"
"Gross like that," Axel mumbles, scrunching his nose as the blond gives the smooth side a long lick. Demyx smiles.
"It's going to be awesome," he breathes. He sinks his teeth down into the supple berry skin, feeling it pop and explode with acidic salt-sweetness. He melts, moaning happily. Demyx sitting with knees folded under him, clutching the fruit in both hands; Axel can't help but think that this was how Eve must have looked when she took the first bite of the forbidden apple.
For all he knew, it could have been a tomato that she'd plucked.
"Oh it's heavenly," Demyx moans, his mouth full with juices and seeds and the crisp, firm wall. He chews it slow, swallows and sucks at the juices escaping the hole he's torn from the side, uses his fingers to catch little seeds trying to escape. Red tinted liquid stains his shirt. He sighs and nibbles at the section casing now, not so much crunching on the skin as bruising it.
Axel feels warmth in his groin, a tightening in his pants but he ignores it. It's just the fact that Demyx can make such a simple thing look sexual. He'll scratch that itch when it's more convenient for both of them.
Demyx laps at the juice on his fingers, on the smooth fire-truck red skin, red like Axel's hair, and sinks his teeth into another section impatiently, slurps the side flat and then works on the casing there, eating around the sweet core. The final section slides into his mouth whole, vanishes in two chews and a swallow, broad grin parts as the core is devoured to the little plug stem. He tosses this away and sighs contentedly.
"So good," he's smiling, sated.
"Should we ask him for more?" Axel says quietly, "I love it when you make that face."
"What face?" Demyx laughs, turning up genuinely amused aqua orbs.
"It's the same face you make when I practically fuck you to death."
Demyx smiles like a school girl and his hands fall to his knees, his legs spread prettily.
"You know I always wondered what it would be like to be a woman," he muses, running his tongue across his lips, "I could probably pull it off if I tried hard."
"You want a sex change?"
"Nah. I'd just want boobs. Classic tranny, you know?" Demyx laughs, accommodating as Axel knelt and pressed his lithe frame to the blond's.
"Aww," Axel teases, "that's no fun Demy, darling."
"Don't call me that, pyro. I might have to hurt you," Demyx whispers, taking Axel's stretched earring between his teeth, tugging lightly. He giggles softly when he pushes the rim out with his tongue, sending the steel tinkling down against the captive-ball holding it in.
"You little bastard," Axel laughs.
They retreat from sight beneath a spreading tree.
--- ---
Demyx was stoned and happy, leaning up against Axel's chest and ticking something or other off on his fingers then recording it on his little note-pad.
"What are you doing?" Axel laughed, tipping the blond's chin up so he could get a good look at those black-hole blue eyes.
"I'm writing haikus," he said quite deliberately, turning to tick off a five line on a hand.
"Read me one," Axel ordered, pulling the blond close. Demyx giggled.
"Okay… ummm…" he cleared his throat.
"Mentos are the best
"They call them the fresh-maker
"And the chewy mint."
The entire room filled with uproarious laughter and Demyx blushed, covered his face with his notebook, giggling like a little girl as Axel clutched him close.
"Axel," Marluxia called, his voice siren-like.
"Hmm?"
"How about we go outside?" he suggested. Demyx thought hard, for a moment, recalled the conversation in the car.
"You know," Demyx muttered, snuggling against Saïx in the back seat as they made their trip to buy his first real piece, "Every time I think about chickens exploding, I keep seeing them pop like balloons and then a bunch of feathers go flying."
"Where'd that come from?" Xigbar cackled, "I mean seriously, that's so—"
"Xigbar," Marluxia chided, steering the car from the passenger seat, "Eye on the road, dear."
"Right," he laughed, taking the wheel again.
Saïx scratched his chin thoughtfully, "Chickens aren't full of air, Demyx," he informed, his tone lucid and smooth from the pills Xigbar had given him earlier.
"Well, duh, Stony McStonerson," Demyx teased, running a finger along the ex-berserker's jaw line. He was just as messed up. "It's just how I see it happening in my head, thassall."
"Water balloons maybe?" Saïx mused, grinning in that terrible dangerous way.
Xigbar and Marluxia went suddenly very quiet.
"Hmm?" Demyx mumbled, pressing his head to the older man's chest until he could feel a rib grating against his chin.
"Water balloons… full of blood!" the blue haired male practically cackled, wrangling his hands deviously. Marluxia and Xigbar both broke into hysterics in the front seat as Demyx jumped back and wailed in distress.
"Ugh!" he cried batting at the older man's face with a limp hand, "That's disgusting, Saïx!"
Demyx felt a sinking dread pulling the bottom out of his stomach. He grabbed Axel by the arm and took a deep breath to speak.
"I have more haikus first!" he blared deliberately, "We can't go outside until I've read 'em."
Axel laughed and put a hand over Demyx's mouth.
"Alright, alright, love. No need to wake the dead," he admonished.
"'S one's for you," Demyx giggled,
"Let's sit in the car
"Enthusiastically hump
"To the radio."
All of them laughed wildly again, but this time, Axel pulled Demyx up into a sweet, desperate kiss. Demyx reciprocated whole-heartedly, letting the redhead trap him against the pillowing cushions, but it ends all to fast.
"Come on. Let's get out side. I really want to know what they've got in mind," Axel laughed, pulling the blond up with him. Demyx nodded meekly and followed his lover as all of them filed out the door. Axel stared up at the stars with a broad grin, eyes locked on the full moon overhead. "The stars look so close here," he laughed, pulling Demyx close as they wander over toward the irrigation canal that dumps into the lake behind the house. "Sometimes I think I could reach up and just… you know… grab one."
Demyx mumbles in the affirmative.
"Do you think…"
He pauses and turns around. Marluxia is tossing something up into the air, catching it again and he's grinning like a carved Halloween pumpkin.
"Axel!" he calls, passing mystery items to Xigbar and Saïx, "I've been waiting for this night, pyro."
"Not now!" Demyx calls back hazily, "We're havin' an important conservation… conser… conver… conversation! Yeah. Conversation."
"Number VIII!"
Axel froze.
"Pigs' blood for a pig, boy! Consider the debt repaid!" Marluxia cried in victory, launching the mystery object. Axel jumped back with a cry of surprise but the heavy item slammed into his chest and exploded, coating both of them in…
Salt, sweat, iron, sugar, copper…
"Jesus Christ!" Axel barks, "You're fucking nuts!"
Demyx draws his slicked fingers to his lips, laps at it… this is not tomato juice. It's something more refined… even more so than salt water… he makes the connection. Demyx lets out a high, strangled scream and echoes Axel as best he can manage, "Nucking futs!"
They are barraged over and over, and though Axel takes the majority of the hits, Demyx too ends up getting a few in the back and one in the face, ones he's sure Saïx threw at him. By the time they're able to get their wits about them, Marluxia is crowing his superiority.
Demyx grabs his lover by the elbow and plunges both of them neck deep into the lake, dog-paddling toward the opposite bank with Axel's arms wound death-lock tight around his hips.
"Like lemmings into the sea!" Marluxia howls delightedly.
"Dem… take me to shore!" Axel whined, "I can't feel the bottom!"
"He'll put more blood on us!" Demyx moaned pitifully.
"'M gonna drown, Dem!" Axel persisted, turning the blond by grabbing a fistful of hair and yanking it to the side. Demyx yelped in pain but followed the direction like a horse on the bit.
It wasn't long before they were hauled ashore by Xigbar, laid out coughing and panting beside a laughter-floored Saïx.
"What was that all about?" Axel hissed petulantly.
"Revenge," Marluxia replied, flavoring the word like a vintage wine. "Now, now, we'll talk about that later, my dear Axel."
"Where'd you… get all that b-b-blood?" Demyx stuttered, shivering hard against the chilly weather.
"Sometimes it's beneficial to befriend the butcher," Marluxia laughed, "Now, let's get you two dried off and set up with some good hot chocolate."
With that, the pink haired man breezed off and Saïx and Xigbar set to the task of getting Demyx and Axel put back into a state of normalcy, speaking as if nothing had ever happened. The revenge theme clicked easily in Axel's brain, and he made no plans to counter it.
--- ---
Kechu-kechu-kechuu!
Axel sighed and brought his handkerchief back up to his nose, stilting stiffly through the living room in nothing but his boxers with a blanket wrapped around his gaunt shoulders like a cape. In his right hand he held a rolled up newspaper.
He was making no efforts to keep quiet. He simply walked up behind Saïx and peered over the older man's shoulder. He was marking the page in his book with the note Demyx had written to them. Marluxia, Braig, and he were all out on the boat while Axel suffered at home with a particularly nasty head-cold, and Saïx made sure he had everything he needed. Axel was grateful for the gift Demyx had left in the bed.
He wound back and watched as Saïx tensed for the blow.
WHAP!
Saïx cowered like a bad dog.
"Get me some water, slave," Axel ordered coldly, settling on the leather couch. Saïx got up without hesitation and slinked into the kitchen.
"Yes master."
Maybe this isn't so bad after all… Axel mused before he finally drifted off to sleep once more.