A quick update just before the holidays?...though technically the holidays started months ago...at least around here. It's madness! I have at least two more of these in store for you all...editing is what's slowing me down, I TRY to do a considerable amount of revising so I don't bombard you all with my typos and nonsense. And finding the time to do that is tough this time of year. My apologies for the wait!
Shattered
The moonlight streams through Marluxia's window, illuminating bits and pieces of the man sleeping beside him…a deep sleep, due more to exhaustion than peaceful feelings. He's almost beautiful like this, shadowy dips and illuminated curves, all fitted together at sharp angles, somehow made all the sharper by the light, despite the softening effect it has on everything around him.
Marluxia places his hand against the narrow chest, the place where his heart once was echoing with phantom longing. Once upon a time he'd have been overwhelmed by the sight, by the feeling, by the fragile creature sprawled across his bed, naked and spent, given no other choice but to trust his admittedly treacherous bedmate enough to let himself sleep.
He's so brittle, so breakable, and Marluxia has broken him time and again, in many different ways, mentally, physically, even emotionally he believes, though Vexen isn't willing to admit that that is even possible…but Marluxia has overlooked an important attribute of brittle things.
They do not break in even, smoothed pieces.
He's managed to crush the sleeping man next to him, managed to grind him into the metaphorical ground, which usually takes the far more real shape of his bed, strip him of his pride and even status…when they are alone at least…
But he hasn't gotten away with it entirely.
Brittle things have a habit of breaking into jagged, barbed edges.
And if one is to get close enough to break them effectively, there is little chance that there will not be consequences.
True, if either of them were asked, it would seem as though Marluxia is the triumphant one, though Vexen would probably argue, it would be obvious that even he no longer believes otherwise.
But here, in the quiet of the night, with the object of his misguided, twisted affection now pressed against his side, sweat dampened blonde hair draped over his arms; he's willing to admit that he's not all that sure of the outcome.
He's shattered Vexen, like a fragile formation of ice…thin and transparent and vulnerable.
But he's been wounded in return. Every little piece of the older man, every angry refusal, every bit of broken resolve, each and every intense encounter, pain and pleasure mixed into one…every shard he's broken away from Vexen's self…has been deeply, wickedly embedded into him instead.
Ice, though able to cut when snapped at sharp angles, should melt once inside a warm body.
Marluxia knows this, but he also knows that this isn't the case.
He can feel it all…all the spontaneous demands, the late nights when Vexen would really rather be sleeping as he does actually have work thank you…jabbed razor sharp and frigidly cold inside his very core. And the sensation doesn't melt away, it grows colder and harsher with each time, each meeting.
Two hours ago, he almost lost his arousal as the contemptuous, unwilling, glare he received, after all this time still so defiant, triggered all these little fragments inside him, plunging him into freezing despair.
Vexen had…Vexen had actually looked worried when he'd faltered, the pain in his expression must have been far too obvious…he must have looked like hell…
It scared him.
He'd never say so. He'd never even dream of it. But he's not stupid, while he might not be a genius like the scientist, he knows what ice does. It rebuilds itself…it may take years, decades, centuries even, but over time it collects itself back together.
If Marluxia were suddenly to vanish from Vexen's life, the older man, in time, would be able to pull himself back together…to forget him, Marluxia doesn't doubt it. As much as he does to mark him, to break him, to bruise him, to force him to remember…he knows that if given the opportunity, Vexen would forget without a second glance.
And it scares him because he knows he never could. Vexen would put the pieces back in some semblance of order, patch himself up and move on…
But Marluxia is stuck with all these eternally frozen shards, mementos of his own foolishness and cruelty. It makes him sick to know that he could never move on, will never move on.
The fact that Vexen has, maybe hours to live…when they both officially wake up, he'll be heading to find Sora, and Axel, on Marluxia's orders, will be there to stop him…to make sure he doesn't get to move on…does nothing to ease the dread in Marluxia's stomach and chest.
Vexen is going to die, but all these pieces of him will remain, and now that Marluxia's forced them upon himself, he's never going to get rid of them, never going to get rid of him.
Though…as he burrows beneath the blankets, pulling the sleeping form tightly to his aching chest for one last suspended embrace…he decides that he probably deserves it.
Something nice and depressing amongst all this holiday cheer...I promise I didn't plan it that way...D:
Review Please!
