"Excuse me?"
The mission schedule was rarely deviated from.
"It can't be helped, the Superior had need of Number Two. You were the only one available for the mission opening."
He would not look at the idiotic grin plastered across the face of his current teammate. No, he would nod, begrudgingly at the slashed face of solemnity with a slight sneer on the corner of his lip and the edge of his brow.
"Hey it's no big deal, I mean Xiggy is cool, but y'know I can flow with it."
Xiggy? Zexion hoped he hadn't adopted abbreviated nicknames for all of the Organization members.
Saix looked between them, "Right. It will be a simple recon mission, inspect the Twilight Town tunnel network. The location needs to be scouted and all findings reported back promptly."
Stepping out of the portal, Zexion surveyed the area for residents, seeing none, he signaled for Demyx to follow and the portal closed behind the two of them.
"Whew I was worried we were gonna get a tough one, but sight seeing I can do."
Zexion was none too pleased with the intolerable work ethic of his fellow organization member and turned on him, "The difficulty of the mission is not in direct correlation to its seriousness."
Demyx squinted, as if he were trying to take a closer look at the big words that bubbled up from Zexion's mouth, "Huh?"
"In layman terms, even if a mission is easy, it is still important."
"Oh. Why didn't you just say that the first time?"
Sighing, Zexion began to make his way towards the tunnel opening in the back alley, shadowed by red brick walls and piping. He checked the map location to confirm this was the entrance they were to take; he noted the 'UNDER CONSTRUCTION' and 'NO TRESSPASSING' signs posted there.
He paused just outside the ramp of the tunnel entrance, "Once you acquire a certain level of vocabulary, you tend to make use of it."
"You know who has a colorful vocabulary?" Demyx asked as they proceeded intot he tunnel.
He did not deign to answer. Already knowing those within the Organization's ranks who were counted among users of crass terminology. Though he stifled the quirk at the corner of his mouth where a chuckle threatened to manifest at Demyx's display of enthusiasm.
"Axel! Man when he's pissed he's got a mouth on him. And Xigbar too. I saw him get hit by a heartless once on a mission, he was between warps when it nicked him, and he said a whole string of stuff I've never even heard before. Like he's so good I didn't think he could even get hit, y'know? How did he get that scar anyway? And lose like his whole eye? I mean he pulls off a the whole sexy pirate thing, but it looks like it was something gnarly that got-."
Zexion threw him an incredulous look, "You actually believe Xigbar is attractive?"
Demyx shrugged, "In a rugged, dangerous kinda way, yeah. He's funny too."
Withholding the sudden need to retch, Zexion pulled out the map again to check their progress.
The head sized blob of shadow on the paper was the preemptive indicator of warm breath tickling the back of his neck and sending a thrilling sensation down his shoulders and down further to his stomach as Demyx leaned over him from behind to glean a peak at the map, "What's so important about this spot?"
Zexion shuffled out from behind Demyx to face him, "It-" his voice came out a bit husky and he cleared his throat, "It connects to each sector of the town and so can be utilized to bypass routes usually populated by citizens."
"Sooo we just look around these tunnels?"
"That's the gist of recon, yes."
"Man I was hoping to get a look at the town, oh well."
No longer could he resist an eye roll or a humored smirk.
Demyx tilted his head at the sight, "You look cuter when you smile."
Immediately he recomposed a stern expression, "P-please refreain from k making inappropriate comments on a mission."
Why did Demyx jostle him so?
"How do you see with half your face covered?" Demyx ignored the warning and reached out to run his fingers through Zexion's excessive bangs, which the scholar retreated from.
"Before becoming a Nobody my vision suffered from astigmatism in my right eye. The condition doesn't affect this form, but I've grown accustomed to it."
"Huh, that explains a lot."
In an attempt to avoid further questions, Zexion continued on ahead, Demyx following, but just as they turned the corner to the third sector, Heartless began to materialize.
Zexion withdrew a few cautious steps, summoning his Lexicon as the dark pools surrendered twitching shadows into the tunnel before them, yellow globes bobbling.
Glancing to his side, expecting to find Demyx at the ready, he instead witnessed his mission partner eyes widening, hands in front of him face a grimace of fear.
"Demyx, they're coming!"
"I know, I know!"
Hurriedly, he reached a hand out and with a spray of bubbles his sitar materialized; Zexion returned his attention to the approaching heartless in time to quickly backtrack from a near blow.
When the last of the gaggle was extinguished, Zexion let out a breath of exhaustion and let his tense muscles relax once all was clear.
Fighting was far from his forté.
"What was that about?" Zexion demanded, rounding on his partner who shrugged sheepishly in reply.
"I don't uh…I don't like fighting."
Zexion clenched his fists, tight lipped.
"Well I don't like it either but if the mission requires it than it can't be helped!"
A kindling in the sea, Demyx's eyes crashed from surprise to unearthed glee, "You don't like it?"
And then, the chagrin realization of what had come out of his mouth. He couldn't 'like' anything. Nobodies didn't have the heart to like or dislike.
With a roll of his eyes, arms crossed, Zexion huffed, "A trick of the memory."
But Demyx refused to let go of the infernal grin on his face.
Worse, he was taking a few steps closer, "So did you decide if you liked m-"
An approaching chatter drifted through the tunnels, a shout, laughter, and then running feat.
Zexion grabbed Demyx's arm and pulled him round to a darkened bend and into a corner between the third sector path and an upward ramp, pushing him against the wall and covering his mouth with a hand while he turned his head over a shoulder towards the noise, pressing them both into the shadow.
"Come on slow pokes!"
"Hayner, what if we get in trouble for being down here? It's still under construction."
"But we're so far in already!"
Feeling an arm around his waist, Zexion looked away from the direction of the babbling teenagers in the tunnel beyond and up to the surprisingly sly gleam in Demyx's now darkened eyes as the musician pulled him closer, hips to hips. A none too unpleasant dropping sensation in his stomach, the air seemed to grow thicker as he let his hand slide down from Demyx's mouth, fingers gliding over lips to neck to collar bone and grasped the front of his coat.
"Yeah maybe the whole ghost search should wait? It's kinda creepy down here when the all the lights aren't working."
"Man you guys are being lame!" A melodramatically loud sigh of exasperation. "Ok let's go. But if Seifer's gang gets the low down before us you guys owe me ice cream for a week!"
Once the sounds of good natured laughter and words that Zexion could no longer pay attention to faded off, the blond man leaned down so that his mouth was to Zexion's ear, "So d'you like me?"
The press of Demyx's thigh to his groin wasn't exactly disagreeable, nor was the way his words tickled Zexion's ear and sent a buzz down his limbs. Demyx was far from unattractive, and those deep-sea treasure eyes he found himself peeking at far too often of late.
"Perhaps," Zexion breathed, "I could pretend to."
"Wait, have you done this before?"
Immediately, he tensed up, unprepared for the question at hand, woefully aware that his inexperience would likely be a laughable topic to Demyx, and if anything set him on edge it was being ridiculed by lack of knowledgeable on a subject. Especially, experience wise it would have been expected that he'd performed coitus at some point by the time he'd lost his heart.
If he properly recalled, involvement in his work had always seemed more interesting to him than swapping germs and rolling in sweaty sheets. His work had always taken priority; it had been his life. Ironically, it had ended his life.
"No." the word terse and quiet, directed towards the wall instead of the grinning face no more than an arm's length away. Surely his face felt warm due to increased body heat from the physical proximity. A blush of embarrassment would be absurd for a Nobody.
"Ohhhh."
A languid motion and the slow buzz of his coat zipper filled the moonlit room and Zexion peeked out from his silver waterfall of hair to watch Demyx shrug a layer of black away to reveal smooth toned biceps, triceps, pectorals, abdomen…
"Th-theoretically, of course I know how it goes."
A warm film settled over his skin as he watched the progression of Demyx's hand. It drifted from his knee, up his thigh, his own coat bunching to his waist where Demyx paused, fingers testing out the curve of his hip.
Zexion took a sharp intake of breath as deft un-gloved fingers danced around his groin, surprised by his own surge of arousal as it pulsed, thick and heavy in his veins.
"Yeah? There are books about that?"
He nodded, for once unable to give an exasperated explanation that of course there are books about that but instead he was bunching up gloved fingers into a fist of stupid mullet hair and sinking into another one of those kisses that he had, in fact concluded Demyx was exemplary at.
The smell of Demyx was like salt tinged wind off the sea on a cool, cloudy afternoon, something fresh and foreign, something lulling. It was there, in the pull of his kisses, the way he lingered slightly, tongue on lips before delving back in, and Zexion found himself being drawn further in until he was astride the musician's lap, hair pulling, breathy and shameless, gliding his own tongue over Demyx's teeth as his coat was hurriedly pushed off his shoulders and tossed to a crumbled blob in the darkened room.
"Zex?"
In his state of foggy consciousness, Zexion was mildly aware that he should find the nickname offensive, but instead he allowed it, almost welcomed it, and took a shaky breath as he withdrew a few inches, a string of saliva at his lips that he wiped away with the leather of the gloves still encasing his hands to find Demyx smiling lazily at him, and then his hair being pushed from his face by sitar string calloused fingertips, and his cheeks cupped in palms as smooth and warm as pages of a well loved book.
"You're gorgeous y'know."
What had driven him to this tempestuous behavior? That kiss? Those thrumming fingers? On strings, those gentle melodies breaking up the once muffled night. He had begun to listen to them, in the lobby, in the hallways, the tune and pitch of Demyx's voice. His insatiable curiosity. His careless laughter over some scandalous joke of Xigbar's. And he would turn away when the seafoam gaze landed on him as they passed in hallways, pretending he hadn't looked at all.
Even now he turned away, hiding something akin to embarrassment in Demyx's palm, a shiver in his memories but he couldn't place anything close to this.
"Don't you ever shut up?"
Taking the attached wrist and encircling it with his own hand he kissed the skin there, open lips pressed to veins. He felt the blonde shudder and gasp at the small action, then fingers were on his lips and then past them and he was running his tongue between digits, a firm grip on his rear that made him groan.
When the sticky wet fingers withdrew from his lips Demyx replaced them with his own mouth.
He should have been disgusted by all the saliva, the syrupy nature of it, the protruding fingers that had no business fitting in such tight places, the deceivingly skilled tongue that made him quiver and writhe and become a carnal creature, desperate for more attention. He shouldn't feel anything as he held to Demyx, sweaty and huffing, hands still gloved, only later to be tugged off so he could run clean hands over cheekbone and chin and lips to press his now uncensored smile to, pretending it was only to quiet Demyx's soft snores.
Pretending there was no flutter in his chest at the easy smile that slid across kiss-swollen lips to inquire impossibility.
Demyx watched Zexion's eyes widen and then dull over, watched him toss the covers off and slink away, slip back into his pants, pluck his coat and shoes from the ground, and hair flung back over his face, disappear into a whirl and coil of shadow tendrils, leaving the question hanging in the stifling air between them to settle on the cold, moon illuminated floor.
Can you feel it?