By the time they were ready to depart, the rain had subsided a little to a thick mist of lingering drizzle. And yet it was wetter still than the previous downpour, penetrating even the thickest of protection, seeping in everywhere. It only took a few minutes of trudging through the forest to thoroughly drench the two intrepid boys.
"I can't believe I let you pull me along," Vexen complained, dragging his feet a few metres behind Marluxia. The shorter boy shrugged, saying nothing. Without even a raincoat, his clothes were soaked to saturation point and his usually fluffy hair was plastered to his face, limp, lifeless and turned to a muddy brown by the water. "I could be back inside, in the warm, reading a book or something," Vexen continued, brushing past Marluxia who had stopped to move some low branches out of the way fro him. "Thanks. I'm sure there was supposed to be a proper path here."
"There is, but it's boring," Marluxia said. "It's way more interesting to follow the deer tracks,"
"This is ruining my trainers," Vexen fell behind again, stomping through some puddles with his once-white shoes. "Are you sure we're going the right way?"
"Positive. I come here loads," Marluxia was quick to reassure his new friend as they took turn after turn down the barely visible track through the undergrowth. It wasn't long before they came to a beautiful grassy clearing, turned even more brilliantly intense by the rain rather than insipid like the rest of the forest and the school campus. Marluxia stopped, crouching down in the lush grass.
"I've seen deer grazing here," He murmured. "Last spring,"
Vexen gave him a quizzical look.
"Surely not this close to the school? And wouldn't they have heard you?"
"We're at least a mile away. And you have to be really quiet, or else it scares them. But they're so beautiful. I wish I could take you to see them one day," He stood up again and they pressed on in silence.
"How big is the lake, anyway?" Vexen finally asked. They couldn't have been more than five minutes walk away by now.
"You haven't been there yet?" Marluxia was surprised. He knew he went more than most, but he was sure that trips had been organised there this term.
"I've only been here a couple of months," Vexen replied defensively. "Well, I guess I'll see in a minute anyway,"
"You're more talkative than I thought you were," Marluxia observed as he let the sodden blonde overtake once again, holding a thick tangle of brambles off the path.
"Sorry," Vexen grimaced to himself. "I just get carried away sometimes,"
"No, it's a good thing! God knows I could talk for England, I was just saying. I was worried that I'd be struggling to hold a conversation with you, but it looks like I'll be fine. It's easier to get to know someone if conversation flows naturally, you know?"
Marluxia wasn't oblivious to the oddly relieved expression on Vexen's face. He decided not to comment, simply following the new student across a tiny stream and up the last stretch of the path. They pushed through a line of trees and there was the lake.
The vast expanse of water seemed to stretch on for ever in the thick mist of the dark morning. It seemed to silence everything, even the quiet lapping of tiny waves at the edge of the lake, just a few metres away, were muffled and dim. Marluxia sat down on the sodden grass that was shielded by the rest of the forest, tugging his bag off his shoulders and setting it by his feet. Vexen joined him, realising that he was so wet that sitting on the rain-soaked ground would no longer make a difference. His companion was already opening his bag to pull something out.
"I brought lunch. Might be a bit wet," He passed Vexen a tinfoil package.
"I didn't think you were allowed food outside the canteen," Vexen glanced at his watch to check the time, surprised that it was nearing midday. He unwrapped the foil to find a (surprisingly) dry sandwich and a few biscuits inside.
"I'm on good terms with the cook. There's crisps and chocolate as well," Marluxia grinned. He was already tucking in to his lunch. "Great weather for a picnic, huh?"
Vexen glanced at the dismally bleak drizzle disrupting the usually calm surface of the lake, and then back at Marluxia.
"I assume you're being sarcastic," He muttered dryly as he folded the foil carefully to deflect as much of the wet as possible. Marluxia gave the weather a contented smile.
"I like rain. It's so soothing,"
"What about the cold? My fingers are practically numb,"
"I don't really mind it," Marluxia shrugged. There was a pause in the conversation as they both stopped to eat in silence. "So," The pink-haired boy set his rather wetter sandwich back down in its silvery case. "I don't really know you that well. What sort of stuff do you like?"
"I don't know," Vexen replied. "Science, I suppose,"
"I mean outside of school. Are you a video games type of person?" Marluxia could imagine Vexen hunched over a controller, focused intently on a flickering TV screen.
"No, I never really got into them. My parents didn't like me playing them,"
"That must suck!" Marluxia laughed, surprised. He would never have considered himself a hardcore gamer, but the rest of his family (especially his older brother) were pretty into them and he'd played a fair few in his time. "So what hobbies do you have?"
Vexen shrugged noncommittally, staring out across the lake. Marluxia decided he'd have to guess.
"Reading?"
"Occasionally,"
"Writing?"
"Not really,"
"Drawing?"
"I'm useless,"
"Sport?"
"God forbid,"
Marluxia wracked his brains.
"Martial Arts?"
"I'm sure I'd be awful if I tried,"
"Ballet?"
Vexen didn't even bother to reply to that one. Marluxia sighed.
"So what do you do in your free time?"
"I don't really have any. Once you take out work, eating and sleeping, there's not much left," Vexen said as he opened the packet of crisps that Marluxia had passed to him.
"Okay..." He tried a different tactic. "Favourites, then?"
"I'm very boring," Vexen warned him. Marluxia was tempted to say "I figured," but decided against it. He wanted to stay on good terms with the odd boy, after all. So he chose a different tactic.
"I'm sure you're more interesting than you make out. Colour?"
"I don't have one," Vexen received a slightly odd look from Marluxia. It was disbelieving, impatient and disapproving all in one expression. "Fine. Blue,"
"Animal?"
"Um... I don't really like animals. Polar bears, maybe. Penguins. Arctic things."
"Season?"
"Autumn, or winter but only if I'm inside,"
"Food?"
"I don't know. Anything,"
"Position for sex?" Marluxia asked cheekily, instantly regretting it and wondering if he'd stepped the line a little to far - but the appalled look on Vexen's face was so worth it. It was a even few seconds before he found his voice again.
"Marluxia! That's disgusting!!"
"I kid, I kid. It's not like I've had sex yet or anything,"
"I should hope not! You're not even legal!"
"Only five months to go," Marluxia grinned, but his smile faded when he saw Vexen's revolted look. He awkwardly looked away, a little embarrassed at what he'd said.
"Is it my turn to ask you?" Vexen at least had the sense to change the subject.
"Fire away,"
"Okay...So, your favourite colour?"
"Don't laugh - pink,"
"They say pink is a very masculine colour," Vexen solemnly reassured him, but Marluxia was sure that he was laughing on the inside.
"Who do? The gay rights campaigners?"
"I wouldn't know," Vexen replied coolly, much to Marluxia's internal dismay. "Animal?"
"I would say butterflies, but you'd laugh at me. I like chinchillas. My mum had one once," There he went with the overly gay answers again. Sometimes Marluxia wished that his sexuality wasn't quite so obvious.
"Season?"
"Spring. I like all the flowers - but that sounds gay too,"
"There's nothing wrong with being gay," Vexen said. He'd finished his crisps and had politely declined the chocolate. "What about food?"
"Cakes and things. I have a sweet tooth,"
"Cool," Vexen said, and the word sounded a little awkward coming from him. "So that just leaves sex positions, and I'm not even going to ask which sick, twisted part of your brain came up with that,"
"Good decision. It's a place better left unexplored," Marluxia replied, trying to brush the whole incident away. He briefly wondered how he could have been so stupid as to have said that, but then he wasn't to know that Vexen would be a total prude.
The rain began to pick up again, thudding mercilessly down onto the already saturated ground. Marluxia shivered.
"Maybe we should get back to the school," He admitted, teeth chattering slightly. Vexen nodded hastily, standing up.
"I'm still amazed that you managed to persuade me to come," He grumbled. Marluxia quickly ignored the sick, twisted part of his brain that was offering a very different alternate meaning to Vexen's sentence. Presumably the same part that had mentioned sex positions earlier. Marluxia tried to ignore that, too.
"It's because I'm so awesomely charismatic," He laughed as they wandered back into the forest.
"Perhaps," Vexen thoughtfully replied, evidently not having picked up on the joke. Marluxia glanced back at him wondering if the comment was sarcastic, but Vexen looked serious enough. He turned back, quietly pleased. They plodded on through the mud as the rain poured down harder and faster, soaking them more than Marluxia ever thought possible, until they were forced to dash from tree to tree to avoid the worst of it. They ran for some of the way, risking falling in the mud to keep away from the downpour. Eventually they had to stop, out of breath, underneath a still leafy evergreen, at least until the storm eased off. Far off in the distance, they could hear the rumble of thunder.
"Sorry," Marluxia apologised as they curled up in the cramped space beneath the tree. "I didn't think it would get this bad,"
"You should have checked the weather forecast," Vexen mumbled. "You must be freezing. You're turning blue,"
Marluxia looked at his numb fingers and shrugged.
"S'not that bad."
"Want to share my coat?"
"Sure,"
Vexen unzipped his coat, took one damp arm out of its protective sleeve and wrapped it around Marluxia, who shuffled closer to fit the coat around himself.
"You're shivering," Vexen observed, slightly concerned for Marluxia. His body was covered by nothing more than a t-shirt and flimsy jacket, which honestly wasn't enough to keep him warm in piercing weather like this.
"I'm fine," Marluxia reassured him. "I still have some chocolate left. That'll warm me up," He pulled his bag closer and unzipped it, rooting around for food.
"You have interestingly flawed logic," Vexen said, smiling slightly as Marluxia battled with the freezing chocolate. The storm raged on, gathering closer with every terrifying thunderbolt.
"I think it's going to pass right over us," Vexen whispered as the gap between each strike of lightning and thunder became shorter than the last. "How far back to school?"
"At least fifteen minutes walk, even in good weather," Marluxia replied, huddling up against Vexen's slightly warmer body. Vexen put his free arm around the smaller boy, and Marluxia shivered and let out a little sigh at his touch. "What's the time?" He asked. Vexen glanced at his watch.
"Coming up to two o'clock,"
"We might as well make a dash for it," Marluxia murmured. He gave Vexen back his coat and picked up his bag, standing a little awkwardly underneath the tree.
"Take the coat. You need it more than I do," Vexen insisted, shrugging it off and covering Marluxia's soaking shoulders.
It was a good half an hour before, cold, wet and covered in mud, they finally reached the school. The storm had caught up with them and was right above the campus as they hurried back into the dry to get clean and warm.
Vexen threw off his ruined clothes in the shower room, leaving just his boxers on as he grabbed his towel.
"I'm never going to let you take me out again," He muttered, watching a freshly-showered Marluxia attempt to detangle his messy pink hair.
"Not even in the summer?"
"I'm sure you'd manage to pick the one day that there was a tempest or something," Vexen slipped into one of the shower cubicles and soon there was the sound of running water.
"Oh come on! This was an exception. It doesn't usually get this bad!" Marluxia complained, trying very hard not to think about Vexen in the shower, wet and naked and-
He wasn't very successful in his attempts.
"One or other or both of us could have got hypothermia or worse," Vexen said over the noise of the shower.
"Yes, but we didn't. So it's okay,"
"You're too carefree,"
"And you're too paranoid-ouch!" Marluxia glared at the small tangle of hair he'd pulled out trying to untangle a knot.
"What's wrong?" Vexen asked.
"I just pulled half my hair out. Don't worry," Marluxia reassured him, pulling the hair out from his hairbrush and throwing it in the bin. He was about to say something else, but Roxas came in just then.
"I thought you guys might be here," He said. "It was kinda stupid for you to go out in that storm,"
"I put all the blame on Marluxia," Vexen called from his cubicle as Marluxia gave Roxas a sheepish look. The short blonde boy walked over to Marluxia, lowering his voice so Vexen wouldn't hear.
"How's it going with Vexen?"
Marluxia glanced over to the shower and shrugged a little sadly.
"He's not even gay,"
"Oh."
"I don't mind. We can still be friends. Don't tell him, please,"