Fic: Silence is Golden (4/9)
Aug. 9th, 2010 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zenellyTitle: Silence is Golden
Pairing: Zemyx
Disclaimer: KH = NOT MINE.
Dedications: to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
prettypixiechan. Because she is my lovely beta. All other mistakes are my own.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Demyx goes to college, he wants to learn and get his degree. He doesn't want to have a roommate who refuses to speak, a drifter who decides to live in his room, or fall in love. Too bad what Demyx wants is not what Demyx gets.
Chapter 1 : Chapter 2 : Chapter 3 : Chapter 4 : Chapter 5 : Chapter 6 : Chapter 7 : Chapter 8 : Chapter 9
* * * * * *
Zexion wasn't quite sure what he expected when he woke up the morning after the maze.
He didn't expect to wake up in a tangle of limbs with someone's breath on his neck and their head pillowed on his shoulder.
Understandably, his next reaction was to get whoever it was out of the bed.
Especially since that person was Axel.
This proved slightly more difficult than expected. Axel was apparently part-octopus while he slept, and was more than unwilling to give up on his cuddle-toy. Every move the pale man made was expertly -if unconsciously- blocked and he was returned to his previous position. Axel never stirred once. After fifteen minutes of useless struggle, Zexion frowned and decided a more direct course of action was required.
Elbowing Axel in the face certainly did get him out of the bed. It even woke him up.
Fact about Axel: He was loud and quite vulgar when he was tired and pissed off.
The redhead's cursing unfortunately also woke up Demyx, who took in the scene in front of him with sleepy eyes. The blonde proceeded to yawn, stumble out of bed, and force the yelling man to sit down on the couch. Zexion allowed himself a smug smirk. It seemed his roommate was on his side.
As Zexion readied himself calmly for the rest of the day, Demyx scolded Axel for bothering the lilac-haired man while he slept. Ignoring the redhead's protests that it was all Zexion's fault, Demyx turned to Zexion and wished him a good day of classes.
Oh if he only knew what today will bring…. Zexion nodded back.
A soft smile was his answer.
He departed, leaving Axel to glare at his back while nursing the bruise that was forming on his face and Demyx to gently patch up the too-thin man, mind whirling with possible scenarios.
The plans started today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It wasn't quite a week later when a man stormed into their room, the faint aroma of potpourri and incense surrounding him. He demanded to see Demyx, and the blond stood, obviously confused.
One hand irately flipping a lock of pink hair over a shoulder, the man explained that he was to tutor Demyx in Biology.
Demyx shook his head. He wasn't taking Biology.
The man blinked and frowned, insisting that he must be mistaken. Apparently the man had received anonymous emails informing him that he was to meet with one Demyx Trepe on pain of humiliation in various forms and subsequent defenestration if he didn't. He was even being paid.
Laughing –because really, it was kinda funny-, Demyx shook his head again. He was a Music major. Why would he be taking Biology?
Floundering for an answer, the pink-haired student wavered in the door before uttering a short goodbye and leaving, only to come back in a couple of minutes later. He sat down on the floor and promptly began to study Biology, saying that even if Demyx wasn't taking it, he himself needed to do some work, and this was as good a place as any. Everyone in the room just blinked at him.
The next day, the same student barged into their room and plopped down onto the couch next to a rather surprised Axel. Turning a shade of red that complimented his hair, he muttered something about studying for a Chemistry test and his roommate being uncooperative.
Every day it was something different that he needed to study for, some new class that his roommate wouldn't let him concentrate on. Every day he was in their room, and almost every day, he got next to no work done because he was too busy joking around.
After another week, Demyx simply laughed as he answered the door and held up a hand to halt the student's excuses. Shaking his head, Demyx only said that if the other wanted to hang out, he didn't have to pretend it was for homework.
Marluxia –it had taken them this long to learn even his name, since he just introduced himself- just nodded and came in to sit and talk to them.
The next day at dinner, a blond, goateed man slammed his tray down on the table next to Demyx and Marluxia –who had taken to eating dinner with them while he was pretending to study. He informed them that his name was Luxord, and simply sat down to eat with no further explanation.
Since a scowl was darkening his face, no one chose to ask why he was there, until he followed them back to Demyx and Zexion's room, still having said barely a word all evening. Axel was the first to break the ice and ask him what he was doing.
Apparently, Luxord (who they later found out was somewhat of a celebrity on campus) had lost a bet. And Luxord had never lost a bet before. He never said what the bet was about or who else it involved, only that the payment required him to eat dinner with Demyx, Axel, and Marluxia.
Demyx blinked and curiously asked him why he was still there if the bet only said that he had to eat dinner with them.
The blond man shrugged, mentioned something about the group being sort of fun, and immediately whipped out a pack of cards, a confident grin adorning his handsome face.
They played poker until four in the morning.
Luxord never lost a game.
The next day, Demyx woke up to a fierce grin in his face and an offer to get in on some of the best betting at the school. After he got over the shock of waking up to that terrifying smile, the prospects began boiling out. If there was a slight chance people would bet on it, Luxord ran the postings. Grad student lounge suddenly running out of coffee? Sixteen to one. Doctor Vexen's lab blowing up during the chemistry lab on Wednesday? Fifteen to two. Larxene's underwear ending up on a frat boy's head next party? Twenty to one. Quickly, Axel and Marluxia shelled out money, betting that none of which would ever happen.
They found out later that Luxord's bets always had a way of happening. And that he did not accept refunds.
One and two.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Their circle of friends was slowly expanding.
Demyx couldn't explain it. People would simply show up, hang out with them, and just keep coming back. Slowly, he found himself opening up to these other students, overcoming both his shyness and his tendency to talk too much. Marluxia could be found in their room after his classes almost every day. His roommate, a football player named Tidus, wasn't actually as bad as Marluxia made him out to be, and wandered in for some help on math sometimes.
Luxord, in between managing the betting pool and his classes (though not even Demyx knew what he took or what he did), also made appearances frequently, stepping in with a sly remark about fate and probability when no one expected it. He was extraordinarily good with numbers, but wasn't half bad with helping someone with an essay either, though his reasoning tended to be a little convoluted.
Most recently was a slight, almost waifish girl. Her eyes saw everything, and she had a soft smile and a sotto voce way of talking that ensured that everyone stopped to listen to her. Namine, as she introduced herself, was an art major, who had heard Demyx playing his guitar in the hallways. She immediately sat down with them at lunch once she found out who that musician was, and showed them the pieces of work that had been inspired by Demyx's music.
She was a good friend with a surprisingly dry sense of humor that contrasted so much with her typical warm nature that it normally took them all a couple of minutes to realize that what she had just said was a joke. Many serious moments during movie nights had been ruined by a swift, witty comment from Namine. No one really minded.
Demyx found himself laughing with these people, listening to them and talking to them in an endless push-and-pull game of emotions. No one person "headed" the group. They were just all there, drawn by some force of chance.
It felt…right, in a way nothing had ever felt right before.
Except the talks with Zexion.
And those were happening more and more infrequently.
It was hard to find a time when it was just the two of them alone. Someone was always there, or they weren't in the room, where it was safe for Demyx to talk to his pale, silent roommate. Demyx attempted to will away the forlorn ache his heart had started to develop –after all, he had lots of friends now, so he couldn't be lonely. But really, he missed letting the other man in, missed seeing The Expression cross the angular face, missed opening his heart to Zexion.
But there wasn't anything he could do about that without asking his friends to go away. So he hung out with Axel, with Marluxia, with Luxord and Namine, and tried to ignore his irrational melancholy.
All the while, he felt considering cobalt eyes on him.
Three.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zexion only blinked when someone placed a tray across from him at the table. He only raised one eyebrow when a person slid into the seat and smiled at him.
His eyes widened in a little bit of shock when the person reached out a hand and introduced himself as Sora.
Sora, as the boy –really the same age as he was, but so young in mind - started to explain, was a friend of Demyx's. He had heard so much about Zexion, and had just found out that they had the same lunch break on the one day Demyx couldn't eat lunch with him because of a Music Theory class. Zexion thought he was more talkative than Demyx himself, though that might have been caused by the sheer enthusiasm that painted all of the brunet's words.
As he listened with one ear, nodding every once in a while to keep Sora going, the slate-haired man had a bit of an epiphany.
He missed the talks he had with Demyx.
When it had just been the two of them, the blond had relaxed, something changing in the way he thought. His voice became softer, more comfortable, and he smiled readily, with a slow shifting of lips and eyes. He stopped rushing out words and just said them quietly, in their own time. There were times when Demyx spoke to him like that when Zexion hated his farce with his headphones. He knew it was necessary, but he wanted nothing more in the world than to turn around and watch Demyx's eyes as he revealed these thoughts.
Thoughts of how he viewed things as sounds and colors rather than objects and words, how a stapler made a hollow ringing noise if you stapled something and then held it close to your ear. How in Demyx's even quieter moments, he said that Zexion was the only one he told these things, which caused a warm sensation to rest below the pale man's sternum that not even Axel could disperse.
How Demyx had slowly and softly told him the last time they talked that he really liked Zexion.
Though Zexion had known it before, from the revelation when Axel had first arrived, this had been the first time he said it out loud.
It meant a lot.
Sora never seemed to notice that he hadn't been paying attention and simply chattered to him, passing gossip about people without seeming like he was actually gossiping. To the sky-eyed boy, they were simply interesting rumors which were completely untrue until proven correct.
And so it was that Sora, a Theater Major, ate lunch with Zexion on the days that Demyx couldn't. Eventually he followed the pattern of everyone else the two had met, and started came to their room to hang out. Sora, surprisingly innocent without being naïve, got along famously with everyone there, especially Axel.
Still, it wasn't enough to distract the redhead from his game of Zexion baiting. More would have to be done.
Four.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It took some time before Demyx began to suspect that Zexion might have had something to do with all the new people showing up.
Marluxia, it turned out, had been complaining about his roommate right outside of Zexion's Classical Literature class. It wouldn't have been too hard to find out what his name was, and his school issued email after that. Not many people were pink-haired men, and even fewer pink-haired, male, and Biology majors. Zexion could have easily been the source of the strange emails, and he was knowledgeable enough to threaten defenestration and actually be able to carry out the threat.
Demyx, on the other hand, still didn't know what 'defenestration' even meant. Something really nasty, from the way it sounded.
Luxord…Demyx had no explanation for that. Some bet he lost obviously, though what Luxord would go for where he was certain to lose, he couldn't imagine. Zexion was tricky though, so it wasn't impossible for him to have fooled the gambler. If he asked Luxord about it, he only got a quirked eyebrow and a scowl for reminding him that he had actually lost in a game of chance. The musician quickly learned to not ask.
With Luxord, it was better to leave him to volunteer his own information. He got easily offended when people started digging for facts about him.
When he talked to Namine, though, he found out that she was actually in Zexion's Classical Literature class, and that class was where she found a note telling her who Demyx was. It was too much of a coincidence for it to be anything other than deliberate, no matter what Luxord said about chance and probability.
Sora was the only one that could be traced back to Demyx, and the blond was grateful that Zexion had someone to distract him during his lunch. The small man was actually prone to not eating because he was thinking too much. Demyx decided he didn't want to find out how Sora found the dining hall Zexion ate in, since it was quite far away from the one he normally used. The possibilities were too strange to think of. Knowing Sora however, he probably followed one of those hunches that he got. They were eerily accurate at times, though it made for some great stories.
But when he asked Zexion if he had set up all these meetings between people, all he got in answer was a sidelong look and a slight, hidden smile. Which wasn't really an answer, since it was his way of saying maybe he did, and maybe he didn't.
Demyx's translator sometimes failed in the nuances of Zexion's more complex expressions.
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Zexion could never figure out why he humored his roommate so much.
Shivering slightly and shifting his bare feet on the cold pavement, he wrapped his arms around himself, wishing he had been smart enough to at least put on something besides his pajamas. It was past midnight. What were they doing out there? No normal person would be outside at this time of night.
But then, he thought wryly, it's not like Demyx and I are normal, now is it?
Demyx laughed, and the sound drew Zexion's attention to him. The blond stood, head thrown back, arms stretched out as though he could grab the sky if he reached far enough. Eyes that were neither green nor blue were closed and a joyful smile transformed his face from something pleasant to look at to breathtaking.
And snow was falling.
Suddenly understanding why Demyx had dragged him outside, Zexion held out a hand, marveling at the flakes that hit his skin with miniature taps. Examining their delicate crystalline structure, he caught them on his fingertips and watched them melt.
And then he watched Demyx.
This first snow would not last beyond tonight, they knew that. It didn't even cover the ground now, melting off as soon as it hit. But Demyx never let that bother him. He danced with it instead, moving in a delighted, child-like way that conveyed more grace than any structured dance Zexion had ever seen. Swaying to look up at the snow as it fell, Demyx sighed, and a more contented sound could not be found.
Watching him like this, completely relaxed and at ease with his place in the world, Zexion hoped this was the expression on the musician's face when they had their conversations. Few things could rival the purity of the look of security Demyx had at that moment. Zexion wanted…
He shook his head. There were no words for what he wanted.
Not when he didn't understand his own desires anymore.
People used to be so easy for him to read. When had that changed? Had he changed, become less analytical, less critical? Was it a lack of wanting to understand others? Because he certainly didn't feel the need to crawl inside others' heads anymore. Was it Demyx? Had his blond roommate become so intrinsic to his own life that no one else was important?
Or was he just having so much trouble understanding Demyx that everyone else's motivations became simple?
And why did he want to know so much anyway? It wasn't like Demyx could really be all that complicated.
Only he could be, because Zexion still had no idea why Demyx did anything. He never even knew if Demyx kept breathing because he had to, or if he actually found a sort of visceral pleasure in the act of staying alive. Nothing Demyx did was simple. Not even breathing, not even blinking, and certainly not loving.
Why did Demyx like him?
It made no sense.
But as Zexion watched Demyx smile at him -snowflakes highlighting his pale eyelashes, glistening in his hair, body arched slightly backwards in a hymn to delight and excitement, aqua eyes open and bright and engulfing, and, damn it, no person had the right to stop his breath like that- he was forced to admit that love very rarely made sense.
And he rubbed the gently aching spot in his chest.
* * * * *
Chapter 5....
Pairing: Zemyx
Disclaimer: KH = NOT MINE.
Dedications: to
prettypixiechan. Because she is my lovely beta. All other mistakes are my own. Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Demyx goes to college, he wants to learn and get his degree. He doesn't want to have a roommate who refuses to speak, a drifter who decides to live in his room, or fall in love. Too bad what Demyx wants is not what Demyx gets.
Chapter 1 : Chapter 2 : Chapter 3 : Chapter 4 : Chapter 5 : Chapter 6 : Chapter 7 : Chapter 8 : Chapter 9
* * * * * *
Zexion wasn't quite sure what he expected when he woke up the morning after the maze.
He didn't expect to wake up in a tangle of limbs with someone's breath on his neck and their head pillowed on his shoulder.
Understandably, his next reaction was to get whoever it was out of the bed.
Especially since that person was Axel.
This proved slightly more difficult than expected. Axel was apparently part-octopus while he slept, and was more than unwilling to give up on his cuddle-toy. Every move the pale man made was expertly -if unconsciously- blocked and he was returned to his previous position. Axel never stirred once. After fifteen minutes of useless struggle, Zexion frowned and decided a more direct course of action was required.
Elbowing Axel in the face certainly did get him out of the bed. It even woke him up.
Fact about Axel: He was loud and quite vulgar when he was tired and pissed off.
The redhead's cursing unfortunately also woke up Demyx, who took in the scene in front of him with sleepy eyes. The blonde proceeded to yawn, stumble out of bed, and force the yelling man to sit down on the couch. Zexion allowed himself a smug smirk. It seemed his roommate was on his side.
As Zexion readied himself calmly for the rest of the day, Demyx scolded Axel for bothering the lilac-haired man while he slept. Ignoring the redhead's protests that it was all Zexion's fault, Demyx turned to Zexion and wished him a good day of classes.
Oh if he only knew what today will bring…. Zexion nodded back.
A soft smile was his answer.
He departed, leaving Axel to glare at his back while nursing the bruise that was forming on his face and Demyx to gently patch up the too-thin man, mind whirling with possible scenarios.
The plans started today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It wasn't quite a week later when a man stormed into their room, the faint aroma of potpourri and incense surrounding him. He demanded to see Demyx, and the blond stood, obviously confused.
One hand irately flipping a lock of pink hair over a shoulder, the man explained that he was to tutor Demyx in Biology.
Demyx shook his head. He wasn't taking Biology.
The man blinked and frowned, insisting that he must be mistaken. Apparently the man had received anonymous emails informing him that he was to meet with one Demyx Trepe on pain of humiliation in various forms and subsequent defenestration if he didn't. He was even being paid.
Laughing –because really, it was kinda funny-, Demyx shook his head again. He was a Music major. Why would he be taking Biology?
Floundering for an answer, the pink-haired student wavered in the door before uttering a short goodbye and leaving, only to come back in a couple of minutes later. He sat down on the floor and promptly began to study Biology, saying that even if Demyx wasn't taking it, he himself needed to do some work, and this was as good a place as any. Everyone in the room just blinked at him.
The next day, the same student barged into their room and plopped down onto the couch next to a rather surprised Axel. Turning a shade of red that complimented his hair, he muttered something about studying for a Chemistry test and his roommate being uncooperative.
Every day it was something different that he needed to study for, some new class that his roommate wouldn't let him concentrate on. Every day he was in their room, and almost every day, he got next to no work done because he was too busy joking around.
After another week, Demyx simply laughed as he answered the door and held up a hand to halt the student's excuses. Shaking his head, Demyx only said that if the other wanted to hang out, he didn't have to pretend it was for homework.
Marluxia –it had taken them this long to learn even his name, since he just introduced himself- just nodded and came in to sit and talk to them.
The next day at dinner, a blond, goateed man slammed his tray down on the table next to Demyx and Marluxia –who had taken to eating dinner with them while he was pretending to study. He informed them that his name was Luxord, and simply sat down to eat with no further explanation.
Since a scowl was darkening his face, no one chose to ask why he was there, until he followed them back to Demyx and Zexion's room, still having said barely a word all evening. Axel was the first to break the ice and ask him what he was doing.
Apparently, Luxord (who they later found out was somewhat of a celebrity on campus) had lost a bet. And Luxord had never lost a bet before. He never said what the bet was about or who else it involved, only that the payment required him to eat dinner with Demyx, Axel, and Marluxia.
Demyx blinked and curiously asked him why he was still there if the bet only said that he had to eat dinner with them.
The blond man shrugged, mentioned something about the group being sort of fun, and immediately whipped out a pack of cards, a confident grin adorning his handsome face.
They played poker until four in the morning.
Luxord never lost a game.
The next day, Demyx woke up to a fierce grin in his face and an offer to get in on some of the best betting at the school. After he got over the shock of waking up to that terrifying smile, the prospects began boiling out. If there was a slight chance people would bet on it, Luxord ran the postings. Grad student lounge suddenly running out of coffee? Sixteen to one. Doctor Vexen's lab blowing up during the chemistry lab on Wednesday? Fifteen to two. Larxene's underwear ending up on a frat boy's head next party? Twenty to one. Quickly, Axel and Marluxia shelled out money, betting that none of which would ever happen.
They found out later that Luxord's bets always had a way of happening. And that he did not accept refunds.
One and two.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Their circle of friends was slowly expanding.
Demyx couldn't explain it. People would simply show up, hang out with them, and just keep coming back. Slowly, he found himself opening up to these other students, overcoming both his shyness and his tendency to talk too much. Marluxia could be found in their room after his classes almost every day. His roommate, a football player named Tidus, wasn't actually as bad as Marluxia made him out to be, and wandered in for some help on math sometimes.
Luxord, in between managing the betting pool and his classes (though not even Demyx knew what he took or what he did), also made appearances frequently, stepping in with a sly remark about fate and probability when no one expected it. He was extraordinarily good with numbers, but wasn't half bad with helping someone with an essay either, though his reasoning tended to be a little convoluted.
Most recently was a slight, almost waifish girl. Her eyes saw everything, and she had a soft smile and a sotto voce way of talking that ensured that everyone stopped to listen to her. Namine, as she introduced herself, was an art major, who had heard Demyx playing his guitar in the hallways. She immediately sat down with them at lunch once she found out who that musician was, and showed them the pieces of work that had been inspired by Demyx's music.
She was a good friend with a surprisingly dry sense of humor that contrasted so much with her typical warm nature that it normally took them all a couple of minutes to realize that what she had just said was a joke. Many serious moments during movie nights had been ruined by a swift, witty comment from Namine. No one really minded.
Demyx found himself laughing with these people, listening to them and talking to them in an endless push-and-pull game of emotions. No one person "headed" the group. They were just all there, drawn by some force of chance.
It felt…right, in a way nothing had ever felt right before.
Except the talks with Zexion.
And those were happening more and more infrequently.
It was hard to find a time when it was just the two of them alone. Someone was always there, or they weren't in the room, where it was safe for Demyx to talk to his pale, silent roommate. Demyx attempted to will away the forlorn ache his heart had started to develop –after all, he had lots of friends now, so he couldn't be lonely. But really, he missed letting the other man in, missed seeing The Expression cross the angular face, missed opening his heart to Zexion.
But there wasn't anything he could do about that without asking his friends to go away. So he hung out with Axel, with Marluxia, with Luxord and Namine, and tried to ignore his irrational melancholy.
All the while, he felt considering cobalt eyes on him.
Three.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zexion only blinked when someone placed a tray across from him at the table. He only raised one eyebrow when a person slid into the seat and smiled at him.
His eyes widened in a little bit of shock when the person reached out a hand and introduced himself as Sora.
Sora, as the boy –really the same age as he was, but so young in mind - started to explain, was a friend of Demyx's. He had heard so much about Zexion, and had just found out that they had the same lunch break on the one day Demyx couldn't eat lunch with him because of a Music Theory class. Zexion thought he was more talkative than Demyx himself, though that might have been caused by the sheer enthusiasm that painted all of the brunet's words.
As he listened with one ear, nodding every once in a while to keep Sora going, the slate-haired man had a bit of an epiphany.
He missed the talks he had with Demyx.
When it had just been the two of them, the blond had relaxed, something changing in the way he thought. His voice became softer, more comfortable, and he smiled readily, with a slow shifting of lips and eyes. He stopped rushing out words and just said them quietly, in their own time. There were times when Demyx spoke to him like that when Zexion hated his farce with his headphones. He knew it was necessary, but he wanted nothing more in the world than to turn around and watch Demyx's eyes as he revealed these thoughts.
Thoughts of how he viewed things as sounds and colors rather than objects and words, how a stapler made a hollow ringing noise if you stapled something and then held it close to your ear. How in Demyx's even quieter moments, he said that Zexion was the only one he told these things, which caused a warm sensation to rest below the pale man's sternum that not even Axel could disperse.
How Demyx had slowly and softly told him the last time they talked that he really liked Zexion.
Though Zexion had known it before, from the revelation when Axel had first arrived, this had been the first time he said it out loud.
It meant a lot.
Sora never seemed to notice that he hadn't been paying attention and simply chattered to him, passing gossip about people without seeming like he was actually gossiping. To the sky-eyed boy, they were simply interesting rumors which were completely untrue until proven correct.
And so it was that Sora, a Theater Major, ate lunch with Zexion on the days that Demyx couldn't. Eventually he followed the pattern of everyone else the two had met, and started came to their room to hang out. Sora, surprisingly innocent without being naïve, got along famously with everyone there, especially Axel.
Still, it wasn't enough to distract the redhead from his game of Zexion baiting. More would have to be done.
Four.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It took some time before Demyx began to suspect that Zexion might have had something to do with all the new people showing up.
Marluxia, it turned out, had been complaining about his roommate right outside of Zexion's Classical Literature class. It wouldn't have been too hard to find out what his name was, and his school issued email after that. Not many people were pink-haired men, and even fewer pink-haired, male, and Biology majors. Zexion could have easily been the source of the strange emails, and he was knowledgeable enough to threaten defenestration and actually be able to carry out the threat.
Demyx, on the other hand, still didn't know what 'defenestration' even meant. Something really nasty, from the way it sounded.
Luxord…Demyx had no explanation for that. Some bet he lost obviously, though what Luxord would go for where he was certain to lose, he couldn't imagine. Zexion was tricky though, so it wasn't impossible for him to have fooled the gambler. If he asked Luxord about it, he only got a quirked eyebrow and a scowl for reminding him that he had actually lost in a game of chance. The musician quickly learned to not ask.
With Luxord, it was better to leave him to volunteer his own information. He got easily offended when people started digging for facts about him.
When he talked to Namine, though, he found out that she was actually in Zexion's Classical Literature class, and that class was where she found a note telling her who Demyx was. It was too much of a coincidence for it to be anything other than deliberate, no matter what Luxord said about chance and probability.
Sora was the only one that could be traced back to Demyx, and the blond was grateful that Zexion had someone to distract him during his lunch. The small man was actually prone to not eating because he was thinking too much. Demyx decided he didn't want to find out how Sora found the dining hall Zexion ate in, since it was quite far away from the one he normally used. The possibilities were too strange to think of. Knowing Sora however, he probably followed one of those hunches that he got. They were eerily accurate at times, though it made for some great stories.
But when he asked Zexion if he had set up all these meetings between people, all he got in answer was a sidelong look and a slight, hidden smile. Which wasn't really an answer, since it was his way of saying maybe he did, and maybe he didn't.
Demyx's translator sometimes failed in the nuances of Zexion's more complex expressions.
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Zexion could never figure out why he humored his roommate so much.
Shivering slightly and shifting his bare feet on the cold pavement, he wrapped his arms around himself, wishing he had been smart enough to at least put on something besides his pajamas. It was past midnight. What were they doing out there? No normal person would be outside at this time of night.
But then, he thought wryly, it's not like Demyx and I are normal, now is it?
Demyx laughed, and the sound drew Zexion's attention to him. The blond stood, head thrown back, arms stretched out as though he could grab the sky if he reached far enough. Eyes that were neither green nor blue were closed and a joyful smile transformed his face from something pleasant to look at to breathtaking.
And snow was falling.
Suddenly understanding why Demyx had dragged him outside, Zexion held out a hand, marveling at the flakes that hit his skin with miniature taps. Examining their delicate crystalline structure, he caught them on his fingertips and watched them melt.
And then he watched Demyx.
This first snow would not last beyond tonight, they knew that. It didn't even cover the ground now, melting off as soon as it hit. But Demyx never let that bother him. He danced with it instead, moving in a delighted, child-like way that conveyed more grace than any structured dance Zexion had ever seen. Swaying to look up at the snow as it fell, Demyx sighed, and a more contented sound could not be found.
Watching him like this, completely relaxed and at ease with his place in the world, Zexion hoped this was the expression on the musician's face when they had their conversations. Few things could rival the purity of the look of security Demyx had at that moment. Zexion wanted…
He shook his head. There were no words for what he wanted.
Not when he didn't understand his own desires anymore.
People used to be so easy for him to read. When had that changed? Had he changed, become less analytical, less critical? Was it a lack of wanting to understand others? Because he certainly didn't feel the need to crawl inside others' heads anymore. Was it Demyx? Had his blond roommate become so intrinsic to his own life that no one else was important?
Or was he just having so much trouble understanding Demyx that everyone else's motivations became simple?
And why did he want to know so much anyway? It wasn't like Demyx could really be all that complicated.
Only he could be, because Zexion still had no idea why Demyx did anything. He never even knew if Demyx kept breathing because he had to, or if he actually found a sort of visceral pleasure in the act of staying alive. Nothing Demyx did was simple. Not even breathing, not even blinking, and certainly not loving.
Why did Demyx like him?
It made no sense.
But as Zexion watched Demyx smile at him -snowflakes highlighting his pale eyelashes, glistening in his hair, body arched slightly backwards in a hymn to delight and excitement, aqua eyes open and bright and engulfing, and, damn it, no person had the right to stop his breath like that- he was forced to admit that love very rarely made sense.
And he rubbed the gently aching spot in his chest.
* * * * *
Chapter 5....
