Ficlets: Kingdom Hearts
Springkink Ficlet-roundup, Kingdom Hearts edition!
Gravity
His job, he thinks, is to keep them sane.
Kingdom Hearts 2, Xemnas/Xigbar/Xaldin. 400 words.
Worksafe.
His job, he thinks, is to keep them sane.
Losing their hearts takes them all differently, but it's Xaldin and Xemnas that Xigbar worries about the most. Zexion and Lexaeus watch out for one another, and Vexen -- well, for all that they could mock Vexen for his dedication to his studies, he keeps himself grounded through them. But they are all spinning off to extremes, now, without their hearts to center and earth them. Xaldin tends distressingly toward taciturn bitterness and Xemnas... well, Xemnas tends toward a pomposity that seems to try through grandiosity to make up for the lack of substance.
It falls to Xigbar to keep them sane; it is a charge he accepts as his due. Anyway, they're intolerably pretentious when they get like this, and he has always -- even with his heart -- been a puncturer of pretension, iconoclast and class clown.
This time they are on the roof, staring up at the endless nighttime sky, at the stars which lie unmoving above and the light of Kingdom Hearts.
"Without our powers," Xemnas intones, sonorous and overblown, "there would be less than nothing." The moonlight turns his hair to silver-gilt.
"Oh, fuck that," Xigbar says, cheerfully. "There's a lot left of us."
"Not hearts," Xaldin says.
"Nope," he says. "But bodies."
When he's thinking seriously -- which is as seldom as he can get away with; and that's funny, since he was a researcher once, but there are a lot of truths he can't face head-on and has to look at slantwise now -- when he's thinking seriously, he thinks that he can face all this because his power is space. He knows the importance of mass and weight and volume, the precise lines of orbit and the pull of gravity, and when he wraps one of Xaldin's braids around his hand and pulls him close for a kiss that's half bite it's not about philosophy any more than it's about feeling. It's about the draw that bodies pull on one another, whether they're great spinning hulks of stone or warm husks of flesh. Empty, but still real.
Xemnas named them wrong, he thinks as he strips them both, muffling their arguments, distracting them from themselves: they are not nobodies. They are all body. That's what keeps them going.
Not Often Kind
Space and time were not really such separate things, in truth.
Kingdom Hearts 2, Xigbar/Luxord. 300 words.
Worksafe.
Xigbar's chambers are not for the faint of heart - while he can bend space and manipulate gravity to his whim anywhere, there isn't even a nod to the usual rules of physics in his rooms. Up and down shift with frightening regularity - although unless he is in a particularly foul mood Xigbar will usually alleviate the repercussions of the floor suddenly becoming the ceiling - and a table which is at one's elbow one moment may be a dozen feet away the next moment.
The table which has Luxord's glass of wine on it has, in fact, leapt across the room; but that's only fair, he supposes, because he was messing with time the last time they were in his chamber, and he had been less than kind about it.
They are not often Nitkind to each other, which makes it especially odd that they spend so much time in company together.
He gives Xigbar a look that he knows is unfair, given that he was complicit in their unkindness to one another previously - a look of condescending resignation. "Would you be so kind?"
Xigbar's mouth compresses into a smirk. "Should be able to get it yourself, yeah? You're the one who was sayin' that time is at the center of space and all that shit."
Luxord gets up, and he can see Xigbar beginning to bend space to move the table again - malice, all they have left is casual malice, that and whatever it was that held them together (space and time are not really such separate things in truth) - but Luxord doesn't move for the table. He moves fast (and the world moves slow, to oblige him) to pin Xigbar to the wall.
Xigbar's scars pull his smile off-kilter, and he rolls his hips - and then suddenly they are on the ceiling, Luxord pressed into Xigbar, and that is the only thing keeping him from falling.
Luxord isn't surprised.
Compromise
Axel, Demyx, possession and control.
Kingdom Hearts 2, Axel/Demyx. 100 words.
Worksafe. Brief mention of sex, not described.
"I don't compromise," Axel said, slouching against the doorframe.
"Too bad for you." Demyx's fingers wandered over the strings of his sitar.
Axel rolled his eyes, slow and condescending: "I don't think you understand -- "
"I understand perfectly well." Demyx looked up. "I'm not stupid. You think you have me in the palm of your hand because you fucked me, but you don't. That's not how it works."
Axel snorted.
"Someday," Demyx continued, tuning the strings, trying them out, "you're going to meet someone who makes you compromise. I look forward to watching."
Subtlety
The queen can move wherever she wants.
Kingdom Hearts 2, Larxene/Marluxia, Axel. 200 words.
Not worksafe for sex.
"He thinks himself vastly cleverer than me, you know," Larxene said as they watched Axel training, his chakrams describing luminous arcs.
"In fairness," Marluxia said, "you aren't exactly subtle."
She turned around, back to the railing, and gave him a heavy-lidded look. "Who ever said that subtlety was the same as intelligence?"
He took her hand, stripped off her glove, pressed an open-mouth kiss to her palm. "Not I, certainly."
She smiled and curled her fingers, nails pricking his throat. "Of course. A sign that you are no fool either."
He slid the cloak from her shoulders. "I like to think not."
Larxene smiled, hooked a leg around him. "As long as he is useful, we'll keep him around. When he ceases to be useful -- "
"You're confident," he said. Her fingers sparked on his zipper as she dragged it down. "It's appropriate. The queen moves any way she wishes; it's the king who must be cautious."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Larxene got her other leg around his waist. "And frankly I don't care."
"Of course not," he said, and slid into her.
Gravity
His job, he thinks, is to keep them sane.
Kingdom Hearts 2, Xemnas/Xigbar/Xaldin. 400 words.
Worksafe.
His job, he thinks, is to keep them sane.
Losing their hearts takes them all differently, but it's Xaldin and Xemnas that Xigbar worries about the most. Zexion and Lexaeus watch out for one another, and Vexen -- well, for all that they could mock Vexen for his dedication to his studies, he keeps himself grounded through them. But they are all spinning off to extremes, now, without their hearts to center and earth them. Xaldin tends distressingly toward taciturn bitterness and Xemnas... well, Xemnas tends toward a pomposity that seems to try through grandiosity to make up for the lack of substance.
It falls to Xigbar to keep them sane; it is a charge he accepts as his due. Anyway, they're intolerably pretentious when they get like this, and he has always -- even with his heart -- been a puncturer of pretension, iconoclast and class clown.
This time they are on the roof, staring up at the endless nighttime sky, at the stars which lie unmoving above and the light of Kingdom Hearts.
"Without our powers," Xemnas intones, sonorous and overblown, "there would be less than nothing." The moonlight turns his hair to silver-gilt.
"Oh, fuck that," Xigbar says, cheerfully. "There's a lot left of us."
"Not hearts," Xaldin says.
"Nope," he says. "But bodies."
When he's thinking seriously -- which is as seldom as he can get away with; and that's funny, since he was a researcher once, but there are a lot of truths he can't face head-on and has to look at slantwise now -- when he's thinking seriously, he thinks that he can face all this because his power is space. He knows the importance of mass and weight and volume, the precise lines of orbit and the pull of gravity, and when he wraps one of Xaldin's braids around his hand and pulls him close for a kiss that's half bite it's not about philosophy any more than it's about feeling. It's about the draw that bodies pull on one another, whether they're great spinning hulks of stone or warm husks of flesh. Empty, but still real.
Xemnas named them wrong, he thinks as he strips them both, muffling their arguments, distracting them from themselves: they are not nobodies. They are all body. That's what keeps them going.
Not Often Kind
Space and time were not really such separate things, in truth.
Kingdom Hearts 2, Xigbar/Luxord. 300 words.
Worksafe.
Xigbar's chambers are not for the faint of heart - while he can bend space and manipulate gravity to his whim anywhere, there isn't even a nod to the usual rules of physics in his rooms. Up and down shift with frightening regularity - although unless he is in a particularly foul mood Xigbar will usually alleviate the repercussions of the floor suddenly becoming the ceiling - and a table which is at one's elbow one moment may be a dozen feet away the next moment.
The table which has Luxord's glass of wine on it has, in fact, leapt across the room; but that's only fair, he supposes, because he was messing with time the last time they were in his chamber, and he had been less than kind about it.
They are not often Nitkind to each other, which makes it especially odd that they spend so much time in company together.
He gives Xigbar a look that he knows is unfair, given that he was complicit in their unkindness to one another previously - a look of condescending resignation. "Would you be so kind?"
Xigbar's mouth compresses into a smirk. "Should be able to get it yourself, yeah? You're the one who was sayin' that time is at the center of space and all that shit."
Luxord gets up, and he can see Xigbar beginning to bend space to move the table again - malice, all they have left is casual malice, that and whatever it was that held them together (space and time are not really such separate things in truth) - but Luxord doesn't move for the table. He moves fast (and the world moves slow, to oblige him) to pin Xigbar to the wall.
Xigbar's scars pull his smile off-kilter, and he rolls his hips - and then suddenly they are on the ceiling, Luxord pressed into Xigbar, and that is the only thing keeping him from falling.
Luxord isn't surprised.
Compromise
Axel, Demyx, possession and control.
Kingdom Hearts 2, Axel/Demyx. 100 words.
Worksafe. Brief mention of sex, not described.
"I don't compromise," Axel said, slouching against the doorframe.
"Too bad for you." Demyx's fingers wandered over the strings of his sitar.
Axel rolled his eyes, slow and condescending: "I don't think you understand -- "
"I understand perfectly well." Demyx looked up. "I'm not stupid. You think you have me in the palm of your hand because you fucked me, but you don't. That's not how it works."
Axel snorted.
"Someday," Demyx continued, tuning the strings, trying them out, "you're going to meet someone who makes you compromise. I look forward to watching."
Subtlety
The queen can move wherever she wants.
Kingdom Hearts 2, Larxene/Marluxia, Axel. 200 words.
Not worksafe for sex.
"He thinks himself vastly cleverer than me, you know," Larxene said as they watched Axel training, his chakrams describing luminous arcs.
"In fairness," Marluxia said, "you aren't exactly subtle."
She turned around, back to the railing, and gave him a heavy-lidded look. "Who ever said that subtlety was the same as intelligence?"
He took her hand, stripped off her glove, pressed an open-mouth kiss to her palm. "Not I, certainly."
She smiled and curled her fingers, nails pricking his throat. "Of course. A sign that you are no fool either."
He slid the cloak from her shoulders. "I like to think not."
Larxene smiled, hooked a leg around him. "As long as he is useful, we'll keep him around. When he ceases to be useful -- "
"You're confident," he said. Her fingers sparked on his zipper as she dragged it down. "It's appropriate. The queen moves any way she wishes; it's the king who must be cautious."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Larxene got her other leg around his waist. "And frankly I don't care."
"Of course not," he said, and slid into her.