Warnings: The overall story may contain (or reference to) alcohol consumption, infrequent strong language, mild violence, disturbing imagery, sexual content, setting confusion and gratuitous British spelling. This story also portrays several homosexual relationships between various characters. If you are sensitive to any of the above, I don't recommend you proceed reading.

Pairings (eventual and established): Zexion-Demyx, Marluxia-Vexen, Saix-Xemnas, Axel-Roxas

A/N:
24/12/09: Say 'hi' to "Scripted", the brainchild of a desperate attempt to write an actual novel-sized fic. Hopefully it works. Powered by tea, pistachio nuts, a love for the characters, and love for the fandom. Beware, this baby's a long one.

04/03/09: Progress on the whole is at approximately 50%! Yay. (Added 'Warnings' and 'Pairings' just so that no unsuspecting reader walks into something they don't want.)

It was on a stunningly bright and undoubtedly beautiful afternoon that Demyx dramatically swept a myriad of bills off of his desk and spontaneously decided that his entire career was in shambles. He had to do so over the noise of papers, pens and paperweights cluttering to the ground, whilst scratching at the musty grey sweatshirt that was a size too large for him.

Demyx was, so to say, a sweet kid. He'd grown up fine, getting his fair share of lectures from the folks but not getting caught for every other school rule he broke. He'd had a good life all up until he was nineteen and fresh-faced, happily graduated and ready to get out into the world. After that things started going downhill.

His parents had spent hours lecturing him, attempting him to persuade not to go into music, because there were millions of musicians just like him who ended up clinking a banjo on the side of the street. A long genealogy of a family of internationally-renowned researchers ending in a guy clinking a banjo on a grimy street probably didn't look good on the papers, after all. Demyx appreciated the sentiment, he really did, but at that time he'd told them that music was his calling. Someday they were going to see huge posters with Demyx's name on them and be sent hundred-dollar concert tickets. Basically he gave them the entire foolish speech that any son or daughter gives their parents after rejecting their parents' choice of career for them, the one that could have been made concise in one linguistically-unapproved phrase and two words but instead drag into weeks of screaming and slamming doors.

His sexuality was another matter altogether, and he hardly appreciated them trying to put it with the 'career choice issue'.

They stopped calling him a year ago, after he'd plunged into a financial impasse. He really didn't miss the phone calls, overall.

"Marluxia!" he cried aloud, both hands on the doorframe that his body was up against, ignoring the pungent scent of flowers that wafted from his roommate's room.

If there had been anyone that Demyx had trusted and confided in all this awful adult life, it had been Marluxia. Said confidante, trusted friend and flatmate made a noise that sounded like a miniature earthquake and a moan put together. "Hnnn?" came the muffled voice from beneath an array of flower-patterned quilts and covers. A large fair hand emerged from the pile, shoving it back and revealing Marluxia's dishevelled, weary form. He was still wearing the black tee-shirt ('...and if I did get smart with you, would you know?' Demyx's eyes caught the white text spread across it momentarily) that he'd went out in the night before.

Demyx raised an eyebrow when Marluxia sat up in bed and looked at him with deep blue eyes framed with sleep-smudged eyeliner. Marluxia may or may not have looked adorable in his sleep-induced bleariness if it were not for the black gobs circling his eyes like a horror movie makeup job gone very bad. "What is it, Demyx?" Marluxia mumbled, yawning into his hand. "I know it's afternoon already, but I don't have rehearsal-"

Marluxia was the most brilliant playwright Demyx knew. Heck, he was the only playwright Demyx knew, but he was still brilliant. Back in college, it had been how they'd met- Marluxia coming right up to him and asking him some random story-related question, and somehow a question turned into conversation and, hello, roommate. And then, Marluxia River was a deconstructed hippie if there was one, down to his very last name. Probably born into the wrong generation. The basic facts about him came down to the fact that he was one year older than Demyx, twenty years wiser, that he wrote, and wrote some more, and if you ever even went so far as to put a sharp surface capable of incision anywhere within five feet of his plants he would slowly and cheerfully eviscerate you.

Demyx sucked in a breath, ignoring the scary sight of Marluxia with smudged black eyeliner, and spurred out the words: "My career is broken, Marly. Nothing's gone right. Nothing." At this his raised his hands to the heavens, staring up in vast exasperation. "Nothing!"

"...Okay," was all his pink-haired roommate answered with as he rolled out of bed, covers and all, and proceeded to check himself in the dresser mirror, completely ignoring Demyx's demonstration. "Well," Marluxia muttered with a touch of breathlessness and cloudy sleepiness, "if you ever listened to me tell you about the production, there's a position for a musician open," he said, dabbing a cotton square with makeup remover and fruitlessly dabbing at the horror-esque dark gobs around his eyes.

While they had their concrete similarities, the main distinction between the roommates was that Marluxia was the employed one, who had secured himself a play to attend the rehearsal for every weekday. It would be his debut into the theatrical world as a playwright. Marluxia had written an array of singularly awesome romance novels under a penname just to get by, but he'd always told Demyx how being a playwright had been his one true desire. Marluxia was like the anonymous, half-hearted Nicholas Sparks of his own generation, and yet he'd seen a calling in writing plays that had never been there in novels, it seemed.

The blond paused, sucking in a breath. He thought about it: Background musician, tinkering at a sitar for money and going generally unnoticed. "...That's not the job I want, Marls. To just play while everybody's' eyes are on the people up on stage? Just play in the background, mostly ignored? Does that sound like fun to you?"

The pink-haired man scoffed, his entire muscular frame moving with him he closed one eye and trailed a cotton pad over it. He only succeeded in further messing up the makeup."Does it sound fun to you that I have to write the entire storyline and nobody ever sees me on stage? It's not like inspiration comes easily either," Marluxia retorted. "Writer's block has had me out of commission for two weeks, Demyx. Two weeks. But I'm still here and I'm still hired. You should at least try for the job, if your career's as shattered as you make it out to be." He sounded a little more awake this time, running a hand through his mussed-up locks of hair.

Demyx weakly offered, "Can't I just, kinda... be a bit of a house guy for a bit? I'll cook you dinner and stuff..? I- I'll clean the toilet," he said with a strange resolution, even as he shuddered at the thought.

"House wife, you mean?" He turned to look at Demyx, smiling in dry amusement. "Demyx, as much as I love you, I can't pay the bills for both of us, darling. Playwrights work for the love of the job, not the wads of green one may or may not get." In a silent gesture, he pointed to the cracks in the wall behind his dresser, and still behind the long shelf of fragrant herbal plants he kept.

Even for people sharing a tiny apartment, they still couldn't afford a much better one. Their home was pretty much the standard crappy fifteenth-floor city apartment, with low running water pressure and paper-thin walls. Still, it was home, and Marluxia's balcony had a magnificent view of the crescent-shaped bay outside. It wasn't exactly inconveniently located, either, being located directly across from a supermarket and a few minutes from the beach.

The blond musician's face fell as Marluxia pushed past him through the doorway, making his way to the bathroom. "Marls! Help me!" he exclaimed urgently.

"Join the play production!" Marluxia yelled back, slamming the door on his face.

Demyx heaved a tired sigh and leaned against said door. Even if he really did need the money for both of them, he was reluctant to think about it. "What were you out doing last night anyway? I don't even remember when you got back," he queried, not willing to push the employment topic any further for a while.

It wasn't as if it was uncommon that Marluxia would spend the night out for an obscenely long time and come back home at some ungodly hour, but most of the time his reasons were completely different. Though, quite a notable percentage of them were at least remotely connected to some boyfriend he had that Demyx never met.

"Date went well. I got back at six this morning. Vexen took me back in his car." The affection in his voice was undeniable, even when muffled through the creaky door. "He's the sweetest ever, you know."

"Date went really well," Demyx grumbled, standing up and heading off to make coffee. He hadn't met the guy, but if there was one thing that he could be spared of it was the gory details of Marluxia's 'adventures' (said flatmate had used those words specifically, to Demyx's dismay) with his boyfriend at the backstage area of the production.

- - - - -

Out of sheer tradition, they ate dinner together in the kitchen. They had covered the dining table in the living room with so many sheets of Demyx's written music and Marluxia's story notes that it was long past saving, or risking eating anything heavier than a snack on, so they'd wordlessly settled for the textured, granite-grey kitchen counter since last year. Still, the apartment was a charming one, despite the distinct property of being extremely cramped, and whatever space provided was often filled with paper: bills, music, notes, et al.

Demyx tore into his sandwich, tasting about six different herbs probably in the order that Marluxia had applied them, and a distinct lack of meat. He cast his roommate a dubious look that had become something of a tradition between themselves. Mouth full, Demyx grumbled, "I still don't know how you get the build you have when I've never seen you eat one piece of meat since I met you. That's hard, man!"

Wiping his mouth with a paper napkin, Marluxia gave him the evil eye. "Swallow before you talk or you might get choked," he admonished. "...And I work out."

"I don't see you doing that either."

"Sex is a very good form of exercise, Demyx."

Demyx sputtered out chunks of lettuce and mayonnaise, wordlessly taking the paper napkin Marluxia offered him and wiping his mouth. "Too much information," he whimpered, slipping off the chair he was on to go turn on the fluorescent light. The warm sunlight that had drifted in from the kitchen window and originally painted the walls a brilliant shade of red and orange was gone now, replaced by sad tinges of purple. Demyx blinked as the initially blinding fluorescent light flickered on, and then he settled back into the chair and remorsefully began to dig back into a sandwich he was too hungry to deny himself of.

"So have you thought about it?" Marluxia enquired with a certain air of elegance as he finished his sandwich and brushed crumbs cleanly onto the paper napkin he'd eaten over.

"'Bout what?"

The man looked at him in disbelief, looking a cross between perplexed, surprised and offended. "Joining the play production," he said as he slid off his chair and threw the folded-up paper napkin into the garbage bin. Marluxia was a well-built guy, and when he stood in the narrow, cramped spaces of the kitchen between the cookery counter, fridge and counters, he had a certain distinct air about himself. Particularly with his arms akimbo and when he looked at his roommate with a cross look.

The blond blinked before it registered. "Oh yeah.. yeah. I thought I might as well join. I don't have any options."

Marluxia rolled his eyes, turning to open the refrigerator and pull out a carton of apple juice. "Great. I'll wake you up at nine tomorrow and we'll be out the door by an hour and a half later, all right?" he said, taking a long direct swig from the carton before heading off into his room, not waiting for Demyx to reply. "I'm going to go wrestle my muse and try to crap out another five pages of script."

Another distinct difference between the two of them was that when Demyx wrote music, he wrote music and if you left him alone for four hours you could come back and he'd have one song for every season. Leave Marluxia alone for four hours and you'd probably find him in a sobbing mess because he'd been unable to produce a satisfactory hundred words of script for the play. Demyx wrote, wrote and wrote his butt off but in the end, it wasn't as if he had anybody other than Marluxia who would even give him half an ear to listen. Marluxia, however, hadn't been able to write lately.

It wasn't an inspiration problem, he said. No. To quote, it was just a while yet until he could find his muse- and when he would, the miracles would be sprung unto paper. Until then.. well. Demyx gave a rueful smile at the door hanger that had been occupying Marluxia's door for the last three months: an amateur paper cut-out that read "Busy- looking for muse".

- - - - -

A sleep-deprived Demyx groaned into a cup of exceptionally bitter coffee, watching as the blurry form of Marluxia navigated around the darkness of the kitchen in a morning. "I don't get how you can be up this early," he mumbled, as if nine in the morning was really early by most humans' standards.

Marluxia just made an amused snort, shuffling about the kitchen in his red apron with a frying pan and spatula at hand, casting a tired smile at Demyx. "I get sleep-deprived and tired, like everyone does to keep their jobs on that little place we call Planet Earth," he said as he skilfully flipped over the omelette frying on the stove, before glancing back at his roommate. "Remember that we need to go at around ten-thirty."

Demyx groaned loudly, flopping face-first upon the questionably clean kitchen counter. "Why are you so cheery at nine in the freezin' cold rainy season morning?"

"Because it's a fantastic work day and I have a wonderful crew of creative individuals waiting for me at the theatre," Marluxia responded with less vigour than he probably should have.

He wasn't intensely jealous of Marluxia, per se, but Demyx did have his moments wherein he wondered why the hippie, writers-blocked roommate of his was the taken, employed one. He smiled ruefully to himself and took a sip of the too-bitter coffee, cursing every moment he even spent envying his own roommate. "Save me some omelette, I'm gonna go freshen up," he said, finishing the rest of the coffee with an abrupt swallow and setting it in the sink.

Leaving Marluxia to finish cooking, he ambled into the bathroom to start up a shower.

It was made apparent the moment he got out that it was going to be an obstinately gloomy day. The sun had finally peered out from behind the thick curtain of grey clouds, casting an oppressed, colourless sheen of ligth over the bay. A light, occasional rumble of thunder could be heard in the distance, and lighting flashes illuminated the world with a blink of white every so often. The sight of the city in the morning was a depressing one this morning, especially with the wintery air it boasted.

Demyx looked away from the wide window view at the kitchen, instead eyeing his own uneaten scrap of omelette set on the kitchen counter. Evidently Marluxia had left it there for him, as his roommate had disappeared from the place- presumably to his own room to get dressed and ready for the day ahead. Still dripping with shower water, Demyx didn't even bother getting dressed, instead approaching the omelette with greed. His stomach grumbled with need for good cooking, even if it did mean going about in only a towel in the frigid winter morning air.

"As much as I know you love going about half-naked dripping with water, I recommend you get dressed before you catch something," Marluxia remarked half-sarcastically, catching Demyx by surprise as he appeared just behind him, a tow of his patterned pyjamas and Demyx's own clothing in his arms as he headed for the washing machine. "We've got a day ahead."

End of prologue

A/N: How'd you like it? -is embarrassed-
To clarify things, this is set in the tropics, on an island city- which basically means that what they mean by 'winter' is basically 'balefuls of rain every other day' and what's not every other day is a balmy, humid, warm day anyway. Such is AZN tropical weathers!
Thank you so much for reading, leave a review if you liked it enough. -smiley face-