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vixey-chakraborty · 2 years ago

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A Loaded God Complex & [Vixxen]

In which Vixey and Drakken have a long overdue conversation...[takes place: mid-January]

@dr-drckken

[tw -- argument, intimidation, physical intimidation, threats]

DRAKKEN: Drakken had been standing in the kitchen, trying to think of something to do that wasn’t walking up the steps to get to the attic. He’d been starving off the urge just to go do something ever since Vixey had confirmed she would be coming over. After what happened on Halloween, aka forgetting he had made plans with his girlfriend that had not included taking over the world, Drakken had vowed that he wouldn’t do that again. Forget about her, that was. It had been an oversight on his part due to the fact that he never thought he’d have to include a significant other in his plans until after he achieved his goal. If that. His current circumstances were far better, though, so he wasn’t going to mess it up by continuing to think that way. The mistake had been made and it would never be made again.

Which was why he was staying out of the lab in the attic. He knew himself and he knew that if he talked himself into working on something, even if that was a little something, he would get stuck up there and probably not hear her knock or pay attention to his phone.

So he stood in the kitchen with dishes he had cleaned and put away. With food he had made. With surfaces he had scrubbed clean. There was nothing left to do but wait and Drakken had never learned how to be idle.

…

Maybe if he just-

The doorbell pinged. Thank goodness.

He pushed himself away from the counter, stumbling over the change from tile to wood as he left the kitchen, but made it to the door in one piece. Drakken pulled it open, grinning at the sight of Vixey standing there. He motioned for her to come inside, backing up instead of meeting her in the middle. “How was your day?”

VIXEY: Vixey was nervous.

Not about having a dinner/movie date with Drakken. That was fine. She was looking forward to it, but–she also wanted to…initiate…other things.

They had been dating for almost six months and she felt ready. Which was a nice feeling. An exciting feeling. Vixey wasn’t the kind of girl who hyperfocused on sex, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like it! And things had been admittedly weird for her the last few years, after losing Charlie but now…it was nice to feel kind of like a girl again. Fumbling her way through. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but also a bit thrilling.

Except–any time she’d tried so far, she’d been shut down. Not in so many words or anything. At first, she thought Drakken had just been wanting to go slow. Not rush things. Which Vixey was perfectly capable of! In fact, she had appreciated it. But now…it was starting to get a little weird. A little uncomfortable. And Vixey figured…she should just try to go for it.

Or they were going to have to do the adult thing and have a conversation. She was kind of hoping it didn’t get to that because Vixey would rather be doing than talking but…she could be mature about it…if she needed to be.

Anyway, anyway–

Sex with her boyfriend was what was on her mind and she knocked on the door and then smiled at him as she bustled inside, shivering from the cold.

“Good, boring.” Vixey placed her hand on his arm as she entered and leaned in to kiss his cheek in hello. “What about yours?” she asked as she started unwinding her scarf and hanging it up on the hook, her jacket and boots next.

DRAKKEN: “Ugh, terrible,” he told her, slumping forward a little. “We have a lab tomorrow so instead of actually paying attention to me telling them everything they need to do for preparing for it, they think it’s a free day to just slack off. Which inevitably means that tomorrow they’re going to spend the first half of the class asking questions that I already answered for them yesterday and then the second half trying to cram everything in before the end of the period. Or they’ll just make data up and their report on it will be complete and utter nonsense.”

Drakken shook his head, arms crossing over his chest as he was once again filled with frustration. Really, he shouldn’t have even cared at all. Why would he? He had no responsibilities to those brats. He had done his job and if they didn’t want to pay attention and blatantly try not to understand what was trying to be taught to them then they could go ahead and fail. Still, he was annoyed about it. Probably in the name of science. Or whatever.

Then he caught sight of Vixey again and remembered that she was here and his brain got a shot of chemicals that diluted the bad with a whole lot of good.

“I’m glad yours was good, though. What made it boring? Lack of people?” he asked, moving into the living room when she seemed to have everything off and settled by the door.

VIXEY: Vixey chuckled as Drakken launched into a tirade about his students. She didn’t fault him for it. After all, when she’d been a nurse, she’d complained all the time in the exact same way about her patients. How they refused medicine or were far too fussy or needy. It didn’t mean she didn’t like her job. She just…needed to rant about it from time to time. Get it out, so she could go back the next day and give her patients the best care possible.

It was probably the same with Drakken. She knew he cared about his students and them succeeding.

The whole thing actually served to relax her a little more, quite frankly. It was just very normal and typical and reminded her that things weren’t such a big deal. They’d be fine, her and Drakken, once they figured out this next piece of their relationship.

She was still a little nervous as she followed him into the living room, but she’d been here enough times to be familiar enough to flop onto the couch and sink into the cushions with a sigh.

“Yeah.” She picked at a loose thread and wrinkled her nose a bit. “I mean, we had a steady stream of customers and with the movie coming to town most likely, I am sure I’ll get an uptick.” She shrugged. She wasn’t super pleased about the movie, but she couldn’t deny that it might be a good financial move for the town as a whole.

“Ugh, whatever. I really don’t wanna think about it. What’s for dinner?”

DRAKKEN: He felt as though he had already known the answer Vixey was going to give him before she had even said it. Probably because she had said something to this effect ever since the first day he had come to help clean the shoppe after Halloween night. Not in the same way she had that day, when her emotions toward the place had been more on display and not hidden behind whatever it was that made her feel like she was bound to it. He could still hear it, though, peeking through.

Sometimes he thought about some sort of scheme to buy it out from under her, or plant something in the shoppe that would have the town evict her so she could have an easy out. But he also knew that if he did that there was a chance she would feel the need to bring it back from the grave because she was too nice to let it die without her.

It always made him want to say something. To tell her to stop wasting her time there if it was making her unhappy, but she would inevitably say something like she had now and distract him away from the topic.

“Soup,” he said, then pointed at her as he walked toward the kitchen. “You stay there, I’ll get it for you.”

When he returned it was with two sets of bowls, glasses of water, cutlery, and napkins. The only thing he had spilled was a bit of the broth onto his hand, which had hurt and he had made a sound to indicate so, by the time he made it back to set everything down on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

VIXEY: While Drakken disappeared into the kitchen, Vixey reached for the remote, pulling up the streaming services and choosing Drakken’s profile. They were actually logged into some of them on Vixey’s account. Modern love: sharing your streaming platform passwords. She flicked idly through the different choices as she waited—

When she heard a yelp, she perked go.

“Everything okay?” But Drakken didn’t respond. She just heard bustling again, so she relaxed.

It was funny how relaxed she felt. The whole way over here, she’d been buzzing with nerves, but now she remembered: everything was mostly fine. They’d figure out what was going on. Vixey would find out Drakken’s needs, communicate her own. Then, they’d be back on the same page. Better for it, even! It’d be all fine.

She smiled at him when he came back, sitting up. Black Panther 2 was pulled upon the screen. “I figured we could watch this? Al said it was good and I loved the first one,” she was saying as he hustled back in and set the food down.

“Thank you,” she told him. It smelled delicious. “Are you okay? I thought I heard something.”

DRAKKEN: Drakken stood up straight, wiping his hand off with the hem of his shirt, and squinting at the screen. He had never even heard of a first Black Panther let alone a sequel but he figured it couldn’t be terrible if the only good friend Vixey had given it praise and she had liked the other installment. And didn’t that guy own a store dedicated to selling movies or something?

“What?” he asked before his brain caught him up on what she had been saying. He turned, looking back down at her and then his expression opened up once more, “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I just split some.”

He lifted his hand away from his shirt for proof. It was okay, the skin was just blotched with red. Drakken would never admit to being a clutz but that is what he was. “Happens all the time. Whether it’s in the kitchen or the lab.”

“Angela Bassett? Oh, then it must be good,” he said, taking his seat on the sofa now. His first exposure to her had been watching Waiting to Exhale with his mother and he could still remember the closet rampage scene.

VIXEY: Vixey frowned as Drakken showed her his hand, but it didn’t look too serious. She tried to suppress her nursing instinct, which demanded he walk back over to the sink and run it under room temperature water for a few minutes. Not that even looked like a proper burn. Just irritated. Besides, he probably didn’t want her fussing over him. So, she just pursed her lips a bit and clucked her tongue.

“Be careful,” she told him. She knew Drakken was a bit klutzy. She didn’t mind really, but it did concern her sometimes. Considering the turnip allergy. And the time at prom when he’d somehow managed to get concussed. Maybe it was a good thing she was a nurse. Ex-nurse.

“Oh, yes. She’s very good in the first one. I think she’s supposed to have an even bigger role in this one.”

The credits rolled. The movie started. The soup drained from the bowls. The room darkened as the sun sank further and further away from them.

About halfway through the movie, Vixey leaned back into the couch. Ten minutes later, her heart thumping in her chest, she scooted a little closer to Drakken, put her hand on his thigh gently, rested her head on his shoulder. Held her breath. Told herself, if he didn’t move away, then it was all in her head and she was just being weird. Told herself, if he didn’t move away, maybe she could push her luck a little bit. Told herself: if he did pull away, then she was going to stop avoiding the issue and…say something. Do something. Talk about it. Like adults.

Ugh. She hoped he didn’t move away.

DRAKKEN: Drakken moved away.

He had been completely absorbed by the movie at this point since he had finally seemed to work out everything that was going on that he had missed given that this was a sequel. And not only a sequel but a moving part in a bigger machine of movies that Drakken had never paid much attention to. Superhero movies? Pah, like they deserved his viewing when it was inevitable that the so called antagonist had a more sympathetic cause to back just a lack of context for the viewer to actually understand who they were. This movie had that, in Drakken’s opinion, except he was also enthralled by the technology of it all and the main character’s conflict with her scientific mind versus the pain of loss.

It was very interesting, which was why he reacted so largely when he was yanked out of it by Vixey’s warm hand on his leg. His eyes unglued themself form the screen to peer down at it. He didn’t think there was any intention behind it, obviously they were in the middle of watching a movie, why would there be? She was probably just getting comfortable, and he doubted she would be able to find that against his shoulder.

Drakken picked her hand up with his own, intertwining their fingers in what was probably more like a cage rather than a welcoming, and sat forward so that he could take a pillow that was caught between him and the arm of the chair. When he resettled, putting that distance she had just closed between them back into place, he held the pillow out in front of her in offering, not speaking so as not to miss anything.

VIXEY: Okay…so…

It wasn’t in her head. Cool.

Vixey couldn’t ignore the stab of hurt she felt as Drakken shifted away from her. Extremely obviously. She opened her mouth to say something but he handed her a pillow. The gesture was so off-putting that Vixey just took it automatically and held it close to her.

There was a moment of silence, while Vixey just looked at Drakken, studying his face as he engrossed himself (whether that was real or fake, she couldn’t tell) in the movie. She didn’t want to say anything. She didn’t…

“Drakken…” She couldn’t not say anything.

He didn’t look at her.

“Drakken,” she said a little louder, a little clearer. Reaching forward, she paused the movie, looking at him in the blue glow of the television. “We need to talk.”

DRAKKEN: His brow furrowed, head finally turning so he could pin Vixey with a bemused expression, about to ask her why she’d stopped the movie when she hit him with the age old We need to talk.

Of course he had never had any first hand experience with that phrase, and especially not within a context of a romantic relationship, so the alarm bells did not go off in his head like maybe they should have. The only reason he thought she was serious was because of her tone. Drakken was a very oblivious person when it came to things that didn’t really matter to him, like people’s names or who the president of any given country was because one day they would cease to be relevant.

But Vixey mattered. She mattered a lot, so like any scientist he had observed her and taken down all the information he could so he could come to conclusions later down the road. Like now, when she was using that tone of voice and looking at him like that and saying that they needed to talk. He didn’t take it to be anything life altering, anything that couldn’t wait, and was half annoyed that she hadn’t wanted to talk before the movie had started but wasn’t going to say that.

“Okay,” he said, eyes cutting to the side and then back to her, hand gesturing for her to continue. “What about?”

VIXEY: Right, well--no going back now.

It would be a good thing, she told herself. They’d clear the air. It was probably just a misunderstanding. Or there was something in Drakken’s past that made physical connection difficult for him. Or, maybe, he just wasn’t interested in those sorts of things--physical forms of affection, kissing, sex. It was fine if that was the case but…Vixey hoped not, because she knew herself well enough to know that those sorts of things did matter to her in a relationship.

But--

She was getting ahead of herself.

Now that they were here, she thought she was so silly for thinking she could’ve just thrown herself at him tonight and this all would’ve gone away.

Instead, she sat up a little, turning to bring one of her legs up onto the couch so she was facing him properly. She reached out to touch his thigh again, just placing her hand there as a point of connection than anything else.

She felt his muscle twitch beneath her fingers.

“I want to talk about this…” Her gaze trailed down to her hand then back up to his face. “Sometimes…well, I’d--like to kiss you. I would like to do more than kiss you but every time I’ve tried to initiate something, you’ve pulled away. I thought it might be nerves or wanting to take things slow because of…everything.” Charlie. Their friendship. “But, it hasn’t gotten any better and…it’s starting to hurt my feelings. So.”

She took a deep breath. “I thought we should talk about it. Instead of me just making up things in my head to try and explain it away.”

DRAKKEN: He had not seen this coming at all and it took him a second, brain having to switch over from weird but interesting movie to my girlfriend wants to kiss me and then some. The expression on his face was nothing short of gobsmacked.

His first instinct, which was more of a learned response actually, was to defend himself and deny, deny, deny. All he had to do was turn the situation back around on her and keep himself out of the crosshairs. “I didn’t- I didn’t know. Why didn’t you say anything before it started to make you feel bad?”

As soon as he said it, he regretted it but that hadn’t meant that his need to protect himself had outweighed the want to protect her first. To himself he was rationalizing that he was, actually, keeping her safe. But that wasn’t true. He knew the real reason he was always the one stepping back when she stepped forward, and believe it or not, it wasn’t because he was a criminal. It was something he kept close to the chest.

Literally.

It would have been very easy to ball up Vixey’s offered proposal and throw it back at her. He would have done it with anyone else.

“I’m sorry. I never want to hurt your feelings,” was what he found himself saying instead. He grew nervous now, feeling like he had finally been backed into a corner he had never thought he would be in and didn’t have an escape plan for. Drakken looked down at her hand on his leg.

“It’s not…it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that-. It’s that-...It’s-” A sound of frustration left him, his useless tongue disobeying him as it continued to listen to his body rather than his mind, still wanting to protect itself. Drakken sighed. Fine, if he still needed evidence, then he would get it.

“Vixey, I need to know how you feel about me before I say anything further.” His gaze shot up to meet hers. “Be honest.”

VIXEY: Drakken lashed out and while it hurt, Vixey didn’t say anything. She just took a deep breath. She knew Drakken well enough to know that he was going to get defensive. Vixey didn’t blame him necessarily. It was a common response to learning that you had hurt someone. Not even Vixey was above it. And she did feel bad, maybe she should have worded it better, but she was hurt and that had made her words more clumsy than they might be normally.

So, she let him splutter and then, she waited, watching him as his shoulders relaxed a little. Her lips twtiched up in a comforting smile as she watched him think about what he might say next.

In the silence, Vixey had run through a thousand scenarios. Wondering if he really was just…not attracted to her. Maybe he really did just want to be friends but Vixey had run full steam ahead into this. But, no, she knew that wasn’t true. They’d talked about this. They’d both been rather rational. She knew that he cared about her. He showed it to her all the time. Just not--physically.

And then, her nurse brain kicked in. She wondered if it was something from his childhood. Vixey had picked up that he hadn’t had a great one. That it was perhaps lonely, isolated. That Drakken had maybe not had a lot of friends…but, maybe it was worse than that. Maybe something had happened that made him feel unsafe or too vulnerable.

The thought made her heart clench and she suddenly felt very silly for being so hurt. This could have nothing to do with her. Well, Drakken had been so good to her about all her problems. Listening to her. Being patient. She could do that for him too.

The question caught her off guard and it showed on her face as she blinked and then blushed, ducking her head somewhat. A little laugh escaped, butterflies from her stomach fluttering off in the sound. She squeezed his thigh. This wasn’t where she had seen this conversation going, but she wasn’t afraid to say it. She knew how she felt.

“I care about you, Drakken. Benjamin.” She looked up, meeting his gaze. Her heart was beating so loud that she could hear it in her ears. It had been such a long time since she’d felt this way. Maybe she never had. Things had been so much different with Charlie. At first, she had thought maybe that was a bad thing, but she didn’t think so anymore. It was just different. The feeling was still strong, though, she was still sure of it.

“I want to care about you more, but I feel like--there is so much I don’t know. So much…we haven’t talked about. I can…feel myself really falling for you. I think we’re good together. I appreciate you and I want to keep you in my life, even if you don’t want to--be physical or can’t be. You’re important to me.”

DRAKKEN: While she answered he didn’t move, barely blinked, was simply observing. Then he breathed, body decompressing as if those words were a keycode she had punched in to unlock the door. It may have looked like relief or it may have looked like what it was, fear.

He knew she meant that and this wasn’t some ploy or oddly long joke. It couldn’t be.

So it meant the only thing he had been holding against her this whole entire time, the thing that he hadn’t given out to anyone since Sarina. The person he employed to both do the heavy lifting and keep him from harm, and had proven to be worthy of it several times over. Though he would never admit that to her. Then again, he didn’t really have to.

Here, he did. Here, he would. Because Vixey did and so would Drakken now that he knew for sure. The evidence was right there, in her words and in the way she was looking at him. Finally his mind and body seemed to have an understanding of one another and this situation they were faced with. Vixey could be trusted with this and he knew she wasn’t going to laugh at him. At least, not in the way that everyone else he thought cared about him had.

Drakken smiled, eyes flickering over her face with a new sense of adoration, feeling giddy. “I know! I know, and I’m going to fix that. You’re very important to me, too, Vixey, probably the most important! Er, don’t tell mother I said that. And-and I do! Want to, that is. But I’ve been keeping something from you because…well there’s a lot of reasons but mostly I just didn’t want to freak you out!”

He shook his head, raising a hand to keep her from saying anything. A little noise of finality left him as he got his train of thought on the correct track for this. “I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to tell you a story. Funny story- well, not funny haha, but! It was a Tuesday. I was doing an experiment after…oh maybe 49 hours of not sleeping, which at the time wasn’t all that difficult seeing as I was 18.

“I was trying to create a substance that could be administered as a gas and then solidify within only a few seconds. One of my tests didn’t go as planned, I got the mixture incorrect and it exploded. Right in front of me. That’s how I got this,” he said, then pointed to the scar under his left eye, running under the socket and just above the cheekbone. Where a pair of glasses would have sat. Drakken hesitated before the hand he was using fell, and touched his chest. “And another. The substance that had been left behind after the addition of the heat, the majority of it got embedded in my chest and over time it multiplied. As a result, apart from the major scarring from both the wound and the resulting surgery, I’m blue.”

VIXEY: Vixey felt the relief as Drakken spoke, reassuring her that it was all in her head. The fact he might not like her, that was. That she might’ve pushed him into a relationship when he really just wanted to be friends. But no, she should’ve known just to ask. Drakken was closed off and didn’t open up easily, but he never lied to her. If she asked, he always answered. She appreciated that about him. It didn’t have to be a guessing game. Vixey had just…she wasn’t sure—maybe it was her who had been a bit too timid?

Who had been okay with the way things had been going, until she suddenly wasn’t anymore. And that wasn’t Drakken’s fault. They both had a lot of baggage, that was clear enough. Vixey with Charlie. Drakken with…his childhood? Whatever was going on.

But, they were getting back on the same page now. She was glad he said what he did (the most important), before he launched into his tale. It let her listen with an open mind, with no more worry or anxiety. Or, well, about their relationship anyway. When it came to what he was about to say…she was still a bit wary about that. If only because it sounded very serious.

She listened quietly. Smiling a little, imagining young, brilliant Drakken at his experiments. She was a science person too, though these days it was hard to picture maybe. It wasn’t hard to picture Drakken, though. She wondered, vaguely, why his mother had let him around such clearly dangerous ingredients. That wasn’t the point, though. It wasn’t important.

Her eyes fell onto his scar as he mentioned it, a split second before he explained—anticipating it. She’d always wondered what had happened, though obviously she wasn’t going to ask.

She frowned, her gaze following his hand to his chest. It sounded horrible. She wasn’t worried about any scarring. That’d be silly, though…she was a bit curious, lingering on the spot Drakken indicated before looking back up at him.

Blue, he’d said. I’m blue.

Vixey had a feeling he wasn’t being hyperbolic. But it was still such a strange thing to say. A strange phenomenon in general.

“I am sorry that happened. I am glad you’re okay. And I don’t mind about any scarring,” she told him after a money of searching his gaze. She could tell he was worried about telling her. Did he really think some sort of physical scarring or malformation was going to put her off? She supposed it was nice to have a heads up, so she wasn’t surprised if and when she saw him with his shirt off but—it didn’t matter, that she was confident of.

“And I don’t mind about you…being blue either.” At least, she didn’t think she did… “I just—is it okay if I ask you…what you mean by that? Did your skin get…stained in certain places or…?” She knew that could happen. If you stabbed yourself with a led pen, the spot became gray and never really went away. And scar tissue could be all sorts of colors: red, pink, white, yellow…maybe even blue. Her own scientific, nursing brain started rolling through the possibilities as she waited for his explanation.

DRAKKEN: This both exhilarating and terrifying to be discussing with someone in an actual conversation rather than them breaking off into bits of giggles and laughter. Even his doctor, who he had gone to after tracking the blue’s growing trajectory over the pigment of his skin, had not been able to keep it together. He knew it was outlandish but still, he couldn’t even ask the professional in the situation to be steady when his whole self image was falling apart? That’s when he had taken it upon himself to just embrace it instead.

Until he had gotten out of jail and had needed to get out of the country. Only then had it occurred to him that being blue made it far too easy for the authorities to pick him out of any line up. That they wouldn’t even need a line up!

“Yes, yes, you can ask me anything,” he said, flippant, like it was almost annoying of her to check in. “But, no, it’s not just in certain places. It’s everywhere. Or, it would be, but I managed to create a solution for myself, since no medical professional would actually help me in that regard. It can keep the cells that produce the melanin from making it blue, so long as I continue to take it in the given time frames. Especially after a long time in the sun. It’s why I’m not right now.”

And, yes, there was plenty of pride and ego infused with this explanation of dosing himself with his own homemade drugs. Drakken thought it would impress her. She’d been a nurse, after all, wouldn’t she think some form of self medication to be brilliant?

“But the initial point of impact is always blue since the amount of the medicine I would need to take to get that to go away would probably kill me. It’s just a theory, but not one I’ve been willing to test,” he said with a touch of frustration at himself. Then Drakken sat up, thinking it probably best now to show her. For evidence, of course. To let her know that he wasn’t just talking nonsense. “Here.”

His fingers worked quickly over the buttons of his shirt, one by one they came apart until he could shrug it off his shoulders. Then he reached behind to grab the collar of the undershirt where it sat at the back of his neck, pulling it up and over his head, so he could put both shirts to rest over the arm of the chair. Drakken turned back to Vixey, shoulders pulled back, to show her what exactly he was referring to.

There was a series of scars that littered his skin, most of them having faded since they were the result of glass or metal being embedded from the explosion and had been removed. Those were merely raised, almost blended into the otherwise natural color of his skin, just paler in comparison. The noticeable ones were closer to the center, raised and much more noticeable, but not as much as the one from the surgery itself. It ran from near the top of his sternum between the clavicles all the way to the bottom of it, as the thing had shattered in the middle from taking the brunt of the impact and they had needed to get inside to remove anything dangerous and to wire the bone back together so it would heal properly. The tissue itself was blue and since this was nearing the end of the day, when he had yet to take more medicine since the morning, the color was spreading a few inches out. Enough to be down his stomach and reaching off toward the anterior axillary lines on either side.

VIXEY: Vixey didn’t take offense to him being a bit dismissive of her asking. He was probably flustered and defensive, she understood. She could see this was something he kept closely guarded. That he was insecure about. She understood that too. How it could be something that would make you feel…embarrassed. Vixey honestly didn’t know how she’d feel about it, once she saw it properly, but she told herself it wouldn’t matter. Drakken was still Drakken.

It wasn’t like he’d revealed himself to be a dangerous Magick. She didn’t know if she could handle something like that. But a bit of blue skin? A bit of strangeness? Unconventionality? She thought she should be fine to handle something like that.

She was going to ask if he was sure the medicine was safe--the nurse in her kicking in and suddenly growing concerned but…

Drakken started unbuttoning his shirt and so she didn’t say anything and she didn’t try to stop him. She couldn’t help that she was curious. Besides, she wanted to prove that it didn’t bother her. To him. And also to herself. Plus, this had been the whole point of this conversation, eh? Getting Drakken out of his clothes.

Not exactly how she’d imagined it but--oh well.

When he tugged off his undershirt and turned back to her, she couldn’t help but suck in an audible breath through her teeth. Not because it surprised her or anything, but just because it looked like it hurt. It was a sound of sympathy, her brow twisting the same way her stomach did at the thought of what it must’ve been like when it happened. She could imagine having seen a boy eighteen year old boy wheeled into the hospital with such a ghastly wound. The knotted scar tissue told the story.

The more she looked at it the more she could see that story--the pieces that had been smaller, easier to get out. The pieces that had been embedded. The difference between the surgical scars and the stitches. And, more than all of that: the blue.

Vixey reached up a hand and touched the edge of the blue, near his ribs. Her fingers traced up softly and her gaze moved to Drakken’s face.

“I am glad you showed me,” she told him with a little smile. She leaned in a little, waiting to see if he’d pull away. When he didn’t, she closed the distance and kissed him softly.

“You know,” she said, when she pulled away. “There is a god with blue skin. Vishnu. The creator and protector of the universe. He is one of the most powerful and important gods in Hinduism.”

DRAKKEN: He gave a little huff at the feeling of her hand against his skin and then tried to cover it up by clearing his throat. The last thing he needed was Vixey also realizing he was ticklish in a moment like this. Talk about embarrassing.

His eyes never left her face, trying to gauge her reaction and what she was thinking. More importantly he was waiting, as patiently as someone with a fuse as short as Drakken’s was, for her to say something! About the incident, to ask another question, to pay some sort of compliment to the way he had been able to bypass the medical and pharmaceutical companies that ran the world these days…something! At his side, his fingers drummed against the couch cushion. The skin on his arms had started to rise with goose bumps. He attributed it to the cold instead of the way Vixey’s fingers were moving across his skin.

Skin that had not been touched by anyone but his own hands since he had left the doctors office for the last time, vowing to take matters into his own hands.

Finally, when she did say something, it wasn’t what he expected. Neither was the kiss. But this kiss he allowed himself to press forwards into it, something he had not done with as much enthusiasm since the first kisses they had shared in the rain and mud and electrically charged air from the lightning that kept striking down around them that evening. Not what he expected but what he needed. The fidgeting hand lifted to cup her face, fingers brushing against her hair.

Drakken let her pull away, eyes now hyper focused on her mouth in the way he had always caught himself doing and had to tear away before he allowed himself to think about it, her, for too long. It didn’t matter anymore, though, those restraints were no longer necessary. He fully believed that Vixey was the one for him, that he could be any measure of honest and vulnerable with her and there would be nothing but welcoming affection waiting for him on the other side.

This is what spurred him on. This toxic cocktail that had been poured together there in the living room, of the care and acceptance, the gentle touch of her lips or hand or eyes against his person, and the additional boost to the ego, made him feel like he could finally be entirely himself with her. Something he never was with anyone else besides himself.

“I’m glad I did, too,” he grinned, the edges of it taking on a looser quality. The grip his hand had on her face went from gentle, barely there, to very present. His fingers curled a bit too tight, not enough to hurt but to press into her skin before he was letting her go so he could articulate with it as he spoke. “But there’s more I need to tell you! So much more! I don’t even know where to begin! I’ve never had to outside of when I have someone hostage or something, but that’s more for intimidation rather than informative-”

Drakken pushed himself up from the couch, reaching back for his undershirt to pull it on. He was talking under it, words muffled as his arms struggled to find the proper outlet. Eventually his head popped out, “-cked me for my ideas! Everywhere I went, be it the teachers in high school or my very own peers. I know it was because they were annoyed that a mere 12 year old was doing circles around them. Then I went to college, you see, and I thought I had finally found my people! My posse. Friends. But no, they laughed at me, too. They called me crazy, called my ideas ridiculous! Well they were ridiculous, all wanting to go meagerly into the workforce with nothing to show for themselves or their names.

“So I wanted to show them that I am a genius! Because I am! I’ve proven that to you countless times, I mean who else would have been able to fix that horrible sprinkler system your family has other than me?” He had taken to pacing now, back and forth in front of the television that was languidly showing the resting screen. Drakken smiled at her as he spoke, stopping right in front of her so he could drop down to his haunches and take her hands in his. He squeezed in what some would call enthusiastic. Others would call it scary. “And I will show them. I have plans, I’ve been working on it since I left school, but I’m getting closer! Everyday I get closer! Soon I’ll be able to take over the world and prove to everyone who ever dared laugh at me that I, Dr. Drakken, am better than them!”

VIXEY: Vixey smiled at Drakken’s touch and his enthusiasm, her whole body tingled in the aftermath of the kiss. His hand was warm, fingers callous against her cheek. This was what she had been wanting and waiting for this whole time. It felt perfect. She felt happier than she had in a very long time. For just a moment, she could see a future with Drakken rolling out in front of her. The energy had shifted, she felt it. Drakken’s walls had finally come down and now she was going to get to see the man behind them. The one that she had only managed glimpses of until now. And she felt her own affection for him reciprocated, totally. The way she hadn’t for the last few months. It was a nice feeling. Electric, in its way. She had missed it. Or, maybe, she’d never felt it before. How she felt for Drakken was very different than how she’d felt from Charlie. It was a good feeling, though. She could relax now and enjoy this relationship the way she’d been wanting to.

This was what she had been hoping for. Now, her friends would be able to see what she saw and they could move forward in a productive way…

She laughed as he grew more animated, the floodgates apparently having opened. It was exciting to watch. Seeing Drakken come alive in a way she’d seen him do before when he was ranting, of course, but now it was all affection and excitement.

“Wait--what,” Vixey said as Drakken pushed up off the couch.

Had he just said hostage?

Vixey felt like she’d just missed a step on the stairs. Or she was following an entirely different script. Hers had a page ripped out of it. What had just happened?

She had misheard. Obviously. Or--he meant it metaphorically. Holding someone hostage while he ranted sounded like a very Drakken thing to do…

Again, she laughed, though, this time a little more uncomfortable, trying to shake off whatever that was, as she watched him struggle with his shirt. She turned on the couch so she could watch him better. At first, she frowned a little, hearing him recount his childhood. Of course, she did know that Drakken was smart. Wicked smart. He’d proven it to her over and over. She liked it about him. Intelligent men were sexy, in her opinion. But, it was horrible that people had treated him poorly because of…jealousy or their own insecurities and that it had affected Drakken so much.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Drakken just kept going…

And suddenly, it felt like Vixey was sinking down into mud. She felt nervous. Like Drakken had just yanked the steering wheel into oncoming traffic with no regard for her safety. She didn’t know what it was--why that dread was suddenly dripping down her spine as she tracked Drakken pacing back and forth over the floor. Maybe it was the slightly manic look in his eye. Or the clear anger with which he was speaking, disguised as something triumphant but--

When he knelt down in front of her again, Vixey suddenly felt as if she was looking at a different person. It wasn’t the blue that had done it at all…but all the rest.

He grabbed her hands, crushing the bones and ligaments together and making her wince, but she smiled too, trying to sort out her thoughts. He had just thrown a lot at her and she wasn’t sure where it was heading or what he was talking about.

Until he spelled it out for her.

“What?” Vixey said, her brow furrowing again at him, her gaze searching his. “Drakken, what are you talking about?” She tried to pull her hands away.

DRAKKEN: His smile diminished at feeling her pull away but only a little. He knew it was a lot to take in! After all this time lying to her about being a simple high school teacher or whatever, he knew! All she would need was to process the information, to see that he was better than the person he had told her he was. That he was actually quite worthy of this god of hers she had compared him to.

Her reaction was not quite what he had been hoping for out of the gate but it was also what he had been expecting. A bit of hesitation, a bit of confusion, but he didn’t doubt her. Not anymore. She was better than anyone he had ever come across! She had said that she cared about him and, further more, she had meant it. So much so that she had been willing to accept that he was blue. Torn apart, put back together, and stained a color that was not natural. She had taken that very easily! Now all she had to do was understand him completely. Drakken knew she could, that she wanted to even!

This was what she had asked of him, after all. That want to know him better? This was it. This was him.

Drakken let her hands go in favor of placing his hands on her shoulders, thumbs running over the fabric of her shirt. “I’m talking about the things that we haven’t talked about! The things that need to be put on the table in order for us to move forward with- with us. I’ve always known you were quite perceptive when it came to emotions, that much became clear not long after I had met you. And I never imagined that anyone would care enough to know mine as well as you have! I mean you worked out that I was holding something back from you, even after all this time, all that I’ve already shared.

“Really, Vixey, I know you find yourself bored at that shop of yours, and I don’t blame you. That’s how I was, too. But now that you know, I can open far more doors for you. Doors that I doubt you even knew existed. Not to mention, with your people skills? My brilliance? We’d be- how do people in the media put it? Mighty Duos? Thew Duplets?” Drakken frowned at himself, pulling his hands away from her person completely to place one on his chin, sitting back on his heels. Then he waved it, shaking his head.

“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you’d be at my side! I didn’t think it was possible before but I know now. My attempts haven’t been fruitful in the past, obviously, and I have been worrying that since entering a relationship with you that my focus has not been where it needs to be but now that you know, that you understand, I won’t have to hide anything from you anymore! It’s such a relief!”

VIXEY: Drakken was serious.

He was talking like some mad supervillain on television. The whole thing was so surreal. She just wanted to wake up. This was just a bad dream, brought on by her sorry that Drakken was holding back or didn’t care about her. And maybe her own commitment issues…

But all of this was too real. Vixey never dreamed with this much detail. That expression on Drakken’s face was one she’d never seen before. Bright and feverish with ambition. Any other time she might find that sort of thing attractive but—

How could she when he was talking about taking over the world. Hurting people.

Her stomach twisted in a knot as something inside her asked: am I in danger? Her heart skipped a beat, then picked up in double time. She needed to consider this carefully. As much as she wanted to just leave. To get away and clear her head…she suddenly didn’t know what she was dealing with. Who she was dealing with. The heart break could come later. Right now, she needed to get out of here.

“Drakken, I—what you’re talking about…it will hurt people,” she tried to reason with him. “I-I can’t be part of that. I took an oath.” Okay, maybe the Hippocratic Oath didn’t exactly apply here, but maybe she could appeal to his logical, scientific sensibility.

“You don’t—we don’t have to do this. Can’t we just be happy with our little…corner of things? That’s all I want.” Tears filled her eyes. It was all she had wanted. Now, she didn’t think there would be any coming back from this.

DRAKKEN: With that his smile grew smaller, the edges of it turning warmer and all of it to do with the affection he had for the woman sitting in front of him. Always so kind, thinking of others. It was admirable that she chose to cling to that notion but Drakken knew better.

“Sure, but it won’t be anyone who didn’t deserve it. It’s not like I’m- I mean I won’t be hurting anyone whose, I don’t know, hanging around in their suburban life and going ideally on. Besides, it isn’t like people aren’t getting hurt everyday by the people that run the world anyway!” he dismissed. His belief in her acceptance of him had not yet diminished. Drakken knew she was just getting used to the idea and that he could convince her. It wouldn’t be difficult.

“You can even help those people if you want, we’d have the resources at that point since all the people at the top would fork them over,” Drakken said and chuckled at the thought of it. The big wigs could all be thrown to the bottom for all he cared. Then the people who had wronged him in life would get to see him at the very tip top. With a girlfriend, even.

Huh. He’d never thought about that. Getting to prove his genius and show that he had a girlfriend? All the better since his robot dates he had constructed for his friends, now enemies, had been the point of the breakage between them all. Or rather, the point they had decided to show their true selves to him. Drakken would be able to rub being the ruler of the world in their face and having a beautiful woman who cared about him at his side! This made him all the more excited.

“You’re not thinking about the bigger picture! After I’ve got the world at their knees we can have any corner of it! You can choose,” he told her. “You won’t have to be stuck anymore! You’ll be able to do whatever you want. I promise!”

VIXEY: “That’s not the point, Drakken! You’d be just as bad as any of those other men!” Vixey got up off the couch now, if only to put distance between them. She didn’t want to look at his face, at that soft sweet smile that under any other circumstance would melt her like butter.

But how could she when he was talking like this? Trying to…implement her in this?

Her hands were shaking as she ran a hand through her hair. Adrenaline was coursing through her, still feeling on high alert. Like she was suddenly in a room with a stranger and not--her boyfriend of six months. She was still reeling from this turn around. Maybe that was why she was still here. There was a part of her that didn’t believe it.

Maybe she could still convince him.

“Does it still matter so much?” she tried. It was her last ditch effort before she ran out the bloody door and never looked back. And if not for herself…maybe for the whole world. Because who knew what the hell Drakken had stashed in his lab. Some sort of unstable experiment? Something truly dangerous? What if he really was close to something…

Vixey forced herself to take a step closer, her hands on Drakken’s chest, petting there gently. “You’ve got me now. Your--friends here. Isn’t that enough? You don’t need the whole world. W-we have this corner of it.”

DRAKKEN: Drakken continued to sit there after Vixey had stood, eyes on the place she had once been as he tried to understand why she didn’t understand. Finally, using the couch to press himself up, he stood, too and turned to face her. He let her speak, not interrupting, and watched as she came closer.

He didn’t get it. Why was she trying to convince him against this? Weren’t people in relationships supposed to support the other person’s goals and dreams? And this had been his for…for years now! All for, what? For her? His friends? He didn’t have any friends. Not really. He never had. That was the whole reason he had thought of this solution to his problems. The ultimate solution to any problem.

“Of course it matters,” he said, voice taking on an edge now. That confidence he had in her had started to crack. The longer she resisted, the more she tried to argue, the more it began to spread. Like a spider’s web weaving along the surface, fracturing. “What I need is to prove myself to anyone who ever thought I was incapable. To show them that they were wrong about me and to let them know that I was smarter than them this whole time.”

His hand came up to press over one of hers on his chest, holding it there in place. He searched her eyes, brow slowly knitting together at what he thought he saw in her face. Suddenly his grip on her grew tighter again. This time it was not with the intent to comfort or because he was over excited, not taking account of his strength.

This time it was to hold her in place.

“Do you not think I can do it?”

VIXEY: Drakken sounded insane.

Vixey tried to stay away from that word. She knew the connotations. Knew it was bad to say or think about people but she meant it honestly: he was clinically insane. He was so consumed by vengeance, by feeling slighted by people that he was…literally delusional.

She started to cry, feeling her heart splitting into pieces. If Drakken’s confidence was the web, she was the fly caught in it. Her heart was pounding now as his hand enclosed around hers. Again, he squeezed and she winced. This time, though, on instinct, she tried to pull away. Drakken kept ahold of her.

“Drakken, let go of me,” she tried to say firmly but her voice was wobbling.

“I-it has nothing to do with whether I think you can do it. You--you shouldn’t do it. I don’t want you to do it.” The tears fell, hot down her cheeks. “I don’t want to be part of it.”

DRAKKEN: The first “No,” came out softly on an exhale of breath, like she had struck him. It felt like she had. It felt like she had done worse. Familiar yet foreign was the sting of betrayal on his heart, so long had it been since he had let anyone close enough to cause such a fatal blow. He had let her in for barely a blink of an eye and there she was, having done the most damage than anyone he could remember.

Probably because he had fully believed her incapable of hurting him let alone to do it on purpose.

The second “No,” came out louder. It was followed by the rapid fire of the third, fourth, and fifth, a little shake of his head was the sixth. These were in mourning, in despair.

His hand slipped down hers, fingers wrapping around her wrist, holding it away from him as if she held a knife between her own and he was trying to keep her from using it again.

“You’re just like them! You’re exactly like everyone else. I thought you were different! I thought you cared about me! Believed in me! I thought we-!” Drakken stopped, shoulders settling as he let out a rattling breath. His jaw became tight, warm eyes turning to steel with a glare. It might have even been intimidating had they not also been watery, tears threatening to leak from the corners. “Fine. When the time comes, you can be among the rest who doubted me.”

Using her wrist he pulled her a touch closer so he could loom over her. The sight of her tears were able to still cut through to him, causing more pain to already brutally severed edges that had been pulled apart. It managed to make his expression fall, the urge to comfort her on the tip of his tongue, before he picked it back up under the realization that she wasn’t crying for him, she was crying for herself.

“Keep in mind that I am capable of a great deal. You’re lucky I respect your family enough to let you return to them tonight,” he told her, the threat blatant. Drakken then threw her arm away from him, stepping away, back turning. “Get out! Before I change my mind!”

VIXEY: Drakken didn’t let go.

That was all Vixey could think about. All the training she had been given as a nurse: how to talk people down from manic or psychotic episodes, how to defend herself--she couldn’t remember any of it. Because Drakken wasn’t some stranger in an A&E award. He was her boyfriend. Someone she cared about.

Had cared about.

Her other hand came up, pressing against his wrist, trying to get him to let go, but instead, he just jerked her closer. She had always known Drakken was strong, but it was never anything she’d paid much attention to before. Even when he yelled at her before, when they’d gotten into fights, because there had been plenty of those. She had never been scared of him.

Now, she felt it and she realized--he was much stronger than her. She froze, realizing that was probably the best defense. Anything she did. Anything she said would probably only set him off further.

Her breath shuddered shallow in her chest. Her gaze searched his as he threatened her, looking for any sign the Drakken she knew existed at all. She didn’t find any.

When he threw her away, Vixey stumbled to the side, catching herself on the arm of the chair. She stood for a moment, shock washing over her--part of her still thought that she was going to wake up from some bad dream. She had just fallen asleep while watching the movie and would wake up to Drakken not-so-gently shaking her shoulder, impatient and chiding her for missing part of the movie.

But her wrist was throbbing and this felt too real for something she might dream. Vixey had never been that creative.

Drakken barked at her to get out and Vixey flinched. She gave one more second to glance over Drakken, the line of his shoulders, the way his hair was still mussed at the back from having been slouching against the couch. Her heart clenched. Then, she turned, barely stopping to grab her purse. She left her shoes and jacket behind as she fled into the cold winter night.

#swyndrakken #vixxen #a loaded god complex #(COCKED AND PULL IT) (DOWN DOWN (WE'RE GOING DOWN DOWN))#I'LL BE YOUR NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET #otp: i can make him better; i can make her worse #im just gonna leave this here

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vixey-chakraborty · 2 years ago

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The One with the Heads Up & [Vixxen and F.R.I.E.N.D.S.]

In which Vixey, Drakken, Jun, Al, and Tiana celebrate Vixey’s 30th birthday...[takes place: September 8th]

@dr-drckken, @moon-yeongjun, @alzcomicbarn, @truitt-story

[tw -- none? insecurity lmfao]

VIXEY: "I just wanted to say thank you all," Vixey said to the table, where everyone was getting seated. Her mama was bringing over the main dish. Her brothers were already ready to tuck in. Her papa was still in the kitchen, fixing his wife a drink. And some of Vixey's best friends were seated around the table.

"For coming tonight. I've really appreciated all of you the last year and I am just--very grateful to all of you. Now, please, tuck in!" she instructed as she sat down herself.

"Can't believe I am a whole decade older," she chuckled.

JUN: Of course Jun had come!

It had been a little tricky, but thankfully, he had two strapping young men to hold down the Moon Market front, supervised by Eomma. Tae was home, watching the girls. Was Jun still a little anxious about all these moving parts-- yes, yes he was-- but Vixey had had a big year and he wanted to support her too. He'd just not stay for dessert, to free Eomma and make sure he could close the store.

"It sneaks up on you," said Jun, nodding, as he was already thirty. "But you know, I like my thirties. I barely remember my 20s to be fair, it was mostly medical school anyway, hm? Now this is like your fresh start."

TIANA: Maybe it was just the emotional rollercoaster that August had been, but Tiana found herself getting a little misty-eyed. Vixey had been there for her through some really tough stuff. And she really wanted her to know how much she appreciated her. So she'd been able to finagle an evening off, handing the reigns over to Angie (and, thankfully, Candace and Vanessa were back now too).

"I'm excited for you, Vixey," Tiana smiled. She lifted her glass and looked around the table. "To Vixey, yeah? An amazing friend. And sister and daughter. Just the best."

AL: "Thirties are the best!" said Al. "Haven't you heard? Thirties are the new twenties." He let out a hearty laugh and raised his glass, clinking it against Tiana's, since she was the closest to him.

"To Vixey!"

DRAKKEN: Drakken, uncharacteristically, said nothing to any of this from where he sat at the table. That was, closer to the Chakraborty’s than any of the other people here who were Vixey’s friends. What was he supposed to say? The way he had spent his 20’s, and not 30’s, was nothing these people could relate to or would probably approve of. And, as he had vowed not to do, he didn’t want to embarrass Vixey in front of them.

Especially on her birthday.

He had already been drinking from his glass when the toast was proposed and stumbled to pull it away from his face and meet the glasses that were in front of him, cheeks ballooning before he harshly swallowed down.

VIXEY: Vixey didn't actually care too much about turning thirty. Except that she had just...thought she'd be in a different place in her life. Married. With children. And she had had half of that. And lost it. Which was more than what most people could say at her age. It was all very strange and awkward, but she was coming to find that...life was like that.

The toast made her blush. She giggled and raised her glass as well, taking a sip and feeling her heart near-bursting from the gratitude and warmth of the people around the table.

It had been a rough few years, but she felt at home here.

"Thanks everyone, that makes me feel better. Less old."

"You're not old," scoffed Farhan, her eldest brother. She wrinkled her nose at him.

"What do we think about a game after dinner? Maybe charades or, uh, what's that one where you put something on your forehead and people ahve to guess?"

JUN: Jun drank, and then his nose wrinkled at the suggestion of a game. Aish, he always hated such things. His family stuck to watching movies together mostly. Games got too competitive too fast. Tae and Star always ended up fighting to the death if they tried.

"Eh, do we have an even amount of people for that?" Jun wondered. He cast his eye around the table. "One, two, three, four... you got to get in pairs you know...five--six..."

TIANA: Tiana laughed. Leave it to Jun to overthink. She didn't really care what they did; she was having fun either way. Though she did feel the need to assert her bestie status. "I call Vixey as my partner!" she announced, blowing a kiss in her friend's direction and giggling.

AL: "Aw, well we don't wanna leave Drakken out!" said Al. He wanted to make sure that Vixey's new beau fit in with the friend group! Also, for some reason he felt like Drakken was a kindred spirit -- a fellow outsider! He gave the other man a thumbs up. "He should be with Vixey -- keep the lovebirds together, eh? Tiana, you can be with me. I'm so good at this game -- we're gonna kill it!"

DRAKKEN: This was familiar territory! Everyone picking partners and there Drakken was, sitting in his chair waiting until he could ask the teacher if he could just do it by himself. Except this wasn’t something he could do alone. He wished he had dragged Sarina along now. Vixey had brought her friends, why couldn’t he?

Even if it was her birthday party!

Only, to his surprise, someone stuck up for him. His eyebrows arched on his forehead and he looked over at…what was that guy’s name again? Art? Ahhh- L? Al? He mirrored the gesture, then turned to look at Vixey to see who she would side with.

VIXEY: Oh. Oh right.

Shoot. Maybe she should have suggested something that didn't have partners. Like...Monopoly! Her gaze darted from Tiana to Al to Drakken, then back to Tiana. Part of her wanted to try and gauge her reaction, but her gaze skittered away, towards Drakken--who was uncharacteristically quiet, probably trying to gauge her reaction. And she didn't want to let him down or--act like she was embarrassed by him. She wasn't!

She just--hadn't had time to tell Tiana about them yet.

"We can play several rounds!" she said, smiling first at Drakken than the table at large. "That way we can all switch up partners. Or a different game, because Jun is right. We don't have an even number."

JUN: Jun scowled when Al had picked Tiana and not him. Ah, such was life, wasn't it! Now, if he had brought a date, maybe he wouldn't be last. That's how life worked. Always in couples. See, Vixey and Drakken just proved it, coupling up right away because, well, you couldn't blame them, that was just the way the world worked and.

"It's fine, it's fine, if you all want to play it," Jun waved his hand, not even noticing Tiana's shocked expression about anything at all. "I can always sit out."

TIANA: Lovebirds?

That was a joke, right? Tiana laughed uncomfortably. It was a joke about Drakken's obvious weird crush on Vixey. Tiana honestly had been confused about why she'd invited him in the first place, but whatever, maybe they were friends and it was okay to have a crush on your friends sometimes, and considering Vixey hadn't told Tiana anything about having a literal "lovebird," there was no way it was reciprocal, right?

Not that there was anything wrong with it being reciprocal (okay, Tiana still thought it was weird, and she didn't think she liked this guy, and she thought Vixey could do a lot better. But not the point.) If Vixey really liked him, Tiana would have supported her. But if they were actually together and Vixey hadn't told her?

The weirdest part of all was that nobody else seemed shocked. Al was already moving on, and Vixey was giving Drakken some reassuring smile, and Jun was scowling like he knew what was going on.

Maybe it wasn't a joke.

Did everyone know but her?

Her expression froze, and she laughed awkwardly through her teeth again. "...Uh, am I missing something here?"

AL: "It's cuz it's a partnered game, Tiana.," said Al, who had completely misinterpreted what Tiana said.

"But Jun, I don't wanna leave you out! We can totally switch to something with teams instead. Like charades! So we'll have an uneven number, but I think we can make it work. Oh! Have you guys ever played Codenames? It's really fun. I think I have it in my car, actually, since I was going through the Barn cabinet before this. You're like a spy and you try to get your team to guess words by using other words -- wait, it's better if you play it."

DRAKKEN: Drakken resisted the urge to roll his eyes and this may as well have been his trek up Mount Everest as far as endurance and physical effort went. Sitting here, listening to these people talk among themselves made him wonder if they were even friends at all. Seriously, they couldn’t even decide on a game to play?

Although, whatever this Al guy was talking about seemed interesting even if Drakken had no idea what it was. Also, he didn’t want to sit around here asking more questions and letting the night go to waste on all their yammering. “Sure! Let’s do that.”

VIXEY: The boys talked. Vixey didn't really pay attention to them. She was looking at Tiana. Or--everywhere but Tiana. Or...kind of both. She was flitting her gaze around uncomfortably.

Maybe she should just follow Al's lead and ignore what was happening. Or she should just come clean, but the conversation had moved on and now it would be awkward. Her gaze finally landed on Jun, eyes widening, just slightly--indicating: help.

Harish, who was sitting next to Tiana, arm stretched across the back of her chair, laughed a little. "Did you not get the memo? Drakken managed to finally get up the guts to get with Vixey. After we watched them moon over each other for like a year. Right, Farhan?"

"I'm not getting involved," Farhan said and took a bite of his dinner.

"Harish, don't tease your sister," chided their father.

JUN: Er-- what was happening right now?

Jun didn't know. Jun was busy grumbling and feeling lonely while sitting in a room of people who were supposed to be his friends, spiraling off about how soon Al would be married and Tiana would be married and Vixey would be married and Jun wouldn't even be invited to game night-- and then all of a sudden?

Tiana didn't know? What? That was impossible! Tiana knew everything about Vixey. They were best friends.

"You didn't tell her?" blurted Jun directly at Vixey. Which, okay, not super smart, but he was shocked!

TIANA: Tiana could feel the heat rising to her face. Anger. Embarrassment. Betrayal. Mostly, she felt stupid. So everyone at this table had gone through the night knowing something she didn't, and Vixey was supposed to be her best friend. What the hell?

She stared at Vixey for a moment, speechless, all of the emotions playing out on her face like a silent film. And then, slowly, she turned to look at Jun, any thought that this might ruin Vixey's birthday dinner already forgotten. Too late. it was already ruined for Tiana. It was ruined the second Drakken showed up and Tiana foolishly, obliviously believed she knew what was going on.

If there was one thing Tiana hated more than anything, it was being out of the loop. Out of the know. Rich, maybe, coming from someone who had so many secrets, but she had been burned, too. By Nuka. By Jessica. And the stakes here were lower, sure, but they didn't feel like that in the moment.

Vixey was her best friend. She was supposed to be, anyway?

"No, she didn't tell me," she said slowly, barely-contained rage dripping from her tone. "Nobody told me, Jun."

Yeah, Tiana had thought Vixey would tell her, but... if not her, surely someone would tell her, right? Nobody at this table was innocent to Tiana.

AL: Oh. Oh.

Well, this was awkward. Al opened his mouth to say something, then he closed it. Then he opened it again. Then he closed it. Then he frantically looked at Jun, raising both his eyebrows and hoping that the frantic wriggling would do all the talking he needed.

"I thought she woulda told you," Al said. He tried to laugh a little, but it fell flat. "Well, uh... man, sorry about that. Just sort of assumed we all knew! Guess what they say about assuming things is right, eh? Makes an ass... out of... well, you know." He cleared his throat.

JUN: Aish, this was not good at all. Jun's eyebrows creased as he panic-looked around the table, but his gaze kept jumping back to Tiana the most, who looked like she was about to explode--

"Well, if it makes you feel better, she didn't tell me either!" Jun blurted. "Drakken did!" And he pointed right at the man.

DRAKKEN: Just when he thought they were going to finally get to the games.

Drakken’s eyes darted from person to person while they piped up. From what he was gathering Vixey hadn’t told anyone about them. At least, the restaurant lady and the grocery store guy. Al seemed to have known. That made sense, though, Drakken was gathering he was the only nice one out of the three.

Still, though. These were supposed to be Vixey’s friends. Drakken had gone straight home and not even wasted 10 seconds before he was telling Sarina about Vixey. Did that…mean something?

Of course it did. It meant she didn’t want to tell the people closest to her that she was in a relationship with him. She was embarrassed of him. She’d said so herself, hadn’t she? He thought that would have changed now, since she’d also said she wanted to be with him. Maybe this is what she meant when she had been talking about it being complicated.

“Hey!” he started, pointing back at Jun. “Everyone calm down. This Vixey’s birthday, don’t try to make this about yourselves just because you didn’t get the message or were too wrapped up in your own drama to have time to listen!”

VIXEY: Vixey was feeling a little sweaty. Was it hot in here? Was it just her?

Dinner suddenly didn't look very appetizing. She--didn't know what to do. This wasn't how she meant to tell Tiana. Obviously, she wanted to tell her! Things had just gotten away from her and then it was her birthday and she'd gotten swept up in planning for it. She had been...happy to have everyone at the table. Play a game. Laugh with her friends and her boyfriend.

But she had messed up. It was her fault. She saw the hurt on Tiana's face and she wanted to fix it. Her mouth opened--

Drakken spoke first and Vixey almost wanted to burst into grateful tears. Even if he hadn't exactly...worded it well. She owed him an apology for all of this too.

She reached out and put a hand on his arm.

"I'm sorry, T. I didn't--I was gonna tell you. I just...with everything going on it never felt like the right time and I--I am sorry." She wasn't sure what else to say, sitting there looking contrite was all she could manage.

JUN: Here was the thing about Jun.

If you yelled at him, he yelled right back. If you got angry at him, he would become angry at you. He did not know how to take a breath and calm down. And so he was ready to hit back at Drakken, not only for his own sake, but Tiana's too, eh! This wasn't their fault. They were the victims. They would have happily listened to anything Vixey had to say. Why, he'd just seen Vixey the other day. And the day before that! What drama did he have to prevent her from sharing what should be happy, happy news??

Jun did not get to yell though. Because Vixey was not yelling. And just like that-- his anger deflated, seeing his friend so upset and strikken. He frowned and leaned back in his chair, not saying anything at all.

TIANA: Drakken's words stung. Because they were true. Tiana knew she had been too wrapped up in her own drama, all month. First Jessica. Then Aurora. Then the fallout of that, fighting with Belle and snapping at her employees and feeling like she was barely holding onto the things that mattered most in her life. It was affecting everyone around her, too, and that was the worst part. Tiana hated when her own issues became everyone else's problem. She was much better at being the one to comfort other people, not the other way around.

So no wonder Vixey hadn't told her. She probably thought Tiana couldn't handle it. That she would make it about herself, the same way she was making this about herself now. She would ruin it, even. And so Vixey had thought... what? That she could have her perfect birthday dinner, with her boyfriend and her best friends and everything would go great because Tiana would be none the wiser?

It had been a long time since Tiana felt like this. Insecure. Ineffective. Like she was a heaping mess of barely-contained problems, liable to spill out at any moment. She hated it. And she hated looking at Drakken sitting there with Vixey's hand on his arm like they were united in this. Against her.

She opened her mouth to retort something harsh and biting at Drakken— how dare he, who asked him, he didn't have a fucking clue what he was talking about— but then she got the distinct feeling that she might start crying, and maybe that she would say something she really regretted, so she stopped herself.

"No, no, I get it," she said, her voice wobbly. "I get it. You're trying to have a nice time on your birthday. Sorry for the drama." She glanced at Drakken quickly and then back at Vixey, then pushed her chair back and stood up. "Y'all can get on with the game. It'll be even now." Her voice cracked on the last word.

AL: Well. This was awkward.

There were multiple times Al thought about chiming in, trying to relieve the tension with a joke or something. But each time he thought of something, another person would say something and then Al's joke seemed a little insensitive. He wanted so badly for this to be a happy birthday dinner again -- and he kept internally kicking himself in the gut for messing up. Then again, how was he to know that Vixey hadn't actually told anyone?! Especially when she invited her boyfriend! It wasn't his fault --

That was unfair. That was unfair, and now Tiana was upset and getting up, and Al sprang up.

"Tia! Aw, c'mon -- we can make the pairings work, I promise. I'm sure this was all just a huge misunderstanding, yeah? We're all friends here."

JUN: "Well, I don't want to play," piped up Jun, because he didn't. The games sounded ridiculous to him! He was grumpy before, he was grumpy now. He crossed his arms.

DRAKKEN: “Oh, absolutely not,” Drakken said, standing up and tossing his napkin onto the table. Everyone else’s anger may have dropped to the floor but his was still bright and brimming. It always was and not even Vixey’s touch could stop it. Maybe that was because she was the source of it, though.

“What did I just say? This is Vixey’s birthday! Her 30th birthday! Now you are going to sit down-” he pointed at Tiana then he turned, pointed at Jun once again, “-play whatever game she wants you to play, and you are going to enjoy it! I don’t care if you’re hurt or whatever this is, you’re friends, you’ll get over it. You two are acting like the teenagers I see everyday.”

VIXEY: This was horrible.

And all her fault.

"Drakken, it's okay," she tried, a little helplessly, because honestly? She appreciated him sticking up for her, even though she knew she had probably hurt him too with all of this. It was nice. Reassuring. It gave her enough courage to look Tiana in the face. Which she did, lifting her chin.

"I said I was sorry," she told Tiana. "I didn't mean to--I just didn't want you to get upset because of everything...and then, it just got away from me. I wasn't keeping anything from you on purpose. Or you." She looked to Jun too, but Drakken had told her he'd seen Jun and she had just...assumed. Which--as Al had said--clearly was making an ass out of her.

TIANA: Tiana felt exposed, like a dream where you got up onstage and realized you'd forgotten your trousers. She didn't want to do this right now. She didn't want to have this fight right here. She wanted to talk to Vixey privately, instead of in front of Al's awkward attempts to smooth things over and Jun's grumpy commentary and Drakken's scolding.

That was the worst part. Tiana didn't even know this guy. How was it that he got to witness— and comment on— probably the only real fight she'd ever had with Vixey? She couldn't go on with this now. If she did, she was afraid she might say something she would really regret.

"You think I would've been upset? You think I wouldn't have put aside my own stuff to be happy for you? Yeah, no, don't even, Vixey. I'm not a child—" Tiana snapped, all of her insecurity about being younger and less mature than the rest of this crew starting to rear its ugly head. Everyone was looking at her. Everyone was seeing it, all of it, all her issues and hangups and problems that she always did such a good job of hiding. It was mortifying. "Look, I think I better just go. I get what you're saying. I just don't wanna talk about it here. Don't need the audience. Sorry." Tiana swallowed hard and turned to head for the door.

VIXEY: Yeah, Vixey did think that Tiana would be upset. She could be sensitive, that was just a fact. They'd gotten in tiffs before over stupid, sensitive things. Something that Vixey had said or something that Tiana had said. Tiana was quick to anger. Vixey hadn't wanted that, so she had overcorrected.

Or, worse, Tiana would be fake about her excitement. And, besides, it had just felt like the nice thing to do. Not shove her relationship in her friend's face after she'd been through something horrible.

It was too late to do anything about it now, though.

"Tiana, wait--" Vixey said, getting up herself when Tiana pushed her chair out and headed for the front door.

TIANA: Tiana whirled around when she heard Vixey's voice, just as she was about to open the door. "What, Vixey?" Tiana said hissed, fighting back tears. Couldn't Vixey just let her leave? Couldn't she just go on with this party and have fun with her fun, non-depressing friends who could all handle the fact that she had a boyfriend, apparently?

That wasn't just bitterness. Tiana genuinely wanted Vixey to turn around and go back to the table and have a fun night. She was still hurt that Vixey hadn't told her about Drakken, but she knew they'd talk about it, eventually, and she'd get over it. She had to. She didn't want to lose Vixey as a friend.

But right now, she felt like if she were one of the wine glasses out on the table, then she'd have sprung a leak. Something cracked in her, and now she was dribbling bright red wine all over the table, ruining the night, drawing attention to herself, impossible to put back together in that moment. There was no pouring the wine back in the bottle. You just had to clean it up and make it look like it hadn't been there to begin with.

She couldn't pretend everything was fine. She couldn't do what Drakken insisted. And honestly, she didn't want to, because she had a stubborn streak that was winning out over her ability to be the person Vixey needed right now.

"What do you want me to do? First I find out you've been hiding all this shit from me that everyone else knows. Then your secret boo, who I barely even know, starts calling me out in front of everyone, and what? I'm supposed to just take it? Pretend I'm just fine with it all and I'm not, like, horribly humiliated? Sit down and play the bloody game like nothing's wrong? I don't do that shit. Sorry."

VIXEY: Honestly, Vixey didn't think that Tiana would be this upset. Obviously, it had been kind of shitty, but Vixey had only kept it from her because she didn't want Tiana to be stressed! She had enough going on and Vixey didn't want to make her feel bad. Between Aurora and Jessica, there had been a lot the last two months.

She was going to tell her, once things had calmed down. Once she had settled into things with Drakken more. It was just--

When was that going to be? It would never be the right time, would it? And now--

Now, Tiana was storming out on her. On her birthday, just because she hadn't told her she was dating someone? And it had only been a few weeks anyway. They'd barely even hung out in that time! And when they did, Tiana was unloading on Vixey. Which, y'know, she didn't mind but--

It was kind of pissing her off.

"Yeah! You accept my apology and come play games with your friends, for my birthday," Vixey snapped. "I wasn't trying to pull one over on you, Tiana. Shit has been pretty insane the last few months." Vixey crossed her arms over her chest.

TIANA: Tiana didn't want to ruin Vixey's birthday. But she felt like she already had. And she felt like she was only going to make it worse if she stayed, a stormy cloud over what was supposed to be a fun night.

She glanced toward the kitchen, where everyone was still sitting around the table. And she wished she could have erased all of it, everything, the past ten minutes, and laughed it off the way Vixey probably would have laughed it off. But she knew she couldn't. That moment replayed in her mind, when she realized she was on the outside of everything, And it stabbed at something tender and raw in her, a wound that wasn't really healed, even if Tiana wanted to believe it was.

It wasn't really about Vixey. Or Drakken. Or Al or Jun. It was just... all of it. And now the thought of going in there and facing everyone...

"Maybe you weren't. But you did a pretty good job of it anyway. Everyone knew except me," Tiana said stubbornly, crossing her arms. And she stood there for a moment, icy and impassive, and then it hit her that this was supposed to be Vixey's 30th birthday, and it was supposed to be so different, and...

She dropped her arms. "Look, I'm sorry, I know it's your birthday. Maybe you didn't do it on purpose. And if that's the case, like, yeah, I accept your apology. But I can't do this. I can't just pretend that—" She shook her head. "I think it's better for everyone if I just go. We can talk later. You have a party to get back to."

VIXEY: So what?

That was what Vixey wanted to say. So what that everyone knew? It wasn’t because Vixey was being mean. She was trying to be sensitive! Tiana had just gone through a horrible break up and Vixey didn’t want to rub her relationship in her face. Not to mention: she hadn’t been the nicest about Drakken the last time he’d been brought up in conversation. Vixey hadn’t wanted to deal with it.

“No one is asking you to pretend anything,” Vixey said harshly. “We are just asking you come back and have a nice dinner with everyone. But fine. Whatever. I’ll talk to you later.”

TIANA: "Fine." And Tiana stood there, a moment longer, like maybe she was about to say something else, and then she didn't. She shouldered her way through the door and out into the cool night air, and it was only when she reached the sidewalk, when she caught light of the warm glow inside the house, that she realized she was crying.

It was just like she had thought. Her pain was swirling around her like a tornado, and even the people who had been trying to support her were getting swept up in it. Maybe it was better for her to keep her distance.

&&& &&& &&&

DRAKKEN: The night, of Vixey's birthday that was, had been dwindling down and Drakken had found his chance to run. For all his yelling and scolding at Vixey’s friends for trying to get themselves out of an uncomfortable situation, he had slithered on into the kitchen while everyone was saying their goodbyes. Her mother was in there, cleaning up, and it was the perfect excuse to get away.

“I can help,” he announced himself, rolling up his sleeves haphazardly to go join her at the kitchen sink. He insisted on rinsing while she dried, as if he was going to pass up on the chance to get out all his frustrations on scrubbing mindlessly at the dishes. It’s what he did at home, too, when he was too frustrated or sad or angry to do anything else. Clean. Take it all out on the dust and grime of life.

He dared to look up when someone else entered the kitchen, giving Vixey a once over before returning to his task, double time now.

VIXEY: The rest of Vixey's birthday had been tense. Peppered with false cheer. She had tried, really hard, to smooth things over, but it felt like everyone was upset at her. Tiana's absence was like a gaping wound and the party was hemorrhaging. Al had done his very best to salvage things, bless him and Jun had...not made things worse, but also sat with a slightly pinched expression, especially when he lost the game they'd been playing.

Her brothers were more rowdy than usual and her parents had been quietly in the background.

She could tell Drakken was upset with her and that, more than anything, made her feel badly.

After saying good night and thank you, and wishing them save drives home, Vixey saw Al and Jun off and then wandered into the kitchen. She smiled a little when Drakken turned towards her, but then went and busied herself cleaning off the last few dishes. She dropped them off at his elbow and then glanced at her mother.

Silently, she held a hand out for the towel and her mother acquiesced. She kissed her daughter's head and told Drakken good night.

Vixey took up the dish her mother had been washing and began to dry it silently, not sure what to say, though she watched the tense line of Drakken's shoulders as he scrubbed at the dishes.

DRAKKEN: Did he feel a little betrayed when Mrs. Chakraborty left him alone with her daughter? Yes, but then he couldn't really expect her to be on his team here since the opposing side was literally her daughter. Didn't mean he couldn't feel miffed, though, because he was going to.

Try as he might, Drakken couldn't do the silent treatment. It wasn't in his blood to let the sleeping dog lie, or whatever. He had been festering on it all the latter half of the night, but it had really started back when he had met with the grocery guy that day at her work. When he had been the one to tell him about their relationship, not Vixey. And now, to find out that she hadn't told the restaurant lady? At least Al had gotten the info, but still! 2/3?

"I don't get it!" he blurted, attention still on the dishes in the sink. "What's so wrong with me that you didn't want to tell them? Are you still embarrassed of me? I thought we agreed we wanted to be together!"

VIXEY: "That's not--" Vixey started, sounding a little flustered and desperate and embarrassed because she was.

That hadn't been...her reasoning or thinking or whatever. She wasn't embarrassed by Drakken, really! Things had just been busy. And maybe...her friends were a bit judgmental. She worried that they would have negative reactions and it would make her overthink...

"I am not embarrassed of you," she began again, more softly. "I just--my friends...they're...well, Tiana has been going through a lot and Jun is...Jun. I didn't know what to say to them and so...I just didn't say anything. I am sorry. I didn't mean for it to seem like I am embarrassed of you. I'm not," she said firmly.

DRAKKEN: Drakken didn't really know whether to believe her or not seeing as she only ever seemed to really tell the truth when she was yelling at him, or after he had spent a while pulling it free from her. Her reasoning made sense, he guessed, but only because- "If that's the case then it doesn't really seem like they're your friends. Aren't they supposed to accept you no matter what? Be happy with your decisions and all that crap?"

Sarina, for as much as she made fun of him and back talked and rained on his parade, always supported him. No matter what it was! Well- that wasn't quite true, but it was pretty much true! She was always there to back him up, no matter how absurd his plans and schemes got. And people said there was no honor among thieves? At least they had loyalty.

"If...if they don't like me, which I don't think they do, are you going to break up with me?" he asked, completely serious under his fading tone of annoyance.

VIXEY: Vixey was concentrating very hard on the dish she was drying. Even though, at this point, she was putting streaks in it.

It was a good question. One that...Vixey wasn't sure the answer of. Her friends were really important to her. They had helped her open her shoppe. Encouraged her. Picked her up when she was down. She owed a lot to them. Especially Jun, who had given her work and a purpose again. Who she felt understood her, more than the others, because they'd both lost people and, more importantly, had their lives derailed because of that loss.

She respected their opinions.

But--Drakken was also her friend. Drakken made her laugh, more than anyone else. And he made her actually...feel something. He pissed her off, sure, but that had been important too. Reminding her that she wasn't made of glass. He had been her friend and now he was her boyfriend and that meant she had a loyalty to him too.

"No," Vixey said, after a long moment. She looked over at Drakken with a frown. "No, I won't. They'll come around. They are just--protective of me. They just need to get to know you. I know they're a little...judgy but they'll warm up!"

DRAKKEN: In Drakken's experience people did not warm up to him. Which was fine, the last thing he cared about was people liking him! ...actually this was very untrue, but he pretended like it was in order to keep on the facade.

Why didn't they like him? It was a question that still plagued him, even out of high school and college.

Drakken had learned that it didn't matter if people didn't like him, he was going to rule the world and prove to those people that he was smarter than them. Better, in every way. That's how he was going to get his revenge. But it was different with Vixey's friends because it wasn't like he could just throw that in their faces. Well, he would when it happened, but until then he couldn't just be like he usually was with people he didn't like. Because for some reason Vixey liked them and if Vixey liked them then she would choose them over him because they told her to.

It wasn't until the 'they're protective,' comment that he seemed to understand. She'd been married before and lost that guy to the worse fate imaginable. Maybe they were all just on Drakken's case because they didn't want something like that to happen again. As if they didn't know that if the apocolypse happened, it would be Drakken and the cockroaches battling it out for the last potato chips.

"Fine," he sighed, accepting this. For now. He set down the dishes in the sink. "Sorry. I didn't want your birthday to be so...terrible. Is there anything I can do before it's tomorrow?"

VIXEY: Vixey felt uneasy about this whole conversation. She was trying to think how best to reassure Drakken, while also reassuring herself. This was the right course of action. When it was just them, it was easy enough. Things had been a little awkward at first, but they had been getting into a groove. It had been nice. Much easier than with Hercules. She didn't feel like she had to try. Or put on a front for Drakken.

But--when her friends got involved...things felt messy. She felt...insecure and nervous and she wasn't sure why. She was a grown ass woman. They were all adults. She could date whoever she damn well pleased.

She was also a push over and didn't have her checklist anymore. It made things so much more confusing.

Which meant she was glad when Drakken didn't push. The tension in her own shoulders unwound and she put the plate down she'd been holding.

"It wasn't your fault," she told him, slipping her arms around his waist and putting her chin on his arm, looking up at him with a little smile. "It was kind of my fault to be honest." She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. "It'll be okay. It was just a birthday anyway. Hopefully, I'll have plenty more for do overs."

DRAKKEN: Suddenly Vixey was hugging him, making him feel all warm and soft. It felt...weird that he was being rewarded for conceding, essentially. That usually didn't work out for him but here it did. In the best way possible, too. Vixey wasn't mad at him for ruining her birthday or anything like that. Even though he had yelled at her friends, caused a scene, and just gotten cross with her. And, again, all on her birthday. She should have been the one making the scene.

"It wasn't your fault, either. Nothing is on your birthday, those are the rules," he told her, very seriously. Drakken reached up to returned the hug, having to lean his head back a little to keep her smile within sight. It made him chuckle, the source of it more of a vibration of his chest rather than an actual sound. "Come on, there has to be something that'll wash your mouth out from all that. I don't want to leave you with that to fall asleep to. Your brain is going to make you have nightmares about codenames and yelling and cake."

VIXEY: Vixey laughed a little at the birthday rules thing. She’d once upon a time believed that too, because she liked rules and orders and all those sorts of things. As an adult, things were always so much messier.

She was just tired now. The tension lifted but it left exhaustion in its wake. She appreciated Drakken trying to fix things, but she didn’t know how to do that. Everyone was already gone. The house quiet. The evening, effectively, ruined.

The hug was nice, though. Vixey turned her head, so that her ear pressed against his chest and she squeezed him a little tighter for a moment.

“You could stay the night,” she suggested, murmuring into his shirt before pulling back a little to look at him. “Can’t have bad dreams that way. Those are the rules.”

DRAKKEN: Drakken's gut reaction was to say yes, both because she was asking and if it would make her feel better after everything then of course he would do it, but also because he wanted to. Getting to spend any amount of time with Vixey was well worth it.

Then he remembered that it probably was not a good idea since without going home he would most likely wake up blue and that wouldn't be good, now would it? If she wasn't embarrassed of him now then she surely would be then. And would also have a lot of questions he didn't think would be a good follow up to the night she'd just had.

"I would, but I have to be at the school bright and early tomorrow morning," he said, the disappointment and regret in his voice still very sincere despite the excuse he was giving not altogether the real reason he wasn't going to stick around.

VIXEY: “Oh,” Vixey said, trying not to sound hurt or disappointed, and failing miserably.

She smiled and ducked her head and felt…kind of horrible and dejected. It was totally fair he didn’t want to stay! That would be a super long drive into town in the morning and it was the second week of school still. It was a very good, adult reason to not stay!

Vixey wanted him to anyway. She wasn’t going to…beg or guilt trip, though. That would be just as bad.

“Right, yeah. That makes sense,” she nodded and looked back up at him. “Well, uhm, how about just a kiss then? Before you say goodnight?”

DRAKKEN: As oblivious as Drakken usually was, he didn't miss the way Vixey had said that. On one hand he felt bad disappointing her, after all that had happened today. He didn't really care about the drive or the effort it would take to get up earlier than normal, he was usually up by then anyway, the insomniac that he was. This was sort of the first time in his life since becoming a criminal that he wished that he actually was just some science teacher without some horrible lab accident keeping him from staying the night, just to make his girlfriend happy.

"That I can do," he agreed. Drakken leaned forward and kissed Vixey's cheek, then the other, and then, finally, pressed his lips against hers.

VIXEY: Vixey was still disappointed, but as Drakken kissed her face, she couldn't help but giggle, so that when he kissed her properly, she was still smiling into the kiss. She kissed him back, her eyes fluttering closed and she pressed a little closer.

It was a nice kiss. It lingered. When it broke and Vixey pulled away, she huffed.

"Are you sure you can't stay?" she pouted, just a little. "It's my birthday." As if he didn't know that. She kissed him again, just for extra incentive.

#swyndrakken #swynjun #swynal #swyntiana #vixxen #juxie #vixal #viana #F.R.I.E.N.D.S.#the one with the heads up #woo finally got this posted

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