Just a plain old one shot I put together in preparation for KHII. It takes place during Chain of Memories, by the way. :D Just exploring the relationship between Namine and Marluxia.

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts is the property of Square Enix and Disney.

“How does it feel, Namine?” he whispered those choice words into her creamy, flushed ear in a tendency that was too often conceived by the young, petite blonde. “How does it feel to rip your hero’s heart apart, to mislead him down a road not reversible?” Her eyes drooped lowly to the floor and met the dark, leathery exterior of his boots. He wanted to break her. He wanted to make her sob, cry, and just fling her emotions on the ground for him to stomp without mercy.

Namine pulled her sketchbook closer to her chest, the knots in her throat tying themselves together in a knot not able to be unwound. And yet he still prowled around her in the fashion of a predatory lion, dipping his head every now and then to murmur discouraging statements about her situation, about Sora, about Riku…

“You remember your parents…yet you are a Non-Existent…”

The instant Namine had whispered that sentence to the scythe wielding unknown, she regretted it with utmost despair.

And there he froze, directly behind her blonde head, her bright blue, innocent eyes squeezed tightly shut in fear of what was to come. In fact, had she not been expecting this, she might’ve screamed when the gloved hands of Marluxia came slamming down, clamping around her shoulders tightly and painfully. She trembled in complete and absolute horror as he leaned down towards her ear once more, hissing, teeth clenched together.

“And how would you know that, witch?” She winced at the Organization’s cruel nickname she had been bestowed with when she was first brought to Castle Oblivion. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything, but she couldn’t help it…

“I-I heard you muttering in your sleep when you were r-resting in the kitchen…I—I’m sorry, I-” She cringed once more as Marluxia’s grip tightened significantly to the point that she knew there would be bruises in the place of his hands. And what scared her the most was the truth in that he did not say anything. He did not move. He did not whisper. He did not breathe…Namine did not breathe.

For a few seconds, Namine wondered if he was deciding on how he would punish her. He usually settled on ripping her drawings to shreds, or completely decimating her crayons. Sometimes he would even slap her hard enough to draw blood, or carve another line into her back with his scythe. It was enough to make one squirm in their sleep.

“And some memories are not meant to be spoken of…” came but a small, quiet statement from the pink haired man behind her. There was a release of his hands, a shuffle of his coat, and a door slamming. Namine, cringing, moved her stiff shoulders and opened her eyes once more to see the pearly white of the floor staring back at her. She unhurriedly placed her sketchbook back into her lap.

It had all been an accident; she had only been hungry. She had gone to the only other room she was allowed to be in to search for some food. She hadn’t meant to stumble upon Marluxia, sleeping uncomfortably at the small table. Namine had actually tried to avoid him, preferring not to wake the angry man, and had grabbed a small piece of bread from the cabinet; she had started to walk off.

“Mom…Dad…I’m…I’m so sorry…” and that had frozen her in her tracks. Namine had waited but a little longer, watching sadly as Marluxia’s face scrunched up in his sleep and a small groan of dejection slipped past his soft pink lips. She had reached over, as carefully as possible, and pushed away the strands of pale, pink hair away from his closed eyes.

And then she had left; that was all.

The hours passed without pity that day. She drew and sketched in silence most of the time, with the normally scheduled visits from the Organization members, accompanied by their taunts. She would say nothing, and sometimes she’d lose a page or two out of her book as punishment. It was nothing to Namine, though, for she knew the lost drawings would resurface again and she would draw them once more.

But the visits from Marluxia were so different from before. There was no prowling, there was no taunting, and there was no punishment. There was only silence. A silence that Namine longed would disperse. But surprisingly, the moment came where Marluxia pulled the chair that the guards normally used directly in front of her, and sat down.

Needless to say, Namine jumped. She slammed her sketchbook closed and held it to her chest in the most protective manner she could accomplish. Her blue eyes widened in panic and the paleness of her face only proved to whiten dramatically. There was a slight twitch in his upper lip when Namine’s fear surfaced. He leaned forward towards her, blue eyes fogged over in several emotions, many of which she could not name.

“What I remember is nothing but nightmares that constantly hound me, both while I sleep and while I wake,” he said bluntly to her face, pink hair brushing his the tops of his eyelids. Namine did not know what to say, really; she felt trapped between a rock and a hard place, and knew there was no where to run, so she said the only thing she could think of.

“Then we have more in common than you think,” she said quietly, lowering her sketchbook back into her lap, aware that he was not going to destroy it yet. She watched earnestly for his reaction, which switched from contemplative, to surprise, to sorrow, then back to impassive. And then he raised himself from his seat, preparing to leave her once more. Without thinking, she grabbed his coat sleeve… “Please don’t leave…” she pleaded with him, eyes shining with fresh tears. Marluxia stared at her and leaned down till their noses stood centimeters apart.

“I wasn’t.” Thus his lips brushed over hers in a tantalizing motion so uncommon with the normally harsh man. Tears ran down her face as Marluxia moved forward and held her in his arms, whispering words of reassurance and comfort that were devoid of any hatred, any talk of Sora, or Riku, for that matter. She did not care as her sketchbook slipped out of her lap and onto the white floor. Nor did she care of the fact that Larxene had popped into the room and was currently aghast in the corner of the room.

The book in question fell to the floor beneath them. The contact from the floor flipped the book open gently, landing on the last drawing she had finished before he came. A crying child, a lost soul, a wandering boy…

…and a sleeping Marluxia.