“The letter,” Saix began, waving a sealed envelope in front of number nine. “You will do nothing but deliver this to number four. Is that clear?”

“Wow!” Demyx marveled, “is that it? That’s my mission? Really?” Saix narrowed his eyes. Upon realizing he hadn’t answered his superior’s question, he saluted number seven and grinned. “Yes sir! I’ll take it right down. If you ever need another cushy mission completed, I’m your guy! You can count on-“

“Now, number nine,” Saix sighed, unwilling to completely crush the poor guy’s spirits.

“Okay! Okay! Don’t get your biscuits in a bundle,” Demyx grumbled. “What’s in the envelope anyhow?”

Realizing that he would not be able to send the boy off without a little tortured conversation, Saix humored the younger member. “Comments.”

“Good ones or bad ones?” asked Demyx.

“I have not read them. The superior reviewed a proposed research project from number four. He’s been waiting for the Superior’s word for a while. I suggest you deliver that envelope as soon as possible or he may propose you as the next new experiment,” Saix grunted.

Demyx’s face blanched as he swallowed an unbecoming squeak. Tearing open a dark portal, he repeated: “I’m your guy! It’ll just take a sec!”

Saix was unsure whether or not he should have told the boy not to touch anything. He simply assumed Demyx knew better. Assuming anything of common sense out of Demyx - It wasn’t that number nine was stupid, it was more of the fact that he was impulsive and curious.

Demyx stepped out of his dark portal into the chilly academic’s lab. Glancing around, Demyx immediately sneered at strong stench of vinegar. “Ugk,” he groaned. “What the heck is he trying to pickle, himself?” With that aside, he glanced around and caught no hint of the scientist. “Hey, Vexen? I’ve got your prize-winning letter here? I’ll give it to you for some sea-salt ice cream,” he jeered. No reply came. Apparently Vexen had stepped out for a bit. Demyx could have left the letter on the top of Vexen’s work-space where the scientist would be sure to see it. Demyx could have waited outside the lab to catch Vexen and hand-deliver the letter. Instead, the reckless water brat set the letter atop the steel work-table and allowed himself a tour of the lab. It wasn’t often Vexen let people into his lab. Now that he was on an official mission, Demyx granted himself full access to all of the pretty bottles and beakers Vexen had reamed him out for eyeing before.

Demyx should have gotten a bronze star for successfully handling a few vials of unstable chemicals without blowing anything up. His smooth grace was short lived. “Ugh. When is he going to get back? What the heck is he doing,” the water dancer whined as he leaned against the steel table. In an instant, the scientist’s coffee mug tipped over sending tepid black coffee floating across the table. Worst of all, the important letter was quickly assalted by the liquid. Demyx’s physical heart skipped a beat as he watched the letter soak in a bit of the coffee. The stench of vinegar and coffee was stomach turning. He’d half lunged forward to grab the letter free of the coffee when a second “plink!” sounded. A curious beaker of bubbling purple goo tipped into the mixture of coffee and vinegar-cleaned steel. A curious hiss sounded as a violent splatter of the toxic goo erupted, burning straight through Demyx’s cloak leaving a nasty chemical burn on his forearm. “Gaah!!” number nine cried out as he stumbled backwards holding his injured arm. Tears prickled at his eyes as a cloud of orange gas began leeching from the frothing chemicals. This was bad! In a breath, the lights shut themselves off, immediately triggering a series of blue lights to turn on in the lab. A series of powerful fans kicked on just as Vexen burst through the lab doors.

“What in the name of science is going on in here?” He growled, half expecting to find Xigbar rooting around for potions. Instead, he caught an eyeful of number nine, choking on the toxic fumes as he groped around for an off-colored letter. “Egh!” Vexen cringed. Curling his brow into what was quite possibly the most unattractive frown, Vexen snagged up the boy’s wrist and yanked him back away from the table and out of the lab. Just outside the door, Vexen shoved the boy beneath the emergency shower and yanked on the chain. Jets of cold water streamed over the sitarist causing him to squeal hoarsely. His lungs were already quite irritated from the fumes.

“That’s COLD, COLD COLD!” Demyx screeched as his mullet matted down around his face.

Once Vexen was satisfied the boy had been completely drowned, he released the emergency pull-chain and locked the lab. “You blundering idiot!” Vexen began. His shouts filled the hallway as he began a predictably furious rant about the semi-sacred laws of what not to do inside his lab. “-And if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: don’t touch ANYTHING in my laboratory!”

“But I was on a mission!” Demyx sniveled, pinning a pleading set of aqua on Vexen.

“To get yourself wiped from existence?” Vexen countered. The vein in his forehead was pulsing at this point, a fact that was accented by the dorky pair of lab goggles he was wearing.

“No,” Demyx shouted in return. “I had a very important letter. Your coffee just got in my way and then the purple stuff tipped over and it really hurts!” Demyx blubbered, holding his acid-burnt arm.

Vexen was tempted to backhand the boy, but instead pushed his goggles up atop his head and took hold of the boy’s arm. “Let me see you sniveling twit.”

“I’m not a twit!” Demyx protested as Vexen steered his arm into view. The younger boy immediately began to groan as Vexen rolled up his sleeve. “It hurts! It hurts!” he whined.

“I haven’t even touched it yet,” Vexen grunted as he pulled a wad of gauze and Vaseline from the shower-side medical station.

“Yer gonna cut off my arm!” Demyx sobbed hysterically.

“I’ll consider it,” Vexen mocked as he rubbed a small dollop of Vaseline over the boy’s burn and wrapped a small bit of gauze around the burn. “Remove your jacket and I’ll consider your burn cured…. As for the effects the chemical smoke might have….” Vexen allowed the thought to hang for a moment.

“I’m gunna DIE!!!” Demyx wailed.

Vexen sneered and quickly steered the blonde back to reality. “Only if you fail to come up with a good explanation as to why you were touching the chemicals in my laboratory. They’re dangerous! More importantly, they’re expensive,” the academic added, practically spitting on poor Demyx’s face in the process.

“I already told you! I was on a mission,” Demyx growled as he yanked his arm away from the older member and cradled it possessively.

“A mission?” Vexen repeated dumbly. “What does that have to do with my chemicals?”

“I’m allowed because you weren’t there and I was on a mission. Saix sent me!” Demyx argued suddenly realizing that he’d been caught rooting through what wasn’t him.

Vexen unzipped the boy’s organization coat roughly and spat: “I’ll decide what is and isn’t allowed in my laboratory!” Yanking the cloak free of the boy, he tossed it into the hazardous waste bin.

“Hey! HEY!!! That’s mine!” Demyx replied, automatically reaching for the coat. Vexen slapped the boy’s hand away and took hold of one of his wet ears.

“It has acid on it. Assumably in a matter of hours, there will be a hole in that robe the size of Number eleven’s ego. You’ll have to request a new one, but first you’re going to have a sizeable attitude adjustment,” the scientist hissed through his teeth as he began walking up the hallway towing Demyx by his aching ear.

“Ow! Ow, ow , OW! Slow down! That hurts! Leggo of my ear!” Demyx screeched.

“Silence!” Vexen rounded the corner into the first room which happened to be a small entertainment room. Occasionally Vexen would there watch news programs, from distant worlds, when the upstairs entertainment room was otherwise occupied. Before even Vexen knew what was happening, he seated himself on the black leather love-seat and stood Demyx before his knees. Somehow, the idea of spanking was familiar to him-likely because he was the one that got stuck babysitting Ienzo in his former life. His brows creased into an ugly frown as he yanked Demyx over his sprawling lap causing the boy to shriek in surprise.

Fortunately, Vexen hadn’t yanked the boy too far. Demyx had been forced to stoop as Vexen sat given the fact that the chilly one still had his ear. “Waa!” he screeched as he found himself face-down over Vexen’s knees. He dangled awkwardly for a moment before pulling himself halfway atop the love-seat’s cushions. “What are you doing?!” Demyx demanded.

Without answering the boy, Vexen sent his hand crashing down on the boy’s trouser-clad backside. The loud pop that resounded echoed throughout the media room and drew an overly dramatic scream from Demyx.

“OUTCH!!!”

A steady rhythm of rough smacks filled the room. Just as Demyx had begun to clench his boyish cheeks to try and tolerate the stinging slap of Vexen’s palm, he finally figured out what was happening. Vexen was spanking him.

“You can’t! You can’t do this!” Demyx protested as he fent the burn of tears racing into his eyes again.

“I can and I am,” Vexen snapped in return as he continued flapping his arm down to the boy’s upturned bottom. Demyx may have still had his pants on, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. He didn’t want to imagine how much it would sting if he hadn’t the protection of his jeans.

By the twenty-fifth spank, Demyx had tears standing on the brim of his eyelids. He swallowed hard and tried not to cry, but Demyx had never been a grand champion of his feigned emotions. “A- Ahaa-Owwie!” he cried out as a tear streaked his cheek.

Satsified that Demyx was now ready to listen, Vexen crossed his legs, lifting the boy’s seat a little higher to expose his tender sit spots. “I suppose you’ll think twice before directly disobeying your superior again,” Vexen commented dryly as he peppered a series of stiff smacks to the boy’s sit-spots.

“Uwaa!!” Demyx cried loudly. The floodgates had been opened. Gasping deeply, Demyx let out his breath in a weary sob. “Yes! I won’t touch yer stuff! I won’t come down to your lab anymore!”

“I don’t” SMACK “Care” SMACK “if you come down” SMACK SMACK “to my laboratory.” SMACK! Vexen heaved between spanks.

Demyx cried pathetically, a small bit of snot dribbling from his nose. “Yes you do! You hate me!”

Vexen pinched his brows in a funny way. Something didn’t feel right about letting the boy think he hated him. “For starters… I am incapable of such emotion-as are you.” “You’d hate me if you could!” Demyx hiccupped through spanks.

Vexen was about to disagree as subtly as he could when suddenly a demure voice interrupted the adorable scene. “Is there something wrong here?” Lexaeus was standing in the doorway of the media room, a crossword puzzle and a sandwich dangling from his hand. The tall brute was a little flushed in the face, obviously unprepared to have walked in on Demyx in such a compromising position.

“Nothing is wrong,” Vexen murmured dryly. Truth be told while he was embarrassed he’d been caught spanking someone, he was grateful not to have to express any sentiment of caring toward Demyx. Who knew what would happen if he did. “I’m just teaching number nine not to touch things that are mine.”

Demyx choked on a sob and paled as his eyes met Lexaeus. “S- Stop it, Vexen! No!” Busted. Now that Lexaeus had seen him get his little hind fanned, would the whole castle find out? True, Xigbar had spanked Demyx a few times before, but he’d always been so discreet about it. Demyx was convinced no one else knew. With nothing else left to do, the boy squeezed his eyes shut and yielded to his tears. Hanging limp over Vexen’s knees, he only flinched as the scientist swatted him. Pity he failed to notice that even Vexen had lessened the strength of his blows.

The answer to the boy’s squalling came when Vexen finally rested his hand on the boy’s shoulders. Rather than let the boy collect himself, Vexen sat the boy up and sat awkwardly beside him. The Chilly one had never been a great fan of hugging or comfort. He rather disliked any form of socialization that didn’t involve discussing beakers and boiling biohazards.

Demyx, furious with the chilly one, stood and clapped his hands over his bottom. For the moment, Vexen did not correct the boy and simply rolled his eyes. “Stop carrying on, number nine. I did not harm you,” Vexen spat.

Demyx glared furiously back at Vexen and hurled himself at Lexaeus. Rather than attempt to make the brute be quiet about what he’d seen, he threw his arms around the confused brick on legs and cried hard into his broad chest. “Lexaeus!! You weren’t supposed to come in! Vexen’s a jerk and Uwaa!”

Once again, Vexen rolled his eyes and rose to his feet. Folding his arms over his chest, he strolled away from the media, brushing passed Lexaeus and Demyx. “Number nine, Go get another copy of that envelope from Saix. It’s ruined, no doubt, by now from sitting in the acid. If I am not in my lab when you return, wait outside by the emergency shower,” Vexen scoffed.

Lexaeus awkwardly set his sandwich and puzzle atop the end table beside the love seat and half-threaded his arms around Demyx. “…Stop crying. We do not have hearts to cry, so it does nothing but waste fluid.” Demyx wouldn’t listen to reason though and persisted in his sobbing. Eventually, Lexaeus seated himself with the boy and simply allowed Demyx to cling to him like a leech. Turning the television to the music station, which he knew Demyx adored, he leaned back and started in on his crossword. Occasionally, Lexaeus reached up to ruffle the water brat’s mullet, which in the end snapped the boy out of his fit. “Lexaeus?” Demyx whimpered suddenly.

“Uh?” the brute grunted.

“…How am I going to tell Saix I failed what could possibly be the easiest mission the organization has ever assigned?”

Lexaeus stared at the boy flatly. Something stirred the memory of laughter within him, but he found himself incapable of laughing because a wave of pity-memory also reared its ugly head. “Tell the truth,” he concluded stoically.

*TO BE CONTINUED*