Author's Notes: Okay, so I decided to rewrite this story. Not much of the original format changed, I just added some new, small things to it that I think makes it a lot better of a story. Well, enjoy!!
Summary: He fell through his ceiling, and into his heart.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts no matter how much Riku wants in my pants.
--
Crash Landing
That day had started out normal enough. I awoke at the usual 8:00 a.m. in order to get ready for my 9:00 English Lit class. I'd showered, poured myself a cup of coffee, read the newspaper. All typical of a typical school day.
Things, as it would be, did not remain typical. In all actuality, they were probably as far from typical as I can possibly imagine. Never would have I imagined that I would fall in love on that very morning, in my very own apartment, much less with a naked man. Life‛s funny that way sometimes.
Which leaves me wondering if, with Demyx a much-wanted permanent fixture in my life, things will ever be typical again.
Gods, I sure hope not.
--
I've always had a lot of trouble remembering things. Especially the little things, such at my car keys in the now locked car. Or the fact that I left the stove on. Again. For eighteen hours.
In high school my memory problems were so bad that my parents requested that my teachers give me two copies of the same textbook, one to leave in the classroom and one to leave at home. And somewhere in the process, I'd end up losing both books. I don‛t really know how, no one did, that those books would make it the surprisingly short journey to where ever the missing socks end up, never to be seen, not thought of, again. At least until my parents got the bill at the end of the school year stating that they had to pay for both books. In all my classes.
It's not my fault really, because it runs in the family. ADHD, I mean. I have it, my younger brother Sora has it, my cousin Yuffie has it.
It's especially bad when I've forgotten to take my Ritalin. When I forget that, my forgetfulness is so bad that I can't remember what I ate for breakfast or what I did five minutes ago. Or whether or not I tied my shoes. Tripped down a flight of stairs because of that once. Luckily I only broke my arm in two places.
I mean, I surely didn't mean to fall asleep in the bathtub with the water still running. I couldn't sleep a wink, not with my brother Cloud and his boyfriend Leon banging away at each other all hours of the night. Just when you think they're done, they start right back up again. I'm thinking of investing in a pair of really good earplugs for obvious reasons.
So you can see that it really isn't my fault. Blame genetics, science practically tells us to. Therefore, it's science's fault that there's a gigantic hole in the floor of Cloud's bathroom. Nope, not my fault at all. I blame science.
--
It was exactly 8:43 when it happened. I know this because I'd just glanced at the clock as I grabbed my books, all ready to head out the door.
I remember hearing a strange dripping noise, then a groan coming from the ceiling, and then a crash as I was drenched in a flood of water.
Something had cut me because I could feel the blood pouring from my arm in a steady stream. It stung and the scalding water did nothing to ease the growing throbbing in my arm.
After turning around to see what the hell just happened, I soon discovered that my arm was not the only appendage that was throbbing.
Sitting there in a pristine white bathtub in the middle of my living room was by far the most beautiful creature I ever laid eyes upon. And he was naked.
Dripping blond hair fell into a set of exquisite cerulean eyes, the water droplets trickling down his cheeks. I temporarily forgot my pain as my eyes raked over that body; muscles taut and supple, but not rock-hard like some guys, stomach flat, but not anorexically so. His chest led down to a pair of slim, defined hips. And below his hips... was a very nice pair of legs.
The panicked young man looked up at me quickly. "What the hell was—oh shit!" His first words were cut off by another, smaller crash. It was the toilet, landing directly on those nice legs. Even as I was absorbing what had just happened the color drained from his face, leaving him ashen and paler than even I.
Snapping out of my reverie, I strode over and, as gently as I could, lifted the toilet from his legs. Blood from my arm dripped onto his legs, no doubt making the injury seem tenfold worse in the stunned male's mind.
"Blood," he said weakly, staring at my arm. He added, "I don't do so well around blood," before retching on me. Ordinarily, I would have been grossed out, pissed off even, but those eyes were so wide and innocent, I just couldn't hold it against him. The purely animalistic section of my brain took over, leaving the rational part in the dust. Ergo, I wasn't really in the condition to be thinking about much one way or the other.
After I set the toilet down, I looked back at him. He was gasping for breath, as his face became, if possible, paler still. I've never seen a shock victim before but he was the way I'd always imagined them to be in my mind. I yanked my cell phone from my pocket only to discover that the flood of water rendered it useless. Pissed, I flung it at the wall and dashed over to grab my home phone, praying to the gods above that it still worked.
I picked it up and got a dial tone. Thanking those gods, I dialed the three numbers everyone would dial in a case like this, 9-1-1.
"Hello, this is 9-1-1, what's your emergency?"
Catching my breath as I walked back over to the bathtub-ridden newcomer, I said, "A guy in a bathtub just fell through my ceiling. And then a toilet fell on him. I don't know, I got cut in the process and he saw the blood. Said he didn't like blood. Then he barfed on me and now I think he's in shock," I rambled, wondering if the woman could understand anything I said. I barely could myself.
"Sir, what's your address?" I rattled it off to her.
"Okay, here's what I want you to do until the ambulance gets there. I want you to talk to him, try to get him to talk back. Can you do that?" she asked.
"Yeah." For some reason, I could only think of doing exactly what she said. Which is probably why I hung up the phone.
If I'd have met this still nameless man under ordinary circumstances, I would have approached him, turned my gaydar on and saw what happened. These, however, were not ordinary circumstances.
I grabbed a towel from my kitchen drawer and keenly wrapped it around my arm, heading back into the living room, wincing as something dug deeper into the raw skin. Kneeling next to the bathtub, I said, "My name's Zexion. What's yours?" It took all the concentration in the world for me to resist gazing down the length of his body, imagining what if felt like, smooth and against my skin. A series of naughty images filled my normally very non-sexual-fantasy-oriented brain. Yep, this was turning out to be a very unusual day indeed.
He looked over at me, his oh so blue eyes wide. His mouth opened, just once, before he closed it again. Gasping, he said in a breathless, panicked voice, "Um, Demyx, I think. Right now I can't really remember."
I don't know why, but I found this extremely funny. "So, um, Demyx? Do you go to Hollow Bastion University? It isn‛t too far from here and I know that most everyone who lives here goes."
He nodded. "Yeah, I'm majoring in—oh my fucking God. My legs hurt!"
I looked down at his legs and, indeed, at least the one looked broken, a bone grotesquely poking out at an odd angle. At least it wasn't bleeding. The image of that leg, however, did cure me of the surprisingly wonderful fantasies I was having at the time of myself slamming that perfect body down onto my bed and ravishing it.
He let out a strangled scream before leaning back in the bathtub eyes closed. He opened them again, his eyes meeting mine briefly, saying, "You know, you're really beautiful," before passing out cold.
Normally, if a really beautiful man told me that he thought I was beautiful, I would have been ecstatic. A little confused even. Most of the time, when people spoke of my looks, it had to do with something like ‛just how short are you?‛ Or ‛do you have some weird facial scar? Is that why you cover your face?‛ Or maybe even ‛damn, you sure are pale.‛ The sad thing was that, as I was being called beautiful for the first time in my life, I was a bit too preoccupied with the naked, injured man in front of me to register it into the memory banks.
I was beginning to panic a bit myself. I slumped on the ground and sat there like that until the emergency response personnel come bursting through my door. The scene didn't even phase them; they'd seen it all before.
Demyx was carefully lifted into a stretcher and taken outside. As a courtesy, they wrapped a blanket around his nude form. They insisted that I come with them because I was bleeding a lot and would need stitches. Not able to put up much of a fight (I hated hospitals, so normally I would have) I acquiesced, following them into the ambulance.
Everyone that lived in the apartment building that wasn't at either class or work was milling around the grounds or looking from windows down at the scene. It was just a bit disconcerting.
As I sat there in the ambulance, I began to get dizzy, the images of Demyx in the stretcher and the emergency response personnel swimming before me.
"This one's going to pass out," I heard someone say before the darkness indeed engulfed me.
--
I awoke to someone picking hunks of plaster from my arm. I guess I hadn't really noticed before, but in addition to the one very large cut on the top of my arm, there were two medium cuts, and at least twelve smaller ones. Who knew wet plaster could be so dangerous?
"You're awake," a female voice greeted me. I nodded, looking around the room. I was in what appeared to an emergency room, complete with all the life-saving essentials. "Better not sit up until I'm finished," she added. "You'll probably be quite dizzy."
Hell, I already was. Looking up at the nurse, I saw that she was a very pretty woman with long black hair and expressive eyes. Something about her was very familiar. She saw that I was staring and smiled. "I don't know if you remember me, but I used to baby-sit you when you were a little kid."
"Tifa?" I asked with a smile. Ah, yes, I definitely remembered. She was the only one that ever paid any attention to me. All the others would shack up with their boyfriends or girlfriends in my parents' bedrooms... Yeah, I didn‛t really want to think about that.
"Yep, it's me. So how are your parents doing? It's been years since I've seen them."
I winced, and not because the prying out of plaster hurt so much. No, I hadn't seen my parents in years either. "They died," I said briefly, looking away.
In my mind's eye, I could see Tifa's face fall. She was always that way, extremely expressive with her emotions, caring, kind to a fault. "Oh Zexion, I'm so sorry. I had no idea..."
I looked back at her and forced a smile. Trying to change the subject, I asked, "So what happened to the guy that fell through my ceiling? Demyx?"
She gave a visible sigh of relief. I was always good for ruining happy reunions. "He's okay, just has a broken leg. He was lucky, it could have easily been two."
"Well, I'm glad he's okay."
"He's been asking about you. He‛s been awake for some time now, woke up pretty quickly actually." Her words sent a very pleasant tingling sensation down my spine and to my lower regions, making me think of someone else's words earlier.
You know, you're really beautiful.
"Oh?" I asked faintly, my mind on other things. I was bewilderingly happy that he had been asking about me. "Why?"
"He wants to thank you. He says you saved his life." She dropped a particularly large piece of plaster into a pan, it landing with a metallic clank.
This broke me from my thoughts of throwing the boy, man, down on the ground and fucking him 'til the cows come home. (I rarely had these thought about someone and never twice in such a short span of time). Shaking this oh so incredibly erotic vision from my mind, I snorted at Tifa's words. It's probably best not to get a boner while having plaster yanked from your arm by your old babysitter that you haven't seen in about ten years who is now your nurse and trying her hardest not to deform your arm more so than need be.
"Saved his life? All I did was call 9-1-1. Personally, I should be thanking him. I always wanted a skylight." There, my little attempt at humor, disguising my sudden discomfort.
Tifa laughed. "Well, he's a very excitable one, Demyx is. I actually used to baby-sit him and his younger brother too. His older brother Cloud was my best friend back in high school."
I didn‛t really hear what she said. "Hmm. I don't really see why he wants to thank me though," I said, my thoughts absorbing me like they usually do.
"I think you should go see him. He's hyper as hell, has ADHD, but he's probably the nicest person you'll ever meet in your life. A really good friend, you know?"
"Okay, I guess I will then." Not that I needed much convincing really.
Which was why, two hours later, after the last stitch was in place, I was standing outside Demyx's hospital door. From inside, I could hear someone not quite yelling, but the intent was definitely there.
"—irresponsible thing to do. I can't believe it! The landlord has to hire someone to fix all the damage before we can even move back in. And that poor guy's apartment? Did you see it? Everything was trashed."
I thought now would be a good time to knock. For some reason, I couldn't stand anyone yelling at Demyx. My protective instincts were kicking in, but they'd never done that for someone I'd just met before.
"Come in!" a voice called. With my good arm, I carefully opened the door and stepped inside.
"Hi," I said uncomfortably, looking around and seeing four sets of eyes on me. There was Demyx, now in a hospital gown, sitting in the bed with his casted leg propped up. A short teenaged brunette with wide blue eyes, a tall blond man with rather gravity-defying hair, and another tall man with longish brown hair, standing off two the side a bit.
"Guys, this is Zexion!" Demyx exclaimed cheerfully, his face animated. "He's the one that saved my life!"
"I didn't save your life," I muttered, looking down at my toes. I hadn't really expected to be seeing this many people and it was kind of making me uncomfortable. I didn't do well in crowds, being somewhat of an emo loner (not my words) and all.
"But you did!" Demyx insisted.
The tall blond muttered to the tall brunette, "He's on painkillers and it doesn't do anything to diminish his excitement." The brunette nodded.
I heard a squeak. Glancing over I saw the shorter brunette staring at me, wide-eyed. "Don't sue us!"
That caught me off guard. Raising an eyebrow, I replied truthfully, "I wasn't planning on." He looked visibly relieved.
"Zexion, this is my brother Sora," Demyx indicated the short brunette who was still staring at me, with now thankful eyes. "And this is my brother Cloud," he said pointing to the tall blond. "And this is Squall, Cloud's boyfriend," he said nodding at the tall, somewhat standoffish brunette.
"It's Leon," he said he said to me. To Demyx, he added, "Demyx, I've told you a hundred times to call me Leon."
"I don't know why you'd want to be called Leon when you have a cool name like Squall."
"I don't really feel like explaining it again." Demyx shrugged, indicating that this was indeed not the first time he'd heard this before.
Only knowing them a total three minutes, I could already see why Leon and Cloud got along so well. They were both moody loners. Not that I had any room to talk. I practically fit the same bill.
Looking at me, Demyx said, "They came all the way from work and school to visit me. It's the only time they pay any attention to me at all, when I hurt myself. I'm quite clumsy. Where's your family? Didn't they come to see you?"
For the second time today, my breath caught as families were mentioned. "I don't have one," I said, staring at my toes once again.
"Demyx," I heard Cloud groan, "do you ever think before you speak?" Turning to me, he said, "I'm really sorry about my brother. He doesn't mean any harm, honest."
I looked up sharply at Cloud before turning to Demyx. "It's no problem, really. He didn't know."
"No," Demyx interjected. "It is a problem and I'm sorry. Cloud's right, I really do need to think about what I say before I say it."
"Don't blame yourself. Seriously, I don't hold it against you."
"Well, you should. I mean, I did come crashing through your ceiling."
I smiled, looking into those cerulean eyes. "I don't hold that against you either. It was the most exciting thing that's happened to me in a long time. Probably the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me," I admitted.
"But I deformed you arm. I saw it; it was covered in cuts. All that blood," he said, cringing.
"I have worse scars."
An awkward sort of silence filled the room. Finally, Cloud spoke. "We're going to stay at a hotel until the repairs are finished. You should come with us, we'll pay for your room."
"That's not necessary."
"It's the least we can do."
"Yeah, Zexion, you can room with me and Sora!" Demyx said gleefully, all previous sadness gone.
Smiling wryly, I replied, "I could be an ax murderer, you know."
"Nah," Demyx said staring at me intently. "I know you're not." It was hard to look away. The breathtaking view was a hard one to look away from.
--
A few hours later after both Demyx and I were discharged from the hospital, Cloud drove us back to the apartment building. Once there, Demyx elected to remain in the car as he could barely get around on crutches.
"Don't forget to grab my guitar!" he shouted to Sora. "Oh, and my cell phone and my favorite T-shirt!"
I climbed the stairs to my apartment and opened the door, blanching. I had already seen how bad it was when it had happened, but given time to detach myself from the situation, I could plainly see that it was a bloody mess.
All my furniture was water-soaked, every textbook for school sopping. I trudged through the soggy carpet to my bedroom and grabbed whatever clothes I would need for the next week or so. I put my books in a separate bag so they wouldn't get everything else wet. I thanked God that tomorrow was Saturday, therefore I didn't have any classes.
After locking the disaster zone back up, I was down at the car within five minutes. Sora was there already, but Leon and Cloud weren't.
"It'll probably be a while," Demyx said, raising his eyebrows a few times for emphasis.
"Why?" I asked. In all honesty, I just wanted to take a nap; I felt exhausted. Thinking was difficult after taking a few pain meds.
"We heard a suspicious moan come from their bedroom window a minute ago," Sora said, eyes wide. He had the perpetually innocent look about him, the kind that sexual predator's dream of. But then again, so did Demyx. I wondered if that made me a sexual predator.
"Oh," I said, settling into the back seat next to Sora.
It was a while until Leon and Cloud re-emerged from the apartment building, both wearing equally satisfied grins.
The ride to the hotel, actually it was a motel as they are cheaper, was filled with loud singing and even louder arguing. It turns out that Demyx wasn't the only one with ADHD. Tifa was right, Sora had it too, and after he got over his initial fear of me suing their family for everything they had, he gave Demyx a run for his money in the excitable category.
We pulled into the parking lot of the Hollow Bastion Motel, the three of us in the back seat remaining there until Leon and Cloud came back with room keys. They showed us to our room, gave us a room key, and told us that they would be rooming next door.
"Hey Zexion?" Cloud said just as I was about to enter the room.
"Yeah?"
"I really hate to ask you this after everything that's happened today, but do you think you could keep an eye on those two? They'll do something really stupid if they aren't watched carefully. They like you, I can tell, and if you tell them to stop doing something, they will. If they get too out of hand, just come get me, okay?"
I nodded, thinking that even if I did go to his room, he would probably be a bit too preoccupied to notice.
As if reading my mind, he let out a short laugh. "For the most part, just try to ignore them."
With that, he turned on his heal and followed his boyfriend into their room. I entered my own motel room. "Look Zexion," Demyx said cheerfully as I walked inside. "Sora and I agreed that you get your own bed and he and I will share."
Silently, I cursed because sleeping next to Demyx sounded so much more appealing than sleeping by myself. Again.
"Okay," I said, forcing a smile. I know that he thought he was doing me a favor, but...
I discovered soon enough that I would not be getting a nap anytime soon, Demyx and Sora saw to that. Sora bounced around the room and I'm sure Demyx would have been too if it weren't for the fact that he had yet to master the bounce and crutch method of walking. I was giving it two days.
At one point, Demyx sent Sora down the street to get us some pops and snacks. He had a very beautiful cherry wood guitar slung across his lap and was absentmindedly strumming. I watched his fingers pluck the strings, a pleasant little tune poring from the instrument.
"Sorry about Sora, he can be quite a handful sometimes," he said, looking at me.
I laughed. "It's no problem. It's been a while since I've been around so much energy. Living by yourself will do that to you."
"Yeah, I can't imagine living alone. It's like I need to be with people otherwise I sink into a depression. In my freshman year, I lived in a dorm by myself but had to move back in with Cloud. That, and Sora couldn't stand living there with two downers all by himself."
"So Sora lives with your brother too?" I asked.
Taking the hint, he said, "Yeah, we both do. Nothing bad happened. To our parents I mean. See, they film these documentaries of wild animals and such and are always somewhere in Africa or South America. They used to take us with them until Cloud was old enough and moved out. He insisted that Sora and I join move in with him because he didn't want the two of us to grow up messed up too. You've seen how standoffish he is."
"What kind of documentaries?" I asked. "Like the kind on Animal Planet?"
"Yeah, maybe you've even seen them. I know I see my parents on Animal Planet more than I do in real life anymore." As the words fell from his mouth, he froze, looking up at me with worry. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"Demyx, its no problem. Really. I enjoy hearing about other people's families. Don‛t worry about hurting my feelings. I have a tough hide."
Relief flooded his face. "Okay."
"You never did get around to telling me what you majored in," I said referring to our earlier conversation.
"Sorry, but I don't even remember you asking."
This disappointed me. If he didn't remember me asking that, then he probably wouldn't remember what he'd said after...
"Music education," he said, patting his guitar. "When I was younger, I used to want to be in a famous band, you know? I think that's every kid's dream at one point or another. But now I just want to spread music through the world. I don't know, music has always moved me like nothing else ever has and I want to show others the joys that it can bring." He looked embarrassed. "You probably think I'm a sap."
"I don't," I said shaking my head. "I think it's great. When I was younger, I used to play. I haven't for a while, though."
"Really? You used to play?" His voice was full of excitement. "So you get what it's like to have the music pumping through your veins in a way blood never could."
"Well, sort of. Except it's not music that does that for me. For me, it's writing. That's what I want to be, a writer. I can get lost in writing, not stop for hours at a time when it seems like only minutes. Sometimes when I get to writing, I don't even know what exactly I'm writing. It's like the words just flow from my fingertips. So yeah, I do get it."
Demyx smiled, his whole face alight. "I knew we were going to be friends Zexion. A lot of people don't understand it. Passion, I mean. But you do. That's why I think we'll be really good friends."
"Yeah," I said in agreement. "I think you're right." Though I hoped that someday it'd be more than just friendship.
--
Living with Demyx and Sora was strange at first. I've been by myself for two years now and the only human contact I've had was with those I've had class with. Translation: minimal.
Sora would be bouncing off the walls all day long until finally, around eleven each night, he would crash in a snoring heap on the bed he shared with his older brother. It was after then that Demyx and I would have our conversations. We'd talk about anything and everything, from contemporary 20th century novels to whether or not Jimi Hendrix was the best guitarist ever to grace the face of the planet to whether or not Jack Sparrow was indeed gay. He said bi, I said gay.
Every morning either Cloud or Leon would drive us to the university and we would go our separate ways, until lunch time, when we would eat together and continue our conversations. I got to quickly know Demyx's crazy friend Axel, who I soon learned was a pyromaniac with an affinity for a short blond freshman named Roxas. He was nearly as hyper as Sora and gave me these sly, knowing looks every time I saw him. I was getting the feeling that my carefully concealed, growing feelings for Demyx weren‛t nearly as opaque as I wanted them to be at this point in time.
It turned out that Axel was in my Biology class and since the day Demyx introduced us, he'd been sitting by me in class. Several times a lecture, he'd turn to me and give me that same knowing look. One day I got fed up with it, and hissed, "What?"
The knowing looked morphed into a smirk. "You want to fuck Demyx," he said pointedly, acutely aware that he‛d just hit the nail on the head.
"I do not!" I exclaimed as quietly as I could. "He's my friend."
"Your friend that you want to throw on your bed and have your way with. For future reference, if you want to deny feelings for him in the future, deny that you are gay. Any straight guy would."
I ignored him. Axel didn't take being ignored very well. Finally, he turned to me and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry that I said you want to fuck him, even though I know you do. Fuck, make love, sleep with, and its all the same thing really. You're falling in love with him, Zexion, so it's natural to want to make love to someone you're in love with."
I turned slowly to face him, and in that moment, I knew he was right. I was in love with Demyx. At that point, I had only known him about a week and half, but he was the one thing that absorbed ninety-nine percent of my daily thought process anymore. Demyx lying flat on his back while I had my way with him. Demyx smiling, his beautiful eyes wide. Demyx strumming on his guitar, while he stared absentmindedly off into space. It wasn‛t me just imagining I was having sex with him anymore. It was me imaging doing everything with him. Buying our own apartment, grocery shopping, picking out paint swatches, all the things I‛d imagined head-over-heels girls to be imagining about their men. Even that first night at the motel, I'd awoken to sticky sheets and even stickier boxers. Every morning I had to get out of bed early, before he or Sora woke up to go change my shorts and wipe as much cum from my bed as I could. Demyx occupied every dream I had. Hell, I'd even had a dream where we were fifty years old sitting around a Christmas three with our three adopted kids and seven grandkids.
Yes, I was in love with him.
I avoided further discussion of the subject with Axel. He simply shook his head sadly.
--
A few days later, two weeks to the day Demyx came literally crashing into my life, my apartment was ready to be moved back into. Well, not completely ready as it still needed a severe cleaning. Demyx volunteered to help clean, saying that it was his fault that it was destroyed to begin with. I was much obliged; there was a lot of work to be done.
Since the realization of my discovery (well, technically, I guess that it could be called Axel‛s discovery as he did realize it first) I had been trying to get a feel for his own feelings. To begin with, I had no idea as to whether or not he was even gay. It would post a large problem if he wasn‛t. I‛d lost a lot of friendships that way over the years, just being gay, that I mostly withdrew from other people altogether.
That day, he was no longer using crutches as they'd become more hassle than anything. My stitches had been taken out only the day before. He popped a pain pill and we got to work.
So much of the stuff had to just be thrown out, posters and papers and such. A lot of the cheap crapboard furniture I'd bought swelled up from the water contact, no longer usable. None of it really mattered, though. Demyx had overtaken everything else in my life, remaining the sole thing left with any importance.
"Hey Zexion, what's this?" he asked, indicating a large cardboard box. I instantly knew what was inside, every possession owned that had any importance left.
Taking the box from his hands, I absentmindedly wandered to the couch and pulled the lid off. He sat down next to me, his thigh brushing mine. I nearly hissed at the contact.
I picked up the first photograph from the box and handed it to him. "Those are my parent," I said in a whisper.
It was one of their wedding pictures, taken long before I was born. My mother looked beautiful in her long white dress and my dad never looked happier standing with his arms wrapped around her.
"You look just like her," Demyx said quietly. "Same eyes."
I smiled slightly. We continued going through all the old photographs. I'd never shared so much of myself with anyone before that I was left a little breathless. Finally, under all the old photos, we came to the object that I had been dreading.
"What is this?" he asked, picking the scrap metal up.
At this point, I was having difficulty forming words. Instead, I decided to show him. Standing up, I turned my back to him and lifted my shirt.
His sharp intake of breath immediately followed. "This did that?" he asked, indicating the scrap metal. I nodded, lowering my shirt over the large, curved scar on my right shoulder blade.
I nodded.
Demyx breathed out, no doubt still thinking about the hideous scar. "I guess you were right when you said you had worse scars."
"I wasn't talking about that," I said truthfully.
--
A fourteen-year-old Zexion dashed from the building, glad that the school day was finally over. He'd had Mr. Mitchem last period of the day and that was not a good thing. Mr. Mitchem was an alcoholic going through a divorce, so his class was never any fun.
Besides, it was Friday and he didn't have to go back to school for another two whole days.
His mom and dad were waiting in the school parking lot just as they always were every day. "How was school, dear?" his mom asked as he flung himself on the back seat. His dad pulled out of the school's parking lot, turning left.
"It was okay, I suppose. I have to write a paper on the ecosystem that's due Monday," he said, shrugging.
His dad chuckled. "As if writing is a hardship for you."
The boy grinned. "Nope!" he said proudly. Leaning foreword in his seat, he asked his mother, "Did the baby kick anymore today?"
She laid her hands delicately on her protruding stomach. "Yeah, she did, Zexion. It think this baby's going to be a handful."
"That's okay," Zexion said. "I'll teach her to be good." They turned onto the freeway as it was the quickest way home.
"I'm sure you will," his mother said, turning to smile at him.
His dad looked at him from the rearview mirror. "Sit back and put your seatbelt on, Zexion. You're fourteen, you know better."
"Aww Dad! No one wears seatbelts anymore!"
"Your mother and I do, that should be good enough for you." The boy sighed, reaching for the aforementioned belt.
He would have put it on too, if their car hadn't been rear-ended a half second later. "Jesus Christ!" Zexion yelled as he was thrown forward, hitting the back of his mother's passenger side seat.
"Zexion! Watch your language!" his mother said automatically.
The Dad quickly tried to pull the car off to the side. Once there, Zexion leaped from the car to inspect the damage. "Oh, Dad, they got us good!"
The car that had done the rear-ending also pulled off to the side, parking in front of them. Zexion went to sit in the grass. His dad also got out of the car with his cell phone to call AAA.
Humming in the grass, Zexion could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the swerving semi crash into the back of his parents' car. Immediately, he stood up and began running to them.
The last thing he remembered was his mother's wide eyes staring at him before the car blew up, the immediate area engulfed in flames. The force sent Zexion flying backward, where he landed on a piece of wreckage that had come from a crash the previous night.
--
"After I was released from the hospital, they sent me to live with my aunt Larxene. She was the only living relative I had, my dad's little sister. One sadistic bitch. She made my life hell while I lived there with her until I turned eighteen and moved out."
I listened to Zexion in horror as the words poured from his mouth. I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to watch your parents die like that. Sure, my parents weren't exactly the parental type, but they loved us. I couldn't understand what it was like to be alone.
I saw the tears falling from his eyes in a steady stream, falling onto his hands. Tentatively, I grasped one of those hands in my own. I couldn't stand to see him cry like that.
Growing up, I'd always liked girls and hadn't even given guys much thought. But since I met Zexion, I couldn't imagine any girl being more beautiful than him, inside or out. He was so pure and quiet, wounded, making me just want to wrap my arms around him and protect him for the rest of my life.
I knew that I was madly in love with him. And I'd be damned if I was going to see him hurt like that anymore, not if I could help it.
Huge raking sobs shook his body as I pulled him to me and wrapped my arms around him. He cried into my shoulder for so long, his arms tight around my back.
Finally, after he'd calmed down, he pulled away, avoiding my eyes. "I-I'm sorry about that," he said.
I ignored this, taking his face in my hands and forcing him to look me in the eye. "Even with your eyes swollen and red, you're still the most beautiful person I've ever seen." Even as the words tumbled from my mouth, I didn't regret them because they were true.
"W-what?" he said blankly. "I don't understand."
"Zexion, I love you, and not as a friend. I'm in love with you. I've never felt like this about anyone else before."
He continued to stare at me with that blank expression. "I don't understand. How can you love me?"
And then I knew. I knew he only liked me as a friend. And in confessing my love for him, I'd jeopardized whatever friendship we could have had. My mouth quickly grew dry and I physically felt like I was going to throw up.
I stood up quickly, hobbling to his apartment door. "I-I'm sorry," I said. "Forgive me."
I was nearly to the stairs when I felt someone grab my arm. I hadn't even heard him coming. Turning, I looked at him and it broke my heart all the more.
"No," he said.
I honestly didn't know what that meant. "No what?"
"No. You're not leaving me. Everyone else has left me and I don't want you to leave me too."
I could only imagine that my face was now as blank was his had been. "What are you saying?" I asked desperately.
"I want you to stay with me. Forever. Because I love you too."
I'm not sure who started it, but a second later our lips were crashing together. With his arms around me, he led me back to his apartment. Once in his bedroom, I was gently placed on his bed, naked before I knew it. Everything was passing in a blur; Zexion's hands trailing down my body, his tongue leaving wet trails across my stomach. The next thing I was consciously aware of was throwing my head back into the pillow in ecstasy.
I was left panting as he crawled up next to me and wrapped his arms around me. Nipping my ear with his teeth, he whispered, "I love you, you crazy fool. Don't ever leave me, okay?"
I laughed, brushing that blue-gray hair from his eyes. "Never. I love you too, but it's not fair really. I mean you've seen me naked twice and I've haven't even seen you with your shirt all the way off. If we're going to start this relationship off right, I think you need to take your clothes off."
Grinning, he obliged.
--
"Zexion?" a voice called from somewhere in the apartment.
"In the bedroom," I said, sorting the clothes into drawers.
I heard him laugh evilly. "My favorite place for you."
I rolled my eyes, but smiled.
"You don't need to unpack everything right now, you know," Demyx said wrapping his arms around my waist. Absentmindedly, he traced the long scar on my arm, the very impression he left permanently in my skin when he fell through my roof and into my heart.
"I know that," I said, sliding my fingers through his. "I just like things in order, unlike you."
"Calling me messy?" he asked playfully. I could feel his hot breath on my neck. My breath caught in my throat and my legs bowed slightly. "You insulted me, now you have to pay the price." His tongue licked the length of my neck before he gently blew a trail of scorching air. My legs did give out then.
"I'd better help you to the bed," Demyx said, half-carrying me. "I don't think you can make it by yourself."
"You know I can't make it by myself," I said. We both knew that I was not referring to the journey to the still sheetless bed.
"I'm glad," he said laying me down, climbing on top of me. "I'm glad you need me. I like being needed as much I need you." He leaned down and kissed me deeply, teeth nibbling my bottom lip.
I felt like toying with, an eye for an eye as they say, which is why I pushed him away from my mouth. "Don't you have a lesson plan to write?" I asked innocently.
He smirked. "Don't you have 500 pages of editing to do?"
"Touché," I said, pulling him back down and seeking his ever-pliant lips.
End.
--
A/N: Questions? Comments? Concerns? Drop me a line, por favor. If you don't, I shall sick Xaldin, my pet chocobo on you. If you thought the video game version was bad, wait til you meet my chocobo with male PMS.
WebofDream89