Chapter Fourteen

Demyx was already there, revving up the bike, when he came back. His face and expression was obscured completely by the tinted film of his helmet, leaving Zexion to almost not imagine the pained look that must have been dancing in his eyes at that very moment. Wordlessly, Zexion mounted upon the motorcycle seat, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around the quavering body of the musician, tasting the blood slowly seeping into his mouth – an interesting reminder of the slap he'd taken.

The silence continued, filled only by the roaring of thunder and angry swirling of disturbed, black clouds just overhead, and Demyx leaned and kicked off the motorcycle.

They raced down the road, making a vigorous U-turn at one point before tearing down the deserted route back to the southern side of the island. As they passed by the upper-class neighbourhood, Zexion blinked, watching the house disappear in a snap - Now you see it, now you don't, he thought with a cutting smile, before turning to rest his head against the firm surface of his driver's back. To their left, there was nothing but blackened, angry sea, and there was something morbidly reassuring about it.

The light drizzle began to gently pelt at the two young men at about the time they began ascending the winding route around the hilly area, but Demyx didn't even begin to slow down as the tiny spatters of liquid stung his bare fists. If anything, he sped up to dangerous speeds, turning and leaning riskily close to the edge of the haphazard road, feeling Zexion's hands nervously grasp at his bursting chest.

There was something hot, boiling in his eyes and making seeing difficult through that the cold assault of rain. If only he could just breathe steady and let the imploding feeling in his head not break out just yet.

As they began heading closer inland and the road widened considerably, the ineffectual drizzle gradually turned heavy, and by the time Demyx turned and braked the screeching, protesting motorcycle and just barely brushed by the roadside borderline beneath the sheltering bridge that the highway passed under, the rain had escalated to a vast deluge.

Demyx pulled off his helmet, swearing indistinctly and clambering off the seat, pressing his hand against Zexion's chest like that other man had been doing in the last twenty minutes, firmly pushing him off the motorcycle, muttering something between them about keeping raincoats beneath the seat. "Dammit, dammit, where'd I keep it?" Demyx hissed as he cranked the seat up, sifting through the paraphernalia hidden beneath it. Some of it was Cloud's stuff, stuff he didn't recognise, and that just made him run off a few more small expletives as he pushed aside miscellaneous repair tools and materials. "I'm sure I've got... something here..." he trailed off, hearing his own voice break very faintly, mixed with the deafening sound of pouring rain.

He stopped searching, just leaning over the motorcycle compartment, finding his vision turning into a useless blur. The only warm thing he felt was the hot tears that abruptly began to cascade down his cheeks without any warning at all. "Ugh, gosh, I'm..." he barely mustered, hands lifting to wipe away the pouring, seemingly unstoppable flow of stinging tears. They rolled continuously on, warming and dampening his palms.

He could barely hear Zexion saying his name, softly, as if it wasn't raining cats and dogs just outside and Demyx's hearing wasn't shot by the roaring of his motorcycle engine anyway. "No, just..." he waved off the concerned pair of hands as they attempted to touch him reassuringly. "Don't." He kept his head low, not wanting to let the other man watch the miserable red flush that had come over his face and turned him even more helpless.

Demyx barely restrained a sob, continuing to sift through the myriad of junk before his hands found what he was looking for. One old, slightly moth-eaten light blue raincoat, and a pristine, plastic-wrapped spare he'd initially bought for Marluxia.

"Put this on," he said as he handed the newer, less corroded one to Zexion, hating the cracked feature his voice was taking on. It just boasted that he was crying. "Ugh," he whimpered as a slow sob wracked his whole body and his chest jumped up momentarily, and he hungrily breathed in every moment that he could, almost hyperventilating. Messily he unravelled his raincoat, shaking his hand through the arm, cursing the uncomfortable suit he was unlucky enough to be wearing.

He was stopped in mid-action by Zexion's hand planting itself firmly on his shoulder and squeezing it. "You're not driving us both out into the rain when you can't even see properly," the shorter man sensibly said, before cranking down the motorcycle seat and reclining against it. "And I'm certainly not letting you go to your empty apartment when you're like this."

What then? Demyx wanted to say, frustrated and angry, but he didn't even trust his own voice at the moment. He just looked up painfully, seeing Zexion looking right at him for a moment before his eyes filled up with a fresh batch of tears and he buried his hands in his face.

"We're going to my apartment," Zexion said resolutely, straddling over the motorcycle seat and testily touching the handlebars. "Just tell me, cursorily if you will, how to drive this..."

"You-" Demyx hiccupped, and flushed ashamedly, peering out from his cupped hands to give the man an incredulous look, "c-can't be serious. You can't d-drive- what if you-?"

"Fall asleep? Because of my sleep disorder?" he intervened, blue eyes coolly flicking to show that he'd known the possibility. "There's a chance of it. Yet you can't see a thing, can you? And I don't want to spend any more time out beneath a bridge in the middle of foreign north-island territory than I must."

Demyx cursed again, leaning back against the strong metal strip that separated the road from the green, swampy terrain beneath the bridge. "Y - you're still so... Zexion-like, after all of this," he said, faking a smile. "Just let me-" he hiccuped again, "cry this out for a bit, you... big... jerk."

"If you think so," Zexion seemed to shrug. A tiny clench of a worried frown pulled on his features, but Demyx could barely see anyway.

The rain fell like a heavy, continuous assault going on just beyond the tall shelter of the bridge. No cars roared past on that desolate, barely populated end of the island. And Demyx just replayed the last hour in his head, over and over, and let the tears run.

He wasn't sure when, but after a long moment, just when his eyes began to dry and that weary flush initiated taking its toll on his face instead, he might have heard Zexion murmur indistinctly- "I'm sorry."

It could have been the deceiving howl of the wind blowing some rain in under the bridge and playing tricks on his hearing for all he knew.

"Where do you live?" Demyx asked finally, wiping away the traces of wetness on his face with his damp, itchy grey sleeves, one still caught in the arm of his raincoat. He was fairly certain he looked the good part of sloppy, awful and tired then, but only Zexion was around and at the moment the man was very politely sitting up straight on the motorcycle seat, silent and watchful.

Zexion pulled back his right arm's solid black shirt sleeve, revealing a flawless stretch of skin, and on it, a loose steel bracelet with a plate dangling from it. Demyx peered in closer, tired eyes blinking to focus on the slightly swinging plate- "'Hi, I am Zexion, I'm narcoleptic'..." he snorted, sniffing a little, "'in an emergency, please contact...'- geez, is it really safe to put your address and someone's phone number on some bracelet?" he murmured, reading the rest of the text silently, not really committing any of it to memory.

"I have to wear this," Zexion explained calmly, somehow completely audible over the blasting downpour, "in case I fall asleep while out shopping, or something just as preposterous."

Demyx laughed a little. "That sounds like fun."

A little miffed, the actor pulled his arm away, pulling his sleeve down again over the smooth skin. "The point is that it has my address on it. That can be convenient."

The musician felt a warm, new blush come over his face. "Can I make something clear, Zexion?" He shivered as a gust blew in some rain over them.

"Certainly," Zexion looked at him attentively.

"I'm not staying over," Demyx said, all choking emotion draining out of his voice and leaving the rough contours of emotional weariness behind. "I... I want to spend some time alone."

The shorter man looked like he didn't agree to this at all, but he didn't object and nodded almost complaisantly. He swallowed once, and Demyx followed his Adam's apple bobbing hesitantly on the smooth skin of his exposed neck. "If that is what you think is best. Take me home," he said shortly and thickly.

()(())()

Raincoats or no, they were both effectively soaked and shivering by the time Demyx pulled into the parking lot before the tall, elegant apartment complex. The whole vicinity located much deeper into the hills than his own home, and it boasted somewhat more class. Obviously built much more recently than his own meek little edifice, he could already see that the place had a snazzy C.C.T.V. system, glass doors that only opened with cardkeys, and metal elevator doors that were polished so meticulously that Demyx could fix his soggy, limp hair in one.

The rain had grown only more relentless during the duration of the ride, until it found its way beneath the supposedly protective material of their raincoats and soaked their skin and clothes. As Zexion dismounted from the bicycle and removed his raincoat, Demyx had a clear view of his apparently thin black shirt plastering itself to every inch of his skin, until even the light, rounded contours of his nipples were faintly visible. His pants sang a very similar story, unfortunately, and his shoes made cloggy, squashed noises when he so much as shifted about in them. His slate-grey hair was so effectively wet that it more or less clung in strands to the right side of his face, dripping constantly.

The actor did not look pleased at this development, and Demyx didn't run the risk telling him that he looked like he could win a wet shirt contest. Demyx himself was only half-amused and barely distracted - the emotional lead weights in his brain weighed him down so heavily that he only had half the mind to appreciate a wet and bothered Zexion.

"Are you certain you don't want to come in?" the shorter man asked, voice raised louder than usual. Just above their heads was a constant din of pouring rain on metal awnings.

Demyx shook his head and smiled sardonically. "I think that a ride in the rain is just what I need. Not shooting for anything ambitious like composing an album of angst or downing five tubs of ice cream or anything."

He was lying. He felt like over-doing it just this once and riding all over the entire island, just watching the road blur in and out of sight in front of him. He felt like riding down a beach and crashing his bike into the sharp beds of rocks up north. He felt like crawling all over those rocks on hands and knees, if only to feel the igneous rock edges lacerate into his flesh. He felt like forgetting, and sometimes that was very difficult to do.

Worst of all, Zexion seemed to be painfully aware that Demyx's mouth was spewing untruths at the rate of one feigned grin per sentence. The actor nodded anyway, half-lidded gaze not hiding any of the natural scrutiny he threw upon Demyx's every action. "If you say so." It seemed like Zexion had been saying all that- 'If you say so', 'If you think so', for the last hour. It made Demyx want to do something- anything- to just make those blue eyes widen in shock like they had when he'd first touched upon the topic of Zexion's past.

But then, this was how Demyx was left when his own past was chafed against. He felt too empty to conjure a semblance of sympathy with the man.

He just wanted to be alone.

He made a small sound of surprise when Zexion drew in close to him, and the man clicked his tongue in a small sound of bemused disapproval. "We've hugged before, what is the fuss about?" he said as he efficiently moved his hands over his wrists, pulling back his black sleeves and fumbling on the tiny clasp of his bracelet. Before Demyx knew it, the 'Hi, I'm Zexion, I'm narcoleptic!' bracelet was pressing into the skin of his own wrist, and Zexion was fixing it on for him.

"W-what's this for?"

The slate-grey-haired man looked up at him like there was nothing weird about giving somebody your narcolepsy awareness bracelet. "There is my address. If you ever want to visit, or call, you're welcome to at all hours. Even at ungodly hours of the night; I will be awake. Tell the guard at the front gate that you know me. I'll leave a spare key beneath the welcome mat. You can give the bracelet back when..." When you get your sanity together, Zexion didn't say. "...When it's time."

Demyx looked at his own arm and the bracelet around it. It was still warm from being worn by the actor. And Demyx's sight was as good as ever to read the long, precise address on it. "Yeah," he said at last. "All right. Yeah." It was all he seemed to have the capacity to say anymore.

Pulling out of the parking lot and leaving Zexion and his classy apartment behind, he didn't even bother with a raincoat any more. Bike roaring to be heard over the clamour of the rain, Demyx only accelerated as he disappeared into the mist.

()(())()

If you asked him, Demyx wouldn't be able to tell you how long he rode for. He rode until it was long after sunset, long after the storm ceased to be nothing but weak rumbles of thunder in the night, cursorily lighting up the black of the sky. He rode north again, this time going straight through the core of the city, watching the cars and bikes swirl around him like debris caught in a whirlpool. Later on he wasn't even to recall what he thought about, but he thought about a thousand things. Distinctly, there was Selphie, she's probably sitting on the couch and crying she probably fought with Mom and Dad she's probably never going to forgive mewhatdidIdo? About his mother and father, fuckthemfuckthemfuckdammit I can't hate them why can't I hate them? About Zexion, I could see every curve of him and he never batted an eye it's like he saw every inch of me just then he never batted an eye.

He stopped at an isolated gas stop and refilled his sputtering, protesting motorcycle with fuel with some of the scraps from the bottom of his barrel of resources, and spent the final wad of ones in his wallet on a can of coffee and some sea salt ice cream, which he ate while he sat on a high rock on the most isolated end of the island, watching the rising moon make streams of silver on the snaking rivers in the low beds of land miles below him. When he finished, he stuck the ice cream stick into the tab of the coffee can and tossed it into a musty-looking garbage bin that encourage recycling.

He considered stopping at a lonely, old pay phone and calling Zexion, Axel, or maybe even Marluxia, if only to hear another voice to mute out all the memories resounding in his brain, but he figured that that would just give him a headache. The constant song of the cicadas and various other animals of the night blasted over his ears instead as he rode through the winding, mountainous ends of the island. In the moonlight, Zexion's bracelet glistened and outline his wrist.

At some point, he threw out his itchy grey jacket to the wind and rode, freezing and feeling slow tugs of sleep, in his dress-shirt.

And finally, Demyx stopped at the side of a rode on a route that headed to the southern side of the island, shivered, and wanted to smack himself for being so dumb. He'd ridden, he'd thought, he'd felt like shit, he'd eaten and drank and now he felt like hitting his head against his motorcycle for being such an idiot.

Geez, he shuddered, hugging his arms close to himself and watching the lights go out gradually, like a blanket of darkness, over the city before his eyes, I still feel like crap. The moon, directly above his head by then, seemed like the only constant, reliable source of light in the world. And in its consistent streams of light, Demyx could barely discern the digits and the address engraved on the cold bracelet Zexion had wrapped around his arm and seemingly engraved into his flesh.

Squinting in the darkness, Demyx decided to read, and in reading, he was fully able to forget the constant pain.

Like a child, he just wanted Zexion. At that moment, Zexion meant a pair of arms to maybe wrap around him like they had before, keep him warm, and not resent him for who he was. Zexion meant an unforgettable pair of eyes that he'd fought, bled, cried and broken for.

Revving up his bike again and resolving to head to a house that felt more like home than his own, Demyx thought to himself through nonexistent tears that if he ever recovered from this, he'd never break down again. In walking away, he'd resolved to hold on to who he was and not give in.

Sure, it hurt like hell to think about rejecting the first sixteen-something years of his life, but he was hoping that Zexion could help with that part.

()(())()

It took him another twenty minutes to find Zexion's apartment complex again in the darkness. At that unknown hour of the night, the world Demyx had written in his head had suddenly turned into a new language of barely-lit road signs and nightlights to guide his way down the wet, cold road. The guard let him in without so much as a second look, and he rolled in with his exhausted-yet-faithful bike, taking a tiny parking space where he could get it among the vehicles of residents, crammed together in uniform, steely lines.

He was slightly amused that he was right- you really could fix your hair in the shiny elevator doors. The abrupt neon light seemed foreign and glaring to him, and in the clear reflections he could see a haggard-looking young man who looked like he was low on sleep, love and money all together. He may have been.

He really looked bad. As the elevator doors mechanically wrenched open and Demyx stepped in and searched for the button that said '6', he hoped a little that Zexion would recognise him and not take him for a burglar or a drug addict or something.

Boy, that would be a great topping for his day.

Smiling, Demyx leaned against the metal walls and imagined. What would Zexion be doing? Laying on his bed? Would he be reading a book? Would he be trying to sleep?

What does he sleep in?

Demyx opened his eyes at this one question, but his imagination just kept on running, kept on showing him flashes of the pointed lines and distinct shades that indicated Zexion's body beneath his black shirt plastered to his skin. He must have changed out of that shirt by now. Peeled it off and absentmindedly discarded it to the dryer. Absentmindedly...

He shook his head and fell back against the white, fresh walls. And then he shook himself again and began walking. Face flushed, he hoped that the sudden interest his mind had taken in mentally undressing an imaginary Zexion would flag by the time he reached apartment number six of the sixth floor.

Demyx tried to distract himself by telling himself about the numerical sameness in Zexion's address. It really didn't do anything. He felt like a criminal waddling awkwardly through the night. Hell, he felt like an intruder in his own life, coming in and screwing everything over. Well, screwing over everything that wasn't already a mess.

Finally he reached the apartment, running his slim olive hands down the steely, unwelcoming grille before gazing downwards- satisfied that his body had stopped rebelling against him- and seeing the gloomy 'WELCOME' mat splayed on the floor just beyond the grille, well in reach, on the clean, tiled, dimly-lit floor. Kneeling, Demyx clawed in the darkness, not really sure of what he was doing himself. A dozen of the apartments he'd passed had had similar welcome mats- heck, it was probably a freebie that came along with every lot- who was saying that he'd gotten the right house? Maybe he was wrong... somehow.

There was a slow clink to cement all his lingering hopes when he found, unsurprisingly, a small key beneath the mat. Just barely in reach. Demyx blinked. He wouldn't have been surprised if it was all somehow a bad joke, considering the way his day had gone, so the reassuring presence of the key made him raise an eyebrow and smile hesitantly.

Standing, he opened the grille and stepped inside, politely slipping off his shoes and putting them next to Zexion's boots on the sole shoe rack that furnished the otherwise bare hallway just between the security gate and the front door. The security of this place was rather impressive to Demyx. He rolled the gate shut behind himself and locked it back, pleased that it barely made a sound. Creeping about in the dark like this, Demyx remotely reminded himself of a husband sneaking home long after hours, and he couldn't make himself grin sardonically at that. Zexion would kill him, if he was still awake.

Didn't he say it would be okay if I crept about at ungodly hours?

Demyx tried the front door and found, more pleasant still, that it was unlocked. Compliantly it clicked open and he only had to lightly pull for the massive wooden door to pull open, and revealed the apartment. The place, airily ventilated, didn't stink of old books and ink and mould like that backroom at the theatre did, but it had a certain bookish aura to it notwithstanding. From a cursory glance in the darkness, Demyx could tell that the entire place was comprised of about five rooms- on his left Zexion had a bathtub in his blue-tiled bathroom, a decent-sized kitchen on his right, and a decent view of what looked like a golf-field (lit by cool night-lights that made Demyx think of romance) from the huge windows-for-walls on one end of the living room. A basket of fruits sat on the coffee table, and the sofas were a dull shade of grey. The entire place had a quality of meticulous cleanliness to it, but with barely any lighting Demyx really didn't know how to judge.

He guessed, though, that the door nearest to him, cracked open and telling of nothing but darkness, was the door to Zexion's room. Making good on that guess, Demyx ambled across the frigid white tile floor, and gave the door a light push, watching as it creaked slowly. Beyond it was mostly obscured by the thick veil of night and a lack of lighting, but his adjusted eyes could barely discern the bed just beyond the door. And the old, wistful smell of books was something he didn't need to see to understand. Something about this just told him that this really was Zexion's room.

He strode in quietly, almost skulking, watching how unmoving the barely-outline figure on the bed was. Zexion's room didn't need a light, he realised- his room was illuminated well enough by the lights of the city that the windows faced. Glittering blinks of gem-like city lights stretched across the land, like they were making up for the absence of stars in the sky, and the light painted the contours of Zexion's curled up beneath white blankets on this cold night.

Somehow, the actor was getting some sleep tonight. Demyx felt almost good for him.

The musician needed warmth, which was why the dull-looking couch was not an option. Slowly he dropped his knees at the edge of the mattress, and from that one movement onwards his body folded with easy compliance, and on the bed he crawled into the small space that Zexion's curled, blanketed figure left him. By then he was numb, uncaring, and his eyes were already unseeing, too blurred by sleepiness to discern any feeling but the warmth of Zexion's small figure pressed up against him. He reached out his long, lanky arms and wrapped them around the blanket-covered figure, feeling how small, how fragile and glasslike those bones were in his arms.

Yeah, definitely Zexion, Demyx thought, lips quirking upwards tiredly as he drifted into a fatigued man's sleep. Sleep, to forget everything. Sleep, just to rest his tired heart.

Finally, unconsciousness came very easily to him that night.

()(())()

He didn't dream of the day that had changed his life.

Instead, he dreamed about being five years old, skinny like toothpicks all stuck together, and better at swimming than walking. Hearing his mom and dad talking about how swimming was such a great skill because he could see the sea, too. That hazy world his mind took him into to stand in the stead of reality was one filled with the colour of aquamarine that he'd initially thought only existed in his mommy's eyes. His own eyes. Streams of coral red and green and orange were like signals beaming on and off in his brain, all blended with seas of aquamarine. The sea and water, where he felt most at home for a lot of his life.

Water. Rainwater was pure and washed away all his misdoings. Seawater was salty and washed away all his pain.

And then there were those blue eyes that were a deeper shade of blue than the shallow azure seawater. And then there were days of music where he'd found a lot of expression and a worldly, almost existential purpose in his life. In the end, while water seemed to be as prominent in his life as the blood running through his veins, it was the music that kept that blood flowing with some kind of feeling of belonging. He wasn't sure if he could really be happy anymore without that sense of existence. If he lost that sense of existence, he felt like he might just dissolve into the water and disappear like a drop of blood into the enormous ocean.

Hearing his mom and dad talk about how he should concentrate on reading his books instead of playing. Watching his dad pick up his first sitar and take it out to the nearest incinerator. Raising Selphie.

Hearing his own failing voice and realising it was better for singing than shouting at his parents. Thinking about how his ears would much rather be listening to streams of music than streams of resentfulness.

Hearing singing. Soft, sweet, powerful notes in a child's voice, pouring, note by note, some form of satisfaction into his bones.

()(())()

Feeling warmth when he first woke up in the morning was a weird and relatively foreign concept to Demyx by then. If it was really warm when he first woke up, it would be in the unpleasant, stick and sweaty way that evinced that he'd slept in until the sun was high in the sky and pouring streams of hot, hot light into his room. This sort of temperature, however, was different. When he breathed in, sleepily, he found himself smelling a light bit of food, maybe bacon, and lavender. Standard smell of somebody he happened to be more than a little acquainted with...

Never mind that, though. Whatever position his body was in, it was in the pinnacle of comfort. If not for his curiousity getting the better of him, Demyx was tempted to drift directly back into a wonderful sleep.

He tried to move and he found that he was perfectly intertwined with Zexion. In the way that two puzzle-pieces are stuck and bent together and if one moves it's still going to jam up the other, their limbs folded and fit against each other like a masterpiece.

Once Demyx got over how comfortable it was, he found it really damn awkward. They were both on their sides, and somehow in the long hours of the night Zexion had turned from facing away to facing directly into his chest. His left arm was planted very nicely, stuck beneath Zexion's warm, translucently pale neck, and his right one was draped all over the shorter man's partly-exposed torso. The bed sheet was clumsily thrown over both of them. Their legs were successfully and completely tangled together. Demyx could vaguely discern Zexion's toes fitted slightly against his.

And then, in a painful and heart-stopping moment, Demyx realised that Zexion's eyes were open and they were staring blankly into his white dress-shirt. Zexion was awake and had been for heaven-knew-how-long.

Suddenly, the super-comfortable temperature went way, way up.

"G-guh!" Demyx sputtered in a vague, stupid attempt at saying 'good morning' to the man he was currently intertwined with. "Good morning?" he tried again, with all the doubt of a man who had just done something very, very stupid and is looking to the nearest person for reassurance that he was just as stupid as what he had just done. In other words, he was slightly afraid of how Zexion would react to waking up with his limbs practically tied around a skinny musician who hadn't changed but hey, he wasn't wet or anything, all that riding in the freezing cold night and the sea breeze coming over the hills sure took care of that-

"Good morning," Zexion said very calmly, before stretching his arms a little and letting his bed mate realise just where the his arms were: nicely fitted just behind his back. Under his shirt. Where he'd been undoubtedly holding him for the better part of the night.

Suddenly, he really, really needed to untangle and turn away and maybe do something about a little... Problem southwards.

Zexion looked at him quite levelly and said his name, like he was just slowly beginning to assess the situation himself, "Demyx." It came out slow, like a purr, and the sleepy huskiness sidled into that name and turned it almost... almost...

The musician lurched for real this time, hitting snags in the human knot he'd tied with Zexion and desperately pushing to get out of them. Finally, in a jerk of finality, he attempted to roll over and face away.

In his noble attempt, he broke free, and hit his nose on the wall that Zexion's bed faced. Whining in slight pain, the musician curled up and lay there.

He vaguely heard Zexion sit up next to him. "It's still early," the actor noted flatly as he shifted about, not regarding his bedmates odd behaviour. A long period silence fell over them like a thin blanket. Where Zexion was undoubtedly looking at him and thinking about what a weird little schmuck he was, crawling into his apartments at ungodly hours and huddling into his beds like a needy child.

Demyx wasn't expecting it when a small hand, seemingly more fragile than he'd ever noticed before, settled on his shoulder, and the man beside him asked him, "How do you feel? After everything, I mean."

What a question. "After everything," he murmured, pulling the sheet closer around himself, hoping it could cover him up a little. Closing his eyes and wishing he could go back to sleep and shut everything out for once, Demyx said, "After everything... I guess it's like I finally told off that loud old lady next door and she's not making noise any more. Like I threw up a four-hundred-thousand munny cuisine because I drank too much wine. Like I'm starting a new chapter when I still want to reread the last one. I can't describe it, Zexion..." He burrowed his head into the space where the mattress and the wall met. "I just want to sleep."

He could practically see Zexion nodding behind him. "I see," he said, in that calm, Zexion way of his. "Absorb the blow at your own time." And then, unexpectedly, "Do you want breakfast?"

Demyx groaned.

...Breakfast?

"Breakfast," he echoed his muddled thoughts, finally feeling safe enough to roll over and look Zexion in the eye. The actor was sitting up, one leg hanging off the bed, propped up on his arms and gazing serenely upon him. "What time 'sit? Isn't it... too early to even think about breakfast?" he mumbled.

The shorter man shook his head, fingers running down over his pyjamas, straightening them out. "It's seven on Monday morning. Storm clouds and the autumn equinox ensure the sun's late arrival."

He blinked, and asked the question that had been raring to be asked since he'd found the man's eyes opened. "How long have you been awake, anyway?"

"Since three. I didn't want to wake you, so I didn't move."

"...Damn. I'm sorry."

"Don't offer any apologies and I won't either," Zexion said curtly, before unexpectedly leaning in, reaching out and brushing back the messy hair in Demyx's face. "Four hours," he added.

"Four hours?" he looked back, bemused.

The actor nodded, "I've had four hours awake to think this over very thoroughly."

Demyx wasn't expecting what happened next. He wasn't expecting the actor to be breaking any strange, paper wall of fear between the two of them. He had no preconception of the idea that Zexion would be the one to rush in to him and tear down every worry, every anxiety, with a simple motion- like the anvil of absolution that he always had been.

He wasn't expecting to find his lips locked with Zexion's.

It was strange, because one of them had been laying down and another had been sitting up, it was odd because Dem was still a bit sluggish, and it was wonderful. Reaching out, he touched Zexion's soft, mussed-up hair and gently urged him further into the kiss, loving the soft, slightly dry touch of his lips against his own.

It was tender and sleepy, just the way wake-up kisses are in the early hours of the morning. It tasted like nothing but warmth of body contact and the coolness of the beginning of a day. It felt like softness and Zexion.

Zexion pulled back, and when Demyx opened his eyes and blinked in surprise, he found that their eyes had met. In the grey pre-twilight, that was all he saw: Zexion leaning just above him and holding a gaze. And then Zexion nodded, looking satisfied with something Demyx may or may not have known, and he stood up. "I'm going to make breakfast," he said, "so you may enjoy another ten minutes of precious sleep before I must insist you get up and eat."

"Zexion."

The actor halted, frame suddenly stiff with the faintest suggestion of wariness. Mechanically he turned, gazing with blatantly feigned affectation over his shoulder, eyes boring into Demyx. "Yes?"

Demyx smiled. "Thank you."

Something- or maybe nothing at all but the illusion in Demyx's sleep-fogged mind- was shed that moment on Zexion's personage, falling to the floor. It was like a thick, shell-like layer had peeled off with those words, and Zexion smiled- actually smiled-, turning around and nodding. "No," he said, "there's no need." Something tender shone through him with so much life, like a spattered, distorted glass panel behind his eyes had spontaneously shattered.

And as he walked out, Demyx's eyes followed his pyjamas-clad figure. And then, the musician dropped back into the pillows and smiled.

()(())()

For many nights to come, he'd ride on his motorcycle out for hours on end, absorbing and accepting the tide his life was sweeping him into. He'd stop at the beach and put his bike on a stand, and walk, sneakers scraping into the glittering white sand, watching the foaming sea draw up and down and paint the shoreline with soaked sand that glistened like myriad gemstones in the sunlight.

For many days to come, he'd spend his time hunched over sheet music, desperately trying to write down the constant melody in his head.

Sometimes, he'd take Zexion on his night trips. Sometimes he would sit down by the shorter man's side and start playing the acoustic version of the melody he'd just attempted to capture and draw into some corporeal form.

And sometimes, often in the proceeding month after that one day, Demyx would come home after hours of watching the moonrise on the northern island shore, and he'd undress by the light of the city beyond the windows and crawl into bed, exhausted and cold but never again broken.

He'd hear, "Welcome home," and feel Zexion's arms slowly wrap around him.

He'd stopped living whatever life of misery or success that may or may not have been written for him. And he had a lot of problems: a play to work on and a life to get into gear after an initial lifetime of misery. But he was working on it.

And for the time being, he was happy just to reach out in the darkness between them to touch his fingers lightly to Zexion's lips, map every line of a faint smile, and know that he really was home.

Terminus

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Kindly leave a final review to tell me how you felt- I'd really love to hear what you have to say! The end, the entire story... Anything. Thank you so much for sticking with me through this.

Due to the fact that a few people do seem to want access to the extras, I decided to make them available on my livejournal, gravitybeams. For a link to Scripted's master post on the journal, kindly visit my profile.

Once again, thanks for reading! : D
Over and out, Panzer Panda.