"You're just cold and heartless, aren't you?"

"You don't even care, do you?!"

"I can't belive I've raised someone so cold."

"I'm glad to know you're good at hurting people, Zexion. Everyone has to be good at something."

A single tear slipped down the teenager's face, though if asked, he would adamantly deny that he was crying. 'Crying is when one is sobbing,' he would calmly explain. 'Silent tears mean nothing.'

Anyone who knew him knew he was lying.

The phrases he had heard again and again, from his father, brother, even his mother, echoed through his head repeatedly as he brushed his long bangs out of his face, studying the knife he held in his hand.

He rolled up one sleeve slowly, unable to see the dark, healing cuts for the lack of light in his room. His black curtains were shut, after all, and so was his door.

The knife hovered above his arm for a second as the boy argued with himself internally, but then the blade bit into his flesh. The teen made no sound; did not flinch at the sudden pain.

A second tear rolled down his pale cheek after the first.

The blade met his arm a second, then third time before he paused, head tilted slightly to the side as he listened. No...he must have imagined the noise.

With the fourth slash, the pain finally started to register. Once more, he told himself, biting his bottom lip. Once more and he would put the knife away.

He made the fifth slash right as his door opened.

"Hey, Zexion, you here? I knocked, but no one...answered..." The blonde trailed off as he saw his best friend sitting on his bed, knife in hand, arm bleeding, face streaked with tears.

"Hi, Demyx."

"Zexion, I...I thought you stopped this?" Demyx walked over to where Zexion was sitting on his bed, taking the knife from him carefully.

Zexion didn't resist, his eyes darkening as he watched Demyx's lithe figure walk to his bathroom with the knife, returning with a warm, wet face-cloth and a bandage.

The lilac-haired teen refused to meet Demyx's eyes as the blonde gently cleaning and bandaged his arm.

"You're not protesting," he said softly. "You always have before. Come on, tell me what happened." When the other boy simply turned his face away, Demyx sighed. He forced Zexion to look at him by his chin, only to find his eyes shut tightly, tears coming faster. As Demyx watched, silent, Zexion's shoulders began to jerk with silent sobs.

The blonde opened his arms, knowing what would happen once the lilac-haired teen opened his eyes, though it hadn't in years.

As he'd expected, Zexion was suddenly in his arms, sobs wracking his small frame.

Demyx curled his arms around Zexion, running his fingers up and down his back. "Shh...It's alright. It's not like you to cry, Zexy."

The arms around his neck tightened, and in response Demyx positioned the other more confortably in his lap. He began to rock back and forth slightly, humming nonsensically to himself as one hand ran through Zexion's hair.

"Ready to talk yet?" Demyx asked after a few minutes. The shuddering intake of breath was all the answer he needed. "Just let me know when you are."

He resumed his humming for another ten minutes while the other boy's sobs slowed.

"Demyx," he finally spoke, his voice rough and strained from crying. "Why are you here?"

"Because my Zexion's-being-emo-again sense told me that if I didn't get over here you were going to try and kill yourself via Advil again."

"Not funny," Zexion responded brokenly, releasing the other's neck in favor of slipping his own arms under Demyx's to wind around his back, chin propped on the blonde's shoulder.

"Want to tell me what happened?"

"No."

Demyx sighed heavily. "Why do you do this? You always feel better after you've talked to me, so why are you making it harder? You keep everything so locked up for so long, and then this happens. You have a complete mental breakdown."

"I know..." Zexion pulled out of the blonde's grip, turning his back to him. "I'm just an idiot and a horrible person. Why do you even want to be around me?"

Demyx reached out to put his hand on his best friend's/boyfriend's shoulder, hating seeing him like this. Zexion was always so calm and confident. Always completely self-assured. It was only these rare moments when his facade crumbled, everything he locked away coming up, spilling over. All his doubts about himself, his insecurities, his fears. It was only these rare moments Zexion showed how sensitive he really was, how every snide comment and off-hand remark stung.

"Don't touch me." His voice was flat, calm, empty...emotionless.

Demyx's hand froze an inch away from his shoulder, before he drew it away slowly. That hurt. He had heard Zexion say that to his parents, his brother, their friends, but never, never, had it been directed at him.

"I don't want you to touch me. I don't want anyone to touch me. Because every-everything anyone's ever said to me; about h-how cold I am, or how I don't care, everything! It's all true. It's all true." His shoulders were shaking and his breathing was rapid, beginning to panic.

"It's all true. Everything. They were all right. It's like I don't feel anything anymore!"

"Zexion, calm down," Demyx said, realizing what was happening. "Deep breaths. Everything's okay; don't freak out. There's no reason to panic. I'm right here. You're okay."

The lilac-haired teen turned his head, his one visable dark blue eye boring into Demyx's ocean blue ones. "You think everything's okay? You think this is normal? You think it's normal that I can see someone dying, or starving, or who just lost their home and family, and not feel a thing? Not even a pang of sympathy!?"

He was hysterical, and Demyx enveloped him in his arms as another sob ripped through Zexion's body.

It's-It's not right," he chocked out. "I'm not right. I'm mad at myself, Dem, not my parents, or Riku, or any of our friends. I hate myself. I hate myself," he finished bitterly.

"You shouldn't hate yourself," Demyx said softly, pressing his lips against the base of the other teen's neck.

Silence.

"I love you, Zexion."

"Don't say that! Please, don't say that," Zexion whispered desperately.

"Why not?" Demyx answered, equally as soft. "It's true. I do love you, even if you can't say it back right now. You're upset - I understand. I won't ask you to say it back. I just want you to know that I love you, through the good and bad times."

"I think you need to sleep," Demyx said a moment later when he was met with silence again. "You're probably exhausted."

"Yeah," Zexion replied weakly. He looked over his shoulder, eyes pleading. "You'll stay?"

The blonde smiled. "Of course."

"Dem?"

"Yeah, Zexy?"

"I love you."

Demyx laughed lightly. "I know, I know."

A/N So, hey! This is just another little one-shot that wouldn't leave me alone until it was written. We all know the feeling. Inspired when, for the first time in years, I had my own little mental breakdown. Without the cutting, that is. Of course, I didn't have a loving Demyx there to tell me everything was alright. xD Anyway, hope you enjoyed this! Sicne there's tons of other little plot bunnies stuck in my mind, I was thinking about combining this, Dance On, and the other that aren't written yet into a one-shot fic so I don't have so many little stories floating around. What do you think? Let me know in a review - they fuel my writing!

~Kyaxre