Warnings: Angst. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAANGST. I just. I'm sorry. But I promise; everything will work someday, maybe not how you think, but it will.

It was Tuesday.

Roxas knew that Tuesdays were Demyx Days; he and Axel would be idiots for the majority of the day (though that was not especially different from any other day), concluding the shenanigans at Land of Dragons eating bao and other such foods. This had been a truth he'd learned early on with Axel, and he had never seen a Tuesday that wasn't a Demyx Day.

But it was Tuesday. And Axel was sitting on the stairs leading to his apartment. Looking very confused. And all alone.

"What are you doing here?" Roxas asked, taking a seat next to him.

True to form, Axel gave him a sardonic chuckle and replied, "I don't know how to tell you this, but I live here."

"Don't be a shit," Roxas scolded, tapping his knee against Axel's leg, asking again, softer, "What are you doing here? Where's Demyx?"

Axel sighed nervously before answering, "I don't know. I haven't heard from him in a few days. He hasn't been by the shop, he hasn't called or sent messages or anything. And I... I called today, and he didn't answer. And he always answers. Has since the first time I tried to... But he didn't answer. I don't know where he is."

He sounded so lost, so confused, so scared, but somehow very calm. Roxas just listened as Axel recounted these thoughts, spinning his cell phone in his hands absentmindedly; but Roxas could see they were shaking, just a little bit. It was so familiar, the panic that had frozen Axel to these stairs, and Roxas understood it perfectly.

Carefully, he pulled the phone from the redhead's hands. The fidgeting stopped, the shaking more apparent. Green eyes met his shyly, as if a child asking a parent what to do about the monsters.

It had been a few weeks since Seifer had shipped out. At first, Roxas had sheepishly tried to maintain something of a respectable distance from Axel, but the latter wasn't having any of that. Axel had started to accompany Roxas on most of his adventures, and when he didn't, everyone (even Sora and Pence) asked for a reason. Most nights Roxas was at his place until very late, and more than once he'd claimed the couch for the night. Axel had saved Roxas from the cliff again, and he wasn't rushing towards it any time soon.

But sitting there, Roxas could see that Axel was eying the edge anxiously; he gave him a soft, coaxing stare. "You'll find him."

"Yeah," Axel agreed after a moment, standing up. "I'll find him. Jeez, here I am, about as useful as a wet paper sack, and who know what's going on with Demyx. I gotta find him."

Now you sound like yourself, Roxas thought, asking lightly, "Do you want me to come with you?"

Axel seemed taken aback by this, but after a moment of consideration, he replied, "Nah, he... There are some situations you don't want to see your friends in, Rox." He swallowed, as if his throat was dry, before continuing, "Situations you don't want your friends to see you in. If this is one of those situations, I don't want you to see him. Not until he's ready."

Roxas wasn't sure he understood that. But he wasn't going to argue, standing and shaking his head, answering all the same. "Alright."

"Thanks," Axel murmured, adding as he started away, "I'll call when I know he's okay."

Axel walked up to Demyx's apartment, and was surprised and alarmed to find the door open. Not wide open, just slightly ajar, like someone had pushed it and considered it shut without listening for the latch. But Zexion hated that, Zexion always went and closed the door. He hated leaving doors open behind him.

He pushed it open, his nervousness not ending there. The lights were all off, the apartment looking like no one had been there in days.

"Demyx?" Axel called, storming in without even a pretense of regard.

But he stopped, turning around when he heard, "In the kitchen."

As his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness of the space, he could see the outline of Demyx on the kitchen floor; he flipped the light switch, watching as Demyx instinctively flinched from the glare, covering his face with his hand. He looks like a wreck. Like he'd lived on that floor for a while, like he hadn't slept in months and had been asleep for years.

Then Axel saw the bottles on the floor surrounding the blonde; Elixirs, three of them.

"Demyx." His voice wasn't scolding, it was sad.

Braving the light, sea-green eyes agreed, "I know."

"Did you take all three together?" Axel asked, checking the bottles to see what dose each was.

Demyx answered, "I took two first, then a few hours later I took the third. What day is it?"

"Tuesday," Axel responded off-handedly, adding, "Each of these are two doses, you could have died."

His last comment was lost, as Demyx was calculating, "So that was last Thursday. It's taken me almost a week to wind down from those."

Axel sighed, sitting on the floor near him, asking very carefully, "Have you eaten anything?"

"I think I had some water the day before yesterday," Demyx replied. "I haven't really been able to move."

Pressing a hand to the back of his neck, Axel commented, "You've still got the fever from them, you're lucky you can talk."

"That's why I came to the kitchen," Demyx explained, "It was so hot, but these tiles are always freezing. I was trying to prevent my brain from melting. The last couple of days- I guess it's been days- I've been getting the chills on and off, but I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Either I got through the worst of it, or my body's giving up on me."

Axel shook his head, but in the end he just said, "I'm gonna run you a bath. Not that you can, but don't go anywhere. We have to talk about this."

He walked away without another word, and he hoped Demyx knew he wasn't trying to be an asshole. But this... Of all the things Demyx had done, and he'd done some pretty stupid stuff over the years, he had never done anything like this. He never touched Elixirs. He knew that was how Axel's mother had died, and he and Axel had both sworn they'd never do something so stupid.

When he'd filled the bathtub with decently warm water, he returned to his best friend, who'd pulled himself to a seated position.

"C'mon."

They managed to get Demyx to the bathroom, with Axel half-carrying him. Rather than bother trying to undress him, Axel dumped Demyx into the water clothed in an old pair of pajama bottoms and one of his favorite Lenne shirts. His eyes cleared immediately in a reaction to the heat of the water, but Demyx began to relax into it. His muscles were still tense from the fallout of the drugs, but the water would help loosen them in time.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

His voice wasn't angry, it was scared; and Demyx heard it, and opened his eyes, locking with Axel's. "I wasn't thinking."

"Demyx," Axel pleaded, "You took six doses of Elixir within hours of each other."

Tilting his head back, submerging his ears for a moment, Demyx answered, "I know. I'm sorry."

Axel couldn't form anything else, just watching the tremors subside from Demyx's body.

"You know," Demyx added sheepishly, as if he had just realized this, "I wasn't trying to kill myself. You have to know that."

His voice low and pained, Axel demanded, "Then what the fuck were you doing?"

"I... I just needed to sleep," Demyx answered, glancing away.

His eyes had changed; suddenly he realized what he'd done, suddenly he remembered why he did it. And suddenly, he was undone.

Axel was brave enough to ask, "Dem, where's Zexion?"

"He's gone." His breathing quickened as he added, "He's gone, and he didn't come home Tuesday, and I tried to call him and he didn't answer, and he always comes home, even if he's mad, and especially if he's mad, but he wasn't mad, at least not that he told me, and he- Fuck." His body gave out, tears flowing and chest trembling as Demyx tried to continue.

Finally he managed, his voice harsh and broken, "I kept trying to call, just begging him to tell me he was okay, that he didn't have to tell me what was going on, just let me know he's alive, and all I got was a fucking message that said I'm done. And he didn't come home, and I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I can't- he's gone, and I-"

Axel was sitting on the edge of the tub, soothing, "Hey, you're gonna be fine. You don't need-"

"Like Hell I don't need him!" Demyx choked out his response. "I'm scared. Axel, I'm so scared. I can't do this without him. I can't breathe without him here."

Which Axel understood perfectly. "You have to, Demyx. You have to keep going."

"For what?" He asked with a mirthless bark of laughter. "None of it matters, right? After everything, after all the bullshit we've gone through just being together, he's just gone and done. I'm too scared to even ask what that means. If he says he doesn't love me anymore, I just- I'll disappear. I'd tear out my heart and throw it away before I could hear that from him."

It broke Axel to bits and pieces, hearing him say that. And he had nothing to offer, nothing to save Demyx from that darkness.

"Maybe it's too late," Demyx added softly, eyes bloodshot and still tearing. "Maybe that's what the Elixirs were, just a way to pull everything out. Everything just hurts without him here, everything echoes with the idea that he's gone. I know I have to keep going, but I... not with all that. Not carrying around what he left behind. I shouldn't have to, right?"

Axel pressed his lips together, answering, "No. If he- he knew what he was doing, when he left. It's not your burden to bear."

"I will, though." This with the sad, shaky defeat Axel had feared. "I will, because even though he left, even if he doesn't love me anymore, hell, even if he never loved me, I've always loved him. So even if he doesn't love me, even if he's done with me and never comes home, I'll keep going. I'll pack everything up and put it on a shelf, so if he comes back, I can show him just what he abandoned."

Of all people, Axel understood this. He'd been doing the same thing since Reno left. This whole affair was so painfully reminiscent of Reno's disappearance; the destruction that followed, the emptiness, the want for it to be over, the need to continue through it. And the hope, even though it will hurt more than leaving, that he'd come back.

So now he would do for Demyx what the blonde had done for him so long ago.

"Look at me when I say this." He was graced with Demyx's stare, the sea glass eyes finally cleared from the Elixir's fever. "I'm not going to tell you that everything will turn out okay. You know as well as I do that things don't always work the way we want them to. I can't promise he'll come back. I can't promise you'll fix what's broken and it'll be like he never left. I can't promise you that."

Demyx glanced away, but only for a moment; Axel knew it was hard for him to hear, and waited to regain his gaze.

When he had it, he continued, "But I can promise I'm not going anywhere. I can promise I'll be here to help you get through this. And I can promise you will get through this, if it kills me. Got it memorized?"

"Yeah. It better not, though," Demyx chided, for a moment sounding like himself with something like a smile, "I put a lot of effort into making sure nothing kills you."

Axel gave a small grin in return before adding, "Ready to get out of there?"

"Yeah, it's hot."

They managed to pull him out of the tub and stumble into the next room. Demyx told Axel where to find his clothes as he began undressing, but before long it was obvious that he was going to need help with that task. Axel didn't think anything of stripping Demyx down; there was a clinical, impersonal air to his actions, as if he was a doctor tending his patient.

After years of tattoo some strange images on some stranger places, the redhead had lost all sense of modesty.

For a while, things seemed okay. He got Demyx dried off, into a pair of sweatpants and a tee-shirt. The blonde was able to keep his eyes from seeing the empty bed, which he knew would break him into a thousand pieces. He walked without too much assistance from Axel into the living room, and almost made it to the couch without incident.

Almost.

Because there on the end table was Zexion's favorite book, which Demyx had never even bothered to ask about. Because there over the back of the couch was Zexion's hoodie, which he always had with him, always. And there, in the corner of the couch, right where he'd been intending to settle, was Chester.

And Axel knew it, as he watched Demyx pick up the stuffed toy; just a little black bug-creature, with big yellow eyes. He knew that it reminded Demyx of the Cat, whom he really did love but couldn't stand to be around; he knew that Zexion had learned this and brought the toy home for Demyx, who named him Chester (for reasons unknown). He'd had it for years

Demyx was running his fingers over the old material, brushing away some dust and fuzz. He was careful of the stitches that Zexion had painstakingly made to repair holes made over time, because Zexion always swore that if they gave out because Demyx was being careless he wouldn't replace them. Because he was always careful when Zexion did these things, because it was love.

Was.

He pressed it against his chest, feeling the cracks reforming, breaking him apart; Axel's arms were around him immediately to shelter him from the dark.

"Ten fucking years, and none of it mattered enough to make him stay."

"You'll be okay, Dem."

"I knew everything fades to dust and darkness eventually, I just didn't think it'd be him already."

"You'll be okay."

"Nothing's okay. Nothing matters. He's gone, and I'm so lost."

"I know."

Roxas was tending the Cat when he got the message: Found him.

He replied: Is he okay?

The response took a while, and wasn't especially reassuring: Yes, but he isn't.

Before he could ask what kind of clown-ass answer that was, his phone started to ring with Axel's name flashing on its front. "What's going on?"

"He's not dead," Axel explained, his voice soft, "But that's the only good thing. I found him on his kitchen floor, he took six doses of Elixir all together."

The idea was inconceivable. "Fuck, is he gonna be alright?"

"I don't know." Which was not what Roxas had expected, and as the redhead continued he felt his heart sinking, "I mean, he's fine as far as it goes, but he... He's hurting, kid, he's hurting bad."

"What happened?" Roxas murmured, sitting at the table.

He heard Axel sigh before answering, "Zexion left. He didn't tell Demyx anything, and after he tried to talk to him he just got a message saying that Zexion was done."

"What does that... Shit. What's he going to do?" Roxas finally asked.

"I don't know, I'm not even sure what he's doing right now." Silence, then Axel added, "Anyway, I digress. Just wanted to let you know I found him."

Roxas pressed his lips together before answering, "Alright. Let me know if you need anything."

"Yeah. Thanks." But before he could end the call, he heard Axel say softly, "Rox?"

He ignored the way his hair stood on end as he replied, "Yeah?"

"I just... if I hadn't come to find him... I'm glad you told me to find him, okay?"

"...Okay," Roxas answered, still unsure he knew what Axel was talking about.

For a while, there was just the sound of breath between them; then, as if realizing this, Axel cleared his throat and murmured, "So yeah, um... Thanks, and I... I'll keep you posted."

"Alright."

"I don't know how I'm going to do this."

Patiently, Axel answered, "One step at a time, Dem."

"No, I mean," He cleared his throat, lying on his kitchen floor again, "I actually don't know how I'm going to survive. It was hard enough making ends meet with two incomes, now it's just mine, I just..."

Axel had considered this already, but had yet to come up with a solution. He replied carefully, "We'll figure it out. We always do, when shit goes wrong, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Demyx sighed, and almost apologetically added, "You know you're one of my best friends, right?"

"Bullshit, I'm your ONLY best friend," Axel teased, giving the blonde a small, tender smile.

He was able to return it as he continued, "Yeah, well. I just wanted to tell you that. So when I lie around and cry and say I'm never gonna be the same and how much I need him, it's not because I don't need you, or because you're not enough. And that looks says you get it," Which Axel did, which is why he was giving Demyx a snarky are-we-really-doing-this look, "But I still wanted to tell you."

"I get it," Axel affirmed, not just what Demyx was saying, but why. And, because he knew he needed to hear it, he murmured "I'll never be him."

Demyx's voice crackled when he replied, "I don't want you to be. Especially if that means you won't abandon me."

Axel, who had been making some soup for them to share, paused for just a moment before turning the stove off and sliding to the floor next to Demyx. His best friend reacted immediately, curling into the fetal position, his head near Axel's thigh as his body shook from stifled sobs again. Axel knew better than to try to talk him through it, he wouldn't have words to heal this hurt.

In the end, as Demyx spiraled through the dark, searching for the light of his life, all Axel could do was pull him closer and let him go.

Against his better judgment, he went home that night. Demyx said he needed to be in his head for a while. Axel made him promise to call if he couldn't get out, and he had, so he left.

When he walked in, the lights were lit, and the late-night news was droning on; Roxas's head popped up from the couch, studying the redhead. He knew he looked wrecked. Saving people from the monsters wasn't easy, especially when he couldn't. He'd nearly cried himself driving home, but he'd been too tired and too ready to get home.

He dropped his jacket and made his way to the couch, passing Roxas as he headed to the kitchen. He paid him no mind; not because he didn't care, but because he knew Roxas would just tell him if there was something wrong. Instead, he took his place, stretching out on his back on the couch, kicking off his shoes and trying to collect himself.

"Sit up, loser."

Without any type of rebuttal, Axel pulled his torso up enough to give Roxas a spot to sit, and without bothering to ask permission, he uncurled back into his lap. He could tell Roxas was sitting sideways, his back against the arm of the couch, and he just stared up into the blue eyes for a moment before sliding his eyes closed.

"I tried to call him, on the way home," Axel explained, swallowing the dryness in his throat. "He didn't answer. I left a really angry voicemail."

Roxas shifted under him, and after a moment he felt something unbearably cold on his eyelids. He realized it was ice, and while it was almost painful at first, as Roxas gently massaged first one eye, then the other, it was almost a relief.

He managed to continue, his voice rasping in spite of himself, "I told him he was being a bitch, running off like that, without even giving Demyx a chance to... just, anything. He didn't give him a chance to make him stay. And I told him that if anything happened to him, I'd hold Zexion responsible, and that he better not get hurt or killed, because Demyx would... He'd never forgive himself. I wouldn't, either."

The ice went away, and Roxas used his thumbs to apply pressure to Axel's temples; carefully, gently, he pressed them upwards, meeting in the center of his forehead before traveling down the bridge of his nose and over his cheek bones, returning to his temples.

When he started to repeat the motion, Axel asked, "What kind of magic are you working now?"

"We got stuck in Traverse Town for a couple of weeks," Roxas explained, his voice soft and patient, "Another ship smacked in ours during landing. My headaches were at their worst then, and Xion... She did this for me, and it always helped." After a moment, as though realizing just how much he was touching him, Roxas added, "I can stop."

"I didn't... Please. Don't."

Roxas heard his voice crackle, as if buckling under a great weight. He watched, helpless, as Axel tried to keep himself pulled together. Knowing what was coming next, he reached for another piece of ice; the green eyes were hot under his fingers, which was something he'd gotten used to, but he knew better.

He knew the water from the melting ice would cover any evidence. He knew the shadows of the room would hide how much Axel was shaking.

He knew he could- and had to- protect Axel from his demons.

So um. Yeah.

If it makes you feel better, I did get shot four times today. So. There's that.