A/N: This was inspired by several songs but the one that had the most influence was Happens All The Time by Cold.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Kingdom Hearts or its characters. I do NOT own Happens All the Time by Cold.
Warnings: Death, Yaoi.
"You don't mean that."
The tone was desperate, an edge of hysteria creeping into it.
"Let's just . . . wake up, make up, and do this for the last time cause if we do this, we'll lose both of our minds."
"I wish I hadn't met you at all."
The tone of voice used in that sentence brought to mind a teenager declaring their hate of a close friend, an image of fisted hands, clenched shut eyes, and head bowed toward the ground while shouting.
The truth was at odds with the image. A man of at least twenty stood fully erect, shoulders back, posture stiff, eyes open and calm. Fortunately, Demyx knew Zexion better than that and saw the hurt and quiet desperation in his eyes covered with a cool seriousness, a look devoid of feeling, of life. A stern image of a man sure in what he was saying.
"I love you!"
"I don't love you anymore Demyx, I'm sorry."
A short, stiff shake of his head punctuated his statement.
Arms that had been hanging at Zexion's sides suddenly came up to cover his chest, bringing the wedding band into clear view.
Demyx had gotten Zexion that ring with the question of marriage. While they couldn't get married where they lived, Demyx had figured it was the thought that counted.
Anger seemed to surge in Demyx as he spluttered indignantly.
"You're supposed to take the ring off if you're breaking up with someone."
Zexion seemed to pause for a second as if debating what he should say but it only lasted a second.
"I'm not breaking up with you, not really."
Demyx gaped but recovered quickly enough.
"Wasn't your favorite saying, 'nothing can come between us'?"
Zexion stared at Demyx, a calculating look on his face.
Zexion wouldn't elaborate no matter how much Demyx asked him and before he resorted to begging to know more, Zexion turned and walked out the front door that had been waiting for him.
"Yeah, I did, I just don't feel that way anymore."
That was said over his shoulder as he left.
"I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, he was drifting away."
Demyx was wallowing in the apartment he and Zexion had shared.
That was when Roxas had come over to see why Demyx hadn't been over to the music store in the past two days.
He found Demyx lying in bed, muttering to himself.
"Demyx!"
Roxas frowned when that got no reaction from the lump of flesh lying on the bed, covers strewn about it.
"Where's Zexion?"
As if those were the magic words, Demyx shot straight up in bed, looking for all the world like a dog waiting for its master. When he saw Roxas he dropped back into the bed.
"God, that's pathetic Dem."
Demyx just groaned.
"That's just stupid."
Demyx turned on his back but Roxas was having none of it. He marched right up to the bed, grabbed Demyx under the arms and dragged him out of the bed. It wasn't easy because Demyx was bigger and heavier than Roxas but he managed it.
Once he was clear of the bed, he dropped his load on the floor. Thank god it was carpet because Demyx's head hit and bounced off it.
"Come on Jackass, lets go."
It only took Roxas four hours to get Demyx ready to go out, putting up with protests of Zexion not liking it when he got drunk.
"Well, he's not around, is he? So it doesn't matter what he does and does not like anymore, huh?"
Demyx shook his head weakly but his expression was bleak.
The bar Roxas had dragged him to was pretty shabby but big enough to support eight hundred people.
Demyx was at the bar, the single drink Roxas had ordered him sitting untouched on the bar counter.
The past two nights had been hell.
He had dreamed of Zexion making love to him and giving him a bright smile that Zexion had never given in reality. There, Zexion still loved him, so he had stayed in bed, hoping that the dreams would come even while awake.
They never did so instead he reflected on the past two weeks and how Zexion had seemed to be drifting away the entire time.
Roxas was no where to be seen, probably on the dance floor with some asshole named Axel.
Suddenly a body pushed into him. He automatically turned to tell the ass to watch where he was going but realized it was only a drunk Sora while Riku was trying to pin him to the bar.
Sora could evidently still recognize people while drunk 'cause he smiled a big white smile as Riku complained to him about having been interrupted.
Sora sat down without a word and Riku sat next to him. Demyx turned his attention to in front of him and stared blankly ahead of himself.
"Zexion left you already?"
Riku's voice mentioning Zexion managed to make Demyx look at him.
"Who's Sexton?"
Sora's voice held only innocence, having mistaken the name for something else entirely, which was understandable considering he was drunk.
Riku ignored Sora for now in favor of finding out what Demyx knew.
"Did Zexion tell you why?"
Demyx tensed and turned to face Riku. For a minute he hesitated before saying yes, determined to get an answer about where Zexion was if he could.
"Ah, why'd you let him go than?"
When Demyx didn't answer Riku plowed on.
"Doesn't matter, if he told you to stay away, you'd listen to him no doubt."
Demyx felt indignant at what he felt was an insult.
"It's not everyday a man is dying after all."
Demyx started at that, a startled look on his face.
"WHERE?! What hospital?"
Riku had flinched at the initial exclamation but brightened up at the second part.
"He didn't tell you? Don't trick me like that! Wonder why he told me and not you?" Riku seemed to be musing to himself now, ignoring Demyx's erratic twitches.
"Guess he wanted to torture me or something," Riku murmered to himself.
Demyx's eye was twitching but it made sense to him. Zexion had never liked Riku for one reason or another.
Demyx brushed a few strands of dirty blonde hair out of his eyes as he glared at Riku, demanding answers with his eyes. Riku laughed and held his hands up in a kind of 'I surrender' gesture.
"He's at that Organization owned hospital, XIII General, on the ninth floor, room six hundred"
Demyx collapsed back onto the bar stool at that tidbit of information, more than a little stunned.
The rest of the night seemed as if in a haze to Demyx. Sora and Riku had gone off to dance while he stared blankly ahead of him, thoughts rushing through his mind. He just sat slumped until Roxas had to turn it in 'cause he was drunk, dragging Demyx with him. Demyx hadn't touched his drink so Roxas had pushed the keys into his hands, telling him he had to drive.
Demyx did and it was a miracle that they didn't crash because of his listless eyes and blank mind.
Demyx sat in the armchair in the armchair that occupied his living room. He clutched a framed close up of Zexion's face, forehead pressed against the glass.
It was one of the rare close ups of Zexion and the only picture of a smirk that was nearly a smile.
"I still love you."
A whisper piercing the shadowed room and a single tear slipped down his cheek.
Demyx spent a week dillydallying around, not managing to gather enough courage to go see Zexion. He was afraid of what he would find, what he would see. Eventually though, Riku got it into his head that Demyx need to be reminded that he loved Zexion.
"Come on you pathetic lump! I'm taking you to see Zexion. The bastard has practically been up my ass asking favors left and right. If he wasn't already dying, I'd kill him myself."
"Riku! Don't joke like that."
Sora of course had tagged along with his long time best friend and recent boyfriend.
Demyx just sat at the counter, head cradled on his folded arms.
It took Riku a solid hour to drag an unresponsive Demyx to the car and it took a half hour to drive Sora and Demyx to XIII General.
Riku ended up having to bribe the nurse to let them past the reception desk, though it was more because of his good looks than the money he was offering.
Demyx was trudged to the room slowly, hating how white it was. He despised that color with a passion. They say white was a reflection of all colors but you got black when you mixed them all together. White was the true absences of color.
Zexion seemed whiter than the sheets due to his anemia which only made his heart failure that much worse.
Demyx only learned that after he sat down on the chair next to Zexion's bedside.
Zexion was asleep when they arrived and was still asleep as the nurse checked on him and Demyx held the hand without the IV in it. The heart monitor beeped slowly and not at all regularly and it frightened Demyx more than anything ever had before.
When the nurse had come in earlier, that had marked the end of the hour that he had been there and began the half hour that it took for Zexion to wake up.
When he had seen Demyx the heart monitor had beeped quite loudly as a spike in the line jutted sharply. Demyx nearly called a nurse but was stopped by the look that Riku gave him.
Riku stepped out after that to let them have their privacy.
"Why?"
The tone was obviously not expecting an answer, by the look on Demyx's dejected face and the soft tone in his voice.
Of course, that's exactly why Zexion answered.
"I didn't want you to be depressed or worried."
Demyx looked at him in a way that nearly made Zexion feel like a moron.
"Dem, I didn't want to see you crushed when I told you, I didn't want to see you panicking and ready to give me your own heart for a transplant."
Demyx's face light up at the mention of a transplant but Zexion cut him off before he could start.
"I ignored my symptoms too long and joined the list too late."
Zexion paused to get his breath.
"Plus, I wouldn't accept your heart even if you served it on a silver platter."
"I love you Zex, I would give my life up for yours," Demyx jumped in, tone desperate yet soft with tenderness that only reaffirmed Zexions beliefs.
"I know you would, that's why I left when I did."
Demyx looked as if Zexion had just crushed him ruthlessly and Zexion couldn't stand that.
"This happens all the time Dem. People die, it's a fact of life."
Demyx paled at that.
"How can you say that, even if it is true?" tone continually soft as if afraid to break whatever was between them.
Zexion opened his mouth to counter that but Demyx beat him to it.
"It doesn't matter Zex, I still love you even if you don't love me. I still have faith in you and no matter where you go I'll find my way to you."
Zexion could only stare at him, not able to say anything, as if everything and anything that needed to be said had already been announced in the stale white hospital room.
The funeral happened on a misty day that turned to rain.
It had started out bright, sun shining and the weather about eighty-eighty degrees but as the procedures took place, the weather only degenerated. Riku, Axel, Sora, and Roxas were closest to the casket while Zexion's brother Xemnas and Demyx's brother Sephiroth helped carry the casket out of the Hurst.
"This is legal right?"
Sephiroth didn't acknowledge Xemnas' question and they silently lowered the body heavy casket afterward.
The casket was custom made; the body of it blue with the top a gray-silver.
Riku leaned over to Sora to answer Xemnas' question, knowing Sora was curious too.
"Yeah, Sephiroth paid the ShinRa Company off real good to use their private plot. We won't get in trouble as long as the fire is contained."
Sora nodded, watching as the lid was shoved off the top revealing two corpses, one on top of the other. Ansem, known as The Wise in his church, was the minister appointed to lead the ceremony.
It only took a half hour for him to say what he thought necessary and than Sephiroth and Xemnas both lit the torches they had been holding since the start of The Wise's speech. As soon as the minister announced it was time, Sephiroth and Xemnas let the burning torches drop on the bodies.
It took a while for both bodies to be reduced to ashes but it happened eventually. Tears slipped silently down Sora's cheeks while Roxas, Axel, and Riku watched stonily. No one said anything when each shed a single tear as the ashes where blown away by the wind and rain, only the minister, Sephiroth, and Xemnas remaining dry eyed.
Afterwards they all walked as one away from the burning place, only some ashes on the ground remaining. Most of the ashes had fled, only the remains of the casket left behind.
The area was cleared of any sign of anything living within minutes, not even the leaving cars could be heard.
Who knows what happened when you die, all that remained was eerie silence.