Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of its subsidiaries. I am not making any profit off of this fan work.
I.
Waking Up
Dying took a lot out of you.
Ienzo tugged the bandages into place, sending jagged spikes of pain through Demyx's chest. He just wanted ten minutes without something aching, burning, or smarting in any way. "I thought it was supposed to get better by now," he said hoarsely.
Ienzo tugged tighter, and he had to wonder if Ienzo thought this was actually a corset. "Normally, yes. Considering the nerve damage you sustained, though, it's expected."
"For you." Now that his chest was thoroughly entombed, he yanked his shirt back on, sending another spiral of pain through his body. He hissed through his teeth.
"I've told you before, Nine, there's nothing more I can do. Painkillers won't be any help." Ienzo crossed to the sink and washed his hands.
"Please stop calling me that." He put a hand against his ribs and tried to understand how his skin could be so numb and so painful at the same time.
"Well, what am I to call you? You've yet to tell me your true name. And, frankly, I think it's insulting to call you Demyx. Especially considering all we know now."
"Like Nine is any less insulting?" It was true; neither that name nor that title was really his. Still, he was cranky, and Ienzo was his only outlet. He was starting to feel woozy, which was another constant. Any strong emotion immediately caused swooning, like he was a Victorian lady. The way his chest was bound certainly made it feel that way. "Look… there's something I haven't been totally honest about."
Ienzo stared at him. "What is it?"
He took a deep breath, but this time he found the accompanying sting grounding instead of annoying. "I don't remember my true name."
For a long time there was a stiff, awkward silence. Finally Ienzo came over to him. He touched Demyx's face and stared deep into his eyes, as though looking for something. "That's strange," he said. "You didn't suffer any major head trauma."
His throat was starting to feel tight, and he pulled away from Ienzo's grip. "It's not there. I don't know why. You would think…" He forced a laugh, and ended up coughing.
Ienzo's expression became oddly blank. "Well, the reformation process is messy, and you're still healing. I'd say we wait another few days before we begin to worry."
He uses the royal "we". "It's already been a week—"
"Nine. Please. It's crucial right now that you don't excite yourself."
"But I'm tired of resting. I just want to make sense of things," he said.
"I'm surprised. That's unlike you." Ienzo smiled.
"Is it?"
Ienzo gathered his things. "I'll be back with something for you to eat in an hour or two. For now, though, you really should try and rest." He left, and the slam of the heavy wooden door reverberated through the whole room.
Demyx waited an extra minute or two, just to make sure Ienzo wouldn't pop back in. Once he was sure that he was gone, he got out of bed. His legs were still shaky and uncertain, and the long, narrow room seemed to stretch on forever. He took a few steps, holding onto the dresser for support. There was a mirror by the washbasin and he wanted to know what he was in for.
It took entirely too long to cross the room. Maybe he hadn't been perfectly in shape before, but this weakness and helplessness was something new and hard to wrap his head around. Tightness formed in his lungs, and he worked hard to try and catch his breath. He made it at last.
Demyx hadn't really been able to look at himself since before the fight. He was expecting bad, but at the same time when he caught sight of himself he flinched. Everything about him was the same, but he looked exactly like he'd been to hell and back. Which was the truth. Well, of course, when a fifteen-year-old brat breaks your chest in, you can only spring back so fast. He'd had to have lost at least fifteen pounds; his face was borderline gaunt. His hair was unkempt, but that was a nonissue compared with everything else. It was harder to look at the bruises. They had mostly faded or been healed away by now, but there were still purple spots across his arms and under his eye. He slipped off his shirt.
Demyx looked at the door again and listened for any noise in the hallway, but he heard nothing. Very slowly, he began to unravel the bandages, and the pressure eased. The bleeding had stopped, but the very bottom layers of cloth were damp with the fluid of new skin. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, one hand still full of gauze. The air seemed too cool against his skin.
He didn't mind scars. He had older ones that he'd gotten used to. They built character. Started a conversation. Still, when he looked at himself he couldn't help but make some small noise of surprise, and he swore under his breath.
The lines were jagged, red, and angry, like he'd been clawed apart and punctured. Ienzo had said that this was after he'd done his best to heal. They were everywhere, front and back, as high as his collarbones and down all the way to his hips. And although psychology dictated that nobody could remember physical pain after the fact, he swore he could still feel Sora's blows at it had happened. At the time it had been so surreal… too surreal, like it happened in a dream. Only now did it take on vividness and sharpness in his memory.
I can remember getting beaten to death but I can't remember my own name. Good game, me.
Maybe Ienzo was right, and he would remember with time. But that also seemed like complete bullshit—a lie that had been told to protect his feelings. At the same time, not knowing was equally as bad. He took shallow breaths. It was fine. It was just fine. It wasn't as if they had resented him for years, or anything. Easy.
He wrapped himself back up, this time more comfortably, and got dressed. He limped his way back to the narrow bed and lay down. He could see out the window; here it was high up, and the only things in sight were the sky and the far corner of one of the castle's far walls.
It was a beautiful spring day. Thin clouds drifted across the pale violet sky, and a cool breeze was coming through the window.
Before he realized he had even fallen asleep, he was being jerked awake by loud voices in the hallway. The sun had started to set, and the light wasn't white anymore, but a pale pink.
"I'm not certain yet what it means," Ienzo was saying; his voice was calm but he wasn't making any effort to keep it low. Demyx noticed a wrapped plate with a sandwich on it and a cup of water was at the bedside. "I don't want to draw any rash conclusions. You remember what it was like for you; your memories took days to restore and realign."
"Several days. It's been weeks." This voice was deeper, and he immediately recognized it as belonging to Xaldin's Somebody.
Weeks? He been told he'd been out for only a few days. He knew he'd been down for the count for some time, but still, something wasn't adding up.
"We should just be lucky he regained consciousness and sentience at all."
"Ienzo, doesn't something seem wrong here? He didn't reform as we did, in the same place where we lost our hearts. He reformed where his Nobody was killed."
"How are we to know that there's a set way this must work? I'm only just starting to understand it myself." The voices were starting to drift farther away. He longed to follow their conversation, but he doubted he could get to the doorway quickly enough to eavesdrop. "I'll tell you what I told him. We'll wait another few days before investigating further. We have too much to deal with as it is." The door cracked open; light spilled in. He shut his eyes and pretended to still be asleep; the door shut again. The voices faded away completely.
He sat up without his elbows, sending a spasm of pain through his stomach. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this. So what was he supposed to do—just sit on his hands and wait?
Maybe Ienzo was right; maybe there was nothing to worry about. Some hope.
He felt a little better after he ate, but he didn't think he could stand being in this room another minute. He didn't know where he would go; he doubted he could make it very far. But he was sick of listening to his thoughts go in circles.
He made his way slowly to the door and opened it.
The hallway was cool, dark, and quiet, and it smelled musty. There wasn't any furniture to hold onto out here, so he skimmed one hand against the deep green wall. He was almost immediately dizzy and wondered why he was even bothering to do this in the first place. Maybe he should go back and wait; if he got caught he would almost definitely have to eat a table of crow.
The other rooms in this hallway were bedrooms like his. He couldn't get a very good look at much of anything; his head was swimming. He had to turn back, but he was starting to doubt his strength to do even that. Maybe all he needed to do was sit for a minute, but he wasn't sure he could get up if he did. A sunburst of pain cut through his chest and he clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a cry. He put his hand under his ribs, where the pain was most intense. The bandages felt… suspiciously damp… and when he pulled his fingers away there was blood on them. Of course. His vision started to shimmer and go black at the edges.
He heard the ghost of music. It was like someone had taken out all the sound but left behind the idea. In fact, the silence was almost suffocating. This wasn't supposed to be how things happened. Everything should be clear, and he should be whole, and instead he was bleeding in a foreign hallway tracing an empty spot in his mind where music was supposed to be, with nothing but a number and a forged name that tasted like metal.
He tried to remember something, anything, but all his memories slipped through his fingertips like sand.
Let me remember. Let me remember something.
In his mind's eye, water. In real life, darkness.
Well, ya'll, it's been a while. A REALLY long while.
This story came from an idea I had a very long time ago-what if Demyx were human-and my attempts to bring an old fic of mine into current (as of 2017) KH canon. Normura's tight-lipedness concerning the rest of the names of the former Organization members was part of it. The other part of it came from the strange detail in 3D that Dilan and Even are "resting but unstable". This story is an attempt to make sense of that.
I hope you like it!
