It's another night, sitting in the garden and drinking wine like real adults. It had been Axel's idea a few years ago, because they weren't 17year olds anymore and drinking warm beer in the secrecy of the under pass simply wasn't mature. So they started buying cheap wine and wasting the night in the jungle that was Axel and Demyx's recently acquired flat.
Add a couple of years, and they were still talking too loudly, falling asleep on the outside couches and smoking too much. Only now, they disturbed the neighbours instead of the wildlife.
The lantern outside – an awful imitation totem pole Demyx had found in an Op Shop, that Zexion had snuck back later to buy for him- gives out feeble but warm light, blurring their faces and covering the group in a dull sense of contentment.
Demyx is curled up in a chair, head on the table in amongst all the empty bottles and an over filled ashtray. A Christmas beetle crawls its way through the mess and Zexion covers it with his hand before Demyx can even think of flicking it with a finger.
Across the table Roxas lays half draped over Axel, eyes closed and smile painfully stretched. Axel seems pre-occupied with eating Roxas' neck, with all the patience of a sleepy drunk person. Roxas seems to be suffering from heavy limbs, as he places his arms around Axel, and Demyx suddenly feels strange, witnessing the intimacy between them. It's not embarrassment at seeing his friends being such a couple. It's loneliness. He feels lonely, and it tastes like sadness in the back of his throat.
Before he can reach for a half empty bottle, Zexion pulls him out of his chair with a warm hand and a soft smile.
"I forgot to tell you" and he turns to grin as they stumble through the dark house.
"There's something out the front, I picked up."
Outside on the porch, Demyx is given a dusty old box full of Christmas lights. Large glass globes in yellow, green, red and blue.
His face reflects like a hall of mirrors in the huge collection, and his smile sweeps like a crazy jack-o-lantern.
Demyx tries to climb up the tree, but falls on Zexion who falls on the ground. The lights are hung low instead, like a starry canopy of rainbows. Lying on the grass, breathing wisps of cold air, Zexion turns to watch Demyx.
Demyx laughs just a little, even though neither one has said anything. His smile falters when Zexion reaches his hands out, cupping his face and looking at him with an intensity that freezes more than the chilly night air.
"Dem" he whispers, and Demyx feels caught, like an animal trapped in blinding headlights. He can't think... except to think that something is happening. Something has changed.
"Can I… kiss you?"
There's nothing he can say. Zexion has broken the invisible, intangible and fragile walls of friendship. Zexion has changed things.
Demyx isn't afraid of change. But change is supposed to come slowly, creeping and barely noticed. This isn't slow. This is fast and dangerous and irreversible.
Time is ticking away, and Demyx has no answer.
He shakes his head. No.
And he stutters Yes.
Zexion kisses like a new butterfly. Slowly and unsure, edging closer and closer and fluttering with uncertainty. There's something sweet about the way he places the lightest kiss on the side of Demyx's cheek. It's like being 14 all over again. It's like… nothing he ever expected.
He can feel Zexion's warmth through his t-shirt. His hands absently curl through his hair. He lets Zexion in, shyly, and everything burns inside his chest. He tastes like sour wine and cherry cigarettes, and Demyx's heart beats so fast, he clings tighter and forgets how to breathe.
Everything is changing, like a landslide. And Demyx is afraid of being buried alive. He places a hand on Zexion's chest, and pushes him away before he can stop to feel his heartbeat.
Demyx runs inside the house, crawls into a cold bed and tries not to think about what has just happened.
He pictures Zexion, sleeping on the living room couch alone.
He dreams of butterflies, and heavy rain on fragile wings.
The next morning, Demyx is cleaning out the fridge.
He doesn't want to think. He doesn't want to feel.
He wants to find what smells so bad, and maybe see if there's anything that still passes as food.
There's tofu, from the time when Axel decided he was a vegetarian.
There's a forgotten tomato wedged behind the jar of pickles.
And there's left over cake from Zexion's birthday.
He slams the door shut and turns around, faced with sad blue eyes that won't look at him.
He can smell a hint of mint toothpaste, and his throat closes over.
Everything has change. Nothing's the same and he can't breathe.
"I'm sorry. For last night." Zexion won't look at him, won't step forward or reassure him.
Demyx still can't breathe. He can't answer, and he doesn't know how to fix this awful thing between them.
Zexion looks up, finally. He's so scared and hurt. His hair is mussed and his eyes are shadowed.
Demyx hasn't seen anything more beautiful.
It's meant to be a hug, a sign of forgiveness. But the desperate way they cling to each other, arms trembling and breaths in tiny gasps, is deeper than Demyx can handle. Zexion holds him so tight it hurts, and suddenly the fear is taking over.
He can't loose him.
It's sudden and violent and there's more anguish, where there should be love.
Demyx pushes Zexion into the bench and kisses as if he doesn't know how to do anything else.
Zexion pulls them onto the floor and embraces him like he's been in love forever.
And maybe he has. Maybe this is something larger than he can comprehend, and if it's the only thing he'll do worth something, Demyx wants to give this to Zexion.
Himself. Demyx wants to pour his soul into the man above him.
It's a mess of scrambling limbs and clothes practically ripped off. The tiles are cold on his skin, and he's never felt so aware of the blood streaming through his veins.
Zexion won't stop kissing him, hard and forceful, afraid to let Demyx saying anything.
Axel enters the kitchen, oblivious and painfully obtrusive.
Time freezes.
Axel's eyes go wide.
Zexion's breaths echo loudly.
Demyx runs.
He doesn't know where he is driving.
He doesn't know who he is, and he doesn't know how to make things right.
Demyx parks the car, hits the window repeatedly and screams in frustration.
The sound of rain and the rhythm of the windscreen wipers sound so fitting.
Demyx cries, because it's not fair, and it never is.
It's stupid, he thinks. To spend your whole life waiting to fall in love. Because the moment you do, you tear at the walls of your heart and panic like a wild animal, clawing your way out. The stupid fear of being hurt. Of losing.
It's like gambling. Knowing when to stop, no matter what you think you could win, because it's more likely you'll loose it all.
It's another landslide. Crushing and smothering. Leaving you broken under a million tons of debris, alone and hurt and barely alive.
And all he wants is to go back home. Crawl inside his bed and watch the patterns on the wall from the rain outside. He wants to be inside two arms, safe and sure. He wants Zexion, like he's never wanted anything before.
And it's not fair.
Demyx falls asleep inside his car, alone and tear stained.
It's dark outside, when he wakes. The rain is still beating down and his mind takes him back, a free show of things he had forgotten.
He remembers a skinny kid, reading books about insects and hiding in the library to eat lunch.
He remembers attending a funeral for a cricket named Bukowski.
He remembers back in high school, the gym, waiting in line for mandatory dance lessons.
The tension and dislike of having to touch someone he didn't know well. The sudden impulse, and the way Zexion blushed when Demyx took his hand, pulling him into a clumsy shuffle and saying how he wasn't ready to dance with a girl, just yet.
He remembers graduating, running around trying to find everyone, for that last goodbye. And Zexion, crushed into a ball in the back of the library.
He remembers the week before that, hitchhiking in the summer heat, watching Axel and Roxas try to push each other onto the road. And Zexion freeze, pale and wide eye, suddenly panicking and babbling about everything changing and nothing being the same after graduation.
He remembers reversing his car over Zexion's shoe. And the smell of the emergency room and the awful magazines.
He remembers the way Zexion laughed when he admitted he still believed in god.
The door is unlocked when he arrives home, and Zexion is waiting on the couch.
It feels like Zexion has always been waiting for him.
He's like a warm shadow, dark and inviting. Demyx can't remember the last time Zexion stayed at his own apartment. This is home, for the both of them.
The room is silent, Zexion is wary and Demyx can't believe he's been given this second chance.
He slips his hand into Zexion's, and leads him into the bedroom.
It's not a promise.
It's not a mistake.
It's not a fix, or a bandaid.
It's everything Demyx never realised was in front of him and it's everything Zexion has been waiting for.
Everything has changed and nothing will ever be the same. But Demyx doesn't understand how he could have ever lived, without needing this.
The next morning; Demyx cleans the dishes, listening to the sound of Axel bitching about something else. 'Roxas this, Roxas that'. Love and fucking and leaving, or something along those lines. Axel dries, sounding off about another part of his life that refuses to stop falling apart.
"Why can't you just have a normal relationship with someone?" he asks, after hearing that yet again, Roxas has run off to 'find himself' and left Axel alone to conspire, get drunk and burn all of his chequered, too big shoes.
The look Axel gives him is a little shocked, a little pitying, and condescending.
"Because, Dem, real relationships aren't normal. All that stuff you ever had, with nice girls and half felt feelings, was just you drowning in neutrality." Axel slams down a soapy and slightly chipped mug, fishing for a lighter and shoving a cigarette between his lips. He's angry, and edgy, but he's not even thinking about Demyx any more, not really.
"It's like, an equilibrium. Sometimes it's more you, sometimes its more them. It's a fucking compromise, all the time." He lights up and squints, making waving motions and heading to the door before Demyx can remind him about smoking inside.
"Nobody wins when it comes to real love." He calls out as he leaves the room. Zexion floats through his words and second hand smoke, leaning into the doorway with crossed arms.
Demyx still has his hands in the warm water of the sink, smelling the faint trace of cigarettes and tea. The kitchen is full of left over breakfast, on the windowsill a half dying plant – a gift from Marluxia- glows with defiance in the morning sunlight.
Demyx sighs, this is home.
Two hands slide up under his shirt, and a nose nuzzles into his shoulder. Zexion breathes in deeply, and Demyx just waits.
He doesn't feel the need to run, not just yet.
The light shines through warm and lazy, and the bubbles in the water disperse in spontaneous and silent pops.
Zexion smells like lavender fabric softener and old paper. His hand are slightly small and perfectly shaped, one for Demyx's hip, and one to rest just over his heart.