(Author's Note: This is one of the most depressing things I think I've ever written, I cried a bit while writing it so you have been warned. Character death, angst, implied shota and sort of incest, slash and murder.

I offer tissues and a shoulder to cry on but I make no apologies because really, it is this tragic.)

Vexen's death should have come to him like a punch in the gut. It didn't. What did was the realisation that it hadn't and that in turn made Zexion double over retching. He couldn't feel. Truly...And it made him feel sick with the memory of the hurt that should be there, that he deserved be there as the man he loved, had loved, could no longer love, was gone and he didn't even care...

Lexaeus didn't question the man's absence at the table that night, the shell-shocked expression on Zexion's face was evidence enough as to what had happened. He watched the boy, and really he was nothing more, put the scientist's favourite mug in the back of the cupboard, tidying until all that remained to prove that Vexen had even been there in the first place was a vacant seat at the dining table and a perfectly clean bedroom. After a few days, Lexaeus noticed that the previously perfectly smooth bedsheets were looking more and more crumpled...

He wasn't sure which was worse. The little Schemer was trying so hard to mourn the man who had raised him and loved him unconditionally, or that try as he might, Zexion couldn't mourn. The tears, the occasional wails and screams that echoed throughout...It was all forced. They had all tried to emulate normality but for some reason this just seemed wrong. The only effect that even seemed appropriate was the lack of sleep the boy was getting, and Lexaeus had watched him pick and toy with his food, barely eating more than a few bites. He had been cooking the meals that Vexen had favoured recently...

It was a week after the event when Lexaeus locked Vexen's bedroom door and hid the key, reminding Zexion that they had a job to do. It should have come as a surprise when he found that the lock had been broken a few hours later. The memory of fury washed over him and he took more glee than he should in destroying what Zexion was trying so hard to preserve.

Vexen should have been his lover. Would have been. Had the boy not appeared on their doorstep, frightened and completely mute, and awoken Vexen's parental instinct...And that hadn't been all. He should have realised, really, when he noticed Ienzo's refusal to leave Even's side, how the first word he ever said in their presence had been his name...

And then that night. When he had returned to find Even the closest to tears he had ever seen him, whispering "I've done something no good parents should ever do." and elaborating when pressed, "...I made love to him, Aeleus."

It became more obvious as the weeks went by that no amount of reasoning would sway either party. Even's initial guilt faded and he allowed himself to love the boy as fervently as Ienzo did him. It was all Even could talk about, besides their experiments. Who'd have thought that a previously traumatised child could love with such intense sincerity?

He was jealous of a child over thirty years his junior. But he hid it as he had never, in almost two decades of knowing and working with him, seen Even so happy.

After the accident, they had both continued as if nothing had happened, as if they could both still feel the affection they both displayed (now mostly in private). The informal address, the few hand brushes and the rare chaste kiss...It was all an act to convince themselves that they hadn't lost it all.

And now they had.

Or rather, what was left had.

Lexaeus didn't last much longer and Zexion barely batted an eyelash. He simply crossed the Silent Hero's name off the cleaning rota and started on dinner because it wasn't going to cook itself. Another door was locked and evidence tidied away and hidden from prying eyes. The basements of Castle Oblivion grew darker and colder every day as the Schemer began to neglect his duties. It didn't matter. Not even insects wanted to live here and there was scarce so much as a moth ever seen. He was sure that food wouldn't even rot in a place where they were no death, just non-existence.

This is what a condemned man must feel like...Zexion no longer had anything to distract himself from the dark recesses of his exceptionally large and imaginative mind. The curse of his affliction. He still had the unbarred creativity that reflected his age, but his existence as a nobody and his powers over trickery and illusion meant that his dreams and thoughts were not of mermaids and magic castles, but of the sights that would made even hardened men nauseous. He had seen his own death countless times. It was only a matter of time now...And like everything else, he didn't care. He deserved it. He deserved worse for existing as this monster. This soulless beast that couldn't even love...

Marluxia came to him before the end with those charming smiles and empty promises. Telling him how sorry he was that he had lost his friends, his lover and his father, despite having given the orders to have Vexen murdered...Offering him comfort and a bed mate if he needed, that hand stroking the sensitive part of his neck, fingers gently mussing his hair. Zexion didn't forgive him so much as overlook his sins, allowing the man to take him to bed and touch him in all the ways only one man had ever done before.

The Graceful Assassin's hands were warmer and calloused from using his scythe in battle. He was rougher too, having no belief that Zexion was as fragile or as precious as Vexen had always seen him. When it was over, he didn't hold him close or even acknowledge him at all, really save for a half-hearted (and he laughed at the irony, which only earned him a slap for being an annoyance) arm around his waist as he wanted to do it again in the morning but didn't want to go to the trouble of finding him first.

Zexion never moaned his name. Never screamed or cried out or begged for more. Only by the sticky mess left afterwards did he know he had even enjoyed it at all. He knew Marluxia was talented, but in the same way he knew that it took three weeks to starve to death and that in some cultures a widow would throw herself upon her husband's funeral pyre, preferring to perish in incredible pain than linger on in a pain more unbearable that took longer to kill her.

Physical and carnal pleasures had been taken from him and Zexion knew now how Nobodies were viewed by the other inhabitants of the worlds.: Cold and empty shells, feeling nothing and wanting nothing.

That was how death found him. Half collapsed against a wall in the dark basements, trying to hold himself together because damnit he would kill that little bastard for robbing him of Lexaeus...And how ironic that Axel with his Cheshire Cat grin and glinting eyes would be the reaper. Not even man enough to do it himself, despite his glee in ending Vexen.

"You knew too much Zexy." He was right. He had learned far more about suffering in this wretched and empty existence than he had ever wanted to know. And he embraced it, cowardly as he knew it was, he was glad that this semblance of pain would end...And maybe, if creatures such as Nobodies were granted another life...He could be with Even again at last...

Note to self:
I miss you terribly.
This is what
we call a tragedy.
Come back to me,
Come back to me,
To me.

(Post Script: I'm sorry! Don't hate me XD. Please do review though, I'd love to hear what you thought! It wasn't meant to be songfic-y but I was discussing a title for a friend and this came to mind as it made all kinds of sense especially considering I have this this fanart from DA saved to my computer: http:/ kumagorochan. deviantart. com/art/ KH-Note-to-self-105052974?q=1&qo=1 (remove spaces before copy-pasting it!) )