Warning: This story contains heavy amounts of drugs and alcohol, smut, and language. So if you don't like that sort of stuff, don't say I didn't warn you. :(
Right. If you've read past that, read on and hope you enjoy!
Zexion stared at the bags by the door and the man beside them.
Demyx was beautiful as ever, but he had lost weight for one thing. And another, he looked angry of all things. Demyx, angry, when he was the one who had come into his house at six in the morning with bags, in from the rain. The thunder outside echoed the sentiment in Zexion's heart.
Three months. The young man hastened to button up his pyjamas completely, blushing to himself. "What do you want, Demyx?" he asked, hovering by his counter. He didn't know what to expect, but something in the pit of his stomach told him he wanted it. It was just his head, quietly swearing out, quietly cursing the man across the room.
Because he couldn't help himself in recognising that in the last three months, he was far from getting over Demyx.
"I want you. I still do," Demyx said plainly. "And I'm sorry."
Zexion's hand curled around the counter, and he felt a small growl climb up his body. "Get out." His body made a quiet lurch, telling him, Let him in, let him come back.
But Zexion knew that would be just as stupid as the first time he let Demyx into his apartment.
"Look," the musician began desperately, dropping his bags completely and marching across the room, tearing up his jacket sleeve and ignoring how Zexion flinched away. "Look, Zex," he insisted, showing both of his bare wrists.
Speckled with white, speckled with scars, but no longer speckled with red. "I'm clean. I've been clean. I put myself in a home and everything, remember? I got nothing in my system, haven't since that day. I'm not gonna mess up. Please." He lowered both his hands.
Zexion looked vehemently away and turned to fix himself a cup of tea. "Do you want tea?" he asked as he scooted about his kitchen, not looking at Demyx, not wanting to. Every look sent a chill up him. The sight of Demyx's naturally-tanned skin reminded him of before, when he had seen everything and Demyx had likewise of him, those days that remained in his dreams.
These dreams hurt him the most when he woke up and realised they were long over. Demyx's absence had broken him up inside more than he ever liked to admit.
"No tea, thanks," Demyx's musical voice filled up the apartment and Zexion hated to think that that was a symphony he missed. "You don't believe me, do you, Zex?"
"Who says you haven't been shooting up somewhere else?" he said as he set the kettle on the stove. "Upper arm. Thigh. There are many pulse points. I had a patient who did it up his groin."
"I wouldn't," he almost whined. "You want to see?"
"No. Don't you dare," Zexion hissed, turning at last and glaring through his unruly hair. He hadn't had a haircut since Demyx. Now his locks were falling over his chin, crawling down the back of his neck. He had refused the looks he'd been given by his secretary, even by his patients. He was fine, he insisted to himself. Demyx was just a patient, just a patient he'd pushed out of his care because he wasn't eligible to handle him.
You couldn't be a therapist and a lover in one package. It took him a long time to realise it, and by then it was too late, too fucked up.
It was his own fault that Demyx had fallen deep down into that hole of addiction, of disaster. The musician had been getting better all until he had signed him off to go to another counselor. Then, for lack of better word, he had crashed.
Zexion didn't let himself think any further than that. He told himself not to think, because it was no longer his business. The truth was that it hurt.
He flinched in surprise when Demyx slid in front of him, and then he realised that the kettle was whistling and the man was taking care of it for him. "No, no," he said sharply, pushing in and grabbing the metal handle- bare.
Zexion was acutely aware of the heat that made his skin scream and feel the sting. Hissing in pain, he withdrew his hand, and Demyx shot him a look, soft aquamarine eyes loud with concern. The sun made him look bright, more ethereal and less solid than Zexion had seen him before. It took him by surprise.
"Careful," the musician whispered, quickly carrying the kettle with a dishcloth to insulate the heat and setting it on a placemat, turning back to him. "Is it burned?" he asked, reaching for his hand.
Before he was aware of a thing, Zexion found the musician's callused hands brushing over his own, feeling the fledgling blisters on his fingertips. "You don't usually do something without thinking like that," Demyx said, before lifting his hand and gently kissing those pale fingertips.
Zexion cringed and withdrew his hands, shuddering all over. Demyx's touch, Demyx's lips brought back memories from hibernation. They woke his body, made him remember vividly with that contact's assistance. "Stop that," he hissed. "Stop it."
"You're not kicking me out yet," the musician said, looking at him steadily. "You know, it's been seven months, and not once have you admitted anything honestly. That's why we never got anywhere, Zexion. Because you're locked up like this."
"For my own sake!" he yelled. "Do you suppose I'd have gotten through your institutionalisation by being a vulnerable little whelp? Do not feed me that rubbish, Demyx! Hearing you relapsed, hearing of the alcohol percentage in your system, and the pot, if I didn't hole up I'd break down and who would be weak then?"
"I got into that mess because I freaked out, I was hurt," Demyx said quietly, eyes narrowing. "I did it because I thought you didn't want me. If you didn't, I didn't figure anyone would. Or care." He looked straight on at Zexion, with a gaze so heavy the smaller man felt near to squirming. "I didn't think you cared."
"You're an idiot. My counseling did nothing," Zexion grumbled and tried- tried, and failed- to get to the kettle, nursing his hand to his chest.
He could feel it in how Demyx stood his ground. The musician was angry. He aureated rage that was completely unlike him. He was not the spineless child Zexion saw when he first saw him on his couch, months ago. And what alarmed Zexion was that he knew who had made this change.
It was himself.
"Damn you, Zex," Demyx hissed, grabbing his shoulders tightly.
Zexion was conscious of how it seemed like an explosion of memories when their lips were smashed together in heat. He was surprised, ashamed to hear it escape from his own throat- a whimper of overwhelmed emotion.
No one else had ever had him, and even in the two months when he had experimented, no one else had even let him get it up the same way. It was Demyx. He always just figured he must have been as cracked as some of his patients if he still curled his hands around the circumference of his sex and only felt blinding pleasure when he thought of a man who was institutionalised for his drug use, for going off the deep end. He figured, he must have been insane to even consider that he loved an addict.
He figured it was a vicious cycle, forgetting just what made him forget all those thoughts.
It was Demyx. He just forgot all those second-guesses and doubts when Demyx was actually there. He didn't know what got over him with the man's touch, but those arms rough around him, gripping his lower back and ass and those hot, soft lips bruising his own-
Zexion realised he was crying.
"I hate you," he said, immobile by Demyx's arms tight around him. "I hate how you make me feel this way."
"And want? What do you want?" Demyx said, breath hot against his ear, teasing him.
Zexion hated to feel his body stiffen, the blood rush and felt the uncomfortable tightness of his pyjama waistband all of a sudden, the begging of release. "Kiss me again, you idiot." He strained to keep his voice normal and keep that emotionally cracked dryness from collapsing it.
Demyx complied, tongue sweeping against him, hotly enjoying the inside of him. "I missed you," he said as he pushed Zexion against the kitchen counter, "God damn, Zexion, you can't imagine. I missed you so much."
"Idiot," Zexion snarled, deep blue eyes blazing as he met Demyx's. No stop, his mind told him. Stop there before he sees inside of you and sees all the cracks, this is an obstinate mess. "This is a mistake," he spoke weakly as Demyx ground against him. Zexion knew how hard he was himself, and was ashamed of it.
"Your body doesn't seem to think so," Demyx grunted, supporting himself with his palms flat on the table on each side of the smaller man. "I bet you never really thought so."
Zexion lowered his head, finally finding enough space to wipe the ridiculous dampness from his face. Why had he ever cried? Nobody made him cry, what kind of desperation was that? And for an addict, too-
"Stop that."
"What?" he looked up in surprise.
"Stop thinking like that. You bite you lip, you touch your nose like that," Demyx was so close Zexion was aware of his hot breath, of how their bodies were building against each other with an overbearing heat. "You're lying to yourself when you do that."
Zexion glared at him. "Who's the psychologist here?"
"You," Demyx conceded, "but you lie to yourself, Zexion," he lifted his right hand, and stood back, slowly undoing the buttons of Zexion's shirt. One by one, his fingers snapped them out of their holes, and one by one Zexion shuddered as the morning air bit into him, and blushed with the heaviness of Demyx's hands on him.
He was so hard. Harder than he had ever been in another's presence in months, and he wasn't even trying this time.
"I thought about this for so long when I was in there. I thought about it every day. It was like five minutes of escape, thinking of you. And then there were the dreams," Demyx whispered. "I really wanted nothing else but to get out and get back to you. So I acted best as I could. And this is what I get? You've still got your head up your ass?" he said, finishing the last button, staring down the line of soft hairs that led down beyond the concealment of Zexion's waistband. "Come on, Zex," he smiled tentatively. "Why can't we be happy?"
"What if I've had another sort of head up my ass?" Zexion snapped, "What if I had Lexaeus's all up inside me, or Axel's? What if I liked it much more than yours?"
In truth, he hadn't. He'd chickened out before he had gotten that deep with anyone he'd picked up. But he didn't want to tell that to Demyx.
"Then you're just proving you're in denial," Demyx responded, before shoving down Zexion's pants altogether.
Zexion yelped in surprise.
"What? It's nothing I haven't seen before," the musician looked at him venomously. "I've seen all of you before. And you looked just as good as you do now. Better. You're still hot, and you know why I came here as soon as I was released, in these stupid release clothes," he pulled at the loose t-shirt, the badly-cut slacks. "Because I want you."
"You're mad at me," Zexion gripped the counter. "And I hate you. This is a mistake."
"Yeah, a mistake," Demyx laughed sarcastically. "And you're not hard as a rock?"
Zexion withdrew as far as he could, until his bare back was pressed against the hard surface. He realised he was coiled into himself like a frightened creature, like he feared being stricken- and then he realised that was just it. This was definitely Demyx, hair unchanged if not unstyled, body slim and still insanely attractive, but it wasn't the Demyx he wanted. It was an incarnation of him that burned to listen to and be around.
Demyx bitterly stepped back, reacting to the silence.
It was like some sort of monster possessing him had slipped out, and Zexion saw him again- just a guy, confusion pooling in his eyes and hurt drawing his features tight and sad. "God," his melodious voice fell to a whisper. "Ah, geez... I'm sorry, Zex. I'm a mess..." He looked down. "Darn it, just. Just forget about it, okay?" and then he turned away and ran, literally fled from the apartment. A moment more would be insult added to injury now.
Zexion found himself still naked, still against the counter when the door closed and he heard the spare key being stowed beneath the loose brick in the hallway floor. He could almost hear Demyx fleeing back into the rain just to get away. Zexion found himself counting to ten and inhaling sharply, before he swallowed the semblance of tears threatening to come up again and withdrew to his bathroom, body unsatisfied, mind wrecked.
He woke in his bed at ten on a Sunday morning, hearing the roar of the rain and cursing his nightmares to high heaven. They were so much easier to deal with when he woke, when he forgot just how vivid they could be as they came with their horrible memories and possibilities.
Zexion rose from bed, went and washed his face and brushed his teeth as routine declared he did each morning. Afterward he ran his hand haphazardly through his hair and crossed the room to pull shut the window, as rain was being blown in. Quickly and easily he moved to make his large bed, pulling the sheets into the air momentarily before bringing them down level over the mattress and tucking them in.
On a day with better weather, he might have heard kids on the street, like a serene track playing on the suburban mixtape. Today he just had the sound of the rain.
Zexion had had that flat for a year. He'd been working for longer, just to procure that lovely spot. The study, the austere kitchen and minimalist living room all suited him perfectly and were his pride and joy. No artwork covered the white walls, though in the guestroom there was a faint suggestion of posters, in the streaks where tape had ripped paint on the walls. Otherwise... they were plain and clean and just the way he wanted them.
He'd been living in peace since he had dismissed Demyx from his life and the musician had accordingly disappeared. It was a physical peace, at least. There were the dreams haunting him still, but yes. Things were fine. Things would go on as they were. Someday he would forget Demyx's name and face, and someday the vivid dreams would cease to come. They were pathetic anyway, just explorations of memories mingled with impossibilities.
He headed into the kitchen and stopped by the stove, reaching for the kettle and wrapping his hand around it. Zexion winced as pain shot up from his fingertips and he realised with surprise that the kettle was already full.
Turning his hand over, he peered down upon the pale skin and realised that fresh heat blisters lined them. Zexion squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
Part of him was inexplicably glad. The rest was terrified and suffocating with the violent and useless urge to cry.
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