Paradise Lost

AU. Zexion, always possessive, is jealous of Demyx's new young charge. Even if he happens to be four times her age. Very angsty.

Rating: M

Pairings: Zemyx, mentioned AkuZeku, AkuRoku, and Axel/Larxene. Sheez, Axel sure gets around.

Warnings: Slash, OC's, ABUSE, ABUSIVE!DEMYX, AU, mentions of sex, bad language, first person

Everyone in this story keeps on getting more and more douchebaggy. This time it's Demyx's turn.

Yeah, umm, if you really love the guy and think he's the paragon of sweetness and light...time to turn back.

Not much to say, except you'll probably all be flooding towards Tainted soon, since I'm about to update it. Something tells me it's not so good to write my author's notes in real time...

The instant the two of us entered our bedroom in which we usually stayed up all night engaged in various unsavory pursuits, Demyx threw me as hard as he could against the bed. I collapsed on the mattress, winded, breathing hard. Sweat was pouring in rivers down my neck and plastering my hair to my face. Demyx loomed above me, tall, imposing.

I barely had time to take in what was happening before he grabbed my shirt and began unbuttoning it, his movements fast and fierce, his hands roughly tearing the buttons out of the holes and not caring if any of them popped off, which quite a few did. Clearly Demyx was going to punish me--that way. And not with his cock. I foresaw being tied to the chair and forced to fuck myself with a well-oiled Sam Adams for the rest of the afternoon and night.

But to my surprise, when Demyx finished ripping the buttons of my shirt he didn't do anything more. He didn't even take my shirt off. He simply stood up and stormed to the opposite side of the room, where he stood surveying the wall for an extended period of time. I waited, my breath catching in my throat.

For some time the only sound was the two of us breathing--his in enraged little puffs, mine fast and short in fear. But then the moment was over and Demyx turned back around to grab me roughly by the shoulder and shove me hard so I fell on my back on the bed. I gasped and tried to get up but he kept his hand clamped firmly over my shoulder, holding me down.

"Zexion," he said, infusing each syllable with as much venom as he could muster. A tremor shot down my spine. "You are the biggest fucking dick I have ever had the misfortune of--"

I almost thought he was going to say "fucking". Instead, he said, "meeting." Which made a bit more sense in context.

"How could you--how could you be so--so--so--so fucking cruel?" he snarled, struggling for words. His inability to articulate only made his rage more fearsome, though. He continued grinding me into the bed. The hand on my shoulder was heavy and it hurt, and I wanted very badly to push it off. Not that he would ever allow me. "You--for you to just do something like that, you son of a bitch! She's just a little girl! How dare you--"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I snarled, suddenly angry. Once more, here was Demyx going on and on about how sweet and innocent and perfect poor cute little Maddie was. I for one was sick of it. I still didn't know why I did what I did but now I told myself it didn't really matter. I hadn't even done anything that major, and I told this to Demyx.

"All I did was rip up her picture--and so? It's her problem if she is so bothered by it. She should just grow a spine and realize it's just a fucking drawing. No need to act like the world is ending or someth--ungh!"

Demyx very rudely did not let me finish, as he had just slapped me hard again. Once more I tasted blood in my mouth. I held it in, tasting its metallic flavor, before swallowing it. I glared at him. All my fear was gone, replaced by an indignant rage--an indignant rage built from months of barely-repressed jealousy.

"She was making that drawing for me," snarled Demyx. "Bitch," he added, just to fulfill his "swear-at-Zexion" quota.

"So what," I snapped back. "You could hardly call that the next Mona Lisa. All I saw was a bunch of scribbles."

"You don't get it," Demyx said, a note of derision entering his voice. "It's not how the picture looks, it's the thought that counts. Though I doubt a socially inept little logician like you would be able to understand."

"But it wasn't anything you would want to hang on your wall, if you've got the slightest modicum of taste," I said, unable to suppress anymore my mounting rage and frustration. I could barely speak--my throat felt tight, closed-off. I had half a mind of reaching for my inhaler but I knew this wasn't the sudden tightness of an incoming asthma attack, but rather, the inability to speak through a very hard lump in my throat. Something burned behind my eyes, but I suppressed it.

I had never let Demyx see me cry. I wasn't about to start.

"That doesn't mean a thing, you little bitch," Demyx said. "Just why did you do it? I always knew you were a cold and heartless person--"

"Why, thank you," I said sarcastically. I almost expected a blow for this, but none came. Demyx went on, a new note of rage flashing in his voice.

"--but this proves it behind anything. What I want to know is--why? How could you hurt such a nice little girl like that? Maddie never did anything to you!" I opened my mouth to reply but Demyx continued raging, cutting off anything I was going to say. "I mean, it's not like I haven't already noticed that you don't like Maddie. I know you don't like kids, not at all. You were against us even taking Maddie in, I remember. I know you don't like her. Still--I never thought that you would ever...do this."

Well, Demyx was a little more astute than I gave him credit for. Still, he'd completely missed the mark. Per usual. It wasn't just because I didn't like kids. That was part of it, all right, but the main reason had to do with--

Demyx, hugging Maddie as she wept, kneeling beside her and whispering confidentially into her ear, comforting her...I blinked back the wetness that had risen in my eyes, and tried my hardest to speak through the lump clogging my throat.

"It's not--it's not--that," I managed to force out, and I congratulated myself. Only a faint quavering note had slipped into my voice.

"What is it, then?" he snapped, impatience and righteous anger mingling in his voice.

"It's...damn it, Demyx," I said, shaking my head, pulling myself up--I realized that Demyx had released me. "It's...how can you...I thought you were a bastard. A complete--a bastard. I th-thought y-you didn't know how to be--to be--nice. B-but...you're nice...to her...why not...t-to....me?"

I couldn't help it--much to my shame I almost descended into a sob at the end, but managed to pull myself together in time. I turned away from Demyx, not wanting to look at him. Not wanting to see his reaction, not wanting him to see my weakness, my shame.

Much to my shock, Demyx responded to my confession by laughing. He let out a short, harsh chuckle that made something shiver within me. I turned to face him again. He was smiling, a big, doofy smile, but it held a twisted and cruel quality.

"Oh my God, Zexy," he said, sounding as if he had just heard a very stupid joke. "Are you fucking kidding me? Don't tell me...you're jealous of a five-year-old?"

There it was--everything I had feared, everything I had kept to myself...for this precise reason. I knew Demyx wouldn't understand. I knew he'd just laugh, that he'd treat it like a joke. Sometimes, I too thought I was just joking in the most bizarre way possible.

"Zexion, you immature little dickwad, think. Just think, baby. How much older than her are you?" he said, pacing back and forth, still grinning to himself. "That's right--you're four times her age. And you're feeling jealous of her. Jealous enough to rip up a picture she was working very hard on, and make her cry. Oh, God."

He sank down with a whump on the bed right next to me. I jerked and moved to the side, but he didn't appear to mind my avoiding him. He just laughed again. "Good God, Zexy. I have never--I've neverheard of anything like this. I mean, I know and I can understand sibling rivalry. I've got twelve of 'em, you know! And I'd be lying if I said I didn't at times feel jealous of some of my younger siblings But--we're only a few years apart. I'd never feel jealous of, you know, my littlest siblings. I mean, it's natural for the older to want to protect the younger, right? Particularly the older you are, the younger they are. I've never felt jealous of my youngest brothers and sisters. I just wanted to make sure they were...you know, safe and okay. Same as with Maddie. But you. You, Zexion. Oh my God..."

He laughed again, a few weak chuckles. I lowered my head and stared down at my hands in my lap. "I...it's not like I'd understand," I said quietly, amazed at how I was able to keep my voice even. "I...I don't have any siblings..."

"Well, yeah, but still," Demyx said. "You mustknow how immature you're being. Especially to Maddie. She's never done anything to hurt you, and this is how you treat her!"

I cast a sidelong glance at him. "I just...I don't understand...why do you have to be...so...so nice to her? Especially..." I trailed off, not because I had no more words but because I felt Demyx would laugh at me again. Especially when you're not nice at all to me.

"Well, duh! She's a nice girl," said Demyx. "If you were normal you'd be nice to her too! Not to mention all the shit that happened to her! She's really lucky, to have come through it like she has, but still...she's fragile, okay? Treat her nicely. Lord knows she deserves it."

And what do I deserve? For five years, as long as Maddie's lifetime, I had been caught in an abusive relationship of some sort or the other. First there had been Axel (once again I remembered Demyx slapping me, felt the stinging on my face), and then...Demyx. Who was an improvement over Axel in some ways.

In other ways, he was even worse.

I almost wanted to voice this thought, that I too had been through a good deal of shit, but the instant I did I realized what retaliation Demyx would put forth, if it wasn't a slap. He would tell me that I had a choice. He'd tell me Maddie didn't choose to have a negligent mother with abusive boyfriends, while I...I could easily have left Demyx, could have left Axel. I didn't deserve sympathy the same way Maddie did because I had done this to myself.

Or perhaps this wasn't what Demyx was going to say, but simply what I believed. I still do believe this, in a way.

Demyx was still berating me though I hadn't been paying much attention. "I can't believe how immature you are, Zexy. Imagine that--being jealous of a five-year-old! Hey, why don't you go right now and apologize to her? You are sorry, right? I mean, you can't stay mad at her for long. Go on, Zexy. Apologize to Maddie."

His tone had become inviting, warm, cajoling--but I still hadn't forgotten the blazing rage that had been burning in it only a short while before. I thought about what would happen if I did apologize to Maddie. Oh, she'd accept, most probably, and then everything would return to normal. I'd go back to my reading, Demyx would go back to tuning his guitar and spending time with Maddie...he would hug her, and smile at her, and call her a good girl and tell her that she was loved and play with her and laugh with her and...

"No," I said, so low I could barely hear myself.

Demyx's mood instantly transformed--from casual to fierce and attentive, like a tightly coiled spring ready to snap any second. "What's that you said?" he said, his tone dangerous. "A little louder, if you please."

I obliged. I stood up from the bed, faced Demyx, and said, looking into his cold blue eyes, looking into Axel's smirking green eyes, "No."

I had been expecting the slap that came but I was completely unprepared for how hard it was. I almost fell to the carpet, so winded I was from its stinging force, but Demyx hauled me up by the collar and slapped me on the other side of the face, equally as hard. He was shouting at me, but I barely paid attention.

"You little son of a bitch! Like it or not you are going to apologize to Maddie this instant! You hear?" But I didn't--I heard nothing but the infernal buzzing in my ears. I heard Namine begging me to stop leave behind Demyx for my own sake. I heard Marluxia tell me that even he didn't understand Demyx. I heard Axel, smirking and laughing and calling me an idiot for believing Demyx to be my salvation, my salvation from him.

I heard Professor Vexen, trying to ask me about Demyx's relationship with me while I dodged all of his questions. I heard Dr. Ansem, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I continued seeing Demyx, I would end up permanantly injured, if not in body, then in mind. I heard Lexaeus, using few words to tell me happy birthday, and how he would always be there for me.

The familiar warm coppery taste was back in my mouth. This time, instead of swallowing, I spat--contempuously, straight at Demyx's feet.

A splotch of bright red appeared on the pale carpet, shining like a crimson beacon. My head spun and I brought my hand to my mouth and coughed on it--coughed up more blood. Demyx stared, his eyes perfectly round and almost foolish, quivering a bit as he looked from the blood-slash-spit on the ground to the bloody saliva I was currently wiping off my hand with my shirt.

"Oh...oh my God," he gasped, horror-stricken.

I laughed, a series of harsh flat chuckles, even though I saw nothing humorous about the situation. I didn't know how else to react to Demyx being such a--such a contempible idiot. Well, that had made him see. Now I could see that Demyx hadn't suddenly decided to reveal his very Axel-ish inner nature--he had obviously never intended to slap me that hard. Quite unlike Axel who had occasionally hit me just to see me cough up blood.

"Don't worry too much," I told Demyx in the same sarcastic tone I'd used earlier to talk to Maddie--a whole world ago. A trickle of blood ran out of my mouth down my chin as I spoke. I wiped it off with my sleeve. "Back when I was with Axel there were times when I was spitting out blood into a bucket. Compared to him--what you did is piddling."

Compared to Axel. But compared to what Demyx had done in the past...that was easily the hardest beating I'd ever taken under him.

"Oh my God," repeated Demyx. "Oh my God...Zexy...did I...did I..."

"Yes, you did," I said coldly. I spat one last time, this time on to my shirt. Damn, I'd probably never be able to wear that shirt again. Not that I was planning to, since it was missing all of its buttons now. It made quite a perfect "handkerchief" for me to cough into. That seemed to be the extent of the blood for now, because I didn't taste any more warm metallic wetness in my mouth.

"Oh my God," said Demyx for maybe the fifth or sixth time in recent memory. He immediately hopped off the bed and ran over to me, to seize the front of my shirt, which I'd been using to wipe the last of the blood from my mouth. It was spotted with crimson. "I didn't...Zexy...I didn't mean to..."

"Demyx," I said very quietly. The lump in my throat had returned, full force. I told myself angrily, It's not like he actually cares. He's only shocked because he didn't mean to hurt me that badly. Doesn't change the fact that he still wanted to hurt me, and he did. "Demyx...I also...I didn't mean to...to do what I did either."

Which was true, as far as I knew. I still didn't know--and I still don't know--exactly what had possessed me to storm up to Maddie and tear up her picture. It had come from a deeper, more feral part of me, a part I didn't understand and didn't want to. Demyx, too, seemed to possess a feral dark side, just like me--and that side had been the one beating me so viciously.

I wondered--did Axel have one too? Or had he chosen to let the feral dark side consume him, and be him? Because I couldn't imagine Axel behaving in a more animalistic manner than he already did, at least to me.

"Zexy..." I jerked, alarmed. While I'd been lost in thoughts, I hadn't noticed that Demyx had draped his arms around me. I immediately started, repulsed at the idea that those arms--the same hands that had been so violently beatingme only a short while before--were now touching me so affectionately. But another impulse was even stronger, and this impulse allowed me to slump against Demyx's warm chest and hang there in his gentle but strong grip.

It was the desire to just be held.

"Zexy..." Demyx said again in a low murmur, nuzzling his face against my hair. I clung to his shirt and buried my face in it. It smelled of fabric softener and toothpaste. I didn't want to know why it smelled like the latter. "Zexy...I...I'm really sorry. I didn't mean...I mean...I guess it's not enough to apologize, is it?"

"No," I said, burying my face deeper in Demyx's shirt and deciding that Demyx's toothpaste didn't smell that bad. "No, it's not enough. It's never enough."

"I see," said Demyx, almost sadly. His hands had begun stroking me, running gently up and down my back. I shivered slightly when I realized I wasn't wearing my shirt, since I'd taken it off to cough blood into. "I see...so that's how it is."

"It's not enough," I repeated. I wasn't even sure if Demyx could hear me, since I still had my face buried in his shirt. "It's not enough...but I'll settle for it. For now."

"Oh, Zexy," he said with a low sigh. "Sometimes I wish you'd stop forgiving me."

Sometimes, I wish the exact same thing, Demyx dear.

Demyx then took my face in his hands, lifting me from his shirt. I protested with a little whimper--it had been getting quite warm and comfortable in there, toothpase smell notwithstanding--but then he smiled and winked at me, before pulling me into a deep, passionate kiss...

When we pulled away, after Demyx's tongue had finished its desperate, hungry explorations of my mouth (or rather, we both needed to surface for air), Demyx wiped his mouth and laughed a bit--not a harsh laugh, but a gentle little chuckle. "Bloody licorice. Who'd've thought it would taste so nice?"

"What do you mean?" I said.

"I mean to say...it's just that you taste like licorice. Most of the time," said Demyx, frowning and scratching his head. "And the blood part's self-explanatory."

"What the hell do you mean," I said, miffed. "I taste like 'licorice'? I don't even eat licorice, and I personally think it's disgusting--"

Demyx laughed and affectionately touched the side of my face. Despite myself I jerked away--my face still stung from all the slaps. "Oh, sorry," said Demyx guiltily, realizing the same thing.

I glared at him but couldn't think of anything angry to say to him. Had we made up, or would my own repressed feelings burst out once more in the future, with a most unpleasant outcome? I didn't know...and right now I found that, to my surprise, I didn't much care.

"So," said Demyx, smiling and settling for ruffling my hair if he couldn't touch my face. "How do I taste, Zexy darling?"

Despite myself, I felt the lump rise up in my throat again. How long had it been since he had called me "darling?" I knew it was just a play-name and it meant nothing, but still...I liked to pretend, sometimes, that I really was Demyx's "darling." Which was easier to do if he actually called me that.

"I don't know," I said, answering his question truthfully. "You just taste like whatever it is you've just eaten."

"Oh," Demyx said. He sounded vaguely disappointed. "So, what'd I taste like this time?"

I answered him with a kiss--not a long kiss, just quick enough to dart my tongue into his mouth once and pull out before he could figure out what was happening and take the reins of dominance from me. I smirked at him when he gave me a stupid flummoxed look in response.

"Hey," he whined. But then, "So? I think I had a chicken cutlet sandwich for lunch--"

I lifted a finger and pressed it to his lip to shush him. "Toothpaste," I replied, and leaned in for another kiss.

And another...and another...and another...

Yes, I just followed an angsty scene with a fluffy scene. I don't know what I was thinking, either.

One more (somewhat shorter) section coming and this story is done.

In the meantime, do check out my fictionpress. And review, if you feel like it.