A/N: Whoot! Another update! Thank the long weekend for this one J Hope everyone enjoys.

_

~ Amends (Savior) ~

It was warm inside the church.

Outside it was snowing. Really snowing. Not sleeting, not a descending formless mass of cold, ugly white. Snowing. Perfect and individual snowflakes drifting from the sky, falling down to the Earth in a display of quiet beauty.

Zexion took a seat in an empty back pew and slowly pulled off his gloves. A choir was singing a Christmas carol, and the preacher was standing at the podium, looking over their Christmas Eve sermon.

The attendants were of all ages and races, but he felt extremely out of place. He fidgeted. He didn't belong here, why was he here? He hated God – why was he here? God didn't exist – why the fuck, he asked himself in an almost panicked tone, was he there?

He wished he could disappear inside of his heavy black jacket. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt like that, so invisible, wishing he could hide away.

The preacher spoke of Christ, of their Savior. Zexion had heard the story before hundreds of times coming up in the Catholic Church, but this place was not Catholic and he listened, quiet, though unable to sit entirely still. He felt as though he were waiting for something.

But nothing happened. No voice spoke from heaven, no epiphany revealed itself to him. The world made less sense than it had before he walked in. He had a hard time believing in any kind of savior.

He didn't deserve salvation. Demyx did, yet none had come.

The service ended. People streamed out of the church, but Zexion stayed there for a moment, staring at the stained glass windows and the image of the cross. If only, he thought, he could have found his heart inside this building instead of inside a dying man.

"Merry Christmas, young man." The pastor said after he had been there for a while. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"No. You can't help me."

"Touché. I'm just a mortal, after all." The man smiled kindly as he sat next to him. "But maybe God can?"

"I don't believe in God."

"Why not?"

"Do you have all night?" Zexion said sardonically. "If God existed the man I am in love with would not be dying for something he had no control over. If God existed, he would have struck me dead. My mother would have never – ugh. Let's just, I don't talk about my mother."

"Fair enough." The pastor said. Zex found himself surprised. By the standards of this faith there were so many things wrong with the sentence he just spoke, he expected to be thrown into the street. "But God is not responsible for the sins of man. In fact, he sent Christ to save us from those sins."

Zexion stood up. "I'm sorry. I can't do this. I'm not going to become friends with you and we're not going to slowly become friends. You're not going to be someone I come to trust and depend on and eventually accept the 'savior' into my life. If there was a savior – ha." He shook his head. "Merry Christmas. Thanks anyway."

.x.

While Zexion was sitting in a church searching for some kind of answer, Axel was sitting on Skid Row with his guitar on his lap and a joint between his lips. It was a bad night for the drunks, he noted; every Christmas, he was bound to see many of them swaying down the streets wailing carols at the top of their lungs.

His cellphone vibrated once in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked, figuring, hey, Saix probably wanted to meet for a drink and it was Christmas so maybe he wouldn't come out of this with a bloody nose.

Instead, he saw Roxas' name.

Want 2 come 2 my place 4 dinner?

Axel bit his lip and forced himself to wait three whole, tortuous seconds before firing back a quick 'yes'. He knew where Roxas lived – having gone out for casual dinners a few times in the past, he'd often dropped him off at his apartment. But he'd made, like no headway….until now.

He jumped up and stuffed his guitar into its case, slung it over his shoulder, and snuffed out the joint, pocketing it for later. He hurried back to his apartment, jumped into his car, and drove right to Roxas' place.

"How do you feel about Chinese?" Roxas asked when he arrived.

"I love Chinese. They're really great in bed."

Roxas shot him a glare. Axel sniggered. Immature, maybe, but he couldn't help it, and besides. Rox should be kind of used to his humor by now. He plopped down on the couch as the blonde ordered their food from the local Chinese place.

"Yeah, I just kind of wanted to chill." He explained, sitting down next to Axel. "But it kind of sucks being alone on Christmas, so I thought….."

"That I'd be alone too? Gee, I'm glad you have so much – "

"Oh god, I didn't mean it like that, I just – I mean – "

"Relax, Roxy. I was by myself. Your invitation was perfectly welcome."

"Yeah. Uh, sorry it's not very Christmas-y in here…"

"I've got you covered."

"What?"

Axel reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Marlboro Reds…" He said, digging around for the joint. "And some green. We're covered. Now if only you had some mistletoe…."

Roxas laughed and rolled his eyes at the same time, unable to help himself. The doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of their eggrolls and fried rice. They dug in. And for a long time just talked about whatever they happened to think about – they drank beer and sang Christmas carols and threw rice at each other, much to Roxas' later dismay because it would 'be hell to get this out of my carpet.'

"Hey, Rox, take a deep breath. It's just carpet. And besides, it's your fault, you started the Great Rice Fight of 2009."

"Yeah, well, you totally had it coming, making it your fault."

"Hey well – shut the fuck up, okay?"

Roxas nearly choked on his last bite of eggroll from laughter, and shoved Axel lightly. "Let's look at our fortune cookies." He said after he had safely swallowed the egg roll.

"Yeah, okay, cool." They unwrapped them, broke them open, and read. "That's funny."

"What is?" Roxas asked.

"Mine says, 'You will make sweet, sweet love to a cute blonde kid in his living room."

"Hm. I heard there's a cute blonde kid a few doors down."

"You want to show me where he lives?"

"Yeah, just a second." He laughed and held his up, as if holding it up to the light. He then crumpled it up in the palm of his hand, ducked off the couch, and crawled under his glass coffee table. Axel, bewildered, followed him, though his height made him somewhat uncomfortable, legs sprawled out at strange angles. "You want to know what mine said?" Roxas whispered.

"What."

"Fuck mistletoe." He tapped the glass where the joint Axel had brought was lying on top of the table "It's close enough."

They kissed.

.x.

It's Christmas, Demyx. Merry Christmas. I never liked the holiday, but you wanted to celebrate it, so here we are. I probably don't seem like the letter-writing type to you. I'm not. I don't do love notes or public displays of affection, although I suppose you could say before now I never participated in public displays of anything. In any case I'm writing this to you because you're different and I want you to be able to have something of me even when I'm not around. Perhaps it's odd to you given the situation, that I would want you to be reminded of me even though I will never have the chance to leave you for a long period of time. I know you can't read very well, either. So I suppose I just called myself out on my own bullshit.

I love you.

That's why. Over and over and over again I love you – that's why I'm writing this. There's the proof, yours and mine. I'm not lying. I am not manipulating or twisting or doing the things that I normally do to get along with life, because I do love you, and the more I realize that the more I realize that life and I were never destined to get along. Nothing will ever be easy again. I will never live in the apathy I adapted for myself, for protection, because I no longer want to be protected. Do you understand? I feel like a frog who has been dissected and examined, torn apart from the inside.

Before you my existence was neat. It was easily compartmentalized, and feelings were put in a special place that I thought I didn't have to touch. Except when I did. When the lights went out or I had nightmares, when I was haunted by them. I thought I could spend my life running from emotion and memory, and that when it was time to die, I would take death as something welcome.

Not that everything has changed. But if you were to live, then also would I long for life; only it doesn't seem as if there is any way that could be true. Before I met you my reason for wanting death was only that I hated life. And I will hate life again once you are not in it. It's worth nothing without you.

But if you wish for me to live, and I think that you do, I will try.

I will admit openly to you now that I will probably fail. You have stripped me of the only thing that I have ever been good at, which of course is lying and exploiting others to meet my own end. I imagine – what if I had met you without this? I would have manipulated you as well. The thought of this makes me sick. Why is it that my only option for successfully meeting you, in a way that would benefit my life, is under these circumstances?

God is cruel.

My parents tried to hammer me with religion. My mother, especially, tried to drill God into me. Her attempt did nothing but reassure me that God could not exist, and once I burned a Bible in our backyard. I loved it, watching it go up in flames. I think I realize now that I was rebelling against her. Not God, but my mother.

Now I feel as though I should rebel against him. When I look at the world around us, the death and sickness, the pestilence in our streets, I wonder how God could let this happen. When I look at you and think of how beautiful you are now, and how that beauty must have been multiplied tenfold before you became sick. I wonder how a God who loves us could let something so horrific happen to the innocent you were.

I was never an innocent. Though I hold anger and bitterness toward my mother and father for what they put me through, I don't see it as corruption. I was never whole to begin with. There is something wrong with me, and I feel that maybe I was born with this defect. That perhaps that is why they never loved me, that they were incapable of loving something as wrong as I am. So I can scarcely blame God for my own situation. I cannot blame him for what I did to myself, but only what he did to you.

But I am troubled, troubled so much that I just may have to believe. If Heaven does not exist, then where will you go? You are too bright and beautiful even in the face of death to simply fade from being. Your light is too bright to just fade.

If I were the God I once believed myself to be, I would create a Heaven just for you.

I love you, Demyx. I am grateful that I was given a chance to meet you. You saved my life in every way possible; you are the hope that is left to my dying soul.

Thank you for everything you have given me, the extent of which you'll never know.

Love,

Zexion

.x.

His vision was blurred, and he felt as if he could barely speak as he finished reading aloud the words he had penned to Demyx on the inside cover of Catcher in the Rye. He looked up to see that the blonde, too, was crying openly; he felt that there was no shame between them anymore.

He closed the book and held it out to Demyx. It was by no means brand new – in fact, it was the first copy he'd ever owned.

Dem sniffled and took the book. He hugged it to his chest. "Zex…..come here…."

Zexion obliged him without urging. He climbed into that small, cramped hospital bed like it was home. "Merry…Christmas." He muttered.

"Merry Christmas. I've got a gift for you, too, y'know….."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Close your eyes."

He closed his eyes and waited. Soon, Demyx's lips descended on his, soft and chapped in places, and in every way perfect. It was the most wonderful kiss in the world. Zexion could feel it, their love, golden and warm, and he wanted more, wanted to hold it forever.

Demyx started to pull away. Zex placed a hand on the back of his neck and didn't let him.

"Please." He whispered against his lips. "I need this."

"Zex….you know…."

"I don't care."

"I care." Demyx pulled back just the barest amount, and this time Zexion let him. "I'm not gonna risk you dying with me, I won't play a part in that, okay…" He stroked the side of Zex's face lightly. "I want you to live. You just promised me you'd try. You can break it, Zex, you can break your own cycle, keep your promise…"

The tears started to flow freely from Zexion's eyes once more. He nodded.

With snowflakes falling outside on the most beautiful Christmas Eve of his life, the only one worth living through, Zexion fell asleep in the arms of the man that he loved.