Listless

Something wasn't right.

Ienzo stared deeply into his plans, spread across the worktable and anchored by his research. He bit his lip. It had all been revised and engineered within an inch of its life; yet something was off, wrong. Was it the angles of the joints of the walls?

Maybe it had nothing to do with its creation, and all to do with its creator.

He had a vicious headache. Ienzo took off his glasses and rested his face in his hand for a moment, trying to rub away the pain. Ever since his confrontation with Even, and in the light of Ansem's overwhelming depression, Ienzo was feeling increasingly shaken, and increasingly anxious. Sleeping was getting more and more difficult again.

Demyx didn't seem to be doing well either.

It was clear that the poisoning had shaken him. For a few weeks after it happened, Demyx remained mostly in their apartment. He slept a lot, picked at Arpeggio aimlessly, songs that made no coherent sense to Ienzo. Ienzo first attributed this exhaustion to the aftereffects of the poison, but it seemed to go on longer than it should. This must have traumatized him; he was self-conscious enough when it came to his competency, and he could have taken this as a sign he was unwanted in the community. Ienzo was able to analyze Demyx's mental state with ease; but he himself was too tired to be of any real help. He felt as though he were constantly carrying another dozen or so kilos.

Ienzo, too, just wanted to rest. The early winter day was cold. He would go home, he decided. He would take a bath and make himself some tea and he would read a perfectly awful book, and he would wait for this to blow over.

Would it?

The anxiety threatened to pull him into a spiral. What if this happiness they'd had had been temporary? His growth and healing falsified? He should have known better than to believe they would have a happy ending, or any ending for that matter.

Was this illogical?

He unlocked the apartment door. There Demyx was, curled under the covers. His gummiphone was on the bed beside him, but he didn't look at it. He barely moved when Ienzo came into the room. Ienzo took off his shoes and slacks and crawled under the blankets as well. He pulled him close, a gesture that sought more to take comfort than to give it.

Demyx turned, and for a moment they faced each other, wordlessly.

"Are you alright?" Ienzo asked.

"No. You?"

"No." At least he'd come this far, to be able to admit it. "The world lately has felt so very heavy." He could feel the pinch in his throat, of oncoming tears, and tried to fight it. "I know you're hurting, and I want to help, but I-"

"It's okay," Demyx said. "I know you're dealing with a lot. You can't take care of people when you're drowning."

"I used to."

"Then is not now." He looked so exhausted, his hair flat, circles under his eyes. "I'm not… going anywhere. I just need some rest."

"I can't help but wonder…" It was warm under the covers, but still he shook. "What if this is all temporary, you know?"

"I know. God, do I know."

"I know this is merely a relapse, of sorts. That these are conditions I have to manage and live with for the rest of my life. But they're so close to convincing me this is how I'll always be. I'm not that person. I'm logical, I reason. It feels so draining."

His face crumpled a little. "I know. They… they triggered you. You have to deal with it. Repressing that pain makes it so much worse." A sob caught in his throat.

"I'm truly sorry," Ienzo said. "You're reeling from this trauma, and I-"

"I've been talking through it with Aerith." He looked ashamed to admit it. "She gave me some pills, to help manage things… they make me so tired."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You had enough on your plate. Besides, I should be… better in a week or two. When the chemicals in my head stabilize. Or whatever." He didn't make eye contact.

Ienzo knew that it wasn't that simple. "Demyx…"

"I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

Ienzo touched Demyx's face. He hadn't shaved in a few days; the pale stubble was scratchy. "There has to be something I can do."

"You can. You can take care of yourself."

He inhaled. "You'll tell me, if things get much worse?"

"Of course."

Ienzo wanted to believe him. Yet it was so much easier to worry about Demyx than his own increasing instability.

"I mean it, Ienzo. I'm not done with you."

The smile seemed to take some effort. "Okay."

He tried to get some rest.

He pulled himself away from the memorial, away from the internal. He assisted Even with some simple chemical experiments, had lunch with Ansem, went on a few rounds with Aeleus. Anything to keep his hands and body occupied. Idle hands make the devil's work. He understood.

Ienzo was determined not to overwork, just to get his mind off of heavier things until he could unravel them a bit more cleanly. Maybe if he let it percolate a bit more, it would grow clearer.

On one of these rounds with Aeleus, they discovered what had evidently been a mother cat's nest; there were several rodent skeletons, along with damp red stains of birth. But the mother and her kits were gone; aside from a small, wriggling lump in the makeshift scraps of fabric.

"Oh, poor thing," Ienzo whispered. It was tiny, possibly the runt; its white and brown fur slightly matted. He was shocked to see it was still breathing, but hesitantly so; who knew how long it had been sitting here without its mother. He took the kitten into his hands, to try and warm it up a little bit. Its eyes were crusted over, possibly infected, and it trembled a little.

"It must be sick," Aeleus said. "Perhaps we should… end its suffering." It pained him to say this, his blue eyes glinting. "Mothers don't usually abandon their young unless they feel it's a lost cause."

Ienzo stared at the kitten. So small. Yet, the thought of stamping out its life repulsed him. "Well, I certainly wasn't," he said. "Perhaps… I want to at least try to nurse it." He felt like a child. Oh please, oh please can I keep it? "Demyx might be able to help me."

Aeleus nodded, a shade of relief gracing his otherwise stoic face. "We could use a mouser."

The first few days he was certain the kitten wouldn't make it, and any attempts to treat its myriad illnesses felt like Ienzo was just prolonging its suffering. Demyx was only able to help so much-he knew humans, not cats-and for several hours Ienzo dripped milk and antibiotics intermittently into its small mouth. At least it was swallowing, and breathing. He kept as constant of an eye on it as he could, rubbing its small belly to stimulate digestion, wiping the pus from its eyes. He didn't let it out of his sight and held it as much as he could, because it was so so tiny and so cold . Even the incubation lamp he was able to borrow from Even didn't seem to do much good.

"You're going to cause yourself more hurt," Even said gently. "I can… I can put it to rest painlessly, without violence."

"I think she wants to live. She's eating."

Even shook his head. "If this is how you wish to spend your time. You can probably adopt a healthy cat at the market."

It took about a week of this, of trying different medicines and drops for its tiny eyes, before the kitten seemed to turn the corner. Its breaths were less labored, it was eating even more; it seemed to gain a few grams every day. Then the pus stopped weeping from its eyes and it gave a tiny, scratchy mew. And for some reason this unraveled him; Demyx found him bawling over the kitten and assumed it had died. Before long, its eyes opened-a temporary blue-to a startling new world.

Ienzo wasn't sure what this whole ordeal had revealed about himself. The symbolism of it wasn't lost on him. This uncomplicated kindness was a relief.

She lived.

She went from being on the verge of death to being constantly underfoot, or climbing all over things, up to and including the curtains. She found a particular interest in Demyx's sitar, trying to crawl over the frets. "Well," Demyx said, "At least she's not a critic."

As she got bigger, she slept on (and in) the bed. She seemed to sense their nightmares; more than once Ienzo woke up to her purring next to his cheek, even as he woke in a cold sweat.

The cat was a comfort to them both. But it still took weeks to name her. Demyx suggested silly names like Jat or Rocks, Ienzo found himself thinking about it entirely too hard, going so far as to look into nomenclature before finally Demyx said, "You know it's a cat, right?"

One morning Demyx woke up with her paws on his face. All he said was "Beans."

And Ienzo groaned, because he knew in his heart that the cat's name was Beans. As stupid as it was. He tried to shorten it to Bea, or Bebe, but the cat didn't respond to that. She, great comforter of anxiety, was now named after the legume family.

So it goes.

But she did help shake him out of that horrible spiral, and for that she was worth her weight in, well, beans. He could work near her, scratch the soft spot behind her ears, and get back to clear and concise thinking. It was grounding. He wondered how much of his childhood suffering would have been nullified if he'd just had a pet. It was something to look forward to, a concrete reason to exist; Beans needed him. As complex as he tried to be, really simple comforts meant more than intense psychological analysis.

Gradually, the sense of heaviness that had been plaguing him began to fade, and he felt again hopeful. In a small way he would always resent how much control his emotions had over him, how they would muddy thoughts that had once been so easy to grasp. But this was part of humanity, and there was no going back.