11.

Demyx woke with a gasp. He was soaked in sweat, and he looked at his hands. My name , he thought dazedly. That's my name! He turned to Ienzo, ready to wake him up and tell him everything.

Except Ienzo was already awake. He was on his side, curled tightly, and he was crying.

"Hey," Demyx said softly. "Bad dream?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Go back to sleep."

"You're not fine, if you're crying."

"It's an involuntary reaction."

"What happened?"

"One in a hundred basement dreams," he said. "Just… all these moments I could've stopped-feeling my… heart get ripped out of my chest…" He shuddered. "This pain is just what I deserve. Karma."

"You don't deserve that."

"After all I've done?" Ienzo asked in a high voice. "This is the least of what I deserve."

"No. No, Zo. That's just not true."

"Why not."

"You couldn't help being lead onto that path-"

"What about after?" his tone was shrill. "When I was old enough, when I should've known right from wrong?"

Demyx didn't know what to say.

"We killed people, Demyx." He got up and started rather violently getting dressed. "Come on. You need to see something, if you want to be with me."

Demyx could only follow. He was feeling hot and dizzy again. Ienzo led him down to the computer lab, to a door at the far side. He punched in numbers, breathing heavily. "We don't have to-"

" Yes we do. " The syllables rang loudly in the metal space.

Demyx reached forward to touch his shoulders, fighting his own nausea. "No. We don't."

Ienzo slapped his hands away, grabbed one, and brought him downstairs into the basement.

The basement… was just a basement.

Demyx felt that bad things had happened here. The energy was just too charged. Ienzo stood, staring, dazed, at the cells, all of the doors closed and quiet. It was strangely clean. Empty.

"I killed people," Ienzo said, in a much lower voice. "I wanted to do experiments and when I asked they said okay. I manipulated people. Pushed them to their breaking points, psychologically. When they were broken Xehanort plucked out their hearts, and I didn't feel the least bit sorry. I thought we were making discoveries which would change the world."

Demyx swallowed. He thought of a childlike Ienzo standing over a body fading to darkness.

"I killed people," he repeated. "And afterwards when I could not feel I killed even more, let whole worlds fall because of our plans. Why am I-why am I still here?"

"You've been given a second chance," Demyx said. "You were a… you were a kid, Zo." He chanced touching his shoulder. "You were manipulated onto this path. You said it yourself-Xehanort gaslit you into thinking this lab was your idea. You were too young. Too smart."

"Too smart," he echoed.

"And you chose good now, right? You chose to help the world? That means a lot. That means so much." His vision was swarming. He cupped Ienzo's face.

"Seeing this-how could you still-"

"I love you."

If anything, this was the wrong thing to say. "Why?" It was nearly a bleat. "Why? Why ?"

"I do, Ienzo. I do. We talked about this. What were you supposed to do? These people were your parents, and they asked you for something, and you were good at it. They took your dad away. You had nothing left. What were you supposed to do? Run away, at eight, ten, twelve years old? Give up everything? How were you supposed to know what was going to happen?"

The wildness in his eye was fading.

"And you're doing everything in your power to put it right, right? To fix it? To help people? And you are. You work so hard every day. You're using that research to help people. It's going to change the world." He felt like he was talking out of his ass. "Look, it so sucks that you had to go through this. But I'm too selfish to let you keep hating and blaming yourself when this is not your fault ." His voice echoed loudly. "Not when I can see the real you. And he is so kind and patient and smart and funny. You… you deserve to be here. You deserved to be loved. I mean it." He was sweating all over, and the pain in his back had returned, thumping in time with his racing heart. "I mean it."

Ienzo sank to his knees. Demyx knelt with him and pulled him close. He was crying again, but it seemed like the kind of crying that had to happen, so Demyx just shushed and rocked him. After what felt like hours, hours where Demyx struggled not to vomit, struggled to stay completely conscious, he calmed. "Oh Demyx," he said. "Oh."

"I know. It's okay. We can pretend this didn't happen."

"I don't want to." He stood and offered him his hands. "I love you too. I don't… I don't deserve you."

"More like I don't deserve you." He smiled, weakly. He was feeling weird now, and wanted to go back to bed. "Let's go home, okay?"

The long, long walk back upstairs seemed to take an eternity. "Your hand is really warm," Ienzo said.

"The stress made me hot." Why was he lying? He needed help.

"I insist you see Even first thing in the morning."

"...I will." He was feeling even stranger now, hazy, weird. Upstairs was in sight now. Maybe he could sit for a few minutes when they got there…

They passed the threshold. Something unraveled in him, went sharp, went weird, went sideways-

The next thing Demyx was aware of, he was on the cold hard metal floor, on his side, and his head was in Ienzo's lap. There was the smell of vomit, a slickness of sweat, and there was an awkward wetness between his legs. "...What…" He mumbled. His head was pounding, and the pain in his back had reached a fever pitch.

"Don't move. Try to relax."

"What happened?"

"You had a seizure."

"I don't… remember…"

"Of course you don't."

"Where are my glasses?"

"I took them off for safekeeping. Even and Dilan are coming. Just try to stay still until then."

He looked down as much as he was able. A spare lab coat had been spread over his lap. He realized what the wetness was; he'd pissed himself. A humiliated flush heated his face. "I'm sorry I peed," he mumbled. "And threw up."

"It was completely involuntary, Demyx, it's okay. Most people do when they seize." His voice was soothing, but he detected an undertone of stress. Ienzo stroked his sweaty hair.

Footsteps. "What are you two doing down here?" Even snapped. "How long did he seize for?"

"I'm not sure exactly-I was trying to keep him from aspirating the vomit."

"Boy, minutes count. Guess."

"Five minutes or so?"

Even swore. He knelt down by Demyx. "Hello there," he said.

"I'm sorry." His eyes watered.

"It's alright, child."

Child? That's how Demyx knew he was in deep shit. He felt Even's cold hands taking his pulse, his temperature.

"Febrile," he muttered. "What else do you feel?"

"Sick," he said. "Just really… sick. And…" He swallowed. "My back really hurts? Like a lot?"

Even probed him gently. "Here? Right here?"

He hissed. "Right there."

"Ah," Even said. Demyx couldn't see his expression clearly.

"Even, what is-" Ienzo began. Then, "oh."

"Quite," Even said. "Oh, Dilan, there you are. Thanks for taking your sweet time."

"I'm tired," Demyx murmured.

"Close your eyes and rest," Ienzo said. "It's okay."

He didn't get all the way asleep, but awareness slid in and out. He was vaguely aware of Ienzo changing him into a robe, of Even taking blood samples. The pain was still awful and nausea brought him around. "Oh," he said.

Ienzo's head snapped up. He was sitting next to the bed in the infirmary. "What do you need?"

"I'm gonna be sick."

He held a bin in front of him. Demyx heaved, but nothing other than water really came up. "I'll have Even give you an antiemetic." He handed him a cup of water to rinse out his mouth.

"What's wrong with me?" he asked wearily. He had a suspicion but he needed it in words.

"We're trying to figure out for sure. You need to relax. It's going to be okay."

He tried to lay back. For a while he just felt weak and hazy and sweaty until he looked up and saw Even. The man rubbed a prep pad over his bicep, and Demyx felt a pick of a needle, then a numbness in his arm. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, you're awake," he said. Demyx didn't recall sleeping. "I'm putting a port line in. You remember from before, yes? This is just something to make that process more comfortable."

"Why?" he asked.

"You need the fluids," Even said. Despite the numbing, when he put the line in Demyx felt every little pinch and prick. "Okay. Okay. Steady. Good boy. I'm done."

Thin, strange-tasting tears ran down his face. He felt something stinging injected into the line-an antiemetic like Ienzo said? A painkiller? Just saline?-but whatever it was made him so exhausted he dozed.

In this haze Demyx heard voices.

"...You're sure?"

"I showed you the numbers, Ienzo. The fever, the vomiting, the seizing especially. I wish he were lucid enough so I could ask how long the symptoms have existed…"

"At least since yesterday."

"...It's advanced enough that I'm sure it's been longer. I… had suspected he might not bounce back so quickly. But he's young, and fit more or less, so I didn't see a reason to scare him unnecessarily. Which begs the question why you two were alone for so long yesterday, but there are more immediate problems."

"So what do we do?"

"The dialysis will buy some time and make him feel better. But it's not a good long term solution-not to mention it will greatly decrease his quality of life."

"So there's truly no way they will bounce back?"

"The loss of function was complete, Ienzo, complete. If the medications he's been taking haven't been helping, nothing will." A long pause. "I may have a solution, but it will take a little time. "

"I think I catch your drift."

Demyx slept. When he woke he felt considerably less shitty, but with this clarity came a bunch of truths he wasn't ready to face.

He'd remembered his name and a little bit more of his past.

He'd seen Ienzo in a godawful amount of pain.

There was something seriously medically wrong with him.

The line in his arm pinched. He sat up a little. He could see blood creeping down one line and back in another, with plain fluid in a third. The blood was connected to a small machine, which was ticking along quietly. His glasses had been set on a bedside table. Demyx knew without looking he was back in the infirmary.

Ienzo was dozing in the chair next to the bed, a scratchy-looking blanket tucked around his shoulders.

Demyx felt mostly… numb.

Ienzo jolted awake with a start. "Demyx."

"Hey."

"How do you feel?"

"Lots better. Tired, though." His muscles were sore, he realized; not the terrible awful ache he'd been living with (which had quieted, it seemed, for the time being). "I'm in pretty deep shit, aren't it?"

Ienzo sighed heavily. He sat up. "Yes," he said tiredly.

"My kidneys are fucked, aren't they?"

"The technical diagnosis is "renal failure" but, yes." He reached over to touch Demyx's face. "Even thinks he has a solution. You just have to hold on long enough for him to implement it."

He sighed. In his mind's eye he saw the desert. "Man, people might as well be made of paper," he said. "Little dehydration and it all falls apart."

Ienzo's smile was cramped and sad.

He swallowed. "Before… everything got super dramatic," he said, "I remembered something."

"You did?"

"I… I really think I did." He told him about the dream/memory. "She's my sister, Ienzo." His eyes watered. "Elrena is my sister. All of that… that insulting. It's just a mutated form of sibling rivalry."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Confused," Demyx admitted. "The spot she has in my heart is just… weird."

"Of course it is."

"Where is she? Is she home? Do we have parents? More siblings? Is she okay?"

"She likely recompleted. I'm sure she's physically fine."

"I don't want to leave you."

"You don't have to," Ienzo said. He touched one of the tubes. "Right now, you can't ."

"And there's my name." He took a deep breath. "Edym."

A long, long pause. Ienzo smiled. "Do you want me to call you that?"

"I'm… I'm not sure," he said. "Maybe you could try to, and I can see how I feel?"

"Of course." He leaned over and kissed him once. "It's nice to meet you, Edym."