A breather... I wish I had more of this in store, but I don't. This Fic isn't about flying on a plane. No... it's about the plane crashing and burning. This might be the last real light-hearted moment...

We're winding down.

Of course, this was beta'd by my beloved Mousewolf. Props are due! Go drop by and give her love.

Read, enjoy, review, repeat... please?

::: Daisy, Daisy :::

Demyx is still there, his head a familiar weight on Axel's chest. He smiles, the feelings of contentment and satisfaction spreading in waves across his skin, through veins and arteries and his very bones… his core vibrates with his happiness, and somewhere deep inside, someone curls up, asleep, practically purring, a Cheshire-cat smile still fixed to his features.

He gently rearranges his lover and jumps in the shower, Leto right behind as usual. He's just back. He's breaking back into the routine just like any other. 'Round and 'round and 'round his little world goes, and he's just finding his groove again even if his body feels like he got put in the spin-cycle for an hour or two.

It's just a reminder of their closeness.

He jumps out of the shower, turns Leto loose and makes breakfast for himself, covers up a portion for his sleeping lover. He debates walking to the dog park or painting. Considering the dull, aching pain in his nether regions, he chooses to paint instead, changes into his stained work clothes. To his surprise, the painting is staring back at him with its goggle-eyed patterns, designs that blur from sharp edges of his insanity into the smooth arcs of his drunkenness, back into the pained repetitions of regrets and pain.

Axel takes the painting and he brings it into the main room, starts smearing it with paint made of silver.

Silver leaf gilding the terrible eyes that once belonged to Larxene, adds a little gold. It doesn't take long to change them. Demyx has long eyelashes like a girl's; longer than Larxene's were. He opens up the blue into a much deeper well like the ocean after a storm that stirs up the deep places. He plays and pushes until out of the darkness, this saving glance appears. He smiles and sets aside the brush.

It needs to dry.

"It's beautiful," Demyx says out of nowhere. There are tears in his eyes.

"Are you alright?" Axel asks softly, limping awkwardly to his lover's side. He's leaning heavily in the doorframe to the studio. Thin, wiry arms wrap around the blond's sculpted hips.

"I forgot where the pills are," Demyx admitted, a smile on his face but pain beyond reckoning in his eyes.

"You always forget, don't you?" Axel laughed. "Come on. Let's get you nice and numbed up. I could use some of that shit too."

--- ---

Sitting there, stoned and half drunk, Demyx smiled and finally said what he'd been thinking about for the past few weeks.

"Hey Axel…"

"What?" the strung-out redhead mumbled, yawning quietly.

"You know… I'm a musician…"

"So?"

"That means I'm musical…"

"And?"

"Well, I'm gay too…"

"Demyx, what exactly are you trying to imply?"

"Well, wouldn't that make me a Musical Fruit?" the blond finally blurted.

Axel laughed a little, paused to think about it, then started cracking up again.

"Yeah, Dem. It definitely makes sense," he gasped between laughing fits.

Demyx smiled winningly.

"Well, just call me Bean for short!" he laughed, "Now… lessee…"

"What?"

Demyx grinned brightly. "I woke up hungry today!"

"That's marvelous," Axel mumbled, slinging himself up off the couch.

"Yeah, isn't it?"

"And?"

"Okay," Demyx began, leaning forward and white-knuckling his knees, "So I woke up hungry and I haven't eaten anything yet…"

Axel snorted.

"Really?"

"Would you make me a sandwich?" the blond begged sweetly.

"Nah. I need to get back to my paintings. Oh yeah, would you call Saïx and finish that thingy you were doing with him?" Axel paused, tapping his foot, "Something about a piece of poetic prose…"

"Yeah… but I'm going to expire on the couch first, if I don't eat!" Demyx pouted.

"Hey, hey! No dying on my couch! It was expensive and it's my favorite one…"

"It's your only one," Demyx muttered under his breath. He perked up again in quick succession though, "So then you'll make me a sandwich?"

"Hotpocket?" Axel offered.

"Deal!"

--- ---

Five more people dropped by to examine the pups, and four left with new pets, one man actually taking two with him. And so, with only seven pups left and a nice wad of cash to pay their hefty rent, Axel was pleased. Demyx, however, was not so thrilled. He lay on the bed dejectedly, decked out in his kilt and leather jacket, stroking Zipporah's head lovingly.

"Dem, cheer up… I'm sure these people will do a good job…" Axel soothed, sinking somewhat painfully to the bed.

Demyx didn't look up.

"Dem, come on…" Axel sighed, arranging himself so that he could rest his head in the small of his lover's back.

"Aren't you a little sad that they have to go?" the blond finally asked.

"Yeah, but we can't take care of them… they were eating us out of house and home!" Axel sighed, "Hey, I'm calling Nami. It's Wednesday and I could totally go for some home-made lasagna…"

Demyx laughed, his voice still tinges with a little sadness, "You think with nothing but your stomach… how do you stay so damn skinny?"

"Alcohol. God's gift to mankind. Liquid bread."

Demyx sighed softly.

"Oh."

"Demyx…" Axel sighed, rolling onto his stomach and lacing a hand into his lover's hair.

"I'm sorry… I just…"

"Don't think so much."

"Hey, come on try a little

Nothing is forever

There's got to be something better than

In the middle

Me and Cinderella

We put it all together

We can drive it home

With one headlight."

Demyx smiled soft.

"Wh… why are you singing that?" Axel whispered, sounding suddenly very mournful.

"I'd think it would be how you'd feel if I died," Demyx replied simply.

They sat in a tense, but otherwise companionable silence.

"Demyx…"

"Yeah?"

"We are what we make ourselves."

"And?"

"It's us and them. I want to make myself yours."

Demyx smiled.

"Then come here, you big idiot," the blond laughed.

Demyx had work at 6:30 today.

The clock read 6:47, and it really didn't matter any more.