Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its subsidiaries. This is a not-for-profit fanwork.

XXI.

New

Demyx woke up on Yuffie and Aerith's couch with another hideous hangover. Someone—evidently, Aerith—had been kind enough to leave two little pills and a glass of water, which he waited to take until after he threw up the first time.

"Fucking no powers," he said into the toilet. "Fuck me." At least the semidarkness of the bathroom was soothing, unlike the vicious sunlight which poured through the living room windows. Undone completely by a handful of shots of some stupid stuff. Of course, he'd been the idiot who hadn't eaten all day, but that was beside the point.

Despite the physical misery, he could remember fairly well what had happened the night before. Some things were vague—he knew he'd rambled at some point, but about what he had no idea—but others were distinct. The kiss. The vague—yet terrifying—anticipation he'd felt. He sat very still on the bathroom floor. This was not good. This was very not good. The idea of being attracted to her was not what upset him, but rather, the fear of what this meant now, especially because they still had to work together on a semi-regular basis. He wondered if he'd just ruined one of the only friendships he really had.

He heaved again, but nothing came up. "Shit," he said.

When he was feeling less like trash and more like merely hell, he went back and took the two little pills. He should go back to the castle. As awful as he felt, he also wanted fresh air before it got too warm.

"Good morning," Aerith said from the kitchen, starting him. In a careworn robe, her hair was pulled back loosely from her face.

"Hey, sorry," he said hoarsely.

"What for?"

He shook his head. "I guess you don't exactly have any other medicine for a hangover."

"Strangely, I don't."

"Of course."

She smiled. She put up the kettle and gave him a glass of water. "Not that I would, you know, necessarily give it to either of you right now anyway. I'm afraid drinking too much isn't a life-threatening emergency."

"No fun allowed," he said.

"Oh relax, I'm not Leon." She fixed her tea.

"How do you even know what we did?" He asked, and a paranoia closed around his throat.

"I heard Yuffie throwing up a few hours ago. Not that she was exactly subtle."

"Maybe we should have invited you."

"Drinking never did anything for me," she said. "So you're right, I am no fun."

"Thanks for letting me stay," Demyx said. "But I better go. Before… before the others get worried. I sort of have a track record, you know."

"You sure? It's very early."

He stood, somewhat tremblingly. "Yeah, I should go. See you soon."

When he got back he slid into his bed, not caring about the hardness of the mattress for the first time. He pulled the sheet up over his head and lay, trembling, trying to convince himself that the shaking came from the hangover.

They didn't talk about it.

At first he thought it was because she didn't remember, but after a while he could tell she did, in the set of her eyes whenever they were in the same room. She wasn't unfriendly—at least no more than usual—but there was a tension that hadn't been there before. The unnecessary layer of drama made him stressed, as did the private question of whether or not it might happen again under better circumstances.

For a few weeks, as June neared its end, life continued quietly. Lea was missing; Demyx worried about him. He knew that Lea was more than capable, but usually he at least turned up to make reports. In the meantime, he trained with Aeleus, who was still struggling to get the strength back into his injured arm. Despite having an able-bodied advantage, Aeleus was kicking his ass. At least one thing was constant.

Soon after Leon assigned him to a construction project with Cid to begin fixing up some of the houses in one of the residential districts. It seemed like he had gone from being the water boy to being the fix-it boy, which felt like both a demotion and a promotion at the same time.

After the day was over, he hung around the Bailey, resting his sore body against the cool stone and looking out at Villain's Vale, which was rotting by the day. There had been talks to just tear it down, but nobody dared to go close, not with all the dark energy that had been near it.

He lit up one of the few cigarettes he still had. It felt nice to have something to do with his hands, and it helped unwind the knot of anxiety in his stomach. These construction projects, despite the physical exhaustion, let him avoid thinking for a few hours, which was probably why he was so willing to do them now. When it wasn't Xehanort, it was something else. Or someone else.

He should drop the whole thing. Pretend it never happened. Move on. He'd already done that so many times with other things, so what would one more be?

Against the sunlight, the smoke was thick and acrid. He settled on the ledge, smoking slowly as to savor it. Cid seemed to be monopolizing the limited tobacco imports they got, and besides, he didn't have the money to upkeep this habit anyway. Best just to keep it to the rest of the mostly-empty pack he had. Still, he saw the appeal.

"I didn't know you smoked," someone said, startling him out of the spiral. He looked around wildly and saw Yuffie, some fifty feet away, shuriken at her side. He froze. He felt like he'd been caught doing something wrong. He'd forgotten that her patrol brought her through here; without the careful elimination, the Heartless bred out of control in this area.

"Not really," he said. "I won some from Cid. Just kind of anxious, is all." He could feel his face burning and took a longer drag off the cigarette.

"Any reason why?" She attempted indifference, but he could see awkwardness in her eyes.

"Oh, you know," he said vaguely.

She came closer to him and paused. "It's kind of awfully beautiful, isn't it," she said. "The castle. I kind of want to drop a bomb on it. See it smashed to smithereens."

The violence didn't surprise him, but the harshness in her voice did. "…Because of the darkness?"

"Because Maleficent lived there." Yuffie spat her name. "She brought darkness to this world when it was still whole. She's the reason so many people died. Can I bum a drag?" She held out her hand; he wasn't sure he could say no, so he handed it to her. She inhaled and coughed. "Fucking disgusting. How do you guys do it?"

"Was that your first time?"

She shook her head adamantly.

He laughed. "You're a terrible liar. You have to puff, not inhale."

"Fine." She smacked her lips and flinched. "Ick."

"To be fair, this is possibly the worst thing I've ever smoked."

She sat up on the ledge next to him. "We need to talk," she said. "Right?"

He took a final, long drag and ground out the butt. The nicotine was making him shaky now, instead of calmer. "About?"

"Oh, come on, you know, I know you remember," she said sharply, but didn't meet his eyes.

Demyx paused. He took a deep breath.

"I don't want things to be weird between us," she said. "Okay?"

Any stranger than they normally were?

Her attempt to hide her expression was almost comical. Her cheeks were flushed pink. "I shouldn't have done it. I was drunk and it made things weird. I'm sorry."

He tried to take another breath and found he couldn't. He felt like he was slightly outside his body.

"Can you say something? Please?" She asked.

"I don't know what it means now," he said. "I didn't even… think—"

"It's fine. Let's just consider it forgotten."

"I don't think I want to," Demyx said.

Silence. His heart raced. "…What?" she said after a long moment.

"Oh, fuck," he said.

She turned to face him. "What? What do you mean?"

"Look, I'm just really confused, okay? Don't you have patrol or something?"

"It can wait," she said.

He felt panicked tears in his eyes and looked away. She edged towards him but looked unsure of what to do.

"It's okay," Yuffie said. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. I'm sorry." The softness in her voice made it worse. Before the shattering overtook him completely he leaned over and kissed her. For a moment she tensed. "I thought you didn't want—" She dropped her thought and kissed him back more deeply.

He hugged her to him tightly, wondering if he'd just made an even bigger mistake. Her hand slid up against his chest and the other tangled through his hair. The terror was back, stronger and clearer, and a few tears slid out. This was what he thought might happen; that he would want this.

"Why are you crying," she asked. Somehow, she'd ended up sitting on his lap.

"I don't know," he said.

"I didn't think I was that bad of a kisser," she said.

He laughed weakly. He touched his wet face. "I think I'm scared," he said, and wanted to hit himself for saying that.

"You should be," she said, with a smile, but then the smile fell. "Oh—you weren't flirting—you mean that."

"I'm kind of sort of maybe having a panic attack," he said.

"Oh, shit. Why?" A pause, then simply: "You told me that night. You're a virgin. Oh my god. You're a virgin."

"No—" He couldn't stop crying. "That's not why—Go. Go back on patrol. This is a weird me thing."

Yuffie hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"I'll be fine." He wasn't sure about that; it felt like all of him was ripping.

"I'll be done later," she said. "Meet me at my house at sundown. Okay?" She patted his hand awkwardly and all but ran off.

It took almost that long to calm down.

The crying had stopped, and he could almost breathe normally. Another feeling twisted in him more tightly—anticipation. He choked it down. It didn't matter what he might physically want; if he couldn't stop crying at a kiss, he didn't know what might happen to him if—

"You're here," she said. He hadn't even had to knock at the door. "You actually came."

"Hey," he said weakly.

"Come in," Yuffie said, voice oddly formal. Without boots she looked even smaller than normal. "Aerith's out helping with an injury case. She might be gone a while."

An awkward pause. He felt like he had to say something. "That's too bad."

"I feel bad for them. She'll do her best, though. She always does." She looked away, and scratched one calf with the opposite foot. "You can come inside, if you want."

"I'm already inside," he said stupidly, before realizing.

She was in the hallway by the bathroom door. He'd never seen her bedroom before; it was a tiny space, barely large enough for a double bed and dresser, and dark. It had no windows, and a lamp struggled to permeate the gloom. Trinkets and clutter were everywhere, and he tried to focus on these items to quell the tide of emotions inside of him. Potion bottles, arranged by color and size; yellow feathers; a few stuffed toys, half-hidden but obviously well-loved; and some small, glowing marbles he knew had to be magical.

She sat on the bed and pulled one leg up under her. Her gloves were off, too, he noticed, and without them her hands were oddly delicate, though the nails were torn up. He sat, gingerly, next to her. "Can I ask you something blunt," she said. Her questions were sounding less like questions and more like statements.

"Okay."

"Are you really a virgin? Because you kind of panicked when I asked."

"I don't think so." He tried to steady his breathing. "It's very weird. Everything's really weird. I've slept with people but never as a real person? I'm not used to feeling anything." He spoke quickly. "Why?"

"I just want to know what you're okay with," she said.

A glittery sort of panic shot through him. "This is kind of fast," he said.

"We can just talk," she said. She took his hand.

He wasn't sure what that would entail.

"Without feeling," she said, as if repeating him. "Like… no love, or…?"

Definitely not love. Looking back at those nights was like looking through a veil, and he wasn't sure he wanted to go there. There had been nothing more than a clinical brand of lust, a curiosity as to what would come next. He tried to describe it to her.

"That's so weird," she said. "I just got excited, I guess. I haven't had anybody to kiss in a long time."

He shut his eyes, suddenly exhausted. Her hand felt so nice in his—her skin was dry and cool and callused and more importantly steady.

"Wait." She had gone red. "Hold on a second. Back the fuck up. Does that mean—does that mean I turn you on?" She spoke quickly, with pride.

If possible, he got redder. "I guess?"

"My god," she said. She flopped back. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen."

"Okay. Close enough. I'm eighteen. I figured you were older if anything. One of those weirdly young-looking older people. Isn't Even, like, forty?"

He took a deep breath. "Something like that. I don't really remember." He lay down too, mostly because all of his bones had turned to jelly. He turned on his side to face her.

"This is still weird," she said. "Doesn't it feel weird to you?"

It was weird, in a million different ways. Their enmity. Now this. To him, it was night and day, especially how kind she was being now.

She rested her hand on his waist. "Is this okay?"

"It's fine." The warmth through the fabric was making him dizzy. "I want—" He began, and stopped. He had meant something like, "I want to know why you picked me," but it died in his throat.

"What do you want?" She asked in a low voice that was as casual as he wished he were.

He couldn't get himself to speak.

"Can I kiss you?" She asked.

For a while they did, in the semidarkness. It was easier when he didn't see, he realized, though still overwhelming. She slipped her leg back around his waist. Her skin was so warm. He clung to her, because her weight was reassuring and comforting and it felt so nice to be held like this. She was strong, and wiry, and if anything the utter lack of tenderness only helped. She pressed her lips against his neck and he felt faint. He listened for her breathing—soft and a little more controlled than his—and felt very, very strange.

Apologies for the late update. I've been having trouble with 's servers.

I realize that canonologically Yuffie would probably only be seventeen after 3D, but I gave her an extra year just in case.