Tainted But Beautiful
Part 3: The Renegades
29. Tainted
Pairings: AkuZeku, Zemyx, AkuRoku, AxDem, minor onesided VexZex, XemSaix, Marxene, Cleon
Rated: M
Warnings: Vampires, vampires, vampires...uh, yaoi, AU-ish-ness, abuse, noncon, rape, GRAPHIC SCENES, CHARACTER DEATH, OVERALL WEIRDNESS, SCADS OF VIOLENCE
Summary: Axel is a powerful vampire slayer who's captured Zexion, a vampire, as his pet. What Axel doesn't bargain on is Demyx, his former student, developing a strong attraction to Zexion...
Notes: Feels like forever since I updated, huh? But I am making good on my promise to finish this - expect it to be done by the end of summer, at the longest. We only have one chapter and an epilogue to go.
It seems the new formatting on this site messed up all of my dashes, so in this chapter dashes will be shown not as double hyphens but as hyphens with spaces around them. I don't feel like going back and fixing the previous chapters. They're still readable, anywhoo.
I warn you that this chapter is extremely depressing, but I never said this story would have a happy ending. Also, it opens with an extremely crappy fight scene which is an anticlimactic Curb Stop Battle. Maybe I'll go back and redo it if I feel like it, but probably not, so you're stuck with a pathetic excuse for a fight. Hey, I had a fever while I was writing that!
Finally, if you look at my profile you'll see me advertising my fictionpress. I'm happy this story is getting such an audience, but I'd love if my fictionpress got even half this respect. In particular, my epic 100+ chapter serial project, Broken Memory. Go check that shit out, yo! (And no, advertising is not the only reason I updated this. Well, ok, maybe it is, but whatever, I'll do whatever I can).
With a flick of his wrist, Xemnas sent DiZ flying across the room.
DiZ hadn't been expecting it; when he looked back up at Xemnas, he was glaring so intensely that Xemnas thought he was trying to bore holes into Xemnas' skull with his eyes. Stiffly, with a rustle of red cloth, he stood.
"You are not the only one who has picked up new powers," Xemnas said, his words like ice.
"Damn you...no matter what, I will stop you," snarled DiZ. He raised his hands and quite suddenly darkness flooded the room, just as it had that night at the plaza. Though Xemnas was expecting it this time, it still startled him. He kept his office dark and cold, that was true, but it was a darkness and cold that comforted him. The darkness and cold of night.
This was...an all-consuming, suffocating blackness. Xemnas stopped breathing, so that he wouldn't feel like he was drowning.
"Nonsense," Xemnas growled, and summoned his familiars. The leathery flap of bat wings filled the darkness, even though he couldn't see them. More and more bats he called, one after another, until the office was thick with their snapping little jaws and their frantically flapping wings. Most vampires weren't strong enough to summon so many familiars at once, but Xemnas was no ordinary vampire. It took practically no energy at all to summon so many bats.
He ordered them to besiege DiZ. Not because he had any illusions that they would defeat his former mentor, but because he could then pinpoint DiZ's location from the sounds they made. He pricked his unnaturally sharp ears, listening and waiting.
Soon he was rewarded by the sound of DiZ shouting - and a few flashes of golden light that rained a hail of dead bats in their wake. Xemnas pushed his way towards the flashes - DiZ's magic - and the bats parted around him like the Red Sea around Moses. Soon he was standing directly in front of his former teacher, a spot of bloody red in the darkness.
DiZ glared at him. The bandages on his face were slightly tattered, revealing flashes of pitted and shriveled brownish skin. Seeing that filled Xemnas with a dose of confidence. The old man might have some power, but it had come at too great a cost.
"How are you faring, Master Ansem?" Xemnas said, slowly and ironically. "My, my...you look quite ill. Did my bats really ruffle you that much?"
"Enough," DiZ hissed, gathering a bolt of golden light in his hand, which illuminated him in quite a ghastly fashion. He raised his arm, prepared to hurl the bolt, but Xemnas lashed out with his own powers and knocked DiZ back several feet. DiZ crumpled against the wall, roaring in anger.
Such a weakling! And to think that Xemnas had even dared to fear him...
"What's the matter, Master Ansem?" Xemnas said, advancing slowly upon his former teacher, his coat swishing around him. "Didn't you say you were going to stop me? How disappointing. I thought that in two hundred years, you would gain some skills..."
"And I have!" DiZ growled. "I promise you, your reign of terror cannot continue any longer. I pledged to stop you, you, my biggest mistake..."
"Ah." Xemnas tilted his head to the side, satisfaction knifing through him. "I see, now. Master Ansem...I see it all, so clearly..."
"What do you mean?" DiZ - no, Ansem - a pathetic human, that was all he was - lurched to his feet and sent a gust of freezing wind in Xemnas' direction. Xemnas conjured a shield of darkness around him, and the wind did not so much as touch him.
"You fight - and you pursued power - for the sake of revenge. Because of your pitiful emotions," Xemnas said, his eyes gleaming as he advanced upon Ansem. Ansem kept attacking him, hurling magical assault after magical assault upon Xemnas, but Xemnas quite cheerily brushed them aside. The shield around him grew stronger and stronger the more Ansem attacked. He was breathing hard, his amber eyes huge and desperate. A few of the attacks made it through the shield, as he grew more desperate, but Xemnas found it too easy to ignore the little pinpricks of pain. They were nothing but an annoyance.
"But I...I have nothing to hold me back. No regrets. Regret may have fueled your quest, but it gave you no power. Drive without power results in futility. And I...all I have ever wanted was power." Xemnas chuckled and reached down, seizing the front of Ansem's robes. The old man gasped and tried to twist out of Xemnas' grip; he gathered another bolt of golden light, so bright that it hurt to look upon it.
But Xemnas was quicker. He squeezed his hand around Ansem's pathetically weak neck - a human neck, at the end of it all Ansem was just a human - and dug his claws into the shriveled flesh. Ansem groaned and thrashed, but Xemnas pressed down harder until Ansem's breaths came out as gurgling rasps. He was still clutching the bolt of golden light, but it was flickering, fading, retracting back into his palm...
"Pathetic old man," Xemnas said. "You dared not to seek power for its own sake - and that made you weak. Power in the pursuit of revenge is nothing. It is...tainted. The purest power, the strongest power, comes from those who do not allow their earthly connections to blind them."
He removed his hand from Ansem's throat. His claws dripped with thick, tar-like black blood. Xemnas smirked. And you say that I have become a monster...?
He would have said it aloud, but Ansem the Wise could no longer hear him. Xemnas threw one last look at the lifeless shell that had once been his teacher - and threw his head back and laughed. It was a deep, bone-shaking laugh that sent him to his knees, clutching the desk for support (with Ansem's death, the unnatural lich darkness had dissipated). Xemnas had not laughed like this for years, perhaps never before in his long life.
But he'd done it. He had killed his mentor. Finally clipped the last thread tying him to his past, destroyed the one man who might have been an equal. But only might have. Perhaps, if Ansem had not been so deeply invested in his revenge quest, in the dark memories of his past, he might have been as powerful as Xemnas. Or at the very least, a half-decent match for the leader of the Coven of Thirteen. As it was, that pathetic old man had been as easy to defeat as a rag doll.
Still chuckling weakly to himself, Xemnas pulled himself to his feet and strode towards the office door. Now that his hugest obstacle had been overcome, he didn't need to fear anything. He would stride into the battle itself and nothing could touch him. No slayer. No traitor. No silver.
A man without a past was invincible.
As they headed deeper into the warehouse halls, a strange sound rose to greet Demyx and Zexion: a horrid, inhuman, roaring and sobbing and screaming that shook Demyx's bones and made his blood run cold. He and Zexion had been running through the warehouse halls, but when Demyx heard those awful noises he fell still. It sounded like someone was being tortured - or worse.
"What's the matter?" Zexion snapped, throwing Demyx an irritated look over his shoulder. Demyx was amazed at how nonchalant Zexion could be at a time like this, especially when the screeches were only rising in volume and intensity.
"Er...do you think...I mean, is it really safe?" Demyx said. "Those noises..."
"We've got no choice," Zexion said, sounding slightly annoyed. "We either go ahead or we turn back."
"Y-yeah, but..."
"Don't be such a coward. You do want to see Xemnas fall, don't you?" Zexion's gaze was sharp, accusing.
"That's a low blow!" Demyx squeaked. Honestly, he didn't know why he was so terrified by those noises, but he really felt - in a deep, unknowable part of his body, locked within the marrow of his bones - that he did not want to witness their source. It would be something more terrible than everything he'd seen so far, Xaldin and Marluxia, everything.
"Enough. I told you, I wasn't going to freeze and back down anymore," Zexion said sharply. "And I'm not going to leave you, either."
"Oh, Zexion..." For a moment Demyx couldn't speak; he just felt so overwhelmed. Not to mention it was almost impossible to think when the shrieks were growing louder and louder. He thought he could make out some words, curses, mostly. Who could possibly be screaming like that?
"Let's go," Zexion said. "We'll be fine. We've survived so far."
"Zexion, you don't have to prove anything, you know," Demyx said.
"What?" Zexion blinked at him, his long eyelashes fluttering.
"You're still upset about...um...what happened with Xaldin, aren't you?" Demyx said. "About not being able to protect me..."
Ominously, the screams had died down into little snuffles and whimpers. Demyx and Zexion stood facing each other in an almost silent hallway; Demyx was sure that Zexion could hear the violent thudding of his heart. A part of him was still on high alert, expecting a vampire or werewolf to round the corner and attack them, but the deeper they headed into the warehouse the quieter the fighting became. It seemed almost all of the grunts had been taken care of by this point; all that was left was to defeat the commanders.
Zexion stiffened. "That has nothing to do with anything."
"Maybe it doesn't," Demyx said. "But all the same...listen, don't let yourself do anything too reckless. I'm telling you, you've got nothing to prove to me. You've saved me so many times before..."
"Tch." Zexion spun around, his coat swirling around him. He walked on ahead, a little too quickly. "They're just noises, and they've stopped anyway. You're overreacting."
No, I'm not, Demyx wanted to say. And that wasn't what I was talking about... He recognized the look in Zexion's eyes, even though he'd never seen Zexion display it before. But he'd seen his own face in the mirror after disastrous vampire hunting missions - burning with fierce resolve. Resolve to do it right the next time, who cared what happened to him. In those days, he'd told himself that it didn't matter if he lost a limb or even his life on his next hunt, so long as it meant he managed to take out at least one vampire. Of course, he could never follow through on his bravado; every time his nerves ended up failing him, and for the better, too. Zexion wasn't Demyx, though. Already, he'd proven that he was much more willing to go to extreme measures.
He didn't like it, the tautness to Zexion's face, the resolve glimmering in his eyes. In spite of what he'd said to Zexion after Xaldin's defeat, it seemed that Zexion had not taken his words to heart. Demyx admitted that he was afraid of this Zexion. Not afraid of what he'd do to Demyx, but afraid of what he'd do to himself.
He followed Zexion, his steps slow and mechanical. His nerves were jumping, anticipating the screaming to begin anew any minute now - but all sounds, even the whimpers and gasps, had died down. All he could hear was harsh, ragged breathing. Somehow, he liked that even less than the bloodcurdling screaming.
Then Demyx saw it.
It wasn't anybody being tortured, or a vampire - it was Axel. He'd recognize that crown of red spikes anywhere. Axel, huddled on the floor, looking smaller than he'd ever had, his clothes stained with blood, his face in his hands.
Demyx stopped mid-step, breathing sharply. He had never seen Axel like this before. So...weak. In that instant he felt a horrid sense of wrongness. This was Axel's private moment of weakness, his alone. Demyx didn't know what had reduced Axel to such a state, but it wasn't in his place to inquire.
Once again, it seemed Zexion had different ideas. He walked on ahead, his face shadowed and unreadable.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Fuck off," Axel said, his voice a ragged whisper.
"Axel - " Demyx took a nervous step forward. "What happened, what's - "
"Get up," Zexion snapped, looming above Axel. He seemed angry but Demyx didn't know why. All Demyx could feel was a sick, twisting sensation deep in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to turn and run, but not when Zexion looked like he wanted nothing more than to kill Axel.
Axel unleashed a shuddering gasp. "N-no. No. Never. I won't. I'm done, I can't do any more, I can't continue, I'm done here..."
"You fucking idiot!" Zexion shouted, aiming a kick at Axel. Judging by the wide-eyed, almost frightened, look on his face when his foot connected with Axel's shoulder, he had been expecting Axel to roll out of the way. He soon rearranged his expression back into neutrality-bordering-on-anger, and resumed shouting. "You idiot, you coward. Get up, get up! You're the one with the Cross, you're the only one who can defeat Xemnas - "
"I can't," Axel groaned. "I can't do anything. I'm done, I'm spent, don't you see...just leave me alone, oh Roxas, oh...Roxas..."
"Roxas?" Demyx said, alarm spiking inside him. "What happened to him? Where is he?"
Axel's only response was a broken little laugh - blood burbled at his lips. He curled up tighter, tucking his head into his chest so that his face was no longer visible. He looked small and broken and it horrified Demyx, who had known Axel only as his suave and self-assured teacher. Maybe he had a short fuse and was a tad too possessive, but one thing you couldn't say about Axel was that he was weak. Because he wasn't. Always, he'd been the strong one. It would make much more sense if it was Demyx curled up in a pathetic ball on the ground, crying, and Axel was the one standing over him.
Pity mingled with Demyx's fear. He moved a little closer to Axel, but he was too terrified to sink to his knees and comfort him. If anything, he felt that this new, vengefully angry Zexion, would not permit him even that.
"Coward," Zexion spat, his expression livid - feral. He had never looked more like a vampire. "Fine then. If you don't want to continue, then...Demyx, pick up the Cross."
"Huh? What?" Demyx said, alarmed, before his line of sight fell on the giant, blood-stained silver cross lying across the hall, tilted at an awkward angle as if Axel had shoved it away from himself as violently as possible. Demyx thought he saw matted bits of bluish fur stuck to its sharp tip. Just what had Axel been doing?
"Pick the damned thing up. If Axel doesn't want to it, then you're going to kill Xemnas," Zexion said tightly.
"Whoa! No, I - " Demyx stared at Axel and his throat tightened. If he picked up the Cross and left Axel to lie here, slowly bleeding out and beside himself with misery, what kind of person would that make him? What kind of student? After everything that Axel had done for him...he had to be by Axel's side for this critical juncture. If he left Axel, what would happen? Axel might even die...he was certainly bleeding too much to be healthy.
Demyx stood there, hearing nothing but his own ragged breathing, but the violent pound of his heart. His vision was beginning to blur but he blinked hastily to force the tears back. He'd clenched his hands into fists and didn't feel any pain as his nails dug into his palms.
This wasn't fair. Right now, he had a choice: Axel, or Zexion.
Zexion, obviously. He's my lover, isn't he? Who would I be if I couldn't be brave for him now?
But Axel. Axel, sobbing and shaking and bleeding Axel, with his face hidden and his knees tucked up under him and his arms wrapped around something, some cold and bleeding hunk - Demyx had a horrible suspicion of what that was - nothing else could reduce Axel to such a state -
How could he abandon that?
His world fractured around him, fractured and split into a hundred tiny pieces that he couldn't put back together again. He turned his back on the Cross and sunk on his knees in front of Axel, and placed a hand on Axel's shoulder, right where Zexion had kicked him earlier. Axel was trembling so much that Demyx's hand almost slipped off.
"I'm sorry, Zexion," he said, his words feeling strangely hollow and detached, as if he wasn't actually saying them, but hearing someone else speak. "But I can't leave him. Not when he's like this."
"No." Zexion sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. He looked angry enough to kill; his eyes were practically black. Demyx couldn't bear to look at him. "No. I will not allow your sentimentality to prevent us from defeating Xemnas! Pick that Cross up, you - "
"I can't leave him," Demyx said again. "Please, understand, please - "
"You're an idiot," Zexion said caustically. "An idiot. Don't you understand what's important?"
"If I leave Axel he'll die," Demyx said.
"Then let him die! It's his own damned fault!" Zexion sounded hysterical, almost in tears. He'd extended his blood-streaked claws, unconsciously, as if he intended to attack Demyx. "This is your opportunity, you mustn't miss it - "
"I can't," Demyx said. The more he argued, the stronger his conviction grew, washing over him like a gulp of warm soup. "I've left behind too many people already. I'm not going to leave Axel."
Zexion's face suddenly turned white. He curled his hands into fists but then let them fall limply by his sides. He stood unnaturally still, staring at Demyx, his face unreadable as a shuttered window. A little tendril of disquiet rose in Demyx's stomach; he felt he ought to say something to defuse a potentially dangerous situation, but no words were rising in his throat.
But instead of kicking Axel again or hitting Demyx or committing any of the violent acts that Demyx had been expecting, Zexion walked right on past them - until he was standing directly in front of the Cross of the Kingdom. He stared down at it, shivering, his face twisted in revulsion. Then he sank into a crouch and slowly, tentatively, opened his hand and rested it atop the Cross.
Insantly Zexion yanked his hand away from the Cross as if he'd been burnt, hissing. His face was still twisted, but now from pain. Though he quickly tucked his hand inside his coat, Demyx caught a glimpse of it anyone - Zexion's pale skin was now a hideous shade of red.
"Zexion!" he cried, concern knifing through him. "What're you trying to do, are you insane?"
Zexion didn't look back at him. He gritted his teeth and reached for the Cross, though this time he'd pulled his coat sleeves over his hands to provide some layer of shielding between his skin and the silver. Nausea burbled in Demyx's stomach as he watched Zexion, his eyes squeezed shut and hising in pain, tightened his grip around the hilt of the Cross.
"Zexion, stop this - "
"You wanted to stay with Axel, didn't you?" Zexion's voice was low and harsh from pain. He had stood by now, but was tottering slightly under the weight of the Cross. He still had his back turned to Demyx. "Then stay with him."
"No! This is insane, not even you would go this far to, I don't even know, blackmail me - "
"It's not blackmail." Zexion exhaled sharply. "It's simply doing what must be done. Neither of you is in any condition to wield the Cross."
"Zexion..." Demyx's vision became blurred with tears, which he supposed was a good thing since it meant he didn't have to see Zexion's pain with such heartbreaking clarity. But it wasn't a good thing. Zexion was in pain because of him - his only rightful penance was to observe that pain and engrave it into the contours of his heart until it haunted his nightmares for the rest of his life.
The worst thing was that he could end Zexion's pain. Easily. All he had to do was get up and take the Cross from Zexion and go slay Xemnas himself...but then he laid eyes on Axel, shuddering, bleeding, harshly sobbing Axel, and something curled up and died inside him and he knew he couldn't.
Demyx had never felt like more of a traitor.
He tried to plead with Zexion, a last-ditch effort. "Please, just wait, wait here for someone else to come here, another slayer or whatever - "
Zexion gazed coldly at him. "By then it might be too late. I doubt anyone is anywhere near, or else they'd have already been attracted by - well - the noise."
"Don't do this," Demyx didn't so much say as sob. "Please, Zexion. Please, don't."
"I've got no other choice," Zexion said. "Xemnas must fall."
"Oh, Zexion - "
Zexion had already begun walking away, gingerly holding the Cross in front of him. Demyx was crying freely now, his tears splashing atop Axel's back. He reached out towards Zexion, but with Axel's body between the two of them, he couldn't grab Zexion, couldn't stop Zexion, no matter how much he wanted to. He screamed, swore, begged, but Zexion grew smaller and smaller until Demyx could no longer see him.
"Demyx," Axel murmured.
Demyx buried his face into the crook of Axel's shoulder, and shook with bitter sobs.
Zexion, to his shame, ended up dropping the Cross a few times. He hadn't intended on it, but it fucking hurt to carry the thing. Even though his hands were swallowed in his sleeves, the noxious silver burned through the material as if it wasn't even there - he could feel the skin bubbling and blistering. Worst of all was the aura palpitating from the Cross. Though he was holding the weapon at arms' length, its aura, throbbing and pulsing with spells and blessings and silver, so much damned silver, still smothered him. He could barely breathe through it, and his head was throbbing and ants were crawling up his throat.
What the hell was he thinking? Him, an incubus, wielding the Cross of the Kingdom against the Superior? The thought would have made him laugh if his head wasn't spinning so badly.
But he had no choice. Demyx had chosen to stay behind with Axel.
Zexion would never admit how that thought burned him more than the silver.
Finally, he could go on no further. He was certain there was no more skin on his hands - he had to let go of the Cross. He let it fall, with a dull clatter, to the concrete floor, and sagged to his knees before it, breathing hard. Even that barely brought him any relief - his hands were still burning and the Cross's aura continued to assault him, driving hammers into his skull. Zexion squeezed his eyes shut, fighting down the urge to retch.
What a weakling he was. He'd set out to accomplish one task, but he couldn't even do that.
Demyx's words echoed in his ears: You don't have to prove anything...You're still upset about...um...what happened with Xaldin, aren't you? About not being able to protect me...
No, that wasn't why he was doing this at all. It was because Axel was unable to and Demyx, unwilling. Because he'd chosen to stay with Axel...
Had he done all this out of jealousy? Burned the skin off his hands and suffered the longest and most painful walk in his life, only to collapse in a useless heap on the ground. He would never make it to Xemnas. He would never be able to protect Demyx.
It rankled. Demyx hadn't chosen him. He had chosen Axel.
Perhaps that was simply...logical. Axel was weak and injured far beyond the two of them - he was the one in greater need of help. He could have asked me to stay with Axel, and he could have wielded the Cross. Why didn't he? Because he was afraid...?
Or did he think that I would kill Axel?
That last thought made him shudder and what little strength had been left in his muscles vanished. If that was true, it meant that Demyx didn't trust him. It made sense that Demyx wouldn't, though - he was an incubus who had hurt Demyx on occasion and killed Axel once already. That Demyx was willing to admit that he loved Zexion was already more than Zexion deserved, and he knew it. All the same, thinking about it that way stung. Wasn't part of loving someone trusting them?
He sagged against the wall for what felt like an eternity, occasionally hearing the distant sounds of battle - thuds and gunshots and snarls - and smelling the distinctive reek of vampiric blood above all. That made him feel even more nauseous than he already did. The concrete beneath the crown of his head was comfortingly cool. If only he could sleep and forget it all...
No. He had a mission. Defeat Xemnas - for Demyx.
The Cross was still lying limply on the ground in front of him. Zexion cursed inside as he reached towards it. What was he doing, letting such a valuable object lie around like trash for anyone to pick up. Certainly this stretch of the hall seemed deserted, but -
Zexion stiffened as a horribly familiar scent washed over him.
Darkness and blood, amplified tenfold into something heavy and choking; he had to stop breathing or else he would drown on it. Instantly, without thinking, Zexion pushed the Cross behind him and crouched in front of it, making sure that he was hiding it with his body. His hand stung from the contact with the silver but he bit his tongue and resolutely blocked out the pain.
Xemnas appeared at the far end of the hall, striding slowly and confidently, his greatcoat billowing around him. His face was twisted in a smirk that was almost feral with satisfaction. His aura, already powerful, drowned out every other presence in the hall - even that of the Cross - until it seemed that the only people to exist, and had ever existed, were Zexion and Xemnas. It took all of Zexion's effort to keep himself from gagging; Xemnas' aura was horrible enough as it was, but now it was tinged with a sense of contentedness, no, joy, that made it burn at the edges like a chemical fire. It settled on his tongue, bitter and dangerous.
Zexion had never seen Xemnas so happy before. He had never feared Xemnas more.
"Greetings, Ienzo," Xemnas said with a content sigh, gazing down at Zexion. "How are your little slayer friends doing?"
For a panicked moment Zexion thought that Xemnas had sensed the Cross' presence - but he realized that Xemnas' aura right now was so powerful and all-encompassing that nothing could penetrate him. It engulfed him, a bubble of delusions. He forced himself to look at Xemnas' face, and saw with a cold shiver that animalistic triumph was carved into every line of the elder vampire's face. The triumph of a predator that had taken down a particularly difficult prey.
But with that shiver came a little electric jolt - triumph? What reason did he have to feel triumphant? Not when he was cornered and sick and very possibly dying, what with all that prolonged contact with the Cross of the Kingdom...
Yet Xemnas' happiness was making him reckless. Zexion could feel it now. Usually Xemnas was a paragon of control - he had powers beyond any vampire, but he kept them tightly bound within himself, allowing them only to shimmer at the edge of his presence like the light of the sun from behind an eclipse. That was what gave him his fearful aura: the knowledge that what he was showing you was only a fraction of what he could do to you. His wild, unfettered joy right now had ruined his control, spilling forth all of his dread power until it flooded the hall and Zexion could see Xemnas exactly as he was. A power-hungry monster.
How would that help him, though? It didn't matter if Xemnas was keeping his powers locked up or not, since they were the same either way and could hurt Zexion just as badly. But...
Zexion remembered that time in the study of Axel's villa, during which he'd laid bare all of the slayer's sins. He had suffered Axel's wrath in the end, but he'd won because he'd gotten Axel to lose his control.
This is insane. Xemnas is not Axel. He is much, much worse...
But wasn't the principle the same?
This would take all of his skill as a manipulator, but he could do it. He would do it.
For Demyx.
Sweating, Zexion forced himself to crawl slightly forward, enough so that he was still hiding the Cross behind him. "S...Superior," he whispered.
"Yes?" Xemnas gazed dispassionately down at him, though the feral triumph on his face did not lessen. "What is it, Ienzo? My, you're certainly worse for the wear, aren't you..."
"I've learned my lesson," Zexion stammered. "Please, forgive me, Superior - I, I was misguided, I don't know what I was thinking...that human is nothing, I promise you, I promise you..."
"What are you saying, Ienzo?" Xemnas said, bending down so that he and Zexion were eye-to-eye. Zexion almost fainted from the sheer power of Xemnas' gaze - his eyes burned like twin coronas.
"Superior, I've learned the error of my eyes - I understand now - there is no other but you, no one but you - "
"Is that so?" Xemnas said, slowly, deliberately. Too deliberately. Panic twisted Zexion's stomach but he fought it down.
"Yes, Superior, I've learned, I know - "
"That's very nice, Ienzo," Xemnas said, still taking that slow tone - the tone that all superior vampires took with incubi, Zexion realized with a disgusted shudder. "If I could trust you, that is. You have, after all, proven yourself to be a very opportunistic little snake indeed. Who knows if you're saying what you are simply because you're afraid of the punishment that awaits you if your side loses? Indeed...it will be a dreadful punishment indeed...Xaldin dead...Saix critically wounded..."
Zexion swallowed something that tasted like bile. "I'm sincere, Superior, I swear I'm sincere - "
"I cannot trust your word, Ienzo," Xemnas said. "There is only one way to prove your loyalty to me, and you know it."
He extended his hands towards Zexion. It took all of Zexion's effort to keep himself from screaming. No, not this - not this again - Xemnas would find out, everything, about him loving Demyx and working with the slayers and the Cross and then it'd be over, truly over -
No. I have to protect him.
He bit his bottom lip. This was the most insane, most audacious act he'd ever tempted in his entire life. The whole point of this power of Xemnas' was that it penetrated through everything, even the most secure illusion, leaving bare nothing but the truth.
If Zexion was truly a master of illusions, then he would have to build one that would withstand even that.
He sucked in a deep breath as Xemnas' hands closed around his forehead, icy cold and stinking of blood - not vampiric blood, but something musty and sickening that made his stomach turn. Yet strangely familiar...but he couldn't think about that.
He forced himself to clear his mind. Gathered his powers. And thought, and thought, and thought.
When Xemnas dove in it felt like he'd plunged into icy water. He gasped, reflexively, tried to fight back, but forced himself to calm down -
The first image that flashed across his mind was, thankfully, not one of Demyx but of Axel, pinning him down on that very first night and laughing as he raped Zexion - That was good, very good, Zexion could build on that -
He pulled forth an image of him confronting Axel in the library, modifying the truth so that he shoved Axel around a little bit, before Axel fought back, forcing him to his knees in submission and kicking him black and blue all the while shouting about how he always knew Zexion was a traitor...
Then an image of Demyx (this hurt, it physically hurt), walking in on the injured Zexion, and not comforting him as he would have, had that scene actually happened in life, but laughing cruelly and saying that he expected that, of course a vampire would be a traitor...
It hurt so damn much, but not as much as the silver burns from the Cross. Zexion forced a tendril of attention upon them, knowing that the physical pain kept him grounded.
More false memories he called up. Him arguing with Demyx over his sleeping with Axel (though he changed around some words so it came across as Axel having raped him again and Demyx not caring about the fine distinction between that and consenual sex), and then (so painful - but not as painful as those burns, as the Cross' aura) the last time he'd slept with Demyx, which he reinvented into Demyx raping him to punish him for sleeping with Axel -
Then a completely invented image of him curled up in his bedroom in DiZ's manor, cursing these damned slayers, that damned human slayer especially, wondering why he'd ever gotten involved with them in the first place...
And the ball, which he reconstructed as him being led around like a pet by Demyx, shown off to other slayers like a conquest, just as he'd been under Axel's control. He completely left out the part in which Demyx had sung and they'd danced and both had confessed.
The raid on the Coven of Thirteen, Zexion hanging back, reluctant. Demyx yelling at him to follow him, calling him bitch and whore and pet (the silver, the Cross, think about that, not this, not this, never this), and then the two of them confronting Xaldin, bound in Marluxia's vines...him begging Demyx not to, Demyx shoving him aside and calling him traitor...
"Excellent, excellent," Xemnas was crooning - Zexion heard his voice with that physical part of his body that was focusing on the burns, and on the Cross toward which he was steadily snaking his hand...
One final false memory. He put all of his will into it, imbued it with all of his illusion-making powers. Him running away from an injured Demyx, running and running and thinking of nothing but rejoining the Superior and begging his forgiveness...
"Excellent!" Xemnas bellowed aloud, just as Zexion's fingers closed around the Cross.
It was lucky that Xemnas was still in his mind, because that helped take some of the edge off the agony as the blessed silver contacted his already raw and scabbed skin. Nonetheless, he gave a little hiss of pain as he tightened his grip and slowly lifted the Cross... Xemnas was loosening his grip on Zexion's forehead, his fingers slowly slipping away...his aura was even more satisfied than ever before, pulsing like a demented heart...
Screaming Demyx's name, Zexion swung the Cross mightily and impaled Xemnas in the heart.
Xemnas' hands broke away from Zexion's forehead and he reeled back, his eyes huge from astonishment. Zexion himself couldn't believe what he was staring at - the Cross of the Kingdom protruding from Xemnas' chest as icy dark blood steadily dripped down the front of Xemnas' coat. He felt sick; his head spun. He couldn't believe this was happening, he had to be dreaming, had to -
"I...Ienzo..." Xemnas croaked through the blood bubbling on his lips. For many years afterwards, Zexion would remember the sheer hatred blazing in Xemnas' eyes, hardening them like live coals. Xemnas' gaze cut through him, destroying illusion after illusion until nothing was left of him, nothing but his naked and vulnerable core -
Nothing but his love for Demyx.
"I'm sorry, Superior," Zexion whispered, "but I do love him. More than I ever loved you and this entire damned coven."
"D-damn you - traitor, TRAITOR!" Xemnas roared, swiping madly at the air; Zexion ducked out of the way of his blows. Already, he could feel Xemnas' powerful presence flicker and fade; the noxious presence of the Cross flooded him again, making him gag.
Zexion steadily staggered backwards as Xemnas lurched and roared in the throes of death. And then, with a titanic crash and the clang of silver, Xemnas fell face forward and hit the concrete floor. He didn't move. He never would again.
The last of his presence rushed upon Zexion like a fiery wind, and then even that was gone. Zexion was left shaky but still standing, clinging to the wall for support, gazing upon the corpse of the one vampire he had feared beyond all others.
Now dead by his hand.
He managed a shaking laugh, reeling in the impossibility of it all. A mere incubus such as himself, trick the Superior and then slay him? Something like that couldn't possibly happen...it was too insane, too...
Something roared behind him and slammed into him with the force of a hundredweight, bearing him face-forward onto the ground. He yelled, struggling, but it was no use - the creature was too strong -
Just before it had tackled him, he had glimpsed a flash of blood-stained blue fur.
"Hey. What are you doing?"
Axel's voice, rough-edged but astoundingly steady, snapped Demyx out of his reverie. Or whatever state of half-consciousness he'd been in as he clung to Axel and wet his face and Axel's shirt with his tears. He hadn't thought of anything but the solid warmth of the vampire slayer under him, clinging to that as his last anchor to the physical world. If he let go...he'd slip away. Into doubts and fears and betrayals.
Axel made it easy by not speaking, by not moving except to shake. But now he spoke, and as Demyx lifted his face, he saw Axel staring back at him, his eyes red at the edges and his face wet but his gaze furious.
Axel had never glared at him like that before...
"S-sorry, Axel, I - I'm here, it's okay - " Demyx babbled, unsure of what else he could say. The air between them felt heavy, ominous.
"Get away," Axel hissed, pushing Demyx; Demyx, astonished, couldn't move. "Get away from me!"
"Axel, I'm sorry, I - "
"What are you doing here? Why aren't you with him?"
"I - I - you were in pain, so I had to - " Demyx stammered. Had Axel really believed, all along, that he mattered less to Demyx than Zexion? No, of course that wasn't true. His feelings might lie with Zexion, but he loved Axel too, just in a different way. Couldn't Axel see that?
"He's the one you love, isn't he? So why aren't you by his side? Helping him?" Axel shouted, his voice rising and rising in volume until it cracked. He was shaking and clinging to Roxas' mangled corpse as if it was his lifeline, and his every word crackled with spitting fury. "What kind of cowardly idiot are you? What kind of lover are you? When you make a pledge to someone like that, you don't fucking leave them behind! Got that memorized? Got it fucking memorized?"
"Axel, I - I really, I couldn't leave you - " Demyx said, overwhelmed.
Axel was crying again, really crying, shaking from rage and terror and misery. In that instant Demyx saw that Axel wasn't really angry with him - he was trying to help. As he'd always had. At the end of it all he was Demyx's teacher to the core.
And Demyx...Demyx wouldn't have it any other way.
"When you love someone," Axel said quietly, "you don't have any second chances. Go on. He needs you."
"I know," Demyx said, pulling himself away from Axel. He couldn't remove his eyes from Axel's face, from the green eyes blazing with tears and intention and so, so many regrets. "You'll be fine?"
"Once you leave, yeah," Axel grumbled.
Demyx took that as his signal. Without looking back, he turned around and ran.
No, no no - this can't be happening, this can't -
The Cross of the Kingdom had sapped all of Zexion's strength. He lay there, limp as a rag doll, as Saix attacked him, scratching him over and over again and leaving behind gashes that blazed with pain - but he couldn't move, couldn't fight back.
What an idiot he'd been, not thinking about Saix. All along he'd thought Saix wouldn't be a threat, since Xemnas had said that he was "critically wound" - but Zexion had quite forgotten what Saix was to Xemnas, and Xemnas to Saix. If anyone were to avenge the Superior's death, it would be his second-in-command.
"Get off - get off - " Zexion hissed, but there was no use giving the command when he knew he didn't have the strength to pack it up. Saix's horrid musky stench overwhelmed his senses, but it couldn't block out the sharp bite of the Cross.
Saix kept up his animalistic growling - he was now gnawing at the back of Zexion's neck - it hurt like hell, he wanted it all to stop -
Three gunshots rang in the air, leaving behind an odor of gunpowder and silver. Squealing, Saix leapt off Zexion and spun around -
To face Demyx, striding down the hall, his face pale but his mouth set in a firm line of resolve.
"Demyx," Zexion whispered, his head spinning. Gratitude rushed through him. So in the end, Demyx had chosen him after all...
"I'm here," Demyx said. "I'm sorry I didn't come earlier, but I..."
He gave an awkward smile, but Zexion could read what it said as clearly as he could any book: Forgive me, okay, Zexy?
"It's all right," Zexion said. I forgive you.
"Did you really...was that you who did it?" Demyx said, throwing a glance at Xemnas' corpse. With his hair spread out around his head and his arms splayed, the Superior looked truly pathetic in death. Saix, upon seeing the corpse, unleashed a howl that trembled in Zexion's bones. A lament.
"Cool," Demyx said, and Zexion could have died from happiness right then. He didn't need anyone's approval but Demyx - who cared what the others would say to him about his feat -
Saix, roaring, dove towards Demyx, ignoring the multiple wound and burns covering his body - it was almost impossible to see the color of his fur beneath the matted blood and the scorched, hairless areas. Demyx yelled and shot a few more times. Blood burst in the air, hot and musky, but Saix in his enraged state ignored the injuries. Demyx yelled, staggering backwards -
And Saix leapt forward and clamped his jaws around Demyx's chest.
Demyx screamed. It was the most horrific sound Zexion had heard in all of his long life, and he had lived through both world wars. A scream of pure, bloodcurdling agony, that sounded at once like a shriek and a squeal and a gasp - and a plea for help, always a plea for help.
"Demyx!" Zexion shouted, rushed forward. "Get the fuck off of him, you stinking mutt - "
Saix was crunching down on Demyx's flesh with vicious satisfaction - the coppery scent of Demyx's blood flooded the hallway. Tears blurred Zexion's vision. He realized that he should free the Cross from Xemnas' body but he couldn't move; he seized Saix's back leg and tugged, but Saix held on tighter, more stubbornly. Demyx's screams were beginning to sound like gasps...
And then there was a blast and the sickening squelch of flesh and the aftertang of a silver bullet. Demyx had managed to lift his gun arm and fired point blank at Saix's head. In a mist of red and white, Saix flew backwards and away from Demyx, collapsing limply on the concrete beside Xemnas. Blood began streaking across the flat gray surface, staining it red; some mingled with Xemnas' black blood.
But Zexion had no attention to spare on Saix. He ran towards Demyx, who had sagged to the ground after he'd blasted Saix off of him. Demyx's face was pale and his mouth was dribbling blood and his eyes were wild and terrified - Zexion didn't want to look at his injury but he forced himself to.
Red and gaping flesh. Gushing blood. Ragged edges. His ribs were visible, cracked, gnawed on. Bits of cloth from his coat and shirt were stuck to the flesh, all that horrible muscle and sinew on display like the sliced-open carcass of livestock...
Zexion had very little medical experience but even he could tell that the wound was fatal.
"Demyx, oh Demyx, please - " he whispered, though he had no idea what he was pleading for. He grabbed Demyx by the shoulder and supported him, keeping him in a seated position. Demyx's eyes, growing vaguer and more unfocused by the second, rested on his face.
"'Lo, Zex," he mumbled.
"Demyx, you'll be all right, don't die, don't die, don't die!" Zexion's voice rose to a squeak. He hated himself for his weakness. Once he'd been a cold and manipulative incubus, freely using and abusing people - and now he was about to collapse, his everything was about to collapse, because of a dying human.
He couldn't imagine a world without Demyx...a life without Demyx always by his side...
Wait. There was a way around this.
"Zex," said Demyx, his words increasingly slurred as he lost more and more blood. "Gonna die, aren't I?"
"No, you're not. You're not," Zexion said with fierce conviction, looking into Demyx's eyes though it pained him to see the cheerful and indefatigable slayer like this, so weak, his gaze so bleary. "I can save you. I can still save you. The Gift of the Immortal, remember?"
"Oh, Zex, you..." Demyx looked at him, his gaze sharper than it had been. "You wouldn't...really...?"
"You don't have a choice. You're dying - do you want to live?" Zexion whispered. "The Coven of Thirteen has been defeated. Don't you want to...to be able to celebrate it? With me?"
"Course I do," Demyx mumbled, his eyes fluttering shut - but thankfully they reopened only seconds later. "Do it."
"You'd really agree to it?" Zexion said. Time seemed to have stopped for the two of them.
Demyx lowered his head into a slow nod. "Got no other choice. Do it. I...love you, Zexion."
"I love you too, I love you so much I - " Zexion broke off before he could get too hysterical, and squeezed Demyx's shoulders and leaned in, right above the vein in his neck that was pulsing slower and slower by the second...
He was uncannily reminded of the first time he'd met Demyx, in the darkness of Axel's courtyard. How long ago that had been...how much had happened between then and now
He bit.
Demyx's blood was as delicious as he'd always thought it would be - warm and coppery, like all human blood, and tinged with its own unique flavor, like sea salt, yet slightly sweet as well. For a brief, horrifying second, he wanted nothing more than to drink and drink until he drained Demyx completely - but he kept himself in check.
Zexion had never given the Gift before, but he knew the principle behind it. While sucking on the human's blood, he had to think, with all of his will and desire, of turning the recipient into a pureblood vampire such as himself. It was a little similar to the principle of turning a human into a made vampire, but what made it different was the desire behind the drinking. It took no effort to create a made vampire, but the Gift was famously difficult to give.
In fact, he'd heard it said that only the most powerful senior vampires could give it and be assured that the recipient would become pureblood. But it all depended on force of will, didn't it? Senior vampires always tended to have stronger wills than junior vampires, but...
No vampire had ever loved a human as powerfully as Zexion did. He knew the force of his love - his desire to see Demyx live - would accomplish the task. It had to, or else -
He couldn't think about the alternative. No doubts.
As he slowly lapped up Demyx's blood, imbibing it with his own powers, he focused on nothing but his memories of the human slayer. The first time they'd met, in which Demyx had intrigued him for his lack of guile. Then the time in the dungeon, during which he'd manipulated an unsuspecting Demyx. Being mastered by Demyx. Demyx's apology. Living with Demyx. Discussing pop vampire literature. The butterfly.
"I love you," Demyx had said for the first time.
Demyx's disappearance. Killing Axel to free himself, so he could save Demyx. Finally reuniting with Demyx. Their argument. Him crying, Demyx comforting him. Sleeping together, the first time they'd done it lovingly. Chasing Roxas with Demyx. Confronting the Superior. Demyx's dreams getting blasted apart. Then he, Zexion, comforting Demyx when no one else would.
DiZ's manor. "You're here and I'm here and that's all that matters." Telling Demyx of his past, arguing over the Gift of the Immortal. Sleeping with Axel, and then Demyx punishing him for that. Ange de l'amour, Demyx had called him. Going to the ball together. Demyx singing.
"Let me love you, baby, let me love you."
Their confession, in which they had named their flaws and feelings in one go. Then storming the warehouse together. Fighting Xaldin. Demyx comforting him after he'd frozen up. Chancing upon Axel. Demyx choosing to stay by Axel's side. Him picking up the Cross. Tricking the Superior for Demyx's sake. And then...then Saix attacking Demyx, Demyx killing Saix, Demyx, Demyx Demyx -
He saw it, then. Demyx as a pureblood vampire, standing tall and elegant by Zexion's side, pale as death. Zexion focused lovingly, almost obsessively, on the image, honing the little details until he was seeing it as if it was real. Demyx would make a beautiful pureblood - not an incubus like Zexion, because he had no guile in his soul - maybe a guard. His hair would grow paler to match the pallor of his skin. Platinum blonde, delicate strands falling into his eyes. His cheeks would hollow out, his chin sharpen, his features become more elegant than puppy-dog endearing (as they were now), and he would look resplendent in vampiric black. His fingers, already long, would become even longer and more skeletal, tipped by claws...Zexion imagined how the vampire Demyx's grip would feel around his, reassuringly tight, comfortingly cold.
In the future, after Demyx became a vampire, they would have an eternity together, to know each others' touches until they became emblazoned into the fabric of their being.
Demyx's blood was starting to taste sour in his mouth - he realized that he was, essentially, done. He drew away, feeling surprisingly alert, even though it was said - and he'd witnessed - that the Gift of the Immortal left the giver terribly weak for several days.
He stared at Demyx, the blood rushing in his ears.
And stared. Unable to believe what he was seeing. Unwilling...to accept...
This couldn't possibly be.
His hands fell from Demyx's shoulders, limply back to his sides. Tears stung the corners of his eyes and he almost welcomed them - if they blurred his vision enough he wouldn't have to lay eyes on the horror before him. But his eyes remained stubbornly dry and his vision unclouded, and he had no choice but to face what he had done. He. Zexion.
Demyx's injury had healed - the process of making a human into a vampire always fixed whatever injuries or scars that might have been sporting. But the Demyx staring at him right now was not the handsome pureblood Zexion had envisioned.
He couldn't take in everything at once - it was all too overwhelming. But he saw, saw enough. The pasty skin. The rough, too-large hands twitching like spiders. Long fangs protruding from his mouth. And the eyes. Wide and small-pupiled and feral, without a hint of the cheerful intelligence that had been characteristic of the living, human Demyx.
Demyx had become a made vampire. A mindless monster.
Zexion had failed.
Believe me, that ending was the most difficult thing I've ever written. Even while writing it I wanted to go back and redo it all and give Zexion and Demyx their happy ending - but I firmly believe that is against the spirit of this story. The whole point of this story is a repudation of the Twilight-like ideal: it's simply impossible for a vampire and human to have a Happily Ever After. The thing is, Demyx never had a personality conducive to being a vampire, which is necessary for the Gift to work. He might have fallen in love with one, but he loved his life as a human too much to give it up, even though he agreed to being given the Gift. Maybe he turned around on the outside, but in his subconscious, his answer remained the same that it did during their argument in "Immortal."
And no, as Zexion found out, loving someone is not enough for the Gift to work. A repudation of the Power of Love as well. Some forces are simply stronger than love.
Next chapter will be called "Beautiful," and no, it will not be happy either.
Review. And I'll understand if you cry because hell, my throat tightened when I was writing the final scene. It's the first time I've ever had such a strong emotional reaction to something I've written, which I think is a good thing (even if it had to be cruddy fanfiction).
I don't think this is the right time or place to plug Broken Memory, but I'll do it anyway.