Tainted But Beautiful

Part 3: The Renegades

30. Beautiful

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: Another quick update! I'm encouraged that this story is basically writing itself.

This is the final chapter...a destination that's taken almost two years to reach. Note that this isn't the "end" end, though, because there is an epilogue. So I'll save the emotional farewells 'til then, mmkay?

Aqua makes a brief appearance in this chapter, solely because of Author Appeal. She is easily my favorite Kingdom Hearts character (Zexion is the one I most prefer to wank to, but objectively, I like Aqua better). Finally a kickass female heroine, who may well be the bravest, most heroic character in all of the games. ^^ Plus she has blue hair and detached sleeves. What's there not to love? XD She doesn't do much in this chapter, but her character arc is inspired slightly by the plot of Birth by Sleep, so if you don't wish to be spoiled, don't read. Granted it's a very, very slight inspiration. I view vampie slayer Aqua as melded with the blood of a naiad.

This is an immensely character-driven, psychological chapter, and I'm very proud of it. Though it may not be what everyone's expecting.

Obligatory plug for Broken Memory. Check that shit out!

"No, no, no, no, no no no..."

Zexion staggered backwards, barely able to breathe. Tears pricked, stinging, at the corners of his eyes and he impatiently wiped them aside with the back of his hand. He couldn't look away. Not from his sin.

From Demyx.

Demyx, or the monster that had once been Demyx, crouched beneath him, staring at him with those feral eyes that weren't Demyx's at all, how cruel that they had to be the same color, that beautiful shining blue, but they weren't Demyx's. Demyx would have been smiling, there was always a smile on his face, and if not a smile a joke, but this wasn't a joke, this was real, this was a Demyx looking at him with no intelligence at all, his mouth halfway open, revealing too well his needle-like fangs, and a low, thrumming growl rising from his throat...

Zexion had laid eyes on plenty of made vampires in his time. Hell, he'd made plenty. Hadn't one of the first things he'd said to Demyx been a threat to make him...? Oh, he could remember everything about that encounter, even though it hurt it hurt it hurt, it squeezed his chest so tightly he thought his heart would burst - it was better if it burst, he wouldn't have to face what he'd done -

If only he could go back in time and redo this, if only he could undo the damned transformation! But his own voice, cruel and cold and mocking, rose out of the gloom of memory:

"Transformations cannot be undone."

He collapsed in a heap to the cold concrete, his sides heaving, but no vomit was leaving his stomach. He just wanted it all to end, he didn't want to have to wake up every night with the knowledge that his newest servant had once been the man he loved, he still loved, so painfully...if only he didn't have to feel anymore, it was better not to feel...

"Kill me," he whispered, he spat, his words hate-filled. He wanted the monster to listen. That monster who he hated more than anyone else in the world - almost as much as he hated himself. He couldn't bring himself to hate the man that monster had once been, but he did hate the monster. What the monster represented.

"What's the matter with you? You obey my orders, right? I'm your master! Kill me!" Zexion shouted, choking on every word as it came up. He feared that he was going crazy, but then welcomed that prospect. Anything, anything to keep himself from facing Demyx...

Demyx stared back at him, uncomprehending. There were networks of veins under his skin, perfectly visible, blue through his pasty skin...the hallmark of any made vampire. Seeing them made tears sting Zexion's eyes again.

"Kill me, do you hear me!"

A querying growl. Zexion could have broken down sobbing and he wondered why he didn't. Was he really that pathetic? Just a sociopathic vampire at the core.

"I'm a brainless and incompetent vampire slayer and I love a self-righteous and sociopathic incubus!" Demyx had declared to the skies, that night, that beautiful night...

You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you, he'd sang. What an idiot, a liar. "Good"...Zexion wasn't "good" by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone who could do something like this to his lover wasn't possibly good.

The worst thing was that this Demyx really couldn't take his eyes off Zexion. He just kept his horrible vacant stare on his master, awaiting further orders...but hadn't Zexion given him orders?

"I told you to kill me!" Zexion yelled, his rage blazing anew. "Kill me, kill me, kill me, dammit! I don't want to - don't want to live - not like this - "

The monster gazed uncomprehending back at him, and then slowly backed down, looking...nervous? Hell if he could tell. Monsters didn't have emotions. Monsters. What he'd turned Demyx into...what an idiot, believing that the force of his love alone could have been enough. Enough, enough, it was never enough...

Worse, the monster couldn't kill him, he realized. Made vampires lived for the sole purpose of protecting their master, ensuring that he stayed alive - whatever pitiful half-life a vampire could have - to the point where even that urge trumped their master's orders. Just like the Three Laws of Robotics, a tiny, inane part of Zexion's mind said, and then he choked up again and realized that Demyx had really become a mindless automaton.

Demyx would never smile at him again.

Demyx would never sing for him again.

Demyx would never hold him during the nights again.

Demyx would never say, "I love you," to him again.

Demyx was gone.

Gone.

Zexion truly lost it then. With that revelation - crushing him like a ten-ton boulder - he flung himself to the ground and clutched his head and screamed. Screamed to the ceiling, screamed to that awful old man sitting above the clouds who dared, who dared to have done this to him - who dared who dared WHO DARED - it was worse than dying with the knowledge that nobody had ever loved him, much worse, because he had been loved, however briefly, he had truly been loved. And now he would never be loved again, not by that person again. He would have an eternity and that person would not be there. Would be by his side but not really, because this monster had none of Demyx's mind and spark and charm, nothing of Demyx's, he was just a husk, an empty husk, and it was all Zexion's fault -

All my fault all of this is my fault Demyx oh Demyx can you ever forgive me can anyone ever forgive me Axel oh God all I ever did was hurt him he'll kill me when he sees me he'll kill me -

That's all right. As long as he kills Demyx next, and then I can be for Demyx forever. If we don't go in opposite directions, of course.

He screamed until he could scream no more, until he was coughing up sickening dark blood. He lay there in the concrete and groaned and whispered because that was all he could manage, whispered "I'm sorry," over and over again and he didn't know who he was apologizing to; Demyx, maybe, or Axel, or maybe the entire world for having existed in the first place...

He should have just let me die. My master. If I'd died I would never have hurt so many people.

All he ever did. Hurt people.

The made monster shuffled up to his side, looking concerned. Zexion hated it for that. How dare it. It had no right. The only one who had a right was dead, because of Zexion.

"Go away," he whispered. At least it obeyed that order - it, growling in confusion, shuffled to the far end of the hall, and never once removed those horrid feral eyes from Zexion.

He heard voices. Footsteps. Axel's voice, above all, " - went this way, I'm sure - "

No, not Axel. He didn't want Axel to come. For Axel to see Demyx in this state...he couldn't bear that. All he had ever done was hurt Axel, first Roxas and now Demyx, he couldn't...he couldn't handle it not now. He toyed with the notion of ordering the Demyx monster to kill Axel but he couldn't bring himself to do it. What would that do. Axel would just spring up again, fully alive. Axel was just like him. Unable to die, forced to live with all his sins on his head for the rest of his days. No wonder Axel was the way he was.

"Whoa - hey, is that - " Xigbar's voice. Zexion couldn't bring himself to care.

The Demyx monster growled and sank into a crouch, claws extended - it wanted to fight. "Don't," Zexion mumbled out of the corner of his mouth. "Don't do anything, don't move, don't..."

A group of slayers - most of whom he didn't recognize - had gathered around Saix and Xemnas' bodies. It seemed none of them had noticed Zexion and Demyx yet. Who cared, it didn't matter...nothing mattered anymore, nothing meant a thing...

Axel stood at the edge of the group, leaning heavily on Xigbar's shoulder, his wounds crudely bandaged. One of the vampire slayers, a blue-haired young woman, stood up and turned towards Axel.

"Who dealt the final blows?" she said. Her voice was serious, no nonsense. The kind of girl Zexion might have been attracted to, had it not been for Demyx.

"Not me," Axel said, shrugging. "It was the vampire, the incubus I told you about, who took the Cross...maybe him..."

He turned. His eyes landed on Zexion's.

Zexion cursed in his head, but aloud, all he could croak was, "I'm sorry."

Axel's face, already dangerously pale, lost what little color remained. He threw Xigbar's hands from his shoulder and gave him a push to ensure he stayed back. Slowly, his every step ringing in the silence and lingering in the air, too long, he walked towards Zexion. His walk was more of a lurch and he had to cling to the wall for support, but his eyes blazed with a ferocity that sliced to the core of Zexion's being. Sliced and sliced and sliced until nothing was left.

"I'm sorry," Zexion croaked again, and this time tears blurred in his vision.

"What did you do," Axel whispered, his gaze slipping, involuntarily, towards where the Demyx monster cowered against the wall. "What the fuck did you do, you little - "

"I'm sory, I didn't mean, I'm so sorry," Zexion was crying freely now. He hadn't cried until now. It hadn't truly sunk in - how much he'd hurt Axel. Axel, of all people. That was all Zexion had done, ever since he'd first gotten the caprice to climb into Axel's open window. He had first laid bare all of the slayer's insecurities, tortured him with them...then he'd turned his student, only halfway that was true, but didn't that make it even worse a sin? Then he'd had the temerity to fall in love with Demyx, his first student, the one that Axel had always felt he'd failed...

And now he'd done this. The final straw.

When he loved, he harmed. Too badly.

"What do you mean you're sorry - why the fuck did you do this - " Axel was spitting and frothing, raging, his face gray, gesturing madly. Xigbar held him back, yelling nonsensically at him, trying in vain to calm him down. But Zexion knew Axel and he knew Axel wouldn't calm down anytime soon, nor should he. Zexion deserved this, all of Axel's rage. No, he deserved much more than this and both he and Axel knew that.

The blue-haired woman blinked, her eyes falling on Demyx. It struck Zexion that she was very pretty, and he hated her for that. "Is that...the human slayer? The one that we sent out an execution order for?"

Oh. Right. He'd forgotten that. He had comforted Demyx after that, hadn't he? Idiot, to think that he of all people had the right to comfort a human, to love a human...

"Why?" Axel whispered, his voice hoarse. It appeared he'd exhausted his energy screaming, much as Zexion had. "Why? I don't understand...I thought you loved him..."

His face had collapsed in pain. Genuine pain, and a lack of understanding. He truly had believed that Zexion had loved Demyx, Zexion saw with a twinge of surprise. Strange. He hadn't thought Axel did...he'd thought all along, Axel had thought that Zexion had hoodwinked Demyx (much as Zexion himself had thought so early in their relationship, oh that first time Demyx had confessed, it was too painful...).

But Axel had believed, of course he had. Because he knew what love was like.

"I do," Zexion whispered. "I do. I love him so much...it's because I love him that I..."

"That you tried to turn him?" Axel spat. But then his eyes widened and a look of horrified understanding dawned on his face. "Oh, no, no...don't tell me..."

His words were flat, deadpan, yet coursed with barely suppressed emotion.

"You didn't try to give him the Gift."

All Zexion could do was nod.

In an instant, it seemed that all of Axel's rage had fled him in one fell swoop. He just stood there, sad and resigned and shaking, but no longer was he angry at Zexion. His gaze was filled with something even worse - sympathy. Sad understanding.

Rage boiled inside Zexion. He didn't deserve that. Not from Axel. He deserved nothing less than Axel's spitting fury, his bottomless rage. For Axel to sympathize with him was the last thing he wanted.

"Why would you do that?" Axel said, sounding more sad than angry. "You know you're not strong enough, even the most senior of purebloods have trouble giving it...and to Demyx, too..."

"You said it yourself," Zexion mumbled, staring at the tear-stained concrete beneath his hands because that was better, infinitely better, than looking at Axel. "I miscalculated. I misjudged. This wasn't the first time."

But it was the worst.

I have no illusions it will be the last.

"What are we still doing here?" the woman said. "It seems Xemnas and his second have been defeated, so we should leave while we can...there's no point in staying around. This vampire, let's - " She indicated Demyx with the long, staff-like stake clutched in her hand.

"Aqua. No." Axel was on her an instant, wrapping his long fingers around her wrist and forcing her to lower her weapon. She gazed at him, looking confused but not indignant.

"Axel? What's the matter?"

"No. Don't kill him. You don't understand...there's so much going on here, you don't understand. Let...me...deal with him."

He looked as if he was torturing himself with every word, and his voice shook with the last syllable. Him. Demyx. He had almost been about to say Demyx's name, Zexion realized, but he couldn't bring himself to.

Zexion wasn't bothered. He wouldn't have had the strength to say as much as Axel had.

"That ain't...Mullet, is it?" Xigbar said to Axel.

Axel said nothing. He looked like he was ready to be sick. Slowly, he turned to face Zexion, and gestured for him to stand. Zexion couldn't obey, though, and he didn't want to. If only he could lie here from now until forever...lie here beside Demyx, beside his greatest sin, his most heinous crime.

"Kill me," he whispered to Axel, hopefully. "Please, kill me."

"I won't," Axel said, his tone infinitely gentle. Gentle - for the first time he was speaking gently to Zexion. Zexion hated every second of it. "I won't, because he wouldn't have wanted you to die."

"How would you know," Zexion said more than asked.

"Ask yourself. I think you know too. He wouldn't want this." Axel exhaled. "Ah, hell. Just come with us, you. Where else do you have to go?"

That's easy. Hell.

And Demyx wouldn't have wanted to turn into a vampire in the first place. Not even a pureblood. What does it matter what he wants anymore? Even in his life, he never got what he wanted.

That wasn't true. For better or worse...

He had gotten Zexion.

It seemed that the vampire slayers had made Axel's villa into their temporary headquarters, as they sorted out everything that had happened in the warehouse of the Coven of Thirteen that night. Messengers kept running in and out, keeping up a constant stream of updates - the South-Central European Coven had fallen apart - the House of Jenova was threatening to step in the power vacuum Xemnas had left vacant - the Chinese Coven claimed it had never been part of the alliance in the first place -

All things that Zexion couldn't care less about. He kept himself locked in his old room, the room that he had once shared every night with Demyx. The room in which they'd argued about Zexion having to drink human blood, how long ago that had been. He'd never have thought he would return to this house. This house which held nothing but bad memories.

Now...he wasn't so sure of that. He had met Demyx here, hadn't he?

But wasn't Demyx another bad memory? The worst.

Demyx remained on the opposite side of the room from him, because Zexion had been consistently ordering Demyx to keep a clear berth from him. He didn't want to be any closer to his newest servant - his once lover - than he absolutely had to. He had also ordered Demyx not to eat any human, and very grudgingly gave him mugs of heated-up blood bank swill when his hunger got too bad. Zexion drank from the mugs slowly, forcing him to keep the flavor on his tongue, the metallic tang and the bite of chemicals. He doubted that he would ever enjoy blood again, not after he'd tasted Demyx's and done this - turned the slayer who had so loved being human into the sort of monster he hated the most.

The lower half of Demyx's face was gloved with dried blood, because he didn't take nearly as much care as Zexion did when he drank from his mugs of blood. Zexion couldn't bring himself to care. It was better if Demyx looked more like a ragged monster, less like Demyx...then he could forget. Forget, for a brief second, who his servant really was.

But his gaze always landed on those horribly blue eyes, the eyes that despite their lack of any real, human feeling, were Demyx's, and he couldn't. Couldn't bring himself to forget.

Au contraire, he wanted to cling on to every last trace of Demyx he still had. Even if the trace didn't exist.

His only comfort was that he wasn't the only one who had lost everything. Axel had lost Roxas, after all, and he'd heard that Larxene's reaction to hearing of Marluxia's death was to grab a knife from the kitchen and attempt to behead Axel (who had delivered the news) with it. They had been engaged, a knowledge that curdled in Zexion's stomach when he remembered that Marluxia had, even after death, looked out for him and Demyx.

But had any of them lost as badly as Zexion had? At least, they would have their happy memories of their loved ones to comfort them. Zexion...Zexion had this shell of Demyx. This mindless monster. Every time he looked upon Demyx he would be reminded of not only that disastrous night but also what could have been -

Demyx as a beautiful pureblood, eternally beside him...

What nonsense. He should have seen it. Demyx as a vampire? Impossible. Hadn't he already argued with Demyx about the Gift of the Immortal? What's so bad about that? How 'bout the fact that I'd be a bloodsucking monster? Demyx had been so passionate, and yet Zexion had convinced himself that the slayer's last minute desperation, as he died, would be enough to overcome his deeply ingrained beliefs. Demyx loved being human, he had made that much clear in their argument. Zexion couldn't understand it, but it was there and it was genuine.

He'd been a selfish idiot - selfish as always - thinking that it hadn't mattered.

Zexion wrapped his arms around his legs and pulled them close to his chest. Shivering. Ever since he'd done that to Demyx he couldn't feel warm again. Couldn't bring himself to.

There was one way to end his current predicament and he knew it - get rid of Demyx. The made vampire served no purpose; Zexion didn't want him and looking at him only hurt him, made him feel like his insides were getting cut up with a sharp knife. Killing Demyx would end that part at least...remove the physical manifestation of his guilt.

Thinking about it that way made him feel worse. Even now, after everything that had happened, he couldn't think of anything except in terms of how it would hurt or benefit him. A manipulator's way of thinking. And the thought of killing Demyx - even an atrophied husk of the vibrant slayer - was enough to make his insides coil upon themselves. His mind shut down whenever he even flirted with the possibility.

Kill Demyx? Him?

Impossible.

In the end, he was too weak. Too weak to do anything but remain locked in this state of flux. With this Demyx with which he wanted nothing, and yet couldn't make himself destroy.

No surprise. He'd been the weakest one, all along. Stupid, to think that just because he'd been through more, that made him stronger than Demyx and Axel and Roxas. But they had faced their challenges with far more bravery than he could even think of summoning. Everything he'd done had been motivated by sheer desperation and survival instinct. Even his decision to save Demyx's life - because in that panic-flashed instant when he'd first seen the extant of Demyx's injuries, he had seen a future without Demyx and that burned. It burned his insides worse than swallowing the Cross of the Kingdom could.

Solely because he'd wanted to alleviate that burning, he had bitten Demyx. Not for Demyx's sake. His own.

Maybe this...the growling monster opposite him...was his penance for his selfishness.

Axel had never felt more tired, yet more alert at the same time. He was grateful for the deluge of slayers and messengers that kept besieging his house, because as annoying as it was to never have a private moment, it meant that at least he didn't have time to wallow in his grief. To let his grief destroy him. He knew it would, if he allowed himself to stop and dwell it on it - the tendrils lashing at the corners of his consciousness would thicken, darken, and seize him by the middle and bear him down and ensure that he never got up again. If he ever thought about the enormity of what had happened...

Well, he didn't want to, so he threw himself into anything that could distract him with a fervor.

Even if it meant having to send constant, near-identical reports to the Slayer Society, even if it meant having to answer the constant queries of the Slayer Society's representative in his house, Aqua. He told them all the truth, didn't leave out a smidgeon. He talked about how Zexion had first seduced him, then of mastering Zexion (much to his satisfaction, Aqua winced and excused herself every time he went in depth on his mastering techniques), and of the party, and of Roxas, and of Demyx's feelings for Zexion, and of dying and coming back to life - everything.

In a way, it was catharsis, to speak of everything, to let it tumble from his chest in a dull, clipped, emotionless words. He never thought about the words he was saying, just spoke. If he thought, the tendrils would seize him. But if he spoke, he kept them at bay.

Still, the Society brimmed with questions. They wanted to know exactly what he and Ansem and Wise had discussed, what had facilitated Ansem the Wise's survival for two hundred years, and details, details, details about the Coven of Thirteen and Xemnas. There were more than a few questions about Zexion, too, which Axel answered to the best of his ability. To hell if he was going to sic the Society agents upon Zexion.

He didn't know why he felt so strangely protective of Zexion - if anything, he should hate no one more. Yet every time he thought about the passionate little incubus who had thoroughly ruined his life, he felt nothing but a sick, shuddering sort of pity. He didn't like Zexion, never would...but he could no longer bring himself to hate Zexion. Hell, he couldn't bring himself to feel anything. He had completely deadened himself to the world. One defense mechanism against the grief. The tide.

Namine was now living in his villa - he supposed that the manor held nothing but bad memories for her now. Axel spent all the free time he could with her, even though they never had much to say to each other. Maybe he felt sorry for her, or responsible for what had happened to her. She'd lost all the family that she had ever had, after all. Even if DiZ wasn't much family...

It was a shitty reason to want to hang out with anyone, but Namine never begrudged him for it. Maybe she even liked his company; he wasn't sure. Certainly, he did nothing but sit there and chain-smoke and make occasional stabs at conversation with her, but maybe the point was that he was there, at least, and not ready to leave anytime soon.

You're here and I'm here and that's all that matters. If only he could still believe that. Demyx being "here" didn't make anything better.

After a while, Axel stopped answering Aqua's queries. He was quite sure that they were beginning to repeat. Every time she asked him a question, Axel had one ready to shoot back at her:

"Why didn't you come earlier?"

Indeed, why hadn't she. In his eyes, that was her greatest crime. Her crime and the crime of all the official Society slayers who had come pouring into the Coven of Thirteen at the eleventh hour, after pretty much everyone important was dead - after Xemnas had died. If they'd come sooner, maybe they'd have killed Saix before the damned wolf could have gotten to Demyx, and then Zexion wouldn't be forced to use the Gift on him. And Demyx would still be alive and whole.

"That's enough," she said to them the latest time he asked the question, the question which she never answered - even pretended to ignore. Which irritated him more than he could say. "Don't act as if you have a monopoly on righteous indignity. You're not the only one who lost someone."

"No, I'm not," Axel agreed, heatedly. "But don't you think many more people wouldn't have lost their loved ones if your lot had come sooner?"

"Then why didn't you contact us sooner?" Aqua demanded. She stood there, framed by his kitchen doorway, in an expensive dark suit, looking for all the world like a lawyer or any other such professional, completely isolated from a world in which battle and blood and revenge reigned supreme. But he saw the hard cast to her eyes and the firmness of her posture and he knew that she was a warrior to the core. Like him.

"We wouldn't even have come," Aqua continued, "had one of your slayers not placed an emergency call to HQ. Believe me, we whipped together as good of a team as we could at such a short notice, but if you had just contacted us earlier, we would have participated in the strike with you and the amount of casualties could have been avoided."

The worst thing was that Axel knew that she was right. Every word. He felt sick, but tried not to let it show.

"Yeah, well...I thought we could do it on our own."

Aqua blinked. "Of course. That's the way all you families are, isn't it?" There was no accusation in her tone.

Once upon a time Axel would have argued that statement, but now he couldn't agree with it more. In hindsight, it had been an incredibly stupid decision - striking at an entire coven, plus their werewolf allies, with only eight slayers, three of whom weren't formally trained or experienced. Yet the thought of calling the Slayer Society itself for help hadn't struck any of them, because the families were too used to acting on their own - Axel's especially - and thought that depending on the Society bureaucrats was a sign of weakness.

Axel's eyes burned, but to hell if he was going to cry in front of Aqua.

"You know, Axel, you're not the only one who's lost someone to the vampires...the way that you have," Aqua said, almost gently. "My partner Ven and I...we had to kill our friend Terra after he was turned into a vampire."

"I'm sorry," Axel said hollowly.

"Don't be," Aqua said, though she seemed to be avoiding his gaze. "It's the nature of the business, that's all..."

"But it doesn't hurt any less," Axel said, "when it's a friend."

"No," Aqua agreed, and her voice was so quiet that he had to lean forward to listen to her. "It only hurts more."

They gazed at each other and then Axel had to turn away. His throat was clenching and he kept thinking about Roxas, and Demyx, and what he had to do.

"I'll call the Society when I think I'm ready to return to slaying," he said simply, and shut the door behind him.

Zexion led Demyx into the courtyard, right next to the pool where they had first conversed. The night was cool and dark, exactly the way he liked it, but he spared it no attention. He felt the pinpricks of starlight on his skin and they made him shiver, because he remembered the time that he and Demyx had slept together inside the coven headquarters, during which he'd created an illusion of darkness and starlight...

So many memories. So many things he thought he'd forgotten, but he hadn't.

He faced Demyx.

Demyx stared back at him, growling softly. Stared at him with those eyes that weren't his. Yet were. That brilliant clear blue, even becoming a made vampire couldn't dilute it. Zexion searched Demyx's face hungrily, searching for something, anything, on which to anchor himself. He tried to convince himself that this wasn't Demyx, that this was just any ordinary made servant, but he couldn't. He kept seeing Demyx. The same chin, jutting slightly. The same nose, slightly upturned at the end. That hair still done up in a ridiculous style, even though it was now pale and waxy as opposite to corn-silk blonde, and those eyes, always those eyes...

His breath caught in his throat, his vision blurred and his world fractured, and he realized he couldn't do it.

Not to Demyx.

It didn't strike him as bizarre when Axel walked onto the courtyard, even though it was the middle of the night and the slayer really ought to be asleep - Axel had taken to accompanying Namine to bed, since she had screaming nightmares if she slept alone. But there was Axel, his jaw clenched, his eyes startlingly dry yet burning with so much pain...

"I'm sorry," Zexion said, what had to be the hundredth time since he'd made Demyx.

What else could he say? How else could he express to Axel the true depth of his regret?

"You can't do it," Axel said. There was no judgment in his voice. His tone was flat, dangerously so.

"I'm sorry," Zexion said again. "I know - it's only right if I do it, but I, I can't bring myself to, I - "

"You were the one who loved him most, I know," Axel said quietly.

"I can't," Zexion said. Wanting to impress on Axel the depth of his feelings - but he knew it was wasted on Axel. Because Axel already knew.

"I know," Axel said. He kept fingering the trigger on the silver-plated gun he held in his right hand. His arm was shaking, almost imperceptibly, but Zexion noticed. "You're sure you're happier this way?"

Zexion lowered his head in a nod. "I don't want to...to go through life...reminded...every day..."

"Yeah, I know," Axel said. "Because you're weak." A pause, and then, "Like me."

Zexion couldn't say anything to this. He threw one last, longing glance towards Demyx, wanting to drink in everything he could about the monster that had once been his lover. Oh, Demyx Demyx, Demyx, always Demyx. He never wanted to forget. Not Demyx as he was now, all pasty-faced and blue-veined and growling, but the Demyx who had hugged him and loved him and kissed him and smiled at him with eyes the color of the sea, Demyx who never judged him, never never never, what would he say now if he could...

Maybe...I understand. I'd do the same if our positions were reversed.

But the whole point - the whole unfair thing in a slew of unfair things - was that they couldn't be reversed. Did Zexion want them to be?

For the first time, he longed to become human. It was bizarre and it struck him mute with surprise, he couldn't even breathe. Why human? Humans were weak, sacks of meat, he'd explained as much to Demyx...but if he were to be human, then he and Demyx could live and grow old and die together. And they wouldn't have to go contrary to either of their natures, because Demyx had always been happier as a human and Zexion had been born as one...

Was that possible? Just as Demyx had hated the prospect of being a vampire, had been in love with his mortal life, Zexion couldn't imagine becoming a sweating, stinking mortal again. He enjoyed his immortality, even though it had brought him little more than pain.

How fitting. In the end, he and Demyx had not been separated by machinating outsiders or disapproving society, but simply their own natures.

"Go inside," Axel said. "Since I figure you don't want to watch."

Zexion didn't. He closed the door, leaned against the frame, and listened.

When he heard the shot, it was as if his insides had been sucked out. He collapsed to his knees, clutching his head in his hands, shaking from dry sobs. Even now he couldn't bring himself to cry. But he now knew. It was over, over, truly over, he could never go back again, over, all over -

Him and Demyx. Over.

The last time that Zexion saw Axel, the night was thick with clouds and buzzed with the electric anticipation of rain. He stood in front of the gate to Axel's villa and Axel stood behind it.

In Zexion's hands he clutched a suitcase. He hadn't owned much in life - most of his possessions were in his quarters in the Northern Coven, in fact - but he had gained some things, tiny things, from his life in Axel's villa and later DiZ's manor. His suit, his tuxedo. A few sheafs of Demyx's sheet music. The gun that Demyx had used in his life. And a saccharine vampire novel over which he and Demyx had argued.

They stood with the gate between them, him and Axel, and gazed into each other's eyes.

Axel said, "I'll take care of their funeral arrangements."

"I wouldn't dream of contesting that," Zexion said, quietly.

A longer pause, and then, "I don't ever want to see you again, you know that."

"I know," Zexion said. "I ruined your life, Axel. And I'm...you may not believe me, but I'm truly sorry for that. If only we'd never have met..."

Axel snickered. "I wonder about that. I mean, you did meet Demyx..."

"And I killed him."

"You were trying to save him."

"Why, exactly," said Zexion, looking sharply at Axel, "are you defending me?"

"Because," Axel said, which wasn't a helpful answer. He'd shoved his hands in his pockets and was shuffling from foot to foot, staring at the cracks in the flagstones beneath his feet. Zexion glared at him.

"That is not a reason."

"Because...listen...Zexion. I hate you. You know this, don't you? Of course I hate you. You turned both my students, and forced me to kill one of them. Don't you think I hate you? But the thing is, the reason why I haven't killed you next, is because...

"Because I don't hate you as much as I hate me." Axel smiled, but it was a haunted smile that didn't reach his eyes. "And since I don't feel like dying any time soon...I guess that means that you're not dying either. 'Cause I'd be a hypocrite if I killed you, but not me."

"Axel," was all Zexion could manage.

"You were right, you know. The first time we talked...when you said that I was terrified of failing them. I was. I still am. And I did. I failed them, I..." His voice became thick and he became immersed in the ground again. "I let them die, Zexion. I didn't do anything to save them, I..."

"You couldn't have saved them," Zexion said, scared - yet comforted - by this new side of Axel. Once upon a time, he'd have thought of it as another chance to manipulate the slayer, but how could he now? When he had an equal, if not larger, portion of the blame to shoulder?

"I could have, I know I could have. Hell...if only I'd have stopped Roxas from talking to you that time, if only I'd gotten to Demyx before Saix did...don't you see? I could have. And I didn't. I'm a failure. The worst teacher possible."

Zexion's head was pounding. "Don't talk that way. The fault is more mine and you know it."

"I know," Axel said, exhaling. "Which is why I don't want to see you again, got it memorized? You've brought me nothing but misfortune. If you don't mind, I'd like to be able to...move on ahead now."

"If possible," Zexion added.

"If possible." Axel nodded. His throat convulsed; he looked like he wanted to say more. Zexion waited patiently for him, even though the briefcase was becoming uncomfortably heavy. It took all of his effort to keep from dropping it.

"Is that all?" Zexion said, beginning to turn around like he was going to leave. This, if anything, would prompt Axel to speak up if that was what he really wanted. Zexion was, admittedly, curious as to what Axel would have to say to him. After all those months of knowing each other, hating each other, blaming each other, how would they bring it to a close? What would Axel choose? What had he chosen? He didn't know. It was all too complicated, and he didn't want to think about it anymore. Not so long as he was still carrying Demyx in his heart.

"No, wait..." Axel said, holding up a hand. His eyes were huge - terrified. He looked as if he were having second thoughts about saying what he was about to, but he plunged ahead, anyway, speaking quickly but not so quickly that Zexion couldn't understand him.

"Listen...you...wherever you go, Zexion...I wish you the best of luck."

For a moment, Zexion couldn't speak. His world was obliterated; the ground was gone beneath his feet; he was falling and falling and falling, deeper into impossibility. To imagine that Axel would say something like that...but they had both lost the same thing. They, like it or not, understood each other now.

It was perhaps that realization that prompted him to speak next. He nodded curtly.

"And the same to you too, Axel."

"Right, right." Axel looked a little relieved, now, and maybe even embarrassed. "Now get the hell away from my property."

Zexion didn't know why he felt so comforted to hear the familiar sharp, sardonic tone in Axel's voice. Once, he'd dreaded it, but now he welcomed it - it was a sign that the old Axel was slowly beginning to return. A sign that Axel would recover, at least somewhat. He deserved to. Nobody had been hurt more than him.

So he listened to Axel. Whirling around, not casting the villa a second glance, the incubus Zexion strode forward and vanished into the beautiful night.

Axel had commissioned Roxas' gravestone, and would have commissioned Demyx's, but he was told, much to his surprise, that Demyx La Monte already had a gravestone in the cemetery located near the tenements. The bewildered cemetery manager said that he didn't know who had commissioned it...but Axel suspected.

Roxas' gravestone was simple, bearing the boy's name and his approximate date of birth, and the actual date of his death, and a little inscription from Axel: One who died as pure as he was born. It was a little cheesy, but it seemed fitting.

Demyx's wasn't much more elaborate, but whoever had commissioned it had chosen to write an entire poem on the stone:

Thinking of you, wherever you are.

We pray for our sorrows to end, and hope that our hearts will blend.

Now I will step forward to realize this wish.

And who knows:

Starting a new journey may not be so hard,

Or maybe it has already begun.

There are many worlds, but they share the same sky —

One sky, one destiny."

Strangely, Axel didn't feel bothered that Zexion had laid the final claim on Demyx. It was only fitting, because in the end, he was the one who had loved Demyx the most.

End

Call me a romantic at heart, but I love that little poem in Kingdom Hearts II...so I chose to use it here. As a tenuous connection to the canon, I guess.

And so the story's finished, but stick around because we have an epilogue "Light," which offers a little more closure on Zexion and Axel.

I'm really pleased by this chapter - it turned ot almost exactly like I'd imagined it, if not even better. I hadn't anticpated Aqua having as big a role as she did, but I like it, and the Namine-Axel interaction was unexpected, but it's given me the seeds of the epilogue. Granted, this epilogue has already been planned out ever since I planned this story. I had a lot of difficulty killing Demyx, though; his death was called for since the beginning, but all the same...I almost toyed with having him cling to a bit of his consciousness, enough that he recognizes Zexion as more than his master...but I decided against it. Even if Demyx maintains some of his consciousness, there's no way that he and Zexion could continue to love each other - it'd be pretty much like bestiality, because a made vampire really has nothing more than its instincts. I don't think anything romantic could ensue from made!Demyx and Zexion, because it'd pretty much be Zexion taking advantage of his mindless servant, using him to assuage his own guilt. And eventually he'll have to realize that his feelings are not mutual, are simply born from guilt, and that...would not be pretty. Killing Demyx is pretty much the only merciful thing to do to both of them. At least this way Zexy has a chance of moving on.

Plugging Broken Memory here. There's a tragic relationship at the heart of the story, but the tone is definitely more upbeat, so if you want somehing that won't make you cry, read it!

Keep up the wonderful reviews, my wonderful readers.