Disclaimer: KH is so not mine that it isn't even funny.

Author's Notes: What's up with this right now? I'm sorry, this was supposed to be out a few weeks ago, but it sorta… well, that didn't happen. I started writing this, and all of my professors decided that assigning projects/tests/homeworks RIGHT NOW was a good idea, so I've been swamped. I just wrote this out now, so~! Have a fic!

Dedications: To my ever lovely beta, Evil-Pixie-Dust, the guiding light of my fics, and the one who nods at me when it makes sense and whacks me in the back of the head when it doesn't. I'd write more here, but eh, I'm sure you'd much rather READ the fic! I love everyone who reads this!

Chapter 3 - Innocence Looks Good on You

Sunlight stretches in through the window, dances over dust motes on its way to the rest of the room, touches Demyx's cheek and eyelashes with warm and curious fingertips. Blinking sleepily, Demyx rouses to full awareness, stretching under his covers like a large cat. His toes flex out into the cold morning air, straining for clean, icy air. Slowly, Demyx opens his eyes completely, nose half buried in the pillowcase. Something seems strange….

Ah.

His head.

His mind.

…none of it hurts.

That's … strange, Demyx thinks. Not unwelcome, just strange. Even more odd is how the world doesn't start shifting sideways, or upside down, or distort to one edge. At all. And he can even think. (Days where he feels like this are normally accompanied in some way by a hangover, or gravel-chafed skin around his knees and elbows, but (he checks) his skin is clear and unmarred, and his head doesn't even ache a little.)

Beeping sounds from the floor, and Demyx flings an arm out, searching blindly for his phone with scrabbling fingertips. He finds it (eventually) and grabs it, fumbling with it briefly when his hands don't respond fast enough to the weight of the phone. Pressing the button in the center silences the irritating noise, and he stops moving, sinking imperceptibly into the mattress again. It's early enough to get up, if the sunlight is anything to go by, but his bed is comfortable and warm and he can see the snow lining his window. His phone goes off again, and he winces, silencing it properly this time.

With a sigh, he sits up, blanket falling away from his bare chest. Chill air swirls around him, against him, and he shivers before scooting the rest of the way out from under the covers. His toes search cautiously for the bare floor, cringing at the cold hardwood. Demyx yawns as he slowly stands, stretching out the kinks and small aches in his spine, phone still in hand.

He twists to the side, cracking his spine with a satisfying series of pops before he shuffles from the room, barely avoiding hitting the door frame with his shoulder. His stomach growls hungrily. Pausing in surprise, Demyx looks down at his abdomen.

"Huh," he murmurs. "Looks like breakfast is in order."

At the thought of food, his stomach rumbles louder, pleading.

Walking to the fridge through a maze of junk and clutter, he starts pulling out plates and utensils and food, making scrambled eggs with a half-forgotten kind of uncertainty. He hasn't made… he hasn't cooked in a long time. (Hell, he's just grateful that all of his ingredients are still fresh.) The sizzling of the pan fills his small apartment, and Demyx stares absently at the eggs, pushing them with a spatula occasionally as he tries to remember how long it has been since he had last eaten. Last…week? At least one week since he had made something at home.

He shivers, flesh prickling with the realization that he could have collapsed at any time in the past few days.

But he is hungry now, and his eggs have finished cooking. He turns around, searching in a distressingly dirty sink for a clean plate, eventually finding one that isn't too scummy. Piling the eggs onto his plate, Demyx grabs a fork and starts eating. He finishes them quickly, checking his phone for the time.

"Shiiiiiit, late for running…." Demyx swears, standing swiftly and rushing to his room, shucking his pajama bottoms even as he pulls on a soft cotton shirt and his jacket and grabs a pair of running shorts. Donning the shorts as soon as his pants are off and fishing a pair of socks out from a pile of clothes, Demyx scuttles into his living room. He toes on socks and shoes as quickly as he can before tucking his phone and keys inside his shorts' pocket and tearing out the door.

(He hates missing running. It's one of the only times he can convince his brain to shut off for a bit and just leave him alone.)

So he scurries down the steps to his apartment, hitting the pavement with soft, wet slaps of his feet, cold air prickling against his cheeks and calves. Within a few strides, he's hit a rhythm, leg muscles stretching warm and tight. One street later and he starts thinking instead only running.

And as it has done for the entire night before, his mind turns to Zexion.

With the rasp and grind of other people sliding by him as he runs, it becomes even more amazing how smooth Zexion was in comparison. Demyx has never met anyone like that before. Even Axel hurts, and Axel is the only person who cares enough to stay with him. Stretching into motion, his strides lengthen, propelling him faster as he rounds a corner, crunching the snow beneath his heels. Every breath he takes is lined with ice, coating the inside of his nostrils. In complete contrast to how he normally reacts to people, he wanted to stay near Zexion, wanted to actually run out after him and make him stay.

Brick blurs past. The echoing sound of him running is a steady rhythm around him, like a heartbeat. He turns familiar corners, nodding slightly to the slices of pain that mean people, smile fixed on his face, easy and believable. Their curiosity and tiredness scratch at him as they wave back. (He tries his best to ignore it. It only works so well, but he doesn't have any better way to get rid of it.)

(He can feel his pulse in his temple, clouding his thoughts.)

He runs faster, legs and hips swinging into the longer steps required. His mind can keep up with it though, and the effort it takes to speed up only protects him for a few minutes. Seeping through the barriers of motion, poisonous and drugging pain digs in. The thorns from yesterday that mysteriously vanished come back in full, digging force. Furious, Demyx pushes himself further, and, as he rounds another corner-

-traction under his heels is gone, and his feet slide on a patch of ice that he hadn't seen. The sudden rush of vertigo is like sound reopening into his world, loud and panicked.

His arm and elbow are caught under him as he lands heavily, skidding a foot on the rough ground. Demyx's breath hisses through his teeth and he swears quietly, unknown words made of consonants and sibilant noises. He winces as he pushes himself up, feeling a sharp pain darting up his wrist. Shifting so he can stand, he slowly flexes and stretches. Nothing seems too badly hurt. Large, dull aches sprout up his back and along his hip, but they are simply ignored. There isn't the bite of a serious injury, and he scrapes his hand along the scratches that are seeping small streams of blood. He centers his weight on his legs. Takes a step.

Demyx loves the way he feels after he runs, loves the way his muscles feel all liquid-loose and flowing, like gravity shifts with every step after he stops running. His legs are trembling and he feels almost like he can't breathe, air huge and not-quite-enough in his lungs as he gasps for oxygen.

And then he's on his knees again, arms shaking and barely holding him up, trying to breathe past the black and iridescent spots on his eyes and ringing in his ears. The world goes dark and every noise echoes back to him, tinny, distorted, distant. Flashes and pulses of people rush towards him. Flinching, the blonde nurse loses the small amount of balance he has, landing on his shoulder and side with a loud, pained exhalation that drives what little air he had left out of his lungs.

"Sh-shit," he wheezes. Everyday life flickers around him, and he can't…can't focus, lost in the halfway space of tiredness/hurry/worry/sadness/joy that swarm him, maul him. Forcefully, he pushes them back, keeping little needles of them embedded in his palms where they sink in, poisoning his blood with their insidious pain. He takes deep, heaving breaths, trying to erase the spots in his sight.

The pavement is rough as he levers himself up. He leans into the wall as he does, brick scraping his shoulder. Demyx's entire body shakes constantly, huge, wracking, painful shivers. Nausea rises within him, and he claps a hand over his mouth, the gesture futile in the face of his body's denial. Just in time, he moves it and-

-he curls in half, arm braced on the wall, mouth open as the remains of the only meal he's stomached in days leave him in a forceful, disgusting torrent of bile. Another wave of lightning-bolt emotion swarms him, and he sobs helplessly, defenseless. It sweeps over him, under him, through him, leaving nothing unscathed. His stomach twists and revolts again. Vainly, he tries to resist, tries to recover, but he's helpless, weak. He can do nothing. He's useless against this; it tears through him like a chainsaw, bloody, messy, no identifiable remains left behind. And now everything is laced in ice and fire and lightning, with no respite to be had.

But slowly, so slowly, it backs off, settling inside him and digging in, spines of barbed wire within his tender mind. Breathing burns. He can still taste the bile in his mouth, and as he straightens, he wipes off his mouth with a shudder of disgust.

His head is pounding, straight darts of pain in his skull.

God, he just wants it to take longer for once. For once, he woke up without a headache. And now it is back. Agonizing and distracting. Demyx clutches his arms closer to his torso, allowing himself one last shiver before he pushes off and starts running back to his apartment, his rhythm stuttering and uneven.

The shakiness doesn't leave him the entire run.

He stumbles back into his apartment, feeling nauseous and unsteady as he leans against the wall beside the door. Fuck. Work is going to be miserable if he keeps feeling like this. But he can't miss any work. Lexaeus will skin him if he does, and the doctor is large enough to make the possibility real.

Fire laces across his skin a bare second before a knock sounds from the door. Demyx flinches, but he staggers upright, opening the door for the person. Immediately, he feels a blast of heat, of worry twined with relief and concern, and a tall man sweeps inside his small apartment, filling the space with his crackling fire of emotions. The man brushes a few loose strands of carmine hair away from his face before leveling his gaze at Demyx.

"Hi, Axel," Demyx says weakly, knowing that he looks like shit and unable to do anything about it.

Axel doesn't reply for a long moment, but eventually he shakes his head, hair whipping around in its ponytail, tension bleeding and snapping off his shoulders. "You look like hell. I thought you said you weren't going to go anywhere."

Demyx winces at a particularly strong flare of hurt, but shakes his head to clear it, trying to focus beyond the pain he feels. (The barbed wire in his mind digs in a little deeper.) "I didn't go anywhere. It's been… a bad morning, okay? I fell down while I was running."

For a brief moment, it doesn't seem like Axel is going to believe him. But he sighs, eyes the scrapes up Demyx's arms and leg, relaxes, his fire cooling to bearable. "Still going in to work?" he asks with the tone of someone who knows he is already beaten.

"I have to," is all Demyx answers.

Axel sighs again as Demyx gets ready, green eyes constantly observing him, making sure he doesn't do anything too strange. The redheaded man looks tired, an invisible weight pressing dark lines into the skin beneath his eyes. "You know," Axel starts wearily, "you could just call in sick for a day."

Laughing softly, Demyx wanders back over with his scrubs in hand, pulling on jeans and tennis shoes as he goes. "What, and ruin it for when I actually need them? Nah. I'll head in. We're short-staffed as it is."

"Just… take care of yourself, okay? You're important too."

Demyx is stopped by the seriousness of Axel's tone, and he looks over at his friend with wide eyes. Axel is staring at him, verdant eyes tired and hopeless. They watch each other carefully, and Demyx can't help but reach out with his mind, closer to the fire, trying to figure it out-

-and the pulsating heat of worry and of heartache catches his mental fingers, singeing the tips. He draws back slowly, fighting to think past his head's persistent pounding.

"I'll…" he finally starts, hesitant. "I have tomorrow and the next day off, alright? Are… can we hang out then? I sorta feel like I haven't actually gotten to see you for a while, and I do need to rest…."

That does the trick. Axel smiles, quick and like lightning, the weariness fading from his frame. "Yeah, Dem. That'll be nice." He starts walking to the door, pulling keys out of his pocket. "C'mon, let's get you to work."

Behind him, Demyx lets out a relieved breath, and he follows his friend down to his car, hopping inside for a ride. They chat quietly for part of the ride, pausing the conversation when Demyx hears a favorite song on the radio and turns up the music loud enough to rattle windows, belting the words of the song out into the cold streets' air.

Axel drops him off laughing.

(Demyx counts this as a good sign. If Axel still feels like laughing at his antics, then he hasn't been too big of a burden on his best friend.)

He walks into the hospital, the heavy press of the overhead fans ruffling his clothes. Nodding to the desk nurses as he hurries past, Demyx dodges interns and patients, making his way to the elevator. He presses the call button, shifts anxiously from foot to foot, can't seem to stop moving. His head aches brightly as the elevator pings its arrival, and he steps inside, only to slump against the wall tiredly, sagging like a wilting flower. Pulses of people scream past him in a blur of movement as he rides upstairs, and Demyx winces away from all of them.

(He has to force himself to leave the confines of the elevator and head for the nurse's room.)

He changes with a ruthless sort of efficiency and grabs his charts and clipboard to begin working. The beginning of his shift is rough and uncomfortable, full of screaming pain and quietly bleeding anxiety, and he hides it all beneath the smooth casing of a smile, taking care of his patients with a gentle touch that belies his internal turmoil, even as the multicolored floor blends towards the white walls beneath his feet.

But Demyx hurries through it. Today is a busy day for the ward, and Lexaeus doesn't tolerate slackers.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, though, he manages to snag a few minutes for himself, pacing along the corridors with restless legs that ache with countless bruises. The cold of the ward seems to be seeping in, crawling and freezing him piece by piece, ever encroaching and ever expanding inside him, too fast to be countered by Demyx's own internal body heat; but none of the cold numbs the pain within him, none of it fades with the icy touch. The cold serves only to make the barbs bite deeper, and they dig tighter inside the tender psyche that lays open and soft-bellied to it.

And he gets to the point where he can't think anymore, where the world is turning into pipe-cleaner-fuzzy colors, and then it's like-

-water makes everything clear, magnifying and warming.

"…Demyx, right?" the quiet voice stops him in his agitated tracks, and his desperation dissipates, soothed like a burn under ice. Demyx turns to his right, finally seeing Zexion in one of the hospital chairs, floors and walls separating into clear and concise beings for the first time all afternoon.

Same place as yesterday, he realizes, blinking slightly at the other man. He is slightly disoriented by the sudden lack of pain between his temples, but he's not complaining at all. Not after the morning he's had. "Ah, yeah, that's me," Demyx finally answers. "What can I do for you, Zexion?"

Briefly, Zexion's eyes flicker to the door to Sora's room, but Demyx can feel the eddy of reluctance that emanates from the pale man. He shifts in the chair awkwardly, stands to face him with the stiffness that comes from sitting too long. "I was wondering…" he trails off. Zexion looks to the side, eyes dark and serious and tired.

"Need to see Sora again?" Demyx asks cheerfully, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. "I can let you in again, if you want."

Gratitude presses against him like a fond cat, there in leaning pressure and then gone. Zexion closes his eyes, taking a shaky breath to steady himself. A few seconds later, he reopens them, nodding slightly to the blonde nurse. "If I'm getting you in trouble…."

(A strange tightness invades Demyx's chest.)

Demyx waves his words off easily, ignoring the unknown feeling. "Not a problem. Just go on inside. I'll stay out here and make sure you two aren't bothered, okay?" He opens the door, smiles at the excited Sora (who is straining upright on the bed) and waits for Zexion to enter.

"That would be most appreciated," Zexion murmurs as he slips inside, a relieved cant to his lips.

The closing click of the door is soft.

Slumping into the chairs outside Sora's room (and ignoring the skittering he feels across his skin, because the chair is warm and Zexion's warmth is still sunk into the fabric of this chair), Demyx blows tendrils of hair out of his face. He is comfortably warm again, feeling seeping back in his fingertips bit by bit, and it's like he forgets sometimes how his own skin works. Feeling is foreign and unnatural after he gets so cold, but he curls up in the chair anyway, huddling close to the small, lingering bit of skin-heat still left.

A flare of some emotion, too painful and indistinct to name, tears through him from some other floor of the hospital, and Demyx bends over himself in the chair, trying desperately to get enough air into his lungs. He's dizzy. So fucking dizzy, the floor is disappearing again. He claws his way out of the sudden whirlwind to attempt to recognize what's going on. It takes him a second, but he gets it, all of a sudden.

Loss. That's what it is, swimming around him and digging inside him, frantic and lonely claws of it. So much loss, and it just…

God, it just hurts.

How does he keep going like this? His blood pounds in his veins, too loud and too bright, fit to burst through his skin. Heat and cold dance merrily across his bones and marrow, and he just wants to scream. It doesn't abate. It will never leave him, and he will be constantly in the throes of this torture, he will die like this, and he can't imagine lasting long, but-

-but he sits up anyway, eyes tightly closed, because people are coming from somewhere and he shouldn't be seen like this. He can't afford to be seen in that much pain. (How can't they notice? It feels like the pain is oozing out of him like sludge, black and opaque and visible, but no one can see it!)

Fingers brush against his shoulder, sending a relieving flood of concern through his entire body.

"You alright?" Zexion asks him, and Demyx wants.

Wants, with a sort of primal hunger that makes his mouth run dry, to reach out and pull him close and keep him as a shield against the world, because that one simple touch has erased all of the loss, all of the guilt, all of everything, and it's too frightening to imagine living without this ease, too alone, too overwhelming, and he's scared of the pain for the first time.

The concern drifts away, distant but still there. Demyx takes his head out of his hands (when had it gotten there?) to see Zexion crouching in front of him, hand hovering between them.

"I'm fine," Demyx croaks out, coughing once to clear his throat. "Fine. I had a rough start, that's all."

Zexion raises an eyebrow, but, unlike Axel, he drops the subject. Instead, he stands, hands on his knees and moving like it hurts, like everything aches, and then he just collapses into the chair beside Demyx, sighing harshly. He drags a hand across his face. Demyx watches as his fingertips catch on the up-sweeps of his cheekbones, in the dark smudges beneath his eyes, the weary lines between his eyebrows. Weariness oozes out of him, sloughing off his shoulders to pool around his feet, dragging and dark.

Cautiously, Demyx inquires, "Are you okay? You seem more tired than I do." He eyes the invisible waves of exhaustion that Zexion emanates, but his gaze always returns to the other man's face, searching the lines and curves of it for... something. He's not quite sure what he's looking for; only that he is looking.

A few long moments of silence later, Zexion answer, his voice heavy with weariness. "It's been a long day. Sora's in the hospital, I have grad school work to do, our parents are still out of town because they haven't managed to book a flight back in yet, I just hate hospitals…" He fists one hand in his hair, tugging the long strands roughly before his hand falls to pinch the bridge of his nose. The gestures set off a rush of strange relaxation and the stress hovering around Zexion fades a little. Demyx blinks.

'Must be stress gestures,' he thinks quietly, eyeing the man next to him again.

"You gonna be okay?"

And Zexion smiles at the soft question, one corner of his mouth twisting upwards in a strained, tired sort of appeasement. "I should be." He rubs his face with his hands before continuing, "It'll get easier once Dad's here, to be honest. Having another person to help keep Sora company, and one that doesn't have to wait for the right person to be here to let him in…" he trails off, sliding a sideways glance at Demyx, who laughs a little.

"True. Oh, hey, I just remembered. I'm not working tomorrow or the day after that. So…."

At his words, Zexion shrugs a little, no sudden waves forming in his emotions. "I'll make sure not to come by tomorrow, then. Or if I do, it'll just be to give the nurses something to give to Sora to keep him occupied."

(Demyx grins at Zexion's nonchalant tone only because he can feel the biting sarcasm underneath it.)

"Oh, I should probably go get his games, shouldn't I?" Zexion checks his watch and stands, brushes himself off. "I'll be back in a bit." He waves and saunters down the hallway, the pool of weariness and drudgery pulling along his feet and dripping off to the sides before dissipating along the corner seams of the floors and walls.

Demyx hoists himself out of the chair and watches Zexion leave, feeling drawn to him, as though he needs to cling like that sorrow to Zexion's heels, only to be brushed off with a few simple words and hand gestures. But he wants to sink inside the pale man's skull, live in the ocean's wealth of emotions secreted there behind cobalt eyes and let it carry him, buoyant and comfortable, for the rest of his life. It's a yearning that pulls at him, thrums through his bones and skin in the rhythm of his heartbeat. But he doesn't move. Just stands there, craving.

Down the hallway, Zexion pauses and half turns around, gaze steady. "Hey, Demyx?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

And he turns back around in a smooth movement with no further elaboration, walking at a measured and relaxed pace. The soft taps of his feet hitting the floor slowly fade to leave Demyx alone in the hallway, staring after him and just letting the rush of gratitude lap around him.

Strange, Demyx thinks to himself.

(He's not even sure what he's referring to. But his headache is gone, and he can breathe easy once more.)

Demyx has no explanations. He only shrugs, grateful, and starts his rounds again, entering the rooms with a soft and friendly smile on his face, routine questions ready at his lips.

Third chapter! Finished!

Beta-d by: Evil-Pixie-Dust! My lurve!

Once more, if you'd like to read a scene that happens later in the story, please, feel free to check out the story "Only Light You See"! It's set later in this story and may (or may not) increase your interest in the eventual plot of this story!

Notes for this chapter… Axel shows up! Tada! I sorta feel bad for him, and you'll (hopefully) see why in a couple of chapters. The poor babe. And Zexion's still there, being all bamf and the like.

Reviews are appreciated, but not required, and all are responded to!