Disclaimer: Dude, if I owned KH, I'd be rolling in the dough and not worrying about gas and food money. Point is, I don't own them, and I am not, in any way, making profit out of this.
Author's Notes: Alright, I'd apologize for not having this out sooner, but about once or twice every two months seems to be my MO right now. Luckily, school ends in another week or so, so I'll be bored and have more time to write! (Plus, we're getting to the interesting parts finally I mean whut)
Dedications: To Evil-Pixie-Dust, because she is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me.
Chapter 8 – Like I Ain't Tried It
Awareness seeps into him miniscule sliver by miniscule sliver. Demyx cracks his eyes open slowly, lids heavy and crusted over with sleep and tears. The light of day is creeping through his open door instead of blaring through the window blinds; he must have slept into the evening. Sitting up, Demyx scrubs at his face blearily, trying to shake off the cottony feeling that clings so heavily to him.
His eyes stay closed as he swings his legs over the bed. Demyx curls in over himself, muscles lax and unresponsive in the late afternoon light. He should….
What should he do? Get up? Go back to sleep? Run? Eat? Go to- no no, no work for a while, and calling Axel might make his friend feel better, but … Demyx swallows roughly, tongue thick in his mouth, and even his breath aches as it rasps out. It wouldn't help him –yesterday is still too fresh in his mind, and he has no wish to end up in the mind of a teenaged girl again. He should wake up, really, the blond thinks as he rests his forehead on his legs, body gone limp.
Not like it matters, he thinks bitterly. I have no real reason to wake up. No work to go to, and I can't even manage a simple fucking picnic with a friend.
But he shakes his head. That's not the point. The point is, he needs rest. He needs his head back on straight. The mind-fuckery, the loss of himself, that needs to stop. That can't happen during shift.
Steeling himself, Demyx slowly slides off the bed, gingerly lowering his weight onto his legs. He anticipates their buckling, staggering towards the wall like a puppet with its strings cut. The plaster is cool under his cheek, and Demyx takes the moment to attempt to ground himself in physical sensation, trying to mute the burgeoning storm of thoughts and feelings that is already threatening the horizon. He looks at the clock. It's only been five minutes since he woke up.
It never takes long.
He shuts down the part of his mind that murmurs, "Zexion could silence it, it didn't hurt for six days, and and and-"
And nothing.
Zexion isn't his to order around, isn't some kind of bizarre good luck charm or some shit like that. He is a person. He is normal, and like all normal people, he shouldn't be subjected to the disjointed mess that is Demyx.
Besides, when it all boils down, it's not like Demyx hasn't survived twenty-four years without him. He doesn't need Zexion just to survive. (Demyx isn't convincing anyone, least of all himself, but mind over matter, mind over emotion, if he keeps saying it, it has to be true, it just has to.)
(Twenty-four years of pressure and six days of freedom is all it takes to drown him again.)
Demyx pushes off the wall, shuffling into the small living room. The sunlight shades everything in gold and orange, sepia toned and tired, long lines of dust motes drifting across the room. Demyx blinks at the clean floor, at the piles of organized chaos – books to go on his shelves, clothes to be washed, miscellaneous that just needs somewhere to go – and he barely remembers how it all happened. He must have been worse yesterday than he thought if he resorted to cleaning.
Even the dishes in the kitchen are clean, he notices as he stumbles in there. He rubs a finger against the white countertops and blinks uncomprehendingly at its newly unstained and cleaned surface. If he cleans this well when he's crazy, maybe he should let it happen more often. The thought causes him to bite back a bark of crazed laughter.
Yes, because mental breakdowns always need to happen again, he thinks hysterically. Hah. I'm such a riot.
And right after that, the amusement fades and Demyx takes a deep breath in. Out. An aching exhaustion settles in. For innumerable moments, Demyx stands there, tired down to the marrow of his bones, sunlight playing across his skin in glowing yellows and oranges, the low buzz of other people pressing in, in, in as it always does. He feels exposed and vulnerable, like anything could just tear into his soft underbelly at any given second, and he'd… be totally powerless to stop it.
Broken glass ground into an already lacerated psyche, why does he even bother sometimes? He could just give up; people have given up for less, no one would blame him.
But that thought fades away within moments as it always does. Demyx can't imagine life without pain, and death has always seemed so unattainable for him. He sighs, lungs heavy. With that, he turns to start clearing up the last bits of detritus left from last night. Socks over here, dirty laundry in the washer, broom to sweep up the bits and pieces of mud and dirt inevitably tracked in from outside.
The silence grates after a while, the ever-present low hum of people wearing heavily on his mind. But, oh hey, there it is; he crouches down next to the old radio nestled in the corner of the living room. Hm. Flipping the switch in the back turns the old, finicky thing on, luckily. He has to hit it a few times to get any sort of sound out of it, rock music flowing weakly from the speakers, but with a few more well-placed (rough and open-palmed, but hey, who's there to notice?) smacks, it sputters fully to life.
Humming along as chords power out, Demyx bops his head and shuffles around the apartment, hips swaying, tossing things to one room or the next. The apartment is slowly but surely pulling itself into a state of cleanliness once again, and he's pleased because really, this is the first time in … Too long. Far too long.
And dancing along is just fun.
He grins as a familiar riff blares through the room. Demyx air-guitars along to the song, belting the lyrics at the top of his lungs and suddenly-
Suddenly, the music isn't quite loud enough. He tries to keep tidying up, but he's restless, he wants silence, movement, he wants, he wants, he doesn't know what he wants. The air is harsh in his lungs, recycled and dry, and his chest is heaving with the effort of breathing. People burst at the edge of his awareness as he stumbles to the wall –a constant grind, like sandpaper and gravel, and god, he just wants it to stop.
Stop, already!
But of course, that's never going to happen. Demyx sighs and thumps his forehead against the wall, eyes unfocused. People are always around, and he can't stand them unless he's in the club, and even then…. Focusing his gaze, Demyx hums, thinks about it again.
The club. He could… he could always try the club. The overload-rewiring of his brain has worked in the past when he gets this bad, no reason it shouldn't work now, right? Right?
Right.
If he keeps saying it, it has to be true, the more he says it, the more real it becomes, if he keeps saying it, it has to be true and that mantra is nearer and dearer than his own heartbeat as Demyx slides off his clothes to change into ones that will draw the attention that he needs.
Please let this work.
Denim slides over his hips, tight and clingy in all the right ways. Demyx shivers, anticipation already laying a heavy fog over his thoughts as he picks through his shirts, eventually settling on one that has rips across the front. (Battle gear, his mind whispers, the only protection he's going to get between him, and even it is meant to be removed.)
(Some warrior.)
Demyx checks himself in the mirror, hands sliding down his sides. ID on him, no money to be found, phone stashed safely on his bed. Just the right amount of skin showing. All set.
If he has to take a deep breath before he leaves the apartment, that's no one's business but his. Just like how the last time didn't work. No one else needs to know. His hands tremble as he locks the door behind him and Demyx bites back a growl, focusing hard on stilling them. Fear. He doesn't need it. The slide and grind of everyone on a daily basis is enough on its own. Waking up to that every day is worse than anything that could ever happen to him otherwise.
He takes a deep breath. In. Out. Demyx can do this. He needs this. He needs this.
Too late to be scared now.
And with that, the skittering, jumpy feeling beneath his skin settles into the sick swirl of want. Demyx turns around and hurries down the stairs, and god, it feels like his limbs are nigh on disconnected from the rest of him. He hits the pavement at a brisk walk, trained on the club to the exclusion of everything else.
The walk to the club passes slowly, energy riding high in Demyx's skin, his breath jittering with anticipation. Heart pounding hard in his throat, he can't wait for the immersion of sound and movement and the sweet, sweet relief of someone else's problems instead of his own, of someone else's mind. Demyx lets out an inpatient whine and jogs forward a few steps in an awkward half-skip. This walk never seemed to be this long before….
Please, just … please let this work.
The familiar line and overhang come into view. With a grin stretching across his face, Demyx hurries forward, for once welcoming the tear and violation of the waiting people, the more distant ache of those in the club. As usual, he barely has to expend any effort to get through the bouncers, a smile here, a touch there, a slight compulsion somewhere else, and he's in.
The club sinks into his skin like stars, sudden bright bursts of feeling and thought and hot air. Demyx closes his eyes to it, inhaling it deep into his lungs, drawing it inside himself as much as possible. Fuck yes.
Fucking yes.
Demyx exhales in a shudder, moving forward with a rolling gait, hips and body gone loose. Now that he's here, he just needs someone to pull. (There are at least three, no, four, sparks of interest that he can sense as he slides onto the dance floor, squirms his way into a bump-and-grind with at least one of them.) Acid drips down his neck, and he shivers from the pain, welcomes it with a gasp that the person behind him takes as an invitation to add his teeth to the already aching skin below his mouth.
The bright spark of contact sends knives through Demyx's body – gorgeous, this one, smells amazing, want want want, hurts so much. The blond swallows back his automatic urge to vomit. First spike is always the worst, and if he can push past it... if he can, it gets amazing, nails and teeth and pleasure and fuck all the pain.
Sliding his hands backwards, Demyx flexes his fingers against the man's hips, tilts his head to the side, breath shuddering out of his lungs.
Ah, there it is, there it is, and Demyx rubs himself like a cat against the man, a smile curling his lips and manic laughter that is drowning in the music throbbing through the club. Perfect, and he delights in it, in the noise and the revelry and –
-please let it-
-it's gone.
Whatever drive he had to continue grinding against this guy's thigh is now completely dissipated, the build-up that leads to the discharge vanishing like it was never there, and Demyx bares his lips in something that can't even be called an apologetic smile. No, not again. He refuses to let it happen again. That's… That's bullshit, he needs this, damn it, he should be able to get it without having him around to….
No, whatever, he just needs another. Demyx smiles enigmatically at the stranger in goodbye and slides away, trying to build up the charge again. Another person would do just as well. Has to do as well. Anyone.
(Anyone other than-
-but no, he wrenches his traitorous mind away from there, seeks a new target.)
The smell of liquor is on his lips the next time he actively registers what he's doing. One leg wrapped around another person's waist, rolling in one long, smooth line against them, promises, pleads, aimless begging pouring from his lips without an end, and Demyx twists his fingers into their hair, mouths along their neck for anything, anything.
It just keeps slipping away from him though, like oil running through his fingers, the slick residue doing nothing to quench his need. A low stream of curses ties into the music. Demyx shifts, pulling his body from the stranger's grasp, smiling enigmatically in their direction as he melds back into the mass of people.
Sliding back through the writhing centrifuge of bodies, he turns his head from side to side, eyes unfocused. There, maybe? She seems – no, already fading out, perhaps this one over here, desperate, desperation is good, but that one flickers out before he gets there.
Someone behind him leans into him, pressing their body along his, an uncomfortable stab of glass and Demyx yanks away, covers his mouth as he hurries to the bathroom because he can't stand this anymore.
It takes everything in his power to not throw up before he exits the crowd; things that had been bearable before are closing in on him now, claustrophobia and anxiety thrumming in his skin. Free of the crush of people, he stumbles into the less-packed area, going on instinct –ha, instinct, that's good, more like habit, only you're used to bringing someone else with you- towards the bathrooms. The people inside clear out when they see his bloodshot eyes, his shambling steps. (A few leer, but he only notices them as a greasy slide-by as he hurries into the nearest stall, choking back the bile.)
Shakily, he kneels, presses his face to the cool porcelain.
Fuck he hates this.
Hates it.
Rowdy laughter filters in past the echo of his breathing as people barge into the bathroom, loud and raucous and they drunkenly stumble into the sinks, gossiping loudly about some girl at the bar, some boy on the floor, and it takes minutes for Demyx to realize that he's unconsciously mouthing their sentences, wheezing out their laughter, their smiles cracking the skin of his mouth. He swallows hard.
-fucking hell, that girl, curves like (wordless), and then there's the… the fuck, what was he-
-yeah yeah, girls, whatever, that guy… that guy, blue eyes, hips that could move like a god, want him want him, but no, no, too dangerous-
-need more to drink-
-ugh, smells like piss in here-
-need more (and he shies away from this one, because the desperation is already too familiar)-
And this time he does vomit, knees down in the bathroom stall when he just wanted to get his head fucked on straight again. Utter bullshit, he thinks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. As he recovers – to the echoes of "Sick, man!" and other self-righteous bullshit (They don't know, can never know)-, the group of asshats filters out of the bathroom, leaving him alone once more. He stands cautiously, wavering on his feet. The nervous, jittery energy still hasn't left him as he exits the stall, and neither has the massive load on his shoulders, and he feels like he can almost see it as he looks into the mirror. Desperate aqua eyes stare back, bloodshot and bright in his pale face.
Demyx licks his lips, grimaces, washes his mouth out. The club resonates with a frenetic sort of energy on the other side of the door and, with a sick sort of twist in his stomach, Demyx realizes… he doesn't really want to go back out there, but his only way out is through the crowd. It's not worth his time to stay here any longer. He's not getting anything out of it. Only more and more wound up, really.
He refuses to let himself think of the lotus. Refuses. It doesn't work, but he refuses anyway on principle. It can't help him now. There is no blue lotus to save him from the tearing depths of razor tipped emotions. Forcing himself to stand and walk out of the bathroom is one of the hardest things he's ever had to do, but…
He has to.
He has to, and he has to remember that (he has to do so many things) like he has to remember so many other things.
Sound assaults him like a hammer to the eyes, slams into his softest parts as he steps through the threshold. Gritting his teeth, Demyx forces his way forward, straightest path possible. Law of triangles and life, straightest path is… the shortest one, right? Right. Somewhere in the planning process, he managed to forget the fact that the straightest path is also the most densely populated, and Demyx finds himself rubbing against people again, moving his body, cat-like, through the spaces between theirs.
Someone grabs him by the elbow, and he wrenches away without a second thought, blindly striking out, because that hurt, that poisonous spike of lust hurt, and he doesn't have to deal with this bullshit. There's some wordless growl before pain, real, physical pain, blossoms across his face and Demyx is knocked to the floor.
He stares vacantly at the clear area of dance floor, suddenly open in the wake of violence, hand cupped to his cheek, and his mind is hissing white noise.
Tender, Demyx thinks, poking the swelling skin almost curiously. He can't remember the last time he was hit. When was the last time…? After a second, sound boils up through his lungs, twisting through his esophagus and he lets out the burst of laughter, ears ringing.
God, he's going insane and he's just sitting on the floor trying to remember when he last got hit. Slowly standing, hands on his knees, Demyx eyes the crowd that has formed a ring around him. Nervousness spikes in the air surrounding them, and Demyx welcomes and pulls it inside him, because they should be scared. They have no fucking clue what the hell he can do to them. How he can twist them and slide through their stupid, open, blaring little minds to blow them out like so many overloaded speakers. They should be scared.
After all, he's scared.
He spits the envy for these people and their normal lives out onto the ground and lets it eat through the dance floor, a bloody glob of vitriolic hatred. The circle shudders and widens. When he takes a step forward, it melts away to let him through, wordless fear pressing in to fill the sudden void.
Shaking with laughter, Demyx staggers past them, listing back and forth as he makes his way to the door. The entire club has gone silent in his wake, even the constant bumping of the beat fading to nothing. It would be eerie, but Demyx isn't hearing the physical noise. The shouting and screaming and acid boiling has only gotten louder.
-holy shit what's this guy's problem-
-why doesn't anyone stop him-
-where's he-
-where'd he come from-
Fear fear confusion drunken laughter –aw sick man what the hell is this-
But no one steps forward to stop him. Everyone just clears a path to let him through, a wide berth of empty space spanned only by the amorphous fires of emotion and thought. As he approaches the exit, sound begins to pick back up again, slow rumbles in the far corners. The bouncers open the doors for him from the outside, wordless. He ignores their staring eyes, the sudden silence from the people in the line who were only moments before laughing and joking and complaining.
The blond nurse stumbles past them, concentrating hard on the pavement, shaking so heavily he can't even see straight, think straight, move damn you. They don't matter. They've never mattered, waiting in line like that's all it takes to get through life.
It's almost no surprise when it starts raining. He raises his face to the clouds, wanting to pull them down around him, thunder out this insanity that is obscuring his every day. Wanting to sleep amongst them and drain with them.
Loosing himself in the earth, in the cracks between the concrete slabs.
The idea is almost enough to halt his steps. But, as always, that insidious little thought whites out and he's left standing, face-up in the rain. With a sigh, Demyx continues walking, bowing into the wind, mind a jumbled mess.
Walking home takes almost no time whatsoever- soaked as he is, cold as he is, lost as he is, demented as he is- even with the sickening upheaval of people and Demyx unlocks the door with shaking hands, the key skittering wildly around the lock before finally sliding home, opening onto…
His empty, cold, dark apartment.
He doesn't know what he expects when the door opens, but whatever it is, he's not getting it.
No wait... –he tilts his head to the side. That's a lie. Demyx knows what he wanted. He wanted calm, like a river stone, immobile and settled and smooth.
He wanted Zexion.
Zexion, there, in his apartment, with all the solace he and that thrice be-damned lotus have to offer, all quiet placidity and warmth, and fuck him, fuck him fuck him. He doesn't need any fucking help. Twenty-four years, and he's made it so far.
He's….
As he leans against the wall, his chest caves with despair, sucking the air from his lungs. He lets out a sob, deep and wrenching and fuck this, fuck him, fuck everything, this was supposed to work damn it. This was supposed to erase the need for Zexion not…. Not make it worse. Demyx gnaws oh his lower lip, the taste of copper and iron flooding his mouth; he swallows, spits, shakes and paces as barbed wire and acid burn him, scar him. He almost welcomes the pain. More of it now can't hurt, can it? A bloody laugh bubbles up, because fuck, now that he's thought it, it is going to get worse. It's only ever going to get worse. (He feels like a chasm is opening up under him and he's standing wild-eyed on the brink of it, listening to the faintest echo of a phonograph in the darkness.)
He's too scared to keep going.
But there's… really nowhere else to go.
I just wanted this to work.
Please.
ZEXION.
He falls onto his bed, hitches the blankets up over his shoulders, over his head. Breathes in; out. The shaking comes slowly, creeping over him until he is a quaking ball heaving out heavy, wet breaths. And then he waits, sobbing quietly into the damp, warm air in front of his mouth. Noise ratchets up in increments. Someone's dialing up the volume on the universe until everything is just screaming, vast noise, endless yelling and screaming, and he's standing at the center of it all, everyone's voices focused straight on him.
Demyx wants to scream with them, at them, anything to just get them to shut up, but instead he just bites his lips bloody, grinds his teeth together until he can feel the ache in the rest of his bones. This is unbearable. Twenty-four years, how has he done this for twenty-four years (though even in his haze, he has to admit that it's almost never this bad, not this fast, god what's happening to him?)
The world is unending agony, and Demyx lays there for uncountable hours, focused only on enduring.
He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he must have because when he opens his eyes again, he's back out in the rain, and everything is dark around him. Flashes of light come from the streetlights and passing cars. There are bricks under his hands, rough, solid, and his palms are supporting him, holding him in place. He breathes in and out and in again, bowing his head slightly, and he starts in surprise when he encounters something.
Warmth against his mouth. Neck, ears, cheeks under his tongue and lips- aha, someone else is here, -solid and calm, confusion but it's almost a gentle eddy- and it really shouldn't surprise him that his imagination has called him up with the same startling clarity it had with the lotus. But hey, it's his dream right? Might as well get what he wants now. Anything to end the pain.
No repercussions for a dream, after all.
And Demyx is muttering a constant desperate stream of "fuck me, fuck me, please, just fuck me" as his hands slide up and down this person's sides, as he rubs himself against them, flickering smoke dark in the corners of his mind.
"Demyx, what-" a chocked gasp from a pale throat (familiar voice, familiar voice) as he rolls his hips, haze clinging to every form he sees. Demyx can't focus, shadows drip from everything, and he cannot see.
"You aren't even looking at me! Demyx!"
Light flashes across his mind, painful and jagged and edged in salt, and there is no escape, never any escape, and it hurts, what did he do to deserve any of this, what did he-
-until a smooth wash of water covers him, soothing the burning in his mind, hides all the jagged and sore edges. Dizzy with relief, Demyx swings his head down, locks eyes with worried cobalt ones. The person's mouth moves, repeating some unheard refrain, but Demyx's gaze doesn't waver. He knows those eyes. There is respite to be had there. He knows that. He feels himself reach for the lotus they conceal, those shining, familiar eyes.
And drowns in them.
And consumes the mind they hide.
Demyx wakes up to sunlight streaming across his face. The world has a strange sort of crystalline clarity, and he rubs his face, trying to remember the day before. His fingers tap against his forehead. Waking up, cleaning, club… but anything after that is all pain. Hell, the entire day is coated in pain and haziness.
Pain and haziness that are now gone.
Gone as though they had never been there and the people surrounding him seem so much quieter today, he realizes, the insight sending a sudden panicky twist through his stomach. That… that doesn't happen. Not without sex, or a day sitting alone, screaming it all out while it burns through him.
He stares at his hands, lowering them slowly to his lap. "Oh no," he thinks, feeling sick. "What have I done?"
Closing his eyes, Demyx takes a deep breath. In. Out. What does he remember?
Warmth, light. The comfort of a river-smooth stone, and water rushing over his wounds. The entire length and span of Zexion's life pouring through him, the sigil lotus being torn open to soothe his aching psyche, and Zexion's eyes, wide and uncomprehending and terrified. Demyx swallows heavily.
"What have I done?" he whispers.
The silence around him does not answer, and the first slide-drop of tears seems so loud in the emptiness.
"What have I done?"
.end chapter 8.
*slinks off*
Beta-d by: Evil-Pixie-Dust!
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! (and yes this will show up on every chapter until we get to that chapter, at which point I will wildly pimp it out, and then you'll be free of this.)
Notes for this chapter are... Well. Yeah. That just happened. But are you ready for the aftermath?
Reviews are appreciated, but not required, and all are responded to!