[Halloween Fics] - FIVE
“One and two… Joke’s on you. One, two, three… joke’s on me. One and two, three and four… I’m not playing anymore… Aww poor fishie.”
Demyx stopped and crouched down in the sand to poke at the dead fish that had washed up on the shore. He hated finding dead things, even though he thought they were interesting. He wondered what had killed the fish… or maybe it had just died.
“Poor fish… I guess I’ll take you back and give you a proper burial. That seems like the nicest thing to do.”
Apparently not caring about the smell of dead fish, Demyx picked it up and placed it in the pocket of his coat. He already kept all sorts of random objects in there. A few random Munny balls, a little toy flute, a few playing cards, a bottle of mystery goo, a set of jacks, various shards, gems and crystals, an old bandana, a bracelet that he had found on the ground, various crumpled up pieces of paper (mostly to-do lists and note cards from Xemnas) and now a dead fish.
“Yeah, we’ll bury you when we get home… The others would say that there’s no place to bury you ‘cause the entire world’s covered by concrete, but I know better. There’re flowers blooming in the old church, so I know there’s dirt somewhere.”
Pleased with his decision, Demyx continued to walk down the beach, humming to himself as he did so. After a few minutes, he pulled the fish out of his pocket and ran his fingers across the scales. They shimmered in the misty light so that it was like holding a slick rainbow in his hands. Scales dug into his fingers, but Demyx didn’t care too much.
“…Why’d you die?” He asked the fish suddenly. “Why didn’t you live longer? I would have taken you home and kept you in a bowl and you would have been okay… I wouldn’t even have let Xigbar or Larxene get you.” His voice got harsher and harsher and he dug his fingers into the dead flesh. His face grew dark. “You stupid fish. You’re better off dead anyways!”
For a moment, Demyx seemed like he was going to hurl it down to the sand again, but he stopped and hugged it to his chest again.
“…I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. It isn’t your fault that you died,” he said to the fish sympathetically. “I’ll get Saix to say some words for you and stuff, okay? He’s good at stuff like that.”
He hugged the fish to his chest for a moment, then placed it carefully back in his pocket. The poor fishie was already dead - it certainly didn’t need to get yelled at on top of that. It had enough problems.
Demyx continued to walk down the beach, humming to himself and occasionally reaching into his pocket to feel his new friend. He walked without interruption until he came upon another unusual object on the beach.
The body was that of a young boy, a handsome young boy with golden blonde hair and cold, grey skin. His eyes were wide open and staring, but they were a beautiful blue color. Demyx crouched down beside the body and touched first the wet cheek, then the surface of the unmoving eye.
“Oh… you’re dead too.” Demyx was disappointed. It would have been nice for someone to hang out with who didn’t either ignore him completely or antagonize him without pause. “I guess you drowned… Why were you in the water if you knew you would drown?”
A sudden spark of an idea illuminated Demyx’s face. He was taking the fish home to take care of it, so why not the boy too? Dead people couldn’t be mean to you, after all, and the boy was kind of pretty. His eyes sparkled like the fish’s scales and his skin was soft, even though it was waterlogged and grey. He was smiling as he gathered the boy up in his arms and rested his cheek against the soft, wet hair.
“If you’re going to be my new friend, you need a name… I can’t just say “Hey you” all the time.” Demyx spoke dreamily. “Oh, Tidus? That makes sense. You came in with the tide, after all.”
~
Tidus was relatively easy to sneak back into Memory’s Skyscraper. The sight of Demyx carrying in a body wasn’t as expected as Xigbar or Vexen, but at least nobody gave him too many strange looks. He was often sent on errands for the others that included bringing them odd things, so it wasn’t too unusual.
He placed Tidus in his chamber and arranged him on a cushion on the floor. He kept falling over, but Demyx finally propped him up against the wall and made him look quite natural.
“If anyone comes in and asks, I’m preparing you to be a Dancer, okay?” Demyx grabbed his sitar and began to strum the strings. Water appeared out of thin air and trickled down Tidus’ body, rinsing off all the sand and salt and grit from his body. Once he was clean, Demyx grabbed a towel and a spare coat and began to dry him off.
“You’re shorter than I am, but this should fit you. You’re lucky I have so many spare coats, but I end up ripping them or burning them or losing them so often that Xemnas gives me lots of spares. He’s actually pretty nice to me, not like the others. But don’t worry - I won’t let them be mean to you even if they try to be. They’re really not all that bad.”
Demyx began to word Tidus into the jacket and found himself caressing Tidus’ grey skin as he did so. He ran his fingertips along Tidus’ collarbone and throat, then lightly across his ribs, as though Tidus was an instrument that he wanted to play. The dead fish in his pocket was forgotten along with the rest of the world as he closed his eyes and pressed his face into Tidus’ hair.
“I love you,” Demyx murmured throatily. He made Tidus turn to face him and pressed his lips to Tidus’ slack blue ones. They tasted of sea-salt. “Mmmm… Do you love me too?” He pushed the dead boy back onto the cushion and leaned over him, kissing him deeply and caressing the cold skin. “Yeah… of course you do…”
“Demyx?” Saix walked into the room, intending to send the Nocturne out on a mission for the superior, but the scene before him made him stop in his tracks. Demyx was kissing a boy. And the boy was dead. “…Demyx, what are you doing?”
“I-I was just… being with my friend Tidus.” Demyx put Tidus down and got to his feet, feeling guilty. “I know that Xemnas told me a thousand times not to bring people back to the castle but he’s really nice and he promised that he wouldn’t get in the way and -”
“The boy is dead.”
“…Dead?” Demyx looked down at Tidus, lying limply on the floor. He clenched his fists and set his jaw. “No he’s not! Why would you say something like that?!”
“Demyx, he’s dead. He’s not moving.”
“He was a minute ago! You’re just trying to take him away!”
A wall of water suddenly appeared behind Demyx, sweeping up everything in the room and hurling it at Saix. But Saix was not to be intimidated. He held up a hand, which flashed silver. The wave broke around Saix and dispersed almost immediately.
“If you calm down, then I’ll take you on a special mission to Atlantica. But only if you calm down.” The berserker gazed calmly at Demyx.
“Atlantica? I love Atlantica.” Demyx’ demeanor changed instantly and he bounded over to Saix. “Can we go now? What did Xemnas want?”
“He wanted us to pick up something special. And yes, we’re going right now. Hurry up.”
“I’m coming!” Demyx dashed out the door.
Saix moved to follow him, then paused and turned back to glance at the remains of the room. The dead boy’s body was lying discarded on the floor, broken and forgotten. Saix gazed at it for a moment, then turned and followed Demyx out of the room.
~