Transcending Lives by Juukai
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, just the order the words are placed in and the idea behind them.
Kingdom Hearts 2 Oneshot, possible SPOILERS for you nosy peoples reading fanfics before you finish the game. Character death and it deals with what happens after the deaths.
Pairing: XigDem. During and after the KH2 storyline. Also some MarluLarx, mention of AkuRoku, and XaldinxPaine. Enjoy.
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His chest hurt. There was enough pain there to make his eyes water, and his hand clench in the fabric covering it, as if that would help.
"Hey, water boy! What'cha doing down here? Superior will shit a brick if he sees you roaming around. Might want to head for the hills. He's not so happy right now."
Number II. Xigbar. The man who'd sat up with him for hours listening to him play his sitar. The man who was never afraid to tell him whether or not his music was good, brashly giving his opinion on anything and everything.
"How the hell do you manage to write something so sappy 'without having a heart', IX?" A chuckle, a ruffling of dirty blonde hair.
Injured and frail looking, he stared ahead at the brunette keyblade wielder that had struck him down. One eye was closed and stinging due to the dark and lazily oozing Nobody blood that had gotten into it from a wound right above his eyebrow. He had to keep it together, he had to see II.
"You okay, kiddo? Those weren't no small Heartless you were sent to take out this time. Don't know what Superior Sexman was thinking sendin' a little brat like you down to do some job me or Xaldin should have taken…"
Demyx had tried so hard to train and get stronger after that time. He didn't want Xigbar's pitty. He wanted something else from number II, though he couldn't exactly
identify what that was… Maybe something like what XIII and the Nobody of the boy before him had once had. The Dancer Nobodies had been born then, soulless husks that had felt IX's playing and had animated themselves into a new breed of Nobody just to obey the whim of the music of his that washed through them whether or not he was actually playing at the time.
"These buggers yers, little dude?" Xigbar asked from the ceiling, dropping a Dancer almost right on Demyx's head. "I was comin' over to visit before my new mission, and a whole bunch of 'em slunk up behind me in the hall."
Demyx felt a little heat in his cheeks, and ducked his head. "Sorry. I know they weren't strong enough to hurt you, so I hope they didn't annoy you…"
He heard a snort from the roof, and he looked up in time to see Xigbar gracefully and slowly flip and use his control of space to make himself land perfectly on his feet with not a hair out of place. "These guys put up a good fight, little water dude. They're not weak or nothing. Yer trainin's paying off, I think."
Demyx had felt so happy after that day. He didn't stop his training. Water control came so easily to him he could do it just as easily as he breathed. He and vexen were testing to see if their powers could cross over one another and Vexen said that the results were very interesting, and he was demanding to do more tests in the form of their little control sessions. He was learning that he could use his power over water to heal the body, calling the water that made up most of a being to do his bidding in the form of mending injuries.
This power came in handy later, not like it was now. Then he had been able to help Xigbar when he came back battered and bleeding everywhere. He was nearly unconscious, and Demyx had been able to slowly piece him back together, and now he couldn't even manage to mend minor injuries.
Xigbar had used the tunnels of the darkness to get back to the castle in the fastest time. Xaldin found him first, staining the white halls red with the thick blood Nobodies possessed. There were long and deep gashes all throughout his body, and one eye was bleeding profusely and he wouldn't open it to let anyone get a good look. Xemnas was otherwise preoccupied, as he immediately noticed that II had come back alone, when he had sent out Xigbar and Sïax as a team.
Demyx was called immediately to help him. They eye was beyond help, Demyx told them when he was done with the initial inspection using the flow of Xigbar's blood, since II still wasn't letting anyone look at it. He did stop the bleeding, though. He told
everyone that it would take a while for him to get it completely healed, so he would move on for now. There were nasty wounds all over the body, and he didn't have the stamina to heal them all at once. After Demyx got the one on his cheek mostly fixed, Xigbar could talk again without being in too much pain, and so he explained what had happened.
Something had gone on during the mission, not even he was sure what, and Sïax had gone into his berserker mode to handle it. That was when things took a turn for the worse. Whatever world they were in, it messed with his berserker form. He wasn't able to control it, it seemed. He went wild and started attacking everything and everyone, II included. Xigbar had managed to keep from getting killed, and had only taken this much damage from the fight that ensued. As soon as the major wounds were healed, Xigbar told Demyx where he and the Superior could find Sïax, knowing mysteriously where he had used a portal to get back and lick his own wounds. Xigbar told him take one of his Dancers with him, at least, since there was the chance that Sïax would still be a bit feral, and to save energy until then, because he had managed to score the berserker on the face twice as well, both times between his eyes with skimming bullets. Demyx did a poor job of healing Sïax on purpose, as another sort of punishment for what he had done to number II, and so that Superior had just thought him weak. Both parties ended up with nasty scars, and both wore them proudly, even though they couldn't stand to be in any room but the one room the Superior mandated the whole organization to constantly meet together in.
Demyx tried to use the puddles that were once his water clones to give him a strength boost so he could heal himself, or shoot pillars again at the keyblade wielder, but he could only manage his exploding bubbles as he backed out of range. He tried pulling from the rivers buried deep under the earth the power he needed to win this fight and send him back to the castle. There was little there, and he took it all in a refreshing burst that had him smirking and his fingers working fast over the strings of his sitar. Engrossed in playing, he started when a finger taped him on the shoulder, and he struck Sora back, almost against the wall. His enemy managed to right himself just before a painful landing, and Demyx pulled the water from the ground, executing a wall of water that forced Sora back further to remain safe while he continued to play, praying his Dancers would come to his aide. He knew that this fight was wanning, and that he was not going to come out the victor.
No other Nobodies appeared, and so Demyx kept his pillars shooting at the brunette keyblader until he could manage no more. He skidded back out of range as the last of his strength left him panting and helpless save for the giant sitar. He ground his
teeth, waiting for the end to come. And as Sora attacked, and he tried his best to defend with nothing left, his thoughts kept going to Xigbar. The grinning devil with the weird accent.
"You okay, little dude? You look pale." One hand reached down from the ceiling, mussing an already messy Mohawk.
For once, Demyx didn't care that his precious hair was getting messed up, he simply stared ahead out the window of his room to Kingdom Hearts. His knees were tucked up to his chin, and his arms were wrapped loosely around them, and somehow the position helped him cope with the helpless feeling he had, even though feelings were supposed to be beyond him. "Xemnas gave me a mission."
"A mission? Now?" Xigbar snorted, and Demyx felt the bed shift slightly behind him and to his right. "That's weird. What with the whole Sora-Roxas clusterfuck goin' on, I thought he'd stopped handin' out missions."
Demyx shook his head, eyes still on the pale heart up in the sky, illuminating even his darkened room with its soft light. "He sent me to destroy the Keyblade Master."
Demyx could almost hear Xigbar bristle next to him. "What?! How the hell can he expect ya to do that? He even beat Xaldin and Marluxia! No offense, kid, but compared to them…"
He shook his head again, giving a slight shrug of his shoulders even as Xigbar laid a hand on one. "I know that I'm not as powerful as they were. I know that I'm not going to get my heart back, 'cause Roxas, Sora, the both of them are going to kill me." He said it so calmly, but he if thought he could have cried, he would have been. He didn't want to go and do this. He wasn't supposed to have emotions, but he was scared out of his wits, and he wanted to curl against Xigbar's chest and not move until Sora found a way to the castle, because they all knew he would, and had killed Xemnas himself.
A sharp intake of breath was his only response. Then the other weight on his bed was gone, and he finally looked up to his scarred friend, his chest giving an uncomfortable but pleasing squeeze when he saw the expression of rage, an echo Xemnas would have called it, on the space-controller's face. "No. Let me talk to him, I'm not gonna let him do this to you just 'cause he wants to test that damn boy."
When Xigbar turned to leave, to call a portal and disappear for the last time Demyx knew he would see him before his losing battle, he grabbed the hem of one sleeve. "Xigbar, it's okay. I mean, we're Nobodies, right? We don't have emotions, and we don't have hearts. We don't even have existences. That's all that Xemnas is going to
say… You'll just be volunteering yourself to go up on the chopping block next!" He looked down at the floor, which was littered with the broken strings of his sitar that had long ago been discarded and other such odds and ends. "I don't want you to get in trouble and pitted against Sora because of me."
Xigbar stared at him for a moment, Demyx could feel it in the silence, and the pulling against the fabric the water element held ceased, so he let go. And then there were hands on his shoulders, fingers gripping into him tightly, and shaking him hard enough to cause him to utter a small cry as much as from pain then from surprise. His eyes darted up to stare into Xigbar's one golden and angry one. "Don't you tell me you believe what he has to say. We do so have hearts, Demyx! We have feelings! Don't you deny it, little dude, because otherwise you wouldn't care that you had this mission, and you wouldn't care that I would get in trouble for defending you!" He seemed to pause and consider his own words for a moment. "Axel and Roxas had something, ya know. You could tell we have hearts just by watchin' them. Why would VIII be chasing that brat around if we didn't? And he's pinning like a lost puppy now without XIII, which wouldn't happen if we didn't have hearts."
Demyx couldn't say anything to that. He knew that the older of them had a point, but after having it reemed into him that such a thing was impossible by Xemnas, he couldn't just automatically accept it, even if he had thought the same thing once or twice himself. He was too scared of Xemnas to even think about it for more than a few minutes at a time. "Xigbar…" He didn't know what he wanted to say, but he knew he had to say something.
He saw Xigbar's head dip, but at the time he didn't understand what II meant to do, and so he kept still, curiosity and caution for the whole situation keeping him rooted. Aquamarine eyes opened wider than before in shock when a pair of lips settled firmly over his own. Demyx was pretty sure he squeaked embarrassingly, and it gave Xigbar the leverage he needed as he pushed his tongue past already open lips. He was almost certain that was how the kiss, his one and only of his not-life, came about. Gloved fingers were raking through the hair on the back of his head, drawing him in closer to the kiss far in advance to him relaxing and moving with it, enjoying it even. Just as he own hands were beginning to clutch almost desperately to Xigbar's collar, the other Nobody pulled away, reaching up and untangling Demyx's hold on his jacket.
"Don't you dare leave before I get back, water dude," Xigbar's voice was a little breathy, but Demyx didn't fault him; he was breathing a bit heavy too. "I'm gonna go talk to Superior Jackass about getting' someone else to do your mission. If ever there was a point in time where my being II was ever gonna pay off, it'd be now." A portal of
darkness different to the ones the other Nobodies used, the one that could only ever be Xigbar's, opened and made the fine hairs on the back of Demyx's neck stick up. With a parting "Stay put, sitar man," Xigbar disappeared, the darkness evaporating and mingling with the shadows already drenching room number nine.
Demyx waited. He tried helping time pass by tuning his sitar, and by making sure none of the strings needed replacing. He rooted up some of his Dancers to keep him entertained, though he used only enough energy as was needed to get the Nobodies to appear so that he could save it all for his battle. Just in case Xigbar failed. But as time droned on, closer and closer to when he was supposed to go searching and fighting a Keyblade wielder, he fidgeted more. As the seconds ticked by and he was running late, he kept jumping at nothing, thinking maybe the Superior was checking to make sure he was gone. Maybe he'd sent Xigbar ahead of him to die first for questioning his decisions. And the more time went by, seconds seeming hours, the more he paced his room, praying that II was safe and that neither of them would face Sora.
And when the worst of his paranoia got the better of him, he called forth a portal of darkness himself. And just as another opened, he darted through his own, fearing reprimand from Xemnas. His none-heart stopped when he heard Xigbar's voice, muffled and cut off by the portal, try to call after him. 'They're sending the wrong guy… I want to live! I want to see Xigbar,' he thought as he stepped out of the other side. Out into the bright sun. Out to face his last opponent.
His body was almost numb now, but he could still feel every impact of the keyblade. Each one made him wince, even if he was no longer jerking away from the blows. And finally with uttered words he didn't know he was saying, let alone understood, he backed away from Sora. Something in his eyes, his posture, the way his broken body didn't want to listen to him kept the brunette from following him. Instead he just stared. The sitar disappeared from Demyx's grasp, and he stared down at his empty hand.
A thousand thoughts crashed through his hazy mind: so this was what it was like to die a second time, Xigbar's voice, the angry yet smug look on Sora's face, Xigbar's gloved touch, the annoying duck and dog that followed the keyblade master who were now approaching them, the kiss that had been surprising but all too short, the feeling of his utter being beginning to slip away into nothingness and the surprising pain that accompanied the feeling. He hoped that there would be something waiting for him on the other side, and that he wouldn't just cease to exist because he was a Nobody. Maybe he'd get to start out life again as a whole person. Or maybe he could just wait it
out until he got to see the few friends he had again in the afterlife, like Xigbar and Axel and Roxas.
"No! No way!" He couldn't help screaming the words as he grabbed his head, falling to his knees seconds after. He felt everything slipping away, and while his head was down he chanced a glance up at Sora. There was no remorse on his face. Roxas was gone in him. With a painful sigh of defeat, he didn't try to fight to keep each molecule from slipping away. His hands were on the ground at his sides, now, and he stared at them, wishing that he had listened to Xigbar and would have been brave, for once. He wished he had waited, and that he had gotten to see him again. But at least the last thing he did before he fought to his inevitable death was kiss that scarred Nobody. He would have loved it if there had been more to it than that, now that he looked back on the situation, but he would take it as his last memory before evaporating into nothing. A white hot pain in his temple told him that a portal to the darkness he was becoming opened a good distance away, and he smiled sadly even as his body was completing its transition into something beyond form; the portal had the unique "taste" of Xigbar to it.
And then there was nothing. A gray expanse of nothing, actually. It went on and on, and he was alone. But the pain was gone. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Demyx knew that he was dead and gone. All of his wounds were healed, after all, and there were no Nobodies, and no Heartless. He couldn't feel just dark and light, he could feel all the different shades of the grey he was surrounded in. He couldn't tell if he had a heart or not, but he didn't really care.
For days it seemed, he sat waiting. For what, he didn't know. He couldn't remember. His memory was slipping away, just like his body had. After what he had thought was a few days, though there was no way of judging since there was no sun or moon, just grey, he couldn't remember much of anything at all. He didn't know where he was, or what he was anymore. He knew he was Demyx, and that he liked water, but he couldn't remember anything else. There was no landscape, just flat dullness, and so he sat on the floor, knees curled to his chin as he knew he once had before. He could sense the familiarity in the motion. He stared out at the emptiness challengingly and yet with a blank expression, daring for something to change. For the longest time he sat that way, growing more and more into a mindless being just sitting and waiting, and he had to keep repeating his name to himself like a mantra, because he had almost forgotten it, and he didn't want that. He liked knowing who he was, at least.
And soon he even stopped saying it aloud, every once and a while repeating it to himself mentally. He was about ready to give in to the boredom and the exhaustion that the place was seeping into his bones. His eyes were just slipping shut when he felt something touching his hair. Five little somethings moving through his hair, really. His spine stiffened, and he whipped around to see what it was, afraid of something bad awaiting him, though not really knowing what he feared he would see. He didn't expect to see someone with graying black hair tied in a ponytail grinning down at him. Someone with a scar on his cheek and an eye patch. Nostalgia hit him strong in the gut, but he didn't understand it.
"You need to follow instructions better, little dude," the man said, holding his hand out for him to take. "I told ya to wait, but I meant back at the castle, not here, ya dope."
"Castle?" Demyx looked at the hand for a moment, then back up into the one shinning golden eye warily, unmoving.
"Yeah. Castle Oblivion." A strange gleam entered the tan male's eye. "Ringing any bells?"
Demyx slowly shook his head. "I've always been here," he answered. To the extent of what he knew, he had, anyway.
"I saw you there not two days ago, little dude." His tone brooked no argument, and Demyx kept his mouth shut.
He didn't think he'd do too well against this man should he unintentionally start a fight. Did he even know how to fight?
The man knelt down, staring straight at Demyx. "What's my name?"
Blue-green eyes stared back strangely. "How would I know? I just met you."
An angry hiss left the other man's mouth, and there were hands on his shoulders- fingers gripping into him tightly, and shaking him hard enough to cause him to utter a small cry as much as from pain then from surprise. Something in his head hurt, and he shook it softly. What had that been? A memory like his name? He glanced back up into the stranger's eye. "You didn't 'just meet' me!" He was glaring aggressively, and Demyx was startled by the strength of his reaction. "You know me, water dude. Tell me what my name is!"
Another flash of memory hit Demyx, and he groaned. "Don't you dare leave before I get back, water dude."
"I don't know your name," Demyx muttered weakly, wincing as the hands on his shoulders shook him again.
"Damn it, Demyx, what is my name?!" His eyes weren't open, and so he didn't see the expression of pain on the other man's face as he said this.
"Hey, Demyx!" "Yo, don't pick on the sitar dude. Demyx is cool." "Thanks for the patch up, Demyx." "Well if it ain't Demyx the water sprite…" They flood of nicknames swarmed him, all of them in this man's voice. All of them accompanied with images of either him, swirling water that was completely at his disposal, or a strange looking instrument… but mostly they were all him. "Welcome to the organization, number IX! Demyx, was it?" "Don't listen to everything Xemnas says, Demyx. Things don't live without hearts." "We do so have hearts, Demyx!" This man… This man was something important to him. Someone he didn't want to die without seeing. 'They're sending the wrong guy… I want to live! I want to see Xigbar!' A heavy breath, "Xigbar."
The recovery of that name sent a shockwave through him, and Demyx rocketed out of the hold Xigbar had on him. He hauled his body lithely under those hands and into the other's chest. His arms wrapped tightly around the other's neck, and he pressed forward until lips met lips. Small tears were bunching in the corners of his eyes. He had come so close, so close to forgetting Xigbar, the most important piece to him. He had forgotten Xigbar.
Xigbar tensed under his hold, and it brought up the dim memory of when he had sat surprised under such an onslaught. Just as he was going to pull back, fearing that II's anger ran deeper than any kiss could heal, he again felt a hand smooth through his hair to hold the back of his skull. Tentatively, Demyx brushed his tongue against the seam of Xigbar's lips. And with that simple motion, he was suddenly out of control, at the mercies of Xigbar. Their tongues met, and clashed, but Xigbar immediately gained control. Demyx was the one who finally broke the kiss, breathing heatedly against the scarred man's check before he regained composure.
"Xigbar," he muttered, tightening his arms around the other man.
Xigbar smiled, giving Demyx a softer, briefer kiss, slipping his free arm around the dirty blonde's slim waist. "That's more like it, little dude."
"I'm so sorry," Demyx said barely above a whisper, rushing to apologize. "It's this place… It sucks out your memories… I almost didn't even remember my name anymore."
Xigbar merely stared at him for a minute, but his smile returned eventually. "As long as you remember me now, I can't say that I care."
Demyx grinned widely in response, his heart fluttering at the easy forgiving nature. But that little flutter had his eyes opening wide in shock, and he pressed his hand to his chest between their bodies. Xigbar gave him a worried look, instantly concerned. For a second Demyx ignored him as he waited to feel something, hardly daring to hope, and then he laughed softly, but almost crazily. "My heart beat… I have a heart beat." He looked up excitedly, grabbing one of Xigbar's hands to press it to the pumping organ under his ribs.
"See that, Kiddo… I told you we had hearts," Xigbar touched their foreheads together, and Demyx smiled sweetly at him, nuzzling into the touch. His fingers sought to find the space element's chest, and his own beating heart.
Through his haze of happiness he was vaguely aware that they were slipping away. Kind of like when he come here after Sora had defeated him, only this time there was no pain. There was warmth, and he was with Xigbar. He knew they were moving on, to something greater than the existence they had before. "You better find me in the next life, Xigbar. Or I won't ever forgive you," he whispered, trying to sound serious through his smile.
"Scouts honor, sitar man." Lips touched his briefly, and a nose rubbed against his. "I ain't lettin' you get away from me so easily."
Demyx wasn't sure who started the bone crushing hug first, but it was the last thing he felt before there was black.
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A long period of unknowing happened, eventually he was away of being in a confined space, a rhythmic beat his only company save for small muffled sounds or unexplainable and sometimes frightening vibrations. He grew in there, but his memories were slipping away again, and every time he discovered a whole in his
memory, he became distressed, shifting in his warm and dark prison, sometimes even kicking at the walls that seemed to partially give way to his feet. This time he made sure to hold onto at least one memory of his beloved, not even caring anymore if he forgot his name. He refused to forget again the smile of the man who he belonged to.
And one day he was done with waiting in his confines. He struggled, and he could feel that he was moving, slowly but surely. He was in an even tighter space for a little while, but he struggled even beyond that. Muffled noises grew more frequent and a little louder, and so he figured he was getting closer to breaking free. Finally there was a rush of sound, blinding bright lights, and the strange faces of people he couldn't even begin to recognize. Immediately he did what felt right, what he had never been allowed to do before; he cried. Piercing wails that filled the room and reverberated back into his own ears, making him cry even louder. Strange things wiped at his skin, and there were people staring down at him. He was still crying when he was finally passed off to someone new, someone who was looking tenderly at him. The expression was comforting, and he hiccupped briefly to stop his crying. This person, this female, laughed soft and slow and tired. She tucked him somewhere, and when he opened his mouth to cry again, there was something obstructing his attempts. It was food. He fed, and he slowly drifted to sleep, hearing only the words, "he has your eyes, Larxene," not that he understood their meaning, before he fell asleep.
He woke a few times, sniffling with cold and hunger until he started crying loudly when he didn't get the attention he wanted. A man, he knew since he could still remember genders, with long hair a strange shade of-dare he try to call it pink?- picked him up and started rocking him gently back to sleep the first time he woke up, and when he insistently cried from hunger the second time, he took him back to the yellow haired woman with food. He ate greedily, not stopping until his stomach felt full enough to burst. It made him shift uncomfortably, and then he was braced against something strong, and something was lightly thumping his back in a sluggish rhythm. He curled his tiny fist into short yellow hair, waiting for the feeling in his belly to subside. The soft hits were putting him to sleep again, reminding him of the beats he would hear in the dark. Before he drifted off, he remembered a smiling face with a scar and love, but he couldn't remember the eyes, or the name. Just the feeling and the smile, the scar in that view as well.
When next he awoke, it was to hushed voices.
"He only woke up twice last night, I was expecting the first night to be a lot worse," he recognized that voice from the gentle cooings that he would hear while he was eating. It was the blonde woman. She called herself Mommy, he thought.
"And the first time he went right back to sleep," that was the not-Mommy. Mommy called him Daddy when she wanted him to look at Demyx.
"Just wait until you get him home," now that voice he didn't recognize at all. It almost sounded like Mommy's, but it was a little deeper like Daddy's. "Xigbar was always good at the hospital, but as soon as we got him home we couldn't shut him up."
Now an even deeper voice spoke, "he hasn't behaved since then. He's almost as bad as Axel, I hear."
Demyx slowly opened his eyes, wriggling uncomfortably. Something wasn't right with the strange things that put on him. The bottoms were wet. He whimpered softly, sticking a two fingers in his mouth as tears started to bunch in the corners of his eyes. He whimpered again, preparing to fall into full crying mode when two faces peering over the sides of his little space scared him into being quiet. It wasn't Mommy or Daddy peeping in at him, but two completely strange people. They were smaller than Mommy and Daddy, though. One was a big grin on his face, and there were black spaces where teeth like Mommy and Daddy's should have been. He had big green eyes and a shock of red hair spilling down over his shoulders. To the other side there was a boy with something on his cheek that Demyx would later learn was called a bandaid. He had gold eyes and black hair that was smoothed back in a much more relaxed style than the red haired one. Something tickled in the back of his mind while he looked up at the curious gold eyed one.
The one with the missing teeth and red hair suddenly disappeared from his line of vision, and Demyx was left to stare at the remaining one, still sucking away on his two fingers. "Hey Pops, he's up!" And then Daddy was there, picking him up and rocking him, cuddling him against a strong chest when he started to cry softly even though he was getting most of the attention he sought. He was hungry, but he knew that he could wait if they wouldn't give him to Mommy right away. He buried his little fingers in the Daddy's shirt, crying a little louder as his wet bottom got more and more uncomfortable.
"Smells like someone needs a diaper change," he could feel the Daddy's voice through his hold on his chest, and the strangeness of it calmed him a little. It was kind of like before, when he was always warm and comfortable, and he was never hungry or
had to deal with people staring at him. He was set down somewhere, and while the Daddy set to work getting rid of the wet feeling the two faces were looking at him from right above his head again. The green-eyed one was closer, and his red hair was dangling within reach. Curious, Demyx reached up to investigate it.
"Axel, be careful, he'll pull your-" the Daddy tried to warn, but it was too late. Demyx had his little fist curled in his hair, and he pulled, trying to bring it closer to his face to inspect. Maybe it was food of some kind…
The red hair was pulled out of his grasp with a small shout of pain, and the sudden jerk made Demyx cry again, more from surprise than pain or fear on his part. Daddy picked him up again, rocking him so that he could still see the red haired boy even as he was glaring at Demyx.
"Don't be mad at him, Axel, you know babies pull hair," the Daddy said when Axel said something mean he didn't understand. He was bumped suddenly, and he looked up into the blue eyes of Daddy. "That's your brother Axel, Demyx. You don't want to hurt him." He was brought closer to the moving mouth, and something was whispered softly to him. "He's going to be as much a bother to you as he is to Mommy and Daddy, so don't go getting on his bad side too early, baby."
Then he was passed off to a stranger. He was big and scary, and Demyx put his fingers in his mouth again, staring fearfully at the big blue eyes of the not-Daddy that had black hair that was everywhere.
"You're scaring him, Xaldin," someone else sad, and then he was changing hands again. A woman with lighter hair, but still a shade of dark Demyx didn't know what to think of, was holding him. Her hair stuck up strangely, just like Axel's had, and he wanted to get his fingers on it, too, but it was far out of his small reach.
"He's as cuddly as a teddy bear when you get over his looks," she told Demyx as soon as he was settled in the crook of her arm. The man next to her snorted, but said nothing, letting her baby talk instead. "Where did you get this brown hair from, baby?" The woman cooed at him, her finger brushing his nose.
"It'll probably go blonde," Mommy's voice said from somewhere Demyx had yet to see. "Hell, Axel was born with Marly's pink hair and look at him now."
"I know," the one holding him said, still brushing her finger over his nose, and now his chin, too. "I hope he doesn't lose the color of these eyes, though. They're gorgeous."
For a while no one said anything, and the woman holding him whispered sweetly of things Demyx didn't understand or know of, and then he started getting hungry. His eyebrows crinkled, and he started to sniffle in the strange female's hold.
"Uh-oh," she said, shifting him in her arms, "either someone's dirtying his new diaper, or he's hungry."
Demyx puffed the air in his chest a couple times, his toothless jaws working on the fingers in his mouth in his distress as his stomach rumbled soft enough for only him to hear.
"Hand him over," his Mommy said and the woman holding him knelt so that he was being gently placed in yet another person's arms. But it was Mommy, and instantly he brightened, knowing food wasn't far behind him getting handed off. They chattered meaninglessly while he ate under a blanket Daddy placed over him and Mommy.
"I thought you weren't due for another week, though," the woman who had been playing with him said.
"So did we. I was getting ready to take a shower when the first contraction hit." He felt Mommy brush her fingers gently over his head, smoothing what hair he had down even though no one could see him now. "Labor didn't even take as long as it did with Axel. He decided he wanted out, and that was the end of that."
"How long are they going to keep you here?" Again the female's voice.
"They said that we could leave tomorrow with Demyx," Daddy answered from somewhere nearby. "The doctors just want to make sure that both he and Larxene are alright."
This time the scary man was talking. "What do you think of your little brother, Axel?"
There was a silence for a minute or two that was only broken by the sound of Demyx eating. "He's loud," finally came the answer, and there were a couple of chuckles. "Roxas wasn't this loud when he was little!"
While Mommy was switching the side he was eating from, he caught the sight of Daddy ruffling Axel's hair. And then he was covered by the blanket again, and all he saw was blue before he resumed eating.
"Roxas was older than this when you got to meet him, though. Demyx won't cry as much as he gets older," Daddy said. He heard Axel make some noise in response, but didn't pay any attention to it. This time he didn't eat until his belly was so full. He stopped before it reached that point. When Mommy didn't move him right away, he wriggled and shifted.
"Alright, alright, you're done, I get it," Mommy said, moving things around until finally she removed the hot blanket, wiping the small amount of dampness from his forehead before placing him on her shoulder like she had the night before and thumping his back gently again. He didn't understand the purpose to this, in fact it almost made him throw up, until a small burp echoed out through his throat. Then she held him normally again. He swallowed thickly past the feeling of being sick, and looked out dully at the people staring at him, his full stomach making him feel a little sleepy.
"Do you want to hold him, Axel?" Demyx didn't look up as Daddy spoke above his head. His eyelids were getting heavy. Mommy bounced him a little, waking him back up a bit more.
Axel crossed his arms over his chest, turning his head to the side. "Nuh-uh. I don't like getting my hair pulled, got it mem'rized?"
Mommy rolled her eyes, but Demyx was watching the black haired little boy with interest. He was walking up to the thing that Mommy was laying on and staring at him.
"Can I hold him?" The boy asked, not taking his eyes off Demyx, who, in turn, hadn't taken his eyes off of him.
Beyond Demyx's field of vision his parents exchanged glances, recognizing this reaction from when Axel had met Roxas. They didn't know what it was about all the kids meeting each other and becoming so attached, even though their parents said it had been the same for them. "Sure, Xigbar. Just mind his head, you have to support it."
Demyx was handed over, and he got a better view of those golden eyes as they stared down at him. Xigbar's nose almost touched his as they just continued to stare at him. The tickling in the back of his mind started again, and Demyx reached up slowly, touching the boys cheek with no small amount of uncontained awe (that the adults accounted for him wondering what the hell the bandaid on his cheek was). At the touch Xigbar smiled, and Demyx's small heart clenched. That was the smile from his memory,
the only one he still had other than the names for certain things like colors and certain objects.
"What took you so long, little dude?" Xigbar whispered. "I didn't think you were ever gonna to show up."
Demyx gurgled, his only means of responding, and the corners of his mouth twitched up. Daddy moved closer, and Mommy strained in her bed to see, and Xigbar's mother made some comment about how it was his first smile, and how strange that was for his being so young. But Demyx didn't care, and neither did Xigbar. The five year old found a chair to sit in, and held Demyx carefully to his small chest. Demyx settled against the warmth happily, the fingers of one hand in his mouth while the fingers of the other clutched tightly at Xigbar's shirt. Demyx looked around briefly. Mommy and Daddy were watching them, and Axel was peering over Xigbar's shoulder at him with his hair safely out of reach, and the other two grown-ups were talking between themselves.
Xigbar ran his small fingers over Demyx's head like his mother had, and spoke in soft, soothing tones. "Go to sleep, little baby. I'mma be here when you wake up. I ain't lettin' you get away from me so easily."
Demyx let his eyes slip shut, still holding tight to the boys clothes, even as sleep took him and washed him away. This was his new life, his second or third chance, and already it promised to be good, for he had the love of his life at his side within the first day of it. All that was left was to live.
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I wanted this to be like… four pages. It's 16! Why can't I get this inspiration for Not An Act, I ask you? So yeah, there it is… I took artistic license with a few things. But bite me, it was mostly things that I wasn't sure on, and was sure not many were. Like what it's like to be born from a baby's point of view. o.0 And how a baby- and one with a few memories from a past life, at that- would perceive things going on around him. Also didn't know if babies do smile so soon after birth, but in this fic they do, mkay? And jes, I am aware that my writing style changed like… halfway through this. I account it for late nights and Disneyland screwing with my brain 8'D Also! Xigbar's mother was Paine, because I know I didn't describe her well, and I didn't want to do the
cop-out I did with everyone else and have them say her name. And yes, Marluxia and Larxene are happily married with kids. Deal with it. 3