NEW FIC. Crack pairings are fabulous, aren't they?
This chapter is dedicated two-fold- one, to Light Within Darkness (formerly YukaiChick) for her brilliant collection of crack-pairing oneshots titled Blink, which all of you should go and read. And two, to manyissues101, for coming up with the brilliant idea of Axel/Ariel as a pairing. Fabulous.
Enjoy the weirdness! :D
Chapter 1 - Axel / Ariel
Axel was loitering in the Corridor of Darkness, just the way he usually did. He absolutely hated going on missions with Demyx, and today was no exception. The guy was fun to be around, sure, but he made missions take absolutely forever because he had no idea what he was doing, even if it were just a recon mission like today, where all they had to do was see if there were any strong hearts on a particular world. They weren't even charged with creating any powerful Heartless today. All they had to do was walk around and see if there was anything on the world worth having. Unfortunately, Demyx was way more excited about this than he should have been able to be.
"This is my favorite world!" he chirped. Demyx's less-than-infectious enthusiasm notwithstanding, Axel was a little eager to see the world he'd never been to before. He was running out of new places to see, after all, and the threshold for maintaining his interest was slowly but surely creeping upwards. The Organization was going to drive him to murder himself out of sheer boredom.
"Where are we going again?" Axel asked boredly, the boringness of the day oozing out of the walls of darkness and clawing up his legs, trapping him in a spirally vortex of boring-tastic boredom.
"Atlantica!" Everything Demyx said gave the impression that he put exclamation marks at the end of his words. If ever anyone said that it was impossible to speak an exclamation mark without using the words exclamation or mark, well, Axel would happily provide them with Demyx as a counter-example, on the sole condition that the amateur scientists didn't give him back. Wait.
"Atlantica? Isn't that the one that's underwater?"
"Yes!" Axel sighed.
"I hate getting wet."
"I love getting wet!"
"I know." That was enough of that particular conversation. Well, it was for Axel, anyway, but Demyx just kept right on going. Axel decided to tune him out.
"-so you need to be careful, because they can get violent," Demyx finished seriously.
"Uh," said Axel. Beat. "Wait, what?"
"We're here!" Without so much as another look back, Demyx bust open a portal and dove out into the Realm of Light. Dove in the literal sense, of course, since they were jumping into a world that was one hundred percent waterlogged. Fortunately, the Organization's coats did more than just look fabulous whilst clinging to one's body in a smooth, flattering black.
As soon as Demyx hit the world's surface, the coat shifted too, merging with his body to create a form appropriate for Atlantica. In an instant, his legs had been replaced with a powerful fish tail, and Demyx was instantly at home, gallivanting around the water like he'd been there all his life. Axel wondered briefly how, exactly, his coworker (he refused to say 'partner') was able to breathe, before noticing the sharp gills that had appeared on Demyx's neck. He rubbed his own smooth neck unconsciously. This mission was progressing from bad to worse.
"Come on in, Axel!" Demyx shouted gleefully, and he reached an arm through the portal and dragged Axel's protesting form forward. He tumbled into Atlantica in a rather undignified manner, but that didn't stop his body from going through the changes for him. By the time he'd recovered his senses, he was half-fish and half-naked. The scales on the fish part were a glittering bright green that hovered right on the border of clashing offensively with his wild hair. Demyx, the lucky jerk, had gotten a neutral and dare he say lovely slate-blue.
Axel gave his tail an experimental kick and propelled forward a few feet, extending his arms quickly to stop himself from bumping into one of the world's hard rock walls. Water rushed through his gills, causing a sensation very unlike normal air-breathing and weird to be sure, but hey, as long as he wasn't asphyxiating, he wouldn't complain.
His brain was complaining, however, about all of the water. Axel hated water. He didn't even like drinking water- he always flavored it with fruit first, if he had any at all. Water was the very antithesis of everything Axel was and stood for, and now he was completely submerged in it, trapped in the horrible, unhygienic wetness of it all. Now all he had to do was get this mission over with so he could go home, maybe read a nice book, eat some chocolate. That was what he liked doing.
"You've been here before, right?" Demyx was humming to himself and doing somersaults. Axel cleared his throat and asked again, more loudly. "You've been here before, right?"
"Yep!" Demyx sang, but that was the only information he gave. Once he got fixated on something, he was pretty much useless. Axel rolled his eyes.
"So, uh. Do people live here?"
"Of course!" And with that, Demyx turned tail and dove straight down, into a tunnel all-but-concealed at the very ocean floor. Axel could do nothing but gape. Somewhere inside it occurred to him that Demyx was trying to lead him somewhere, but really, couldn't he have mentioned that before disappearing? And the lastplace Axel himself wanted to go was deeper into this murky mess of a world. Honestly, who creates a world with no air?
With a resigned groan of irritation, Axel paddled himself awkwardly until he was facing downwards, then kicked his tail. He misjudged the amount of force it would take, and slammed his face right into a rock covered with some sort of slimy vegetation. He was next to the tunnel entrance, though, and that was what really counted, right? He grabbed onto some jutting rocks, and swim-climbed inside.
After a few more- ok, a lot more- bruises and scrapes, Axel settled entirely into the crab-crawl form of transport, since clearly his tail couldn't be trusted. The going was slow. Stupidly slow. No way would he ever catch up with Demyx now, he thought miserably as he flailed in some sort of water vortex trap thing.
The knowledge that he could leave any time he wanted to was what kept him going more than anything else. Of course, he couldn't just biff back to the World That Never Was and whine that his mission was too hard- that wasn't an option at all. It was just nice to have the option, was all. An option that was looking more and more appealing as his left hand got stuck in a rather aggressive clam.
Once he'd pried himself free, it was only another few yards to another open canyon. Demyx was nowhere in sight. One would think, that since they were- urgh- partners and all, and Axel was even if only by one rank his superior, Demyx would make some sort of effort to contact him. But no. No he did not. Axel listed feebly across the canyon, floating towards the top, feeling his way across.
And that was when he heard it.
A voice. A real, human voice. Well, probably not literally human since there was no air, but you get the idea. And not only was this real, similar-to-human voice, well, real, but it was a real, similar-to-human lady voice.
She was singing.
"Look at this stuff, isn't it neat-"
Axel looked around for where the sound was coming from.
"Wouldn't you think my collection's complete-"
He traced the tantalizing sound of civilization all the way to another narrow cave, buried in the bottom of the canyon, looking for all the world like some kid's super-secret hide-out. He could appreciate someone with a super-secret hide-out.
"Wouldn't you think I'm a girl- a girl who has everything?"
Correction- a girl with a super-secret hide-out.
Axel didn't get to spend much time with the ladies. The only, er, "lady" they had in Organization XIII was Larxene, and she was a beast of a very specific type. He didn't quite understand why there were no more female members, but had narrowed it down to the Superior either having deep-seated emotional issues with powerful women or being a closeted raging homosexual. Or possibly both.
"I'm ready to know what the people know- ask my questions and get some answers-"
He pawed his way through the tunnel and emerged into the small grotto, filled with all kinds of ridiculous junk. But the junk wasn't what he noticed. It was the beautiful young woman singing above him. She had long red hair, a shade not unlike his own, which gave them instant red-head camaraderie. Her tail matched his as well, though her green didn't seem as abrasive- maybe red hair and green scales went together in Mermaid Land? Like blonde hair and blue eyes in the rest of the natural worlds?
The room was filled with shelves, and he used them to climb easily up to where the girl was singing.
"What's a fire, and why does it- what's the word? Burn?-"
Axel was behind her, now. He smirked.
"Oh, I'll show you how it burns, baby."
Instantly, the beautiful song ended, and the girl whipped around to stare at him with a speed and grace he'd thought impossible in fishy form. Once she got a good look at him- was it his imagination, or did her eyes linger on the tattoos?- she immediately propelled herself backwards, though she couldn't go far before running into some knick-knack or other.
"Sorry," Axel said smoothly. "Did I scare you?" She kept right on staring, and for a long moment Axel almost began to worry that he'd gone too far, too fast. Maybe he should have introduced himself first, or brought her flowers or the undersea kelpy equivalent or something. But before long, it became obvious that her curiosity was rapidly overriding her sense of unease.
"Who are you?" she asked excitedly. "I've never seen you before."
"My name's Axel," he said. "And you?"
"Ariel," she whispered breathlessly. She seemed to be quite taken with him, if the way she was fidgeting with her hands was any indication. Axel stole a glance back down at his new body. Well, he thought he looked freakish, but maybe his tail was oh-so-much sexier and manlier than what the other mermen had to bring to the yard? His posture straightened, just a little.
"Nice to meet you, Ariel," he said politely.
"Where did you come from?"
"Oh, I just swam over from another w-" He stopped himself. Any mention of the existence of other worlds was strictly verboten. Normally Axel couldn't care less about wreaking havoc and destroying world order and blah blah blah, but this girl seemed much to sweet to utterly annihilate her worldview like that. "Ocean," he finished lamely. "Came from another ocean. There's another one, uh, somewhere else, and I swam here from there." Even as he said it, he knew how stupid he sounded. The worlds, individually, were quite small- Ariel would certainly know already if there was another 'ocean' anywhere within swimming distance. Plus, if she actually saw him swim, she'd know he was totally incapable of swimming anywhere at all. His tail twitched at that thought, as if laughing at him for sucking so bad.
"Wow," said Ariel. He couldn't tell if she was naïve enough to bite, or if she was just ignoring his lie for the time being because she wanted to talk to him. She was very difficult to read. But she seemed into him, in any case- her eyes kept glancing down at his torso, and Axel found himself unconsciously flexing his abs. "I've always wanted to see other places."
"Then why don't you?" Axel asked, nudging himself a little closer, as if to dare her to move away. She didn't.
"It's complicated," Ariel said simply, still looking him directly in the eyes, without even a hint of nervousness.
"Is that why you have all this stuff here?" Axel asked, breaking the intense eye contact look around the grotto. The assortment really was rather odd. Everything from treasure chests to spoons.
"Yes. It's my collection of things from other places," she said, with more than a touch of pride. Really, it must have taken years to accumulate all of this crap. Axel just didn't have it in him to tell her that everything she'd collected was unmistakably from this particular dump of a world, and not any others. But then, she didn't know about the other worlds, so it couldn't have hurt her anyway, could it?
Ariel finally did move away, swimming past to grab something in particular to show him, and Axel found himself appreciating her human torso, and wondering just what exactly was being hidden by that teeny seashell bra. He just hoped he wouldn't have to swim anywhere. Thus far he'd gotten by just by floating in one place, and he didn't want to push his luck. Now Ariel was back, and shoving a picture in his face. A picture of a man with actual feet- how did that get here?- lighting a fire.
"Do you really know what fire is?" she asked, excitement causing her scales to twitch. So that's why she was so eager to talk to him. Who knew such a lame pick-up line would have the desired effect? And as luck would have it, fire was Axel's particular area of expertise.
"Sure," he said casually, moving closer again.
"Show me," Ariel breathed.
"Ok." Axel just hoped that his powers would still work underwater. He extended a hand towards the cave floor, where an explosion would do the least amount of damage. And then, with a sizzle and a pop, he launched a small fireball directly downwards, delighting in flash of red light, the sharp hiss of boiling water, and the sudden eruption of bubbles and broken rock that drifted up from the floor below.
Yeah. He was good.
"Wow! Can you do it again?" She swam down to get a better look. Vaguely dumb, but hey, Axel wasn't one to judge. He obligingly launched another fireball, then another, and another, and it was becoming increasingly evident that Ariel thought he was the sexiest thing ever to drift past her since the invention of the mermaid equivalent to sliced bread.
"How do you do that?"
"I don't know, it's just something I can do," Axel said casually. He didn't quite feel like getting into a discussion on the mechanics of Nobody-ism. But it didn't escape his attention that Ariel was leaning closer to him, completely enraptured. He was winning.
"Why? Did you like it?" He took Ariel's lead and moved even closer, until their noses were almost touching. He was moving a little fast- out of practice, after all- but Ariel didn't seem to mind. Was it just his imagination, or was she sneaking closer to him, too?
"Yes," answered Ariel breathlessly. She was centimeters away.
And then he kissed her.
Ariel returned the kiss in earnest, falling into the arms of a beautiful stranger. (Yes, Axel considered himself beautiful, and are you suggesting otherwise?) Just as Axel's hands wrapped around her slim waist, her tail wrapped around his, binding them together even as they drifted to one side, and Axel pinned Ariel against one of the shelves. He avoided her fish half, since he found that a bit creepy, but Ariel was quite eager to stroke his scales, and he found himself kind of enjoying it more than he would ever admit to his colleagues at the next Organization XIII Christmas Party.
The kiss was, well, different, since his mouth was full of water, but Axel didn't mind at all. Somehow, with Ariel, all of the wetness was ok. He pushed her mouth open and deepened the kiss.
Unfortunately, it was not meant to last.
"Ariel!"
Axel opted to ignore the intruder, but Ariel did not. She jerked away from Axel's embrace and stared downwards with wide eyes. Axel was forced to look down with her.
"Ariel! What would the king say?"
A crab. Axel's amorous intentions had been thwarted by a talking crab. His day couldn't get much worse than this, could it?
"Oh, no," Ariel moaned. "You can't tell him, Sebastian! Daddy'll kill me!" Oh, so this little mermaid was a princess. That was nice.
Wait.
Daddy!?
A million alarm bells went off in Axel's brain.
"Uh, that's ok, guys," Axel said quickly. "I don't want you to get in trouble. I'll, uh-" He looked into Ariel's disappointed eyes. She really was quite pretty. "I'll come back later, ok?" The crab huffed angrily, but before he could say anything else, Axel had stolen one last kiss from his pretty mermaid and was swimming hurriedly back towards the bottom. His swimming was still atrociously bad, but this time he was prepared to use his hands to stop himself from crashing into anything. He squeezed himself back into the tunnel and was soon back in open ocean.
Well, that had been a disaster. And he was still nowhere close to completing his mission, either. By this point, though, he was pretty sure he could safely tell the Superior that there was nothing worth having on this world. Oh, if you want a cave full of garbage, sure, they've got one of those, but otherwise-
Axel's thought train was abruptly derailed by a sudden surge of electrical energy. An attack that would have barely fazed him in his normal body was nonetheless more than enough to totally incapacitate him as a mermaid. Not that he was operating at full capacity, anyway. Basically, Axel was screwed. Before he could so much as fight back, something thick and rubbery was wrapping itself around his torso, effectively constricting him and concealing his body all the way up to the eyes. He shouted and kicked and placed several curses upon Demyx's Other's mother, but to no avail.
Within minutes, he was unconscious.
And then, some indeterminate length of time later, he awoke.
From Axel's perspective, he might as well have only been out for two minutes, but the sudden change of scenery indicated that the black-out had gone on quite a bit longer than that. Wherever he was, the water was a good deal murkier than where he'd been before, filled with mud and a good deal of something else that Axel didn't recognize, except that it smelled terrible. He was still constricted by whatever had attacked him before, and as he tried to break free, the thing- for it could only be described as a thing- turned to blink up at him.
The thing was ugly. Really ugly. Its lower jaw jutted out past its top one, giving it the appearance of an unbelievably creepy smile, and its big yellow eyes were blinking up at Axel even as its thick, slimy coils rubbed against him. It was all he could do to stop himself from vomiting in his mouth. And besides that, the thing had a twin- another ugly beastie was swimming in circles around him, eyeing him with an expression not unlike hunger.
But if he thought that was bad, well, he was about to come face-to-face with the most terrifying creature he'd ever seen or would ever see in the rest of his not-natural life.
"Well, well. Nice work, Flotsy."
Tentacles, that was the first thing he noticed. Tentacles everywhere. Thick and black, with round puckered eyeball thingies that oozed at him. The hideous vision only got worse as his eyes moved upwards. The tentacles flowed- well, it wasn't really so much a flow as a bulge, so, the tentacles bulged into a bulbous torso, which proceeded to bulge upwards into heavy breasts, several chins, and an absolutely appalling haircut. The octo-woman was thoroughly unnerving, to say the least, and her over-painted face was hovering uncomfortably close to Axel's own.
"Kidnapping isn't usually my thing, honey," she drawled easily, "but since Triton wouldn't give me what I wanted, well, desperate times, and you know the rest." She swam back over to a nearby chair, an awkward, bouncing swim that did nothing for her heavy figure. Axel, meanwhile, had not understood a single word of what she'd said, and attempted to tell her so.
"Mmmph mmmph," he complained.
"Now, just relax. I won't hurt you," the woman chuckled. "Just so long as your dear daddy gives me what I want. So cooperate." Axel had no idea what anyone, least of all in Atlantica, would want with his father- the man had died with the rest of Axel's world, when he'd been turned into a Heartless.
Wait.
Did these people think he was Ariel!?
"Mmmph! MMMPH, MMMPH!" he shouted indignantly, or at least tried. His efforts were only causing his captors to constrict him more tightly, and grin up at him more stupidly. He couldn't open a portal the way he was now, so he was stuck until they decided to release him. His plans for his Atlantica report were rapidly changing. Now he was leaning more towards telling the Organization that the place was too awful and dangerous to be allowed to exist.
"What's that, dear?" the woman laughed. "Catfish got your tongue?"
"Mmmph," Axel swore.
"Flotsy, let the girl speak." The slimy thing loosened its coils ever-so-slightly. Just enough for Axel to shout the very first sentence that had popped into his head.
"I'M NOT A GIRL!"
A childish thing to say, to be sure, but Axel just wanted the mistaken identity thing cleared up. And sure, he didn't have the deepest voice or beefiest frame on the block, but he liked to think he was masculine enough to be distinguishable from demure little Ariel. Besides, she didn't have super-masculating facial tattoos.
Fortunately, he was indeed masculine enough to be distinguishable from Ariel. The massive octo-woman gasped, and rolled back onto her swirling tentacles. Even 'Flotsy,' who could apparently speak English, was surprised enough to curl his body to get a better look. Really, no one had noticed before now? Who were these people?
The woman was back next to him, surprisingly quickly for her size, grabbing his hair to tilt his head back and peer into his face.
"So you're not," she murmured. "Interesting."
"Yeah, sure. Can I go now?" he snapped.
"No," she said dismissively. Well, crap. "Who are you? I've never seen you before." The lazy, near-playful tone she'd used with mistaken Ariel was completely gone, replaced by harsh demands.
"I came from another ocean," Axel lied again. And I'd like to get back to the Ocean That Never Was as quickly as possible, please.
"No you didn't. I know that because there is no other ocean," she said suspiciously. "If you lived anywhere on this world, I would certainly know about it. Unless…" This woman was clearly a lot smarter, or at least more on her guard, than Ariel had been. Axel could see the gears turning in her head. If he wasn't from anywhere on this world, well then, he clearly had to be from another one. A pretty easy conclusion to come to, if you accepted the idea of other worlds. Not that he was going to get into that particular conversation with this lady. Fortunately, Axel was spared that and a good deal more by the arrival of the cavalry.
The cavalry, of course, came in the form of Demyx and Ariel, riding a cheerful dolphin.
It was, by far, the stupidest thing Axel had ever seen ever.
"Are you serious?" he asked incredulously. No one listened. His captors were suddenly quite interested in the real Ariel, and all but forgot he existed. Soon he was free again, as free as being helplessly adrift in an underground cave could be considered. But in an instant, Demyx was beside him, and Ariel was disappearing back out of the cave on the dolphin's back, hastily pursued by the octo-woman and her pets.
But before she left, she managed one last fleeting glimpse over her shoulder, and offered Axel a shy smile. He smiled back at her, with a little wave. Might as well- after all, he was never going to see her again.
"Did Ursula do anything to you!?" Demyx asked urgently. He still managed to squeeze the exclamation point in, even while asking a question. Ursula. What a fitting name.
"No."
"Ok, good. We've got to get out of here, we're late," he said, and he opened a portal and shoved them both inside. Suddenly under the proper effects of gravity, both fell forward, flat on their faces.
The wetness was gone, and they were both surrounded by air. Blessed, wonderful air! Beautiful air! Delicious air! Axel heaved several breaths through his back-to-normal lungs. Then he kicked his feet. Feet! He stood- stood- back up, and he had never been more happy to have to walk all the way back to the World That Never Was. Demyx, however, looked entirely forlorn. And he didn't follow Axel when he began to walk.
"What is it?" Axel asked.
"Ariel told me to tell you something," Demyx said seriously. Axel raised an eyebrow. "She said, 'Tell Axel goodbye, and that I hope he'll take me to his world someday.' What did you tell her?"
I hope he'll take me to his world someday.
So. She had figured it out. Axel had to grin. The girl was smarter than she seemed. Demyx, however, was still distressed.
"Axel," he asked uncomfortably. "Did you… do her?"
Axel couldn't help but burst out laughing. Really? He didn't have the parts as a merman to 'do' anyone, and Demyx, from direct experience, should have known that as well as he did. But hey, if there was one good thing he could take away from this whole misadventure, it was the opportunity to give his easily confusable coworker a hard time.
"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell," he said smoothly, and he took off through the darkness, back towards home.
Poor Axel. But hey, Ariel's hawt so it's totes worth it, amirite?
Next chapter: CLOUD/HERCULES. Because you all totally saw it when Hercules was battling Cerberus with Cloud's limp yet sexy body flung over one shoulder, right? ... Right? Or was that just me? LOL.
Please review! And, suggestions are always welcome. :)
