Technically, Demyx had done as Axel asked. He'd thrown away the two pills Axel had found in his hand. Axel didn't need to know he'd been given six. And the dosage was only half a pill, so he still had eight doses left.
Besides, they weren't supposed to make his problems go away or make him feel like a god or make sleep and food unnecessary. He wasn't entirely an innocent - he knew about stuff that promised those effects, and he'd seen for himself what they really did. All this little half a pill was supposed to do was let him see music. It wasn't even addictive, and he'd asked carefully about that - and he didn't just ask the guy that gave them to him either. What gave Axel the right to talk? He didn't know what eluchin was, he'd never used it before - hell, he didn't even have the right to pretend he was completely clean himself; he used alcohol and caffeine on a regular basis, and they were addictive!
Well. Taking the half pill didn't produce any immediate effects. Then again, he hadn't really expected it to. He waited patiently for it to take effect...how long had it been so far? It must have been only a few minutes...no, his watch said it had been half an hour...maybe his watch was fast...maybe it wasn't working right...he held it up to his ear and listened.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
With each tick, a little tinge of yellow floated in front of his eyes.
He tapped one finger on the polished marble floor of the Hall of Empty Melodies. A bigger puff of yellow, with a more golden tinge.
Tap. Tap. More puffs of golden yellow.
"Wow." That one word produced vertical silver-blue streaks, almost like a waterfall. "It works." Silver-blue with the barest hints of gold and pink, like sunset on clouds. "It works." A little louder, and the colors a little stronger. "It works!" That was beautiful...
He could have watched his own voice and his finger tapping on the floor all day, but eventually, he remembered what he'd really taken the eluchin to see. He summoned his sitar, with a glittery silver sound. What would the music look like? Like water? Like rain? Like rainbows? He stroked his fingers across the strings, and...nothing happened. He'd forgotten to put the mezrabs on.
Well, duh. Talk about an amateurish error. He'd been too excited to remember. Though, granted, this didn't seem like excitement to him. Well, he didn't have a heart. Maybe he was remembering it wrong.
It took him much longer than usual to put the mezrabs on his fingers; he was fascinated by the sound and sight of himself digging around in his pocket. The first note he played was a beautiful blue-green, like a tropical lagoon, and it mesmerized him. He played it again, louder, and the color grew stronger. The next note was a clearer blue, a summer sky that he hadn't seen in far too long. Then a sky-blue with tinges of purple, like it was close to sunset.
Eluchin was wonderful stuff, he decided.
He kept playing through the entire range of blues, more shades of blue than he had ever thought existed, or could exist, then started adding greens and purples to the music. The beautiful colors and music had him hypnotized. He'd never played anything so beautiful in his life. If Nobodies could get to Heaven, he was as good as there already, in his own private Nirvana of music and light.
How could there possibly be anything bad about this? This was perfection.
"Oh, there you are. Not like that's a surprise."
Demyx fell to the ground in shock and horror - the fires of Hell had suddenly intruded on his personal heaven, in flaming reds and oranges. He tried to summon a burst of water to quench them, but all that provoked was a white-hot scream. "Go away!" he screamed back, and blue-white cracks split the air like lightning.
As the colors faded, he saw Axel standing in the doorway, wiping his wet hair out of his face. "What the hell is the matter with you?" Demyx flinched away from the burning colors. "Oh, God...you're stoned!"
Demyx curled up on the floor, using his body to protect his sitar from the flames. "Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me," he repeated over and over, with the pale shades of a rainy sky.
A low, clear whistle, and a cardinal red. "I told you not to take that shit," and the fires returned. "It has just fucked you up left, right, and center, hasn't it?"
"Don't hurt me," Demyx whimpered, and the rainy-sky color darkened. There was a sigh, accentuated by golden sparks, and despite his struggles, someone picked him up, sitar and all, and set him back on his feet. "Leave me alone..."
"No." One burst of fire that made Demyx duck, and another sigh full of sparks. Fortunately for Demyx's residual sanity, Axel didn't say anything else on the way back to Demyx's room. Once he was back in his bed, though, the clicking camera and its yellow-green spots irritated him a little.
AN: Ladies and gentlemen...don't do drugs.
Published early for the benefit of the COCA crew.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, got it memorized?