Aquatic Dance

By UltimatePalmTree

"You have no idea what you're doing, Demyx,"

Demyx promptly ignored Axel and shuffled out of his sandals, discarding them on the dry beach.

"Do you hear me, Demyx? You're gonna die, and if you drown, I'm not going in there to get you out. Ya know, mild aversion to water an' all?"

Demyx turned around to face the red-haired Unknown, who was looking at him as if he was clearly insane. Which, of course, Demyx was. Who else was going to go into the ocean at night and 'take a peek around', just to see what it looked like? No one else but Demyx. Axel knew it was because of Demyx's attraction to water, what with being the Organization XIII member aligned with water. But he didn't understand; he never would. Fire and water weren't meant to mix, and the results could be… catastrophic…

The younger of the two glared at Axel as he took off his green hoodie (with a silver Nobody motif emblazoned on the back) and then took off his tight black shirt. "I'm going in, and that's that," he said in a determined voice.

Axel sighed and said, "This I gotta see," in a jaded tone.

He followed Demyx down to the wet part of the beach, where the waves beat against the sand continuously, rhythmically. Axel now knew why Demyx liked music so much; it reminded him of the ocean. The whole thing was rather peaceful, Axel hated to admit. Demyx turned to Axel, a grin on his face and said, "Don't worry. I'm gonna be alright,"

At this, Demyx started at a slow, what he hoped would be a dramatic walk down to the water's edge. The incoming waves began to lap at his feet starting to get the tops of them wet. The lower part of his pants legs became soaked with seawater as he progressed, not even turning around to see if Axel was still watching. In all perfect honesty, he wasn't, but Demyx didn't know that! The waves now lapped at his knees, as if greeting him like an old friend. The sitar playing Organization member paused for a minute before diving under the next oncoming wave.

Silence. Nothing but perfect, absolute, harmonious silence. The clear sky yielded a bright full moon to illuminate his path tonight, so he was lucky in that sense. Demyx was holding his breath, trying to focus on how calm it was. Unfortunately, Demyx's strong point? Yeah, it wasn't focusing. But he seemed to be doing well enough considering.

The water was familiar to him; he knew the currents and the creatures around him well. He felt more at home here in the ocean than he did on land. His bare feet were moving slowly through the water, slightly kicking up sand as he went along on his way. He scanned the moonlit waters, examining every rock and crevice carefully as if he was supposed to. He had practiced several times in a pool for this moment, and was awed at what he saw.

He knew water as an ally, but he also knew it as a foe. Water could manipulate, twist and thrive on both fear and wonder at the same time. Yet it was always hungry for more. The more fear and wonder offered, the more it accepted the people. However, the ocean was a fickle mistress, and changed her mind often. Demyx knew this very well. In fact, this was the only thing he was really quite serious about. Everything else wasn't as important. Mistress Ocean called the shots now, and Demyx would do everything to avoid the bad and get to the good.

Demyx extended a hand slowly towards a rock ledge, feeling the texture with his now bare hands. He had taken off his gloves when he had gone to bed, and saw no need for them now. Besides, the less clothing he had on him, the better he could tell what She was planning for him. As he walked through an archway in the rock, he saw a sliver of silver fish scales a few meters away. No problem, Demyx thought, I can do this easy. The naïve boy began his pilgrimage from the rocks to the school of fish, confident nothing would go wrong. Everything felt right tonight with his mistress; She didn't want to trouble him just this one night.

However, there was something Demyx hadn't accounted for. Something he wouldn't have been prepared for if he tried.

A master known as Air.

Axel wished he had brought some kind of time monitoring device out with him. It had already been a half-hour past midnight when Demyx had woken him up by tripping over the two chakrams Axel had left lying on his bedroom floor. Unfortunately, Axel's window was the fastest way to the beach, and Demyx decided this was to be his route.

He sighed again and brought his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He wasn't wearing much: boxer shorts and a red camisole of some kind. The wind coming from the ocean was fierce, causing him to start to shiver. Despite being the Organization member controlling fire, he could still feel the cold. He could feel the drop in the temperatures throughout the day, just as well as any truly living person. His senses were the replica of anyone else's who wasn't a Nobody or a Heartless or whatnot. So, he could feel the cool wind grazing his shoulders, begging him to go back to the house and go to sleep again.

However, there was something that was in his system that was more attuned to another sense: the long-forgotten sixth sense. His wasn't as developed as some, but he could definitely tell when there was trouble afoot.

And there definitely was.

Demyx's eyes widened as he allowed a thin stream of bubbles to escape his mouth once more. How could this be happening to him? How? He had rehearsed it in the pool many times before, and nothing had gone wrong. Nothing. And now here he was. Twenty or so feet away from the clear surface of the water, and he was now fighting the urge to breathe. It had taken him longer to do this action in the pool, so what was going wrong?

Demyx twisted around in the water. Now, all of a sudden, his Mistress didn't seem so friendly. She didn't seem as familiar as She had before. She was, for the longest seconds (or was it minutes?) of his life, a complete and total stranger. He knew nothing of Her. He knew nothing of Her previously friendly and calming embrace, only the fear of knowing he was going to die in Her arms, suffocated by Her on all sides. He had always pictured dying for his Mistress, but never from Her.

He was alone, and he was going to be throttled by his own Mistress…

Demyx fought the urge to breathe as a convulsion swept painfully through him. It hurt, simply put. Master Air seemed to be trying to rend out his lungs, slowly and trying to cause as much pain as humanly possible. Another excruciating spasm caused him to gasp involuntarily, allowing his Mistress to start the suffocation. Demyx quickly shut his mouth and dropped to his knees. What the hell am I doing! He yelled at himself. Get to the surface! Now!

However, Demyx's body didn't seem to want to respond. His eyes, previously full of daring life, stared bleakly ahead through the stinging salt water. His eyes, the ones that he had rolled while telling Axel he would be fine, rolled up once more into his head and Demyx's body relaxed. A torrent of bubbles escaped from Demyx's mouth and the blonde Organization member slowly started floating up towards the surface, eyes shut and lips starting to turn a slightly pale blue color…

"Demyx!" Axel howled once more into the moonlit night.

Nothing. Just the crashing of the waves on the shore and the call of some sea bird Axel thought was supposed to be sleeping.

The pyromaniac Unknown bit his lower lip. He hadn't especially liked Demyx. The guy was a fricking idiot. Never did anything useful, never fought, never completed his missions. Always ran away in the face of danger. Axel wasn't like that. He served the Organization well, always did his part. Looked out for Roxas, invariably the most important of the other twelve. However, something was telling him to go and rescue Demyx. Something was telling him to step into that water that he had feared all his life and get the ninth member back to shore.

Suddenly, in the perfect and previously undisturbed silvery streak of moonlight on the surface of the ocean floated up something. Axel couldn't see it well enough, but he had a very bad feeling about it.

"Demyx!" he yelled. He started slowly, apprehensively towards the water, but then picked up in a fast jog. Or, as well as one could jog while knee-deep in ocean water. He then began to dog paddle towards the thing he suspected was Demyx in the water. He remembered he hadn't learned to swim, given the aforementioned aversion to water. So, basically, he fought to keep himself afloat while trying to drag an unconcious Demyx back to the shore. Despite the fact he weighed less in water, Axel still thought the other member had been given way too many sea salt ice creams in the past week…

Finally, Axel felt sand underneath his feet and tried standing up. Instead, he succeeded in drowning himself in more water than he could handle. He quickly pushed off and continued 'swimming' as best as he could towards shore.

The sand he now felt was more firm and secure, so he placed his weight on it entirely. When he didn't drown, he began to walk back to shore, Demyx's wet body still on his right shoulder. He finally reached a dry bit of the beach, and carefully laid Demyx down on the sand. He noticed the blue tinge in both his lips and his cheeks, and started to slap him lightly on the cheeks. "Demyx… C'mon, breathe. You're out of the water! You can breathe!"

Still, Demyx disobeyed his orders.

"Demyx! I'm not giving you resuscitation! That's just out of my league! You want that? You get Xaldin for resuscitation! Not me!" Axel yelled. Demyx looked as dead as a doornail. Oh my fricking God. I killed him. Axel thought, then pressed down hard on Demyx's exposed and slightly distended stomach.

That did it. Demyx inhaled sharply, his face scrunching up into a grimace as Axel applied pressure to his already bloated stomach. That's when the coughing began. Water spurted from Demyx's mouth and suddenly, his eyes snapped open. Quickly, he sat up (with Axel's help) and vomited the rest of the seawater onto the sand, coughing up more than just water as he did. Axel guessed that half of the sea salt treats came up with the water before Demyx was done.

When he finally stopped the seemingly never-ending deluge of both water and pale blue liquid that used to be Demyx's favorite treat, he sank back down onto the sand, shivering in the cold of the night air. Axel quickly placed the green hoodie Demyx had discarded back when this whole thing began on said member's torso, making sure to cover him up securely. "You idiot," Axel spat, all sympathy suddenly leaving him. "I told you that you didn't know what you're doing,"

Demyx shivered and nodded.

"And yet you did it! Demyx, you're one screwed-up person, ya know that?"

Demyx nodded again.

"Good. I don't have to pound it into your head consistently for me to get the point across. Let's get back to the house, alright?" Axel asked.

Demyx nodded, and then attempted to stand up. His weak knees buckled under his weight and he promptly fell onto his chest.

Axel sighed. "You're pathetic, Demyx. Absolutely, one-hundred percent pathetic,"

For a third time, Demyx agreed.

"Alright, fine. I'll carry you back," Axel growled. He, very roughly, picked up Demyx and threw him over his shoulder, praying that he had nothing left in his stomach to bring up all over his back, which wasn't covered by the camisole. The two made their way back together, leaving everything on the ocean and the beach unchanged.

Except for two things.

Demyx had a sense of thankfulness towards fire, and Axel had a slight change-of-heart in his opinion on water.

The waves still beat the ocean shore.

Author's Note:

I wrote this listening to three songs: Fields of Coral, Aquatic Dance, and Islands of the Orient. I used these songs by Vangelis to help me imagine the scenes in the fic. As you can see, Aquatic Dance is the title I've chosen. I don't own these songs, nor do I own KH2 or its characters. Just the idea.

I wrote this for two reasons: David Blaine's stunt with the whole 'Drowning Alive' thing (I am amazed you got that far, if you are reading this, sir) and my birthday. I decided to write a more serious fic for my birthday (which was actually the ninth when I wrote it…), but I'm comin' back again with more crackfics!

It seems my pit bull has taken a liking to my beta, KuroNekoNya… Thanx, Kuro, for bein' my beta! This one's also for you! Tell me what you liked and what you didn't, and concrit would be good, too! See y'all! (I need to get a new sign-off… XD)