Genre: General/Humour
Paring/s: -
Line: 'Demy-Demy-decibel'
Disclaimer: I forgot to put this before now, heh. I own nothing. If I did, I'd be paying someone to write this for me xD
And this is dedicated to very talented artist who gave me this idea from one of her pictures
Everything has to come from somewhere.
The World that Never Was, is no expectation. The food, clothes, chairs, lounge suits, televisions, computers, folders, CDs, cards, board games, I-pods, blankets, curtains, clocks, paper, pens, books in the fiction, or non-fiction genre all came from somewhere. Once a week, one of us was sent off to pilgrim a few cartloads of junk that the others had listed. Most of the stuff was pretty normal. Items of clothing, pads of paper, a new encyclopædia, or a replacement of Sai'x's favourite cup. But some of the stuff was pretty abnormal.
Every time I tried to ask, they'd give me that; ask us no questions, and we'll give you no lies, speech. And sometimes I just didn't want to know.
Xigbar had once wanted manacles, for God knows what purpose. He was also very pacific about it. I was surprised he hadn't told me what nicks, and scratches had to go on what loop of chain.
And some of the Organisation just didn't care. Zexion had once said to surprise him. I'd obliged by bringing back an octopus. Alive and wriggling. Unfortunately, he'd got back at me by tampering with my dinner. It was quite a shock to find a tentacle in my soup. I had to run to the bathroom pretty quick after that.
The second job with the foraging is to bring back food. Most of the time the food is pretty tame, though the Organisation hate it when I bring back all kinds of hot spicy food from the Agraba market place. I personally dread Demyx's turn. He always brings back an assortment of seafood. I can stomach small amounts at a time, but not over a week's span. Though dumping half the mayonnaise on it always makes things taste a lot better.
The most uncommon thing for us to bring back are animals. Sometimes a stray bird flies in after us and stays for a few days, twittering around the banisters. Or as long as it can with Xigbar on the prowl. Anything that moves, Xigbar will shoot down. Birds are a rare delicacy.
A few times a too curious cat will enter in after us, sniffing at the darkness. They last a lot longer than the birds. One hung about for a few months. Some of us enjoyed the company of someone who didn't talk back. But the cat had the habit of stealing milk out of the fridge. Nobody was very happy when we found out the habit. I found the cat hanging up the right way on a beam. It had an extension cord around its throat.
"Dead cat say's what?" Xigbar has kicked the body into one of the main drains when I'd called the others.
Larger animals hardly came through. Though once a dairy cow followed Xemnas back to The World that Never Was. The thing even followed him to dinner. Everybody was too nervous to ask about it. A lot of glances were thrown at each other. Finally Sai'x had casually broken the silence. "Something's on your shoulder, Superior."
The cow had started to drool on him. At least it made dinner a lot more pleasant.
It was a first when a dog had come to the Castle. It was half my fault. The World I'd gone to was very odd. It was a perfectly normal London suburb, but Junkyard dogs were the main focus. In a sense. I'd hardly noticed when something furry fell into my hood when I was exiting the world, just from seeing a Doberman and a grey mongrel arguing over a smaller grey pup. I was shattered as I re-appeared back in my room. I shed my cloak, and hardly gave it a thought as it yelped when it hit and missed the clothes rack. I put the pillow over my head, and was dead to the world until I was good and ready to greet it once more.
I was woken up, not by the sunlight, it's never sunny in the Castle, but by the movements in the other rooms through the wall. The Dusks never got round to putting those sound proof walls up. I frowned. Normally I wouldn't be woken up by something as petty as somebody else moving about. My numb senses finally came too as something started to lick me on the neck. I wriggled away from the wetness, giggling slightly. I was not proud of that. I do not giggle. The persisting licking started up again.
My brain started to speed up, sleep leaving me. Who ever was doing that, had to be somebody in the Castle. Who else was here? And putting two and two together, I sat up fast, cracking my head on the bedpost. Something small tumbled off me, falling off the bed with a yelp of surprised.
Drawing out the fact nobody was that small, I guessed it might be a Nobody. I've never seen a Nobodies tongue, but they might have one for all I know. Where they store it is beyond me.
The thing wormed its way out from my clothes, and sat up. Scratch the Nobody theory. It was a puppy. It had large dewy eyes, and terrier like ears. It was a mutt for sure. And it probably could have fitted into the palm of my hand, a few paws hanging over maybe.
I wouldn't even class the puppy in the dog category. 'Real' dogs are at least up to your thigh, and their eyes aren't so big. When I was a Somebody, I'd owned two huskies, and a Shikoku Inu. In my opinion, they were the best dogs in the universe. I guess they were the only things I could go back to if they'd survived the fire. I hoped they did. They were trained to not be scared of fire because of me.
"Axel! What do you wanna be when you grow up?"
"I dunno. Maybe a policeman. They deal with dogs."
"Ew… your dogs are scary. And you're always getting into trouble. Nobody would want you as a policeman."
"As if. Stick out your hand and see."
Anyway, the… rat just looked up at me, and cocked it's head to one side. I guess to most people it would have been 'cute', but I thought it was just being a nuisance. I kicked off the sheets, and snatched up my clothes, unsettling the puppy. It emerged from under my bed, carrying a head full of lint. By the time it had waddled over to me, I was attacking my hair with a brush. Sleeping with your head under a pillow does wonders to your hair.
I sucked in my breath as the comb disappeared into a stubborn knot. The puppy started to pull on the hem of my cloak. "Go away," I resisted the urge to kick it. That didn't last long. On the fifth tug, I'd had it. I pull back my foot to give it one hell of a kick. My temper is always on a short fuse.
"Axel! What are you doing!?"
The puppy was saved by Demyx. Just. Unfortunately, that meant Demyx had taken the kick instead of the puppy. I'm not sure what I hit, but I wasn't sorry. As far as I was concern, he deserved it.
He recovered pretty quickly. He rolled over and looked at the puppy, eyes lighting up. "What is it?"
"It's a dog, Demyx," I said bluntly, trying to rip out the brush. I only succeeded in pulling out a few tuffs of hair.
"A dog?" He gazed at me blankly. I looked back just as blankly. The brush hanging out of my hair kind of ruined the effect I was aiming for. He didn't know what a dog was? "I've never seen one. I've only heard about them," he gave the puppy a squeeze. "Are you keeping it for a pet?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Well he likes you," the puppy had wriggled out of Demyx's grasp, and was back on my heels. I shoved it away with the tip of my boot. The puppy reminded me a lot of Demyx himself. Every time I kicked it, it still came back.
"Do you, uh, wants some help with that?" he frowned lightly as I wrestled to get the comb out.
"I'm fine. I don't need-" He ended up helping me. His fingers were a lot more delicate than mine were. I guess it came from picking at his sitar strings. It only took him a few seconds to get the comb out.
"Try being gentle for once?"
"What are you, my mother?"
"Do you want me to brush it for you?"
"No!"
Some how he ended up doing that too. I've found it's a lot easier to let Demyx have his way sometimes. It was nice though. And it did reminded me of what my mother used to do. She'd sit there for hours, just brushing my hair.
The puppy had found it's way to Demyx's head, and was perching there, tongue lolling out. "What are you going to do with the dog?"
"I'll take it back after breakfast."
There was a pause. I knew what that silence meant. "You're not keeping it, Demyx."
"Why not?"
He'd reverted back to a sulking little kid. I was silently glad he wasn't taking out his anger on my hair. "Xemnas would have a fit."
"How do you know he has a home to go back to?" He changed tack at the drop of a hat. I scowled. "Wouldn't you feel bad, Axel?"
"No. No heart, remember?"
"You do to have a heart," he dug a little harder than normal into my skull. I'd learnt to never insult the driver. I shut my mouth for a while. "Please, Axel."
I stiffened as I felt his eyes burning holes into the back of my neck. I felt like I'd done something wrong. I hate feeling guilty.
"Fine," I heard myself saying. I frowned at my weakness.
"Thanks, Axel," Demyx said happily, squeezing me round the middle.
"But you have to tell Xemnas," I nearly purred with satisfaction at the horrified look on his face.
The puppy came to breakfast. It still sat quite happily on Demyx's head, panting. I think it was glad to have a better owner than me. Though that might have been because it had a memory span of a goldfish.
Demyx's luck seemed to be holding. There was no sign of Xemnas, or Xigbar as well. I was a bit worried Xigbar would mistake the puppy for some kind of rodent target practise. "We're Number One and Two?" Demyx asked, taking a seat between Zexion and me. The others gawked at him.
"Busy," Sai'x hardly seemed to notice he was dripping cereal onto his lap.
"What the hell is that thing?" Xaldin demanded. "It looks like a-"
"-rat?"
"-guinea pig?"
"-ferret?"
A few people helpfully chipped in. Xaldin frowned. "No!" I agreed. They could have just said rodent. It covered all of them. "It's a dog."
"It's a bit small, don't you think?"
"Did it shrink?"
"No no, it's a puppy. They start out small."
"How come the Nobodies don't start out small then?"
I shut off for a while after they started up an argument about why Dusks didn't start out small, and grew. I started to reach for the butter. There was a small splat, and the puppy landed in the butter. I glared at it, and pushed away my toast, loosing my appetite for it. Instead, I went for the waffles. Before I'd got into grabbing distance, the puppy bet me to it. It sank in its tiny jaws, and dragged off with one.
The puppy seemed very interested in the breakfast table. It got into everything. Nearly everybody seemed to share my exasperation.
"No dog's on the table," Vexen swatted the puppy off his plate for the zillionth time. It rolled straight off, and landed with a 'welp'.
"Vexen! How could you," Demyx picked up the dazed puppy by the scruff. I could see the stars encircling its head.
"Don't you start with me," Vexen snapped back. There was a sudden scent of darkness, and a black portal opened up. Xigbar stepped out moments later, looking like he'd just been rubbed the wrong way.
Demyx quickly stuffed the puppy down the front of his cloak. His cloak gave a startled snuffle. Xigbar somehow missed the out of place sound. A few Members fought to keep straight faces.
"Run away again, Number Two?" Sai'x poured himself another glass of orange juice.
"Oh shut up!" He slumped down next to Xaldin. He grabbed the nearest thing to him. It happened to be a half puppy bitten pancake. A few of the less composed Members tried to hide their snorts of laughter. This time Xigbar noticed something. "What?" he took a better look around the table. He knew that we weren't the cleanest people on God's Earth, but the table had never looked like we'd got somebody on one end of the table, and rolled him to the other end. "-What's going on?… um," he suddenly remembered something. "And the Superior is supposed to be coming-" there was a second smell of darkness. "-about now."
Multiple portals suddenly appeared, and everybody fell into them in their haste to get away. I tried to fall backwards into mine, but I never quite got there. Demyx caught my foot, and I fell off my seat instead. I landed painfully on my shoulder blade, my cloak falling onto my face.
I liked to look a little more composed when Xemnas was about to chew me up, and spit me out.
I could just imagine his expression when he only found Demyx and Xigbar, and an upside down me, and a lot of rattling cutlery. Xemnas has the kind of eyes that cut right into you, even if you're not facing him. I was kinda glad I was under my cloak now.
"No dogs in the Castle, Number Nine."
I found out later that the puppy had somehow managed to pop its head out from under Demyx's chin.
We had to take it back. Obviously. Demyx was very insistent that I came with him. I was mildly surprised Xemnas hadn't had the puppy slaughtered. I suppose he had a bit of a soft spot for, Demyx, because he was the youngest in the group.
We stood on the edge of the junkyard. The puppy was squirming in Demyx's arms, catching the smells of home. "Do we have to?" He was looking pretty upset about the ordeal. I wondered how much of it was fault emotion. It looked real.
"Yes, Demyx."
"But-"
"No, Demyx."
"We could-"
"No!"
"Aaaaah, why?" Demyx turned a tearful face to me. I felt a jolt of shock. I wasn't expecting him to cry. Nobody cries in the Organisation. I averted my gaze, and looked at the bloody horizon for a good ten seconds. The crumbling castle of junk silhouetted against the sun set. Demyx sniffled behind me. "Didn't you learn 'no', back in the day?" I turned back round, hands on hips.
"We had a lot of things. And shared a lot. We never gave up things unless they were stolen."
"Hey. I didn't ask for your life story."
"Axel! Honestly, you always spoil the moment," Demyx hung his head.
"But you're smiling again."
"Huh?" Demyx said stupidly. I gave his cheeks a pinch. He failed about for a bit, trying to brush me off.
"Aw, you look a lot better when you smile, Demy," he blushed.
"Don't call me that."
"Demy-Demy-decibel."
I stopped when he kicked me in the shin. "Your never serious," his mouth curved into a pout, as he stroked the puppy.
"I can be serious," I snatched the puppy away from him. He gasped as I dropped it brutally on the ground, and started to yell at it. The puppy looked bewildered. He jumped backwards when I threw a stone at it, and finally ran away as the second stone hit its head.
You had to be tough when disowning something. Otherwise it will keep on searching for you. I didn't expect Demyx to understand that.
"You can truthfully say you didn't feel bad about doing that?" Demyx looked at me with sea stormy eyes.
"I didn't feel anything," I fixed my gaze on his right shoulder. There were a few hazel and white strands of dog hair there. It's easier to lie to a shoulder. It's even easier to lie to your feet.
I got the feeling he knew I was lying.
Every so often we brushed closely together on the way to Xemnas' office. I'd pushed the puppy away, but in the process I'd also pushed Demyx further away from myself. Even so he still stuck close to me on the walk back.
Everything originally comes from somewhere. And when you loose something, it goes back to that place. But when you 'disown' something, it will eventually come back to you if you don't push it away hard enough.
END
I was rather mean to the puppy... calling it a rat all the time xD