Disclaimer: None of the characters below belong to me, shame...
Some Things Are Meant To Be: Demyx Creates A Wave Pool
Luxord hated being put on the spot, since it was pretty alien to him. He usually managed to lie and/or charm his way out of anything, even since he had voluntarily given up his ability to manipulate time, in order to get this second chance. But Axel had saved his life, was now one of his best friends, and he had given his word a long time ago, to be absolutely straight with him.
"Yeah, Ax. I know the barbecue menu, and the dinner menu," true, since his casino was catering both, "and I know that Demyx-is-the-headline-entertainment-for-the-luau!" Luxord mumbled, as quickly as he could, aware he was cringing slightly, as he braced himself for the atomic explosion, he was expecting.
What he was not expecting was the silence that he got. "Ax?" he ventured, after a couple of minutes had passed.
Then, true to form, all hell broke loose. "What the hell was anybody thinking when they organised this? Does the king know? Why would anyone ever want to wreck my big moment, by foisting that mulletted moron on me? For three years I have managed never to even be on the same world as him," not that difficult when Axel spent most of his time on board the Red Arrow, and Demyx only flitted between Twilight Town, Disney Castle and the Destinies, "why would any sane person ever try putting us in the same town?! And why haven't you told me before now, you traitor," he thundered.
"Couldn't tell. Gave my word to his Majesty – who does know, obviously! Could only tell you if you asked me directly - like now, no volunteering the info. His Mickeyness seemed pretty pleased about it as well, if you ask me. Said something about this being a celebration of peace and light and friendship through all the odds, and winked a lot."
"Do mice get senile dementia? Because I'm wondering!" Luxord could almost hear the little sparks coming off Axel, over the phone.
"His Majesty's brain is still functioning just fine," and taking his life in his hands, or at least his friendship, ventured, "You don't think that, maybe, for the sake of all your mutual friends, who spend their lives walking on eggshells around the pair of you, that it's about time this whole thing was laid to rest!"
"In a word, NO!" came the yell down the phone, which strangely enough was exactly the same sentence, that Demyx was saying at exactly the same time on a different phone, when asked by Riku, if it wasn't time he and Axel buried the hatchet.
"NO, no chance, no way, never! EVER!! Unless I can bury it in him!"
"But, Dem, it's such old news," begged Riku, who with his first major event on as Mayor of the Destinies, the islands he had grown to love, really wanted everything to go smoothly, and was not about to allow an unhinged bi-polar musician and his firebrand of an ex-lover, screw things up.
"Look, Dem," he said, trying to sound mature, and wise, "we've all had our ups and downs, Namine had to accept Roxas past as the organisation rent-boy, Sora had to get through Kairi miscarrying Saix's offspring, and knowing he could never be her first, which they'd always wanted, and Olette and I couldn't sleep in the same room for the first 6 months because I had nightmares about what Maleficent did to me. No-one who finally survived Kingdom Hearts has had a bed of roses, but only you and Axel, keep on making it worse!"
"Ur, sorry, remind me then. Which one of you was betrayed and cheated on by the love of your life, WILLINGLY??!!" Spat Demyx down the phone, so worked up, in spite of Riku's hamhanded attempts at peacemaking, that actual waves were surging around the room.
"Dem, you know that isn't true. Everyone, including Axel, has told you it isn't true. Why can't you accept it, and let it go?! After all, you forgave Luxord, for his part in it, and if anything, Axel was less to blame!"
Demyx was now in floods of tears, as well as being nearly waist deep in surging water, (his downstairs neighbours were so not going to be happy), "but I didn't love Lux, and anyway, he apologised," sobbed Demyx. "Axel has never said he was sorry, EVER! He's said it wasn't his fault - nothing EVER is - he's said he wished it hadn't happened, but he's NEVER said he was sorry, and," finished Demyx, in an almost imperceptible whisper, "he's never said he loved me." And he cut the connection as he slid down on the window seat cushions, turned his face into them, and cried his heart out.
In fact, though he didn't say it to Riku, that was the reason he hadn't really pushed the boat out, so to speak, against Sora and Co at Hollow Bastion. (Well, that and the fact that he hadn't even realised he could do half of that stuff until then). He had no longer wanted a heart, he couldn't have loved Axel more if he'd had one, and if Axel didn't feel the same, he might as well be dead. He had never imagined that because of the purity of his love, which he hadn't needed a physical heart for, and the fact that he was what Luxord called 'an all around good egg', he didn't just fade into nothingness, but disappeared into the light, only to wake up a long time later, in a very bright room under Disney Castle, once again human – a Somebody!
Two other Somebodies had been brought back from the brink, woke up at around the same time – Luxord and Axel. Roxas and Namine had already had a week to settle in, their reanimation had been easier owing to their Somebodies channelling their love to reform their hearts. It was when they went down to see if their companions were awake and fully animated yet, that they witnessed the scene which had set the tone for the next three years.
Axel, who had helped Sora, in the hope of seeing Roxas again, believing that Demyx was lost to him forever, having already realised he hadn't needed a heart to love him, had dropped on one knee in front of Demyx, about to declare his quite literally undying love, when Demyx, knowing nothing of what had transpired after he had faded in Hollow Bastion, or Axel'x realisation of his feelings, but seeing Luxord in the room, went mental. He kneed Axel in the face, and then called him, every bitchy thing he could think of, and a few more he made up on the spur of the moment, and then he flounced out, leaving Axel, at first stunned, then confused, then hurt and then angry, very angry.
Even though, at first, their mutual friends had tried to explain to them both the whole sorry way that Xemnas had manipulated their love affair for his own ends, from sending Demyx on a near pointless mission to the underworld to how he got Luxord, on pain of death, to drug Axel and keep him 'occupied' on video until Demyx returned in the morning. How such a thing couldn't ever be considered as cheating. How it was only because of the sincerety of Luxord's total remorse, and wish that he had died instead of complied, that had brought him back as a Somebody. They'd tried to make each one understand the situation from the other's point of view, and got nowhere.
After a couple of months of being chewed out by one or the other, they had all accepted the status quo, and walked on eggshells around the duo. Now it was just getting tiring for everyone, even though it had become nearly second nature.
A gentle pair of arms slipped round the young mayor's waist, and long brown silky hair covered his silverblond, as a determined little chin settled itself atop his head.
"No luck, huh? Riku, I don't know that I, or any of us, can deal with this, and I'm beginning to wonder what his almighty Mouseship is thinking. Whether they realise it, or not, they're still deeply in love, and it's heartbreaking. And that's what worries me. They are not ordinary, their hearts were formed from the remnants of Kingdom Hearts, what if one of their hearts literally breaks? Who knows what the fall out will be? I, for one, am not happy with the way this is headed." She concluded, shaking her head as she detached herself from her equally worried spouse.
They were jerked out of their depressing thoughts by urgent banging on the front door. They looked at each other and grinned. "Lux," they said together, and raced for the door. He was just the tonic they needed at this moment, not to mention the fact that he might just have some idea of how to deal with it, as he was older and more closely involved.
"Dammit, Riku, it's just wrong that the Mayor doesn't have a door bell!" boomed Luxord, as he marched in without waiting for them to open the door. "And why is your door never locked? What kind of image are you trying to project? And don't tell me, 'one of the people', 'cos even the treehouse on the Cay has a goddam door bell! And young marrieds like you two really should lock the door, even if there was no risk of danger, which there still might be, some things should stay private. Wrong, just wrong!" he muttered in a very British way as he settled his tall, toned and immaculately presented form on the couch. Even when he was completely wasted, which he currently wasn't, Luxord managed to look like he'd just stepped out of the pages of a glossy magazine, and right now, dressed in a white collarless shirt and matching pleated chinos, with his lightly tanned skin, and his hair and goatee bleached to a perfect snow white by the sun, he looked positively regal.
"Well, I know my lack of bell, is not incentive enough for you to cross the square, so what brings you here?" smiled Riku, as he and Olette, snuggled up together in the oversized armchair, facing him.
"This weekend! It's giving me a migraine, and it's only Wednesday. I've just got off the phone to La Axel, who now knows that La Demyx will be here, and is ticked off, to put it mildly. I feel extremely sorry for Hayner, and the rest of the crew right now, and extremely glad that fire doesn't travel down wireless connections!" said Lux, who, unusually for him, had quite a frown on his face.
"We've just spoken to La Dem, and ditto for water, it sounded like his penthouse had become a wave pool, which reminds me, we'd better let Roxas know that he may have to go spring Dem from a cell in the morning!"
Olette got up, to do just that whilst she brewed some coffee, leaving the men to talk it out, in the lounge.
"Don't know what his Serene Mouseness is planning, but I do know, he is definitely planning something. The whole way this has been set up, and the fact that no-one can get hold of his office, reeks of subterfuge." Said Lux, stating the obvious, one of his more annoying habits.
"Lux, forget it. I've just come to the conclusion that we're all driving ourselves mad for nothing, and that's one thing I don't think the king intended to happen. If, he has something planned, then we could accidentally screw it up if we interfere, and if he hasn't, which I agree would appear to be unlikely, then it will probably pan out anyway – when the king's around things just kind of do that," stated Riku in a tone of relief, indicating that he believed what he had just said.
"Such wisdom, in such a young head," teased Luxord, "I knew there was a reason why I voted for you! Well, that and Olette's amazing coffee," he added with a broad smile at the lady in question, perennially the flirt, as she returned with a tray of steaming espressos.
Back in Twilight Town, coffee was also the order of the day. As soon as Roxas had heard from Olette he had raced to the police station, and once again bailed Demyx out. It was immediately obvious that apart from creating a personal wave pool, which had become less personal when it seeped down the stairs and flooded the other apartments, Demyx had also hit the bottle, or even several together. Luxord may have looked wonderful wasted, but Demyx was a far from pretty sight, and one Roxas felt he saw altogether too often, which was ironic when he remembered how mad Demyx used to get when Axel drank.
Now, sitting in Demyx's kitchen, with a huge pot of strong, black coffee on the table between them, half of which he had already managed to pour into Demyx, Roxas listened for the 647th time to Demyx's side of the story, which got more morbid and tragic every time. Since Roxas, pretty much knew it word for word he had tuned out, until he heard the words "....and I'm going to tell him that when I see him!" Roxas head shot up, at this new development, uncertain as to whether it was a good thing or not, not least because he wasn't sure just what Demyx planned on telling Axel, and asking would involve admitting that he hadn't been listening to friend's tale of woe.
Demyx, however, was smiling, as he pushed his seat away from the table. "And now, Rox, I'm going to kick you out, so that I can get some beauty sleep in before tomorrow. Love to Nami," he threw over his shoulder as he wobbled a little unsteadily in the direction of his bedroom.
Roxas rolled his eyes, picked up his bike keys, and headed for the door, wondering how Demyx ever managed to sleep, after so much coffee.