#akudemy

[gogocrazycocoa]

I was confused why there are so many Axel/Demyx fics on AO3 but now I know why. Turns out most of them (like at least 40% of the fics) were written by one person. The rest were mostly written by a mix of people.

[apologrim]

Hey, Rox! I was wondering what it is you like the most about Sora physically. Like, what is it that attracts you to him. The hair, the eyes, the chest?

BIG DISCLAIMER ALL THE VERSIONS I DRAW OF SORA ROXAS RIKU AND ALL CHARACTERS ARE AROUND THEIR 20S

[chroniccombustion]

River Stones, Volcanic Glass

Genre: implied romance, friendship, angst Rated: K+ Characters: Demyx, Axel, Organization XIII Warnings: implied Nobody death Status: oneshot, complete

(Written for the Missed Connections: KH Rarepair Zine)

Axel is assigned to be your trainer, for lack of a better term. He takes you on missions with him, has you follow him around as he instructs you how to summon your weapon on command, how to control the lesser Nobodies, and all the while he watches you with an appraising eye. You know that he’s assessing you, know that he’s both teaching you how to fight and also reporting back to Saix about your progress. You have no doubt you'll be disposed of should you turn out to be a waste of time, so you listen closely to what Axel tells you and make sure he has something favorable to say about you at the end of the day.

You join Organization XIII with surprisingly little fanfare. With as dramatic as the apparent leader seems to be, you were honestly expecting an uncomfortably invasive amount of attention directed at you. Thankfully this isn’t the case.

Instead it’s almost the opposite. There's a small measure of interest paid upon your initial introduction, but from what you can gather at a glance the entire group – eight, now nine with the inclusion of yourself – seems too focused on their own daily routines to give you much more than a few moments of interaction. You file away what information you can and stay quiet, still unsure how to act around your new coworkers. Better to play it safe, to pretend you’re still disoriented from your sudden transformation from human to Nobody, and form your outward personality accordingly once you know more.

A few of the other members seem friendly enough; the ones called Lexaeus and Zexion are quiet and a little stony, but cordial when they do speak, so you suppose it’s just in their nature to observe rather than interact. You like that, you think.

Then there’s Xigbar, who is handsier than you’d expected and it tinges on unpleasant. You think maybe, had you been given the chance to acclimate a bit more, the over-familiarity might not be so bad. As it stands, you can’t help but tense whenever Number II slaps you on the back in greeting.

The rest of the Organization doesn't interact with you much. Xaldin is… interesting. He has a hidden flair for the melodramatic but, again, he’s relatively personable when he isn’t busy. Vexen is about as arrogant as you’d have expected and you'd been hoping maybe there’d be more to pick apart, but no; he really is as boring as he seems. Xemnas is like a ghost that doesn’t entirely recognize his surroundings, or that there are even other people around him at all. Honestly though, that’s fine, because if he barely pays anyone any attention then it just makes you easier to overlook. You’re perfectly happy staying under the leader’s radar until you know more about what your situation.

It’s Saix, though, that you learn you need to watch out for. He's cold, monotone, and constantly glaring indifferently at whomever is in his vicinity. If there was anyone in the Organization capable of tearing out someone’s throat with their teeth, you’d bet munny it’d be him.

 (You decide to stay out of Saix’s line of sight as much as possible, and respond in nods and single-word answers when he speaks to you directly.)

The last member of the Organization, the one that claims the number directly before yours, you don’t even properly meet until about two weeks after you arrive. They come striding into the common room in a whirl of shadows and ash, darkness trailing off their shoulders like the smoke you can smell all over them, combined with the frigid scent of the Dark Corridors. You’ve taken to watching everyone’s movements when they walk, when they gesture; it’s how you’ve managed to identify them all with their hoods up. You memorized each and every body shape within days of arriving, so when an unfamiliar figure in a too-familiar coat appears in the corner of the room, you tick your eyes over to watch in wary interest.

You observe them silently, taking in as many details as you can before you have to play dumb; a tall build with thin limbs and a skinny torso means they’re probably not a purely physical fighter. Their coat is different, too, with tapered sleeves instead of the usual bell shape – they likely use a weapon that could get caught on loose fabric, or maybe a power that requires more dexterous use of their hands. The bonfire scent hanging around them means they’ve either just come from someplace that’s been burning, or they themself are cloaked in cinders. Fire magic? you wonder briefly, and given that you’ve seen just about every other type of element in this place, it wouldn’t be much of a reach.

The figure stretches their lanky arms over their head, rolling their broad shoulders until you can hear a deep ‘pop’. You stay quiet on the couch and keep your head down as if you’re busy tuning the sitar lying across your lap.

“Ahhh,” the stranger drawls, and the voice is masculine, a nasally tenor, and you’re momentarily caught off guard by how young they sound. Even Zexion, youngest of the group so far, has a way of speaking that makes him seem older. The rest are all older than you are, from what you can tell, but the voice currently huffing out a low sound of amusement seems… almost exactly your age. Then again, none of you are human anymore, you’ve been told, so you’re still trying to figure out how age works in this liminal, lifeless city.

The figure steps closer, rounding the couch opposite you and planting a hand on a cocked hip. He seems to study you for a moment, head tilting, and you look up with your expression perfectly blank. You don’t know him yet – best not to give him anything to work with.

“I heard we were getting a new guy,” he says, and there is clearly a smile in his tone. You don’t know if you like the sound of it, unable to see what sort of smile it really is.

He reaches up with long fingers and finally pulls back the hood still covering his face. You’re greeted by a set of acid-green eyes, framed by hair the color of fire and fresh blood, with inverted teardrops, purple like old bruises, sitting just below his eerily vibrant gaze. He smiles at you, and it’s far too sharp for a smile that isn’t showing any teeth.

“I’m Axel,” he says, with tiny pinpoints of yellow and orange crackling at the edges of his lips like dying sparks. “A-X-E-L. Got it memorized?”

You don’t have a title yet, but you slowly tell him your name is apparently Demyx now, and Axel’s smile widens into a wolfish grin.

---      

Axel is assigned to be your trainer, for lack of a better term. He takes you on missions with him, has you follow him around as he instructs you how to summon your weapon on command, how to control the lesser Nobodies, and all the while he watches you with an appraising eye. You know that he’s assessing you, know that he’s both teaching you how to fight and also reporting back to Saix about your progress. You have no doubt you'll be disposed of should you turn out to be a waste of time, so you listen closely to what Axel tells you and make sure he has something favorable to say about you at the end of the day.

You also make it a point to watch him as much as he watches you, though you keep your observations to yourself unless they’re mission-related, and keep up the act that you’re more naive than you really are. You watch the way he fights, how he moves, his facial expressions as he talks; at first glance he seems friendly, but you don’t yet trust anyone, let alone someone obviously tasked with making sure you’re worth keeping around. You can’t be sure how deep in Saix’s pocket he is, either, and that’s the part that worries you most.

As you observe him you start to notice just how like a chameleon your new field partner really is. In the Castle, Axel is easy-going, languid, all snarky comments and lazy grins. His body language is relaxed and his dialogue bordering on flippant and you wonder just how he manages to get away with it around someone as severe as Saix.

On your missions together, Axel is brighter, more vibrant in his movements and speech. He’s beautiful in battle, as fierce as his fire is hot, and you don't miss the gleam in his venomous eyes as he burns his enemies to dust. The first few times you go up against a handful of Heartless, Axel annihilates most of them with a flourish, leaving the rest for you to practice on. “Show me what you’ve got,” he says.

So you do. You barely have to strum your sitar’s strings for the water that flows through your music to slam into their wriggling, yellow-eyed bodies and rip them apart. You could do more, but you don’t; you keep your real strength hidden. You even pretend not to notice one of the larger Heartless behind you, letting it get almost too close just to make it seem like you’re not as aware as you are. You feign surprise when it swipes at you from the side, flinch appropriately when a flaming chakram comes flying past and slices the Heartless in half. Axel gives you an odd look afterwards and you wonder if you’ve made the wrong move after all.

(During the next few missions he lets you fight them all on your own, never once stepping in to help, and while you don’t pull the same stunt a second time, you do let the battle drag on for longer than you really need to, just to keep up the illusion. You look to Axel for approval once the Heartless are dead; he gives you a quirked brow and a slow, strange grin in return.)

It’s not until about a month into your missions with Axel that you get to see an entirely different version of him altogether – and for all of your careful observations, you’re entirely unprepared.

The mission is a simple one this time. Some of the more intelligent Heartless had been stockpiling items in the train tunnels beneath the world called Twilight Town and you'd both been charged with flushing them out and collecting whatever useful things they'd left behind. You actually find a decent amount of stuff you can take back to the Castle, too, though it doesn't escape your notice that Axel seems more interested in you than the mountain of potions tucked away in a shadowy corner. He lets you stuff everything into a backpack, just watching, until you finish and turn silently to face him.

He smirks. “Come on,” he says, gesturing with his chin back towards the way you'd entered. “I wanna show you something.”

Wary, you follow him up out of the dank tunnels where all the world's rainwater seems to collect, and down the winding streets to the center of town. He approaches the vender in a small shop while you hang back; minutes later, he's reappearing with two blue bars in his gloved hands.

“One more stop,” he says.

You're left with little choice but to keep following.

He takes you up to the top of the massive clock tower that shadows the streets below. From way up near the horizon, almost touching the sky itself, you look down at the ground and see nothing but rooftops shrouded by haze. But it's when you look out and above, over the rooftops and the stretching edge of the world, that you see it. You lose your breath at the sight of the sunset, glowing every shade of warmth and summer that you can name, with vibrant splashes of gold and scarlet painted across the clouds.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?”

You look over. Axel has taken a seat beside you on the rim of the tower, one foot propped up on the ledge with his elbow resting on a bent knee. You frown. It seems entirely unsafe.

He grins up at you and gestures for you to join him. Tentatively, acutely aware that he could easily shove you off and to your probable doom if he chooses, you lower yourself to the ground and sit beside him. He doesn't push you off. Instead, he reaches over and holds out one of the blue bars from earlier.

Taking it, you stare at him in confusion.

“It's ice cream,” he says with an amused chuckle.

You narrow your eyes. “I know what it is.”

His head tilts, catlike, and those green eyes that see far too much stare directly into you. You stare back just as intently, trying to read him the same way he seems to be reading you. He smiles, which unnerves you a little bit because it's a much different kind of smile than you're used to and for a moment you wonder if maybe you've already screwed up, if maybe you've somehow played right into a trap. Because that smile is not one of his usual smirks, nor is it any kind of friendly; it's knowing.  

“Do you now?” he drawls.

You feel the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

Axel chuckles again, leaning back on his hand and finally looking away out across the horizon. “You know a lot, I think. More than you let on.” He takes a huge bite out of his own ice cream and glances back over at you, chewing through his renewed smirk.

You stay silent, stunned.

He turns away once more. “It's alright,” he says with a shrug, the motion, awkward due to the way he's leaning on his one free hand. “Your secret's safe with me.”

You don't trust that. Eyes narrowing further, you drop enough of your act to square your shoulders out of the usual slouch and peer at him with open suspicion on your face. “What do you want?” you ask flatly.

Axel just gives another shrug. “You know, normally I would probably try and blackmail you, but now? Eh. Not really interested.” Another sidelong smirk in your direction. “Why? You got something you wanna offer?”

You scowl at him and he laughs out loud. “No, but in all seriousness, I don't want anything.”

You find that hard to believe; you tell him so.

“Fair,” he replies. “I honestly wouldn't trust me either.”

“Then what are you doing?”

This seems to stall him. He looks out over the town below your dangling feet and nibbles at his ice cream in apparent thought. A full minute passes in silence before he speaks again. “You're like me.”

He pops the rest of his ice cream into his mouth and scrutinizes the wooden stick. Sighing through his nose, he tosses the stick off somewhere behind him before flopping backwards and staring straight up at the sky with his hands folded behind his back. You wait, and your quietude is rewarded when he heaves another sigh.

“How so?” you dare to press.

Axel hums. “You and me? We're both really good at pretending.” Green eyes close. “I'm the Organization's assassin,” he admits quietly. “Everybody has a role to play here, if you don't fulfill it then they cut you out. That's just the way it is. My role is to kill stuff, get things done...” He cracks one eye open and peers at you with a quirked brow. “...Training the newbies, apparently. My point is, all they need me to be is my assigned role. That's it. I get too smart or too good then they can just pile on the workload until I'm too much of a liability to keep around. Gotta find that balance there, walk the line between juuuuust useful enough and nothing more. So I pretend.”

He turns his head to look at you fully, gaze too green and too sharp. You don't know how to react.

It's unnerving, how succinct he is; you never would have expected this from him with the kind of facade he usually wears. But then again you suppose that's the point. Axel has you pegged because he, too, likes to observe, likes to play at being something to underestimate. You can't believe you went and fell for the same trick you've been trying to pull the entire time you've been here.

As if sensing your disturbance, Axel hefts himself back up into a sitting position and nods at the ice cream still untouched in your left hand. “You should hurry up and eat that.”

You blink down at it, having pretty much forgotten its existence, and make a face. “I don't really want it.”

He shrugs yet again – apparently a favorite gesture of his – and holds out his hand. You pass it to him without hesitation.

“Suit yourself,” he says, and proceeds to run his tongue over it to keep it from dripping all over his fingers.

You turn away and find yourself watching the sinking of the sun, red like the heart you’ve lost. As you process Axel's words you realize that, while you should be tensing with fight or flight instincts right about now, you're strangely not. You're wary, yes, and certainly caught off guard, but there's something about the way Axel had said what he did about playing pretend that... sticks in your head. Would it be so bad, you wonder, if there was another member you could relax around? If only just a little. Admittedly, the last few months have left you with a proverbial crick in your neck from constantly being on edge, holding yourself in check so that no one figures you out before you can do the same to them. It's exhausting.

“Alright,” you tell him, still looking ahead. “I'll bite, what are you proposing here?”

Axel full-on grins. “Knew you were smart,” he breathes. “I like you. Well,” he huffs, the sound more sardonic than actually amused; “as much as a Nobody can like anything.” He waves a hand. “Point is, I think you and I are gonna get along, yeah? And I don't particularly feel like being the one getting stuck executing you if you turn out to be something they can't exploit, so! We're gonna find you a role to fill.” He grins wider, and it's nearly feral in its intensity.

“Oh?” you say, because that's all you really can.

Axel nods. “You're observant. You're clever, too, and yeah, you can fight but why waste you on battle missions when they've already got a ton of us to do that anyway?”

“...Like you?”

He scoffs, a bitter, hollow kind of laugh. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Like me. Don't need another one of me around, I can tell you that. Anywaaaaay...”

White teeth flash as he bites off the last of the ice cream bar – once more taking a moment to inspect the stick – and you let yourself pick the action apart. It's casual, almost deliberately so; like he's still playing, still pretending. You realize that he must not trust you either, despite having said everything he has. He could blackmail you probably, but what would be the point of that if it meant throwing himself under the bus as well? And that, that is what makes everything click in your brain about what Axel is up to.

He's tossing himself onto the tracks alongside you – willing to risk personal injury because you know he can hurt you back if you try anything funny. Oh, you think. Well played.  

For the first time since your arrival you feel your face twist into a wide, amused smile. “You need a recon agent?” you ask, allowing your voice to come out unhindered, no longer stifled and purposefully monotoned. “I look, you shoot?”

Axel laughs. “Oh hell yeah.” He reaches out a leather-clad hand towards you, grin stretching impossibly wider, growing more real as you clasp his hand in your own and shake. “Stick close to me,” he says, “and I'll make sure you stay alive, okay, Demyx?”

Something about the sound of your new name on his tongue makes you shiver. All you can do is nod.

---      

He keeps his promise.

Time crawls slowly in the World That Never Was; days and months and years becoming completely indistinguishable from each other in a place without seasons. You think maybe it's been a while, but you can't be sure; you can only mark the passage of, well, anything by the way the sky looks on other worlds.

Twilight Town, though, is liminal in another way. Instead of constant, stagnant darkness, there's an eternal dusk – that sort of heavy amber glow that hangs like a veil over the whole city but is still better than the moonlit void outside the windows of the Castle. It's another place where time seems to stand still, but instead of stifling... Well. You're not sure you can name what it makes you feel.

 Because you do feel, no matter what Xemnas has decided or what Axel seems to believe of himself.

And what you feel in the shadowy, goldenrod light up on the highest rooftops and the longest alleyways of that town, when you sit together after a mission or hide from your duties in the shade of the clocktower for just a little longer, is something good. Time suspended in the Castle is suffocating; time suspended in Twilight Town, with Axel's red hair like fire in the sunset, is something closer to hope, to quietude. It feels like the kind of day that can last forever, a little bubble of something just for the two of you that you never have to give up, never have to leave. Even if you know you only have so long before you have to blink away the dream and report in.

But it isn't the town that makes you feel this, you slowly come to realize over weeks and months of countless extra hours stolen away after missions while you're still pretending to be inept. It's not the sunsets or the quiet moments, it's Axel. Axel, who treats you like a person despite being convinced that none of you are anymore. Axel, who doesn't see you as lazy or stupid, doesn't mock you but teases you with a smirk that sparks a flutter in your supposedly empty chest.

And you think he might possibly think the same, because there are moments when you can't tell if your mind is playing tricks on you or if you really do see him watching you out of the corner of your eye. It's not the same as his original calculating stares; it's softer, almost fond, and maybe it's because he's comfortable enough around you to be like this, but you'd like to believe it's also something more. You can't help but hope – so hope, you do.

Despite the hope, however, you cannot shake the underlying current of anxiety and sorrow. For all the horrible things Axel's done throughout his time in the Castle, (which he slowly confesses as trust between you builds) there is good beneath it. It's obvious that he thinks there isn't, but you fervently disagree. He's seen through your act and knows just how capable you really are; he helps you hide it so that you don't get exploited like he's been.

You don't like what they've made him into. An assassin, a killer, something you with your uncanny observance can see wears him down like river water over stones. It eats at him, chips away at that harlequin smile until the edges are crumbling and you hate, hate, hate the emptiness behind those glass-green eyes every time he comes back from a mission you're not allowed to join him on. And the worst part is that you can tell that he believes it all. Axel believes that he's a monster, that he's inhuman, that the only way to ever be real again is to do what they tell him to, no matter how much it destroys him. You wonder what kind of person he was before this, mourn them as dead inside the Organization's No. VIII, smothered and murdered by Xemnas' hands.

You try to tell him that it isn't true, that he's still redeemable without the Organization, that you both could leave and start over, be anyone you wanted to be, even your old selves.

He just smiles at you with a deep, deep sorrow he claims he cannot feel, and reminds you that he's been sent to annihilate others that had similar thoughts of running.  “You're not the first No. IX,” he admits, choking on the words like they're poison. “And I doubt I'm valuable enough to bring back alive.”

You hold your tongue after that – almost as tightly as you hold his shaking hand.

 ---

One by one by one, your comrades are destroyed. They're beaten, scattered, silenced, until you have no idea where anyone is or who is even left alive to return once their missions end. It's only a matter of time before Xemnas runs out of fighters; only a matter of time before you're deployed as a last resort.

You miss Axel. You miss the whispered conversations, the feel of his gloveless fingers laced with yours. You miss the time spent talking in your room after you'd both come back from separate worlds, now no longer paired together like you once were in days long passed. You miss him, but Axel is gone.

Saix calls him a traitor, though you know that Axel wouldn't run the way they said he has; you know because you've been trying to get him to run away with you for years. No, Axel hasn't run. Instead, he's gone to find the one that did.     It's Roxas that's fled, that's turned against the Organization and disappeared. Axel left to bring him back, desperate to keep the boy alive, to never again have to cover his hands in the proverbial blood of a teammate.

(Axel told you what he'd done in Castle Oblivion, and though he'd claimed it had been easy for him you can see the hairline cracks below the surface as he speaks. More scars on his volcanic-glass heart.)

You cling to the hope – it's all you have now – that Axel is still alive somehow, that Roxas' Somebody hasn't found him and torn him apart. You wish he'd taken you with him, wish you could find him, wish that there were more members left for Xemnas to focus on so that you could get away to actually search.  

But you can't. And by the time you're finally sent out to play the good soldier, you've nearly succumbed to the reality of never seeing your friend again in this lifetime.

I'll find you again, you tell him in your heart, praying he can hear you though you know he likely can't.

You kept your promise, now I'll keep mine. I'll find you.  

 It’s that thought that keeps you going as Sora stares you down.

 ---

You wake up face down in a back alley of Twilight Town, chest aching. You don’t know how you got there or how long it’s been since you died, but you’re not really too invested in finding out. What matters is the weight you can feel behind your ribs, the stuttering, physical beat of a brand new heart where only a phantom one used to be - still capable of emotion but intangible and therefore the perfect collateral to be used against you. But not anymore.

It’s with a feral grin and a hand to your sternum that you stumble your way out into the amber-lit city that holds your best memories, not as Demyx, but as you. The Organization took your life from you for a decade, you name, your identity. Never again.

On instinct you turn over your shoulder to grin at Axel…

only to startle when he isn’t there.

Suddenly your resurrection isn’t quite so joyous. You’re used to the feeling of hollowness, of the dullness inside your chest as your heart grew back in, but this is somehow deeper, stronger. You don’t like it; it hurts in a way you didn’t think possible. It takes you an embarrassingly long time to pinpoint the sensation as grief.                    

Fear comes next, along with desperation as you scour the streets, the tunnels, the woods, everywhere, and still cannot find him. It's not long before panic sets in as well, because once it's obvious that Axel isn't anywhere in Twilight Town you realize that you have absolutely no idea where else to even begin looking. You also realize you don't know which is a worse thought: that he's possibly been destroyed and not reconstructed, or that he isn't destroyed and is still under the Organization's thumb. What do you do then?

You don’t know - and that’s the truly scary part.

You allow yourself a minor breakdown on top of the clocktower, arms wrapped around your knees like you’ve seen him sit a thousand times before. Tears stream hot and salty down your face, the first in a very long time, and as you stare out at the gold-and-red horizon you let out everything that’s been building up inside you for a decade, for a day. You’re exhausted by the time you’re done, but beyond the headache and the stuffy nose you feel a determined sense of calm.

For the past ten years you’ve survived under the guise of incompetence, of naivety - at this point it would be like second nature to you. No one would notice. If anything is left of Organization XIII, who’s to say you couldn’t infiltrate them? Use their resources? Find a way to hack back into one of their computers, track someone down?

You were a Nobody for a long time. What’s a little longer in the black leather coat?

Besides, you think as you stand on surprisingly steady legs; what good is having your heart back if the one you gave it to forever ago isn’t there to give you his?

Wait for me, Axel, you tell him, reaching out with the steady rhythm in your chest as you summon a Dark Corridor and step into it, bound for what remains of the World That Never Was.

I’ll be there soon. I promise.  

[lutza97]

a few months ago I had draw this but I forgot to post it lol

I post it from mobile and I have no idea how it will look on pc but it should have the right colors

[apologrim]

DAMNNNN is been so long since i drew the ship but people keep asking the same 

2017 vs    2022(in like 30 min) 

[lutza97]

“Myde’s beard” pt1 

Last summer I made a series of drawings on Axel and Demyx  and this is the first one. After a long time I decided to color it and I hope to do part 2 too!

Ps: (it’s a long story about why there is Demyx's Somebody and still Lea's Nobody, maybe one day i may tell it)

[lutza97]

“Myde’s beard” pt 2

Last summer I made a series of drawings on Axel and Demyx  and finally i made the second part! 

Part one here

Ps: (it’s a long story about why there is Demyx’s Somebody and still Lea’s Nobody, maybe one day i may tell it)

[writteninsunshine]

Work-Shy - Axel/Demyx, Hades/Demyx - SFW

Title: Work-Shy

Author: Donnie

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts

Setting: The Grey Area, The Underworld

Pairing: Axel/Demyx,

Characters: Axel, Demyx, Hades, Saïx, Luxord, Xemnas, Pain, Panic

Genre: Friendship/Romance

Rating: T

Chapters: 1/1

Word Count: 2644

Type Of Work: One-Shot, Part of the 8 Days Of Axel series

Status: Complete

Warnings: Gay, Slash, Yaoi, MLM, Mentioned Sex, Hades is into Demyx, Manipulation, Heavily Implied Hades/Demyx

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything.

Summary: Demyx needed a babysitter, and just to ask about a stupid Stone.

AN: Hey guys, it’s me again! Just thought I ought to say, if you want vague updates and to talk to me more, I have Twitter and Tumblr, too! Twitter is Sunshinecackle, and Tumblr is Writteninsunshine! I also have a writing Discord that is currently pretty dead. xD I can PM it to people who want it on FFN, for everyone else, it’s here: https://discord.gg/FyaWw25

Alright, so, I finally got this done. Late, again, but I’m hoping to get the other one done as soon as possible. I want to try and make day four on time, instead of being a day behind every time. Fave AU day is gonna be fun. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this! It was fun to work on! Hades is pretty thirsty for Demyx.

Kingdom Hearts Fic Masterlist

Work-Shy

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time Axel was done trying and failing to fall asleep, most of the other Organization members were off on their respective missions. When he entered the Grey Area, only Demyx and Luxord were seated, both on the same couch to the left of the walkway. Running a hand through his red hair as he yawned wide behind his hand, Axel’s green eyes turned on Saïx, standing before the floor to ceiling window as usual, who regarded him with cold golden eyes.

“Are you here for your mission or do you intend on taking the day off?” That sharp gaze flitted to Luxord and Demyx whispering conspiratorially on the couch, leaned close enough to one another to become one being. Whatever they were saying, Axel didn’t know if his friend could hear it, but it had his eyes narrowing that much more. Any more and his eyes would close. Axel couldn’t help the small, fond smile on his lips as he took in the other’s irritated expression. Really, Saïx never changed.

“I wanted my mission but I didn’t know a day off was on the table.” Axel’s smile, all teeth and no actual friendliness threatened to overtake his whole face and Saïx rolled his eyes. An unprofessional move, sure, but this was Axel he was talking to. It wasn’t like he was actually going to care, nor report him to the Superior.

“As usual,” Saïx sighed, “You’re just as lazy as your predecessors.” Gold flicked to the two blonds on the couch, and he rolled his eyes again, clearly put out by this. “If you’re so inclined not to do your work, perhaps instead you would like to help Demyx with his business for the day.”

Demyx gave a full-body flinch, hissing a little through his teeth, slowly turning to look over his shoulder with what looked like it was supposed to be a sunny smile. It was three shades of queasy away from being sick, and Axel had to hide his sudden desire to laugh behind a fake cough. Saïx’s yellow eyes cut to slits for him and he gave a pseudo-apologetic smile.

“I thought you said I was, uh, off the hook today?” Demyx asked, his voice soft and hesitant. 

“You were. But Axel has volunteered to help you.” Saïx’s frigid smile had Demyx on his feet, reluctantly joining Axel in front of the berserker. “Now, run along, the two of you. Axel, your mission is to make sure that Demyx completes his objective. Just think of it like you’re helping a new member learn the ropes.”

“Hey! I know the ropes--”

“Do you?” Saïx rose a delicate brow and gave a stern frown that made Demyx shift uncomfortably before summoning a portal and making a beeline for the Underworld. Axel followed after lingering for a moment, torn between resigning himself to his new job or arguing the point with his friend. 

The two Nobodies surfaced in the Underworld after a few minutes, and Demyx sighed, put-upon and grumpy. 

“Sometimes, I swear, all he wants to do is make my life hell.” Ironic, considering where they were, he supposed. 

“I think he just wants you to, you know, do your job, Dem,” Axel replied, following him towards the gate that Cerberus usually guarded. “What even is the job today?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at the other. Demyx spent so much time in the Underworld it was amazing he still had something to do here. Then again, when you were as big a slacker as Demyx was, one would probably find things to do that didn’t pertain to work at all. 

“Uh… I think I’m supposed to be gathering info on the Olympus Stone.” Demyx replied flippantly, waving his hand as though shooing away the thought of doing actual work. “We’ll probably just go hang out with Hades for a while, throw Saïx off our trail, and then head back.”

“Can we at least ask him about the Stone?” Axel didn’t feel like getting chewed out because Demyx was neglecting his duties. After all, if he was on babysitting detail, that meant Saix would get on his ass about the tiniest thing if it didn’t go according to plan. 

“I mean, I guess. He gets kinda chatty about things like that, though. I guess we could take notes, that’ll probably make Saïx happy, keep him from mounting our butts above the door of the Grey Area.” Demyx sighed again, dramatic as always, and slumped forward. For someone who could run at the first sign of danger like a damn gazelle, he sure hated walking long distances. Axel figured he was probably just upset that he didn’t get a chance to bond his rump to the couch all day. 

“Mounting our-- Woah, Dem, that’s a little extreme, don’t you think?” Axel shuddered, “So if you come here just to slack off, what do you even do?” He asked as they made their way up the bending road to Hades’ throneroom.

“Hang out with Hades, mostly. He’s a pretty cool guy, actually, for being such a hothead. Don’t talk too much about Hercules and the other Gods and you’re pretty golden.” Demyx grinned, “He plays electric guitar, I play the sitar, and we jam sometimes. It’s really nice, actually.” 

“That… Actually does sound kind of cool.” Axel nodded, before pausing, “I don’t play any instruments.” 

“That’s cool, you can just vibe with us.” Demyx offered, “And maybe we can figure out that Olympus Stone stuff so that we can avoid getting lectured.” Or threatened. Xemnas wanted the Olympus Stone for some reason, even if Demyx wasn’t sure what that reason could be. If he were honest, he didn’t see a point in his missions here, because it was never laid out for him what he was supposed to do. What was the point? Why did they need reports on Hades and his movements?

Even if his main movements when Demyx was around had to do with strumming a guitar or touching the sitarist, he reported things as necessary. It wasn’t like anyone really cared what he was doing. Saïx usually just nodded and shooed him off after he handed in his paperwork, typically glad when Demyx took up a spot on a couch and began to play music. It wasn’t like that ever got old for either of them.

“So… Do you think he’s going to get mad about us asking questions?” Axel asked as Demyx slipped into the throne room. The blond shrugged before waving in a broad gesture, grinning like a madman and looking like he was ready to party.

“Hades, my man, what’s up?” He called, only to get a look from Hades that told him today was probably going to be rough.

“Hey, Dem.” That sigh was a big indicator that he was already frustrated, and Axel figured it would be best to try and get him into a better mood before they interrogated him.

“Aw, what’s wrong, dude?” Demyx asked, slipping up to the throne and sitting on the arm like he belonged there. Hades rubbed his forehead and sighed through his nose again, before tenting his hands and pointing with them at nothing in particular.

“You just can’t find good help these days. That little inconsequential ‘hero’,” Full air quotes included, “Is really throwing a wrench in my plans. Every monster that I throw at him, he manages to overcome. That Philoctetes keeps helping him, naturally, and his pegasus…” And Meg wasn’t pulling her weight, typical of the henchman he seemed to employ. Tapping his fingers on the other armrest, Hades gave a low huff that nearly sounded like something Demyx would expect from Cerberus.

“Pain and Panic not working out?” Demyx asked, head tilting slightly as he scooted over, his boots finding a spot on Hades’ thigh. Axel rose a brow, clearing his throat. That brought Hades’ eyes to Axel, and he sat up a little straighter, cutting a glare at the other man.

“Who’s that?”

“Oh!” Demyx hopped down, striding over to Axel and taking his arm, “This is Axel, he’s a good friend of mine.” Axel gave him a look. They had slept together, he sure hoped they were good friends. “He’s a hothead, too. Show him, Axe!”

Axel smirked a little, raising his hand slowly with his fingers all held together. Letting them open in the shape of a tulip, fire blossomed at his fingertips. Hades seemed impressed, watching the ball of flame dance around his fingers, and he leaned back in his seat, grinning with all of those sharp teeth.

“I like him, a firecracker’s always welcome here, Dem, you know that.”

“Yeah, man! Axel’s a lot of fun, and he’s babysitting me today.” Demyx replied, nearly skipping back to the throne to sit back on the armrest.

“I don’t have to sit up there like him, do I?” Axel teased, and Demyx leaned back a little, crossing one knee over the other. 

“Not if you don’t want to.” Hades clapped, calling out, “Pain! Panic! Give our new friend a comfortable seat.”

The two minions ran from seemingly nowhere, morphing together into a chair for Axel, comfortable and inviting. Blinking in confusion, the redhead looked between the chair and then Hades, at a loss for what to do.

“Well?” Hades asked, narrowing his eyes, “Sit.” 

“Yessir.” Axel was on his ass against the maroon cushion in seconds, ignoring the grunt from his seat as he forced a smile. “It’s nice.”

“They’re good for something, at least.” Hades rolled his eyes, clearly moody as he glanced at Demyx. “You want to have a jam session?” 

“Yeah, Dem, you guys should play for me. I want to hear it.” Axel chirped, and Hades turned slightly, pointing at Axel.

“I like this guy, he has good taste.” Hades nodded definitively, reaching beside his throne to grab the electric guitar from its stand. Demyx summoned his sitar after hopping off of the throne to give Hades a wide berth away from the water, dramatic flare in full display. After settling back into his spot, Demyx started up a slow, soft melody. Hades joined him after a moment, and Axel found himself both confused and impressed; That actually worked really well, and he found himself relaxing, closing his eyes to soak in the melody.

Axel had no idea how many hours crawled by like that, sitting in relative silence save for the music being played tirelessly by the couple of musicians, but eventually, he began to wonder. Was Hades’ mood better, now? Did that mean that they could finally ask him about the Olympus Stone? He was almost scared to ask. It wasn’t like getting scorched was a big problem for him, but he didn’t want to take all of Demyx’s hard work getting Hades on his side and throw it out the window.

“Hey, guys?” Axel finally implored, getting both men to look at him, the music slowing back down. “Uh, Dem, we got work to do, right?”

Demyx blanched, nodding slowly, almost dumbfounded by the statement. The hadn’t been playing all that long, had they? Then again, time flew when they did duets. He’d spent a whole twelve hours down here just making music with Hades before. Saïx had a day’s worth of lecturing to do and Demyx had had to stand there and take every word. He didn’t want to do that again.

“Uh, yeah.” He turned to sit with his feet on Hades’ thighs again, watching him adjust a string on his guitar. “So, uh, you know my boss.”

“The tight-wad, yeah.” Hades nodded, “Reminds me of someone I know, too.” But he didn’t need to go into that right now. “What about him?”

“Uh, well, for some reason, I really don’t know why…” Maybe he should have paid attention during his mission debriefing, “He’s interested in the Olympus Stone. And we were hoping you could, uh, tell us about it? Just some intel, that’s all we need. Then I won’t get axed.”

Axel snorted a little at the word choice, shaking his head a little, spikes flicking against his back. Hades nodded slowly, sighing through his nose again as he tented his hands and tapped his lips with his pointer fingers a couple of times.

“The Olympus Stone makes it so that the draining effects of the Underworld don’t affect the holder.” Hades explained, “It’ll free you from the curse so you can still use your abilities. The curse doesn’t work on those that belong here, though. If you want it, you’ll have to go to Mount Olympus.” Making a face like he’d smelled a foul odor, he shook his head, “Have to deal with the whole peanut gallery up there.”

“Huh…” Demyx was small, slippery, sneaky, he could probably swipe it pretty easily. The little smile on his lips made Axel roll his eyes.

“You thinking about stealing it already?” Axel asked, and Demyx nodded emphatically.

“It’s going to help me out a lot. Means I could actually fight if I have to.” Demyx spoke, batting his eyelashes, “My good looks don’t stop the Heartless down here.”

“I’ve helped you out, Demyx,” Hades replied, smarmy and sweet all at once. He drug a hand up Demyx’s arm and Axel suddenly stood up.

“Dem, I think we gotta go.” He pulled out his Gummi Phone like it was going off, but the screen was blank. “Saïx needs us to check in.” There was not a single message on his screen but he wanted to go ahead and get out of there. Demyx looked skeptical, but he hopped down and let his sitar dissipate. Giving a wave to Hades, he watched Axel make a portal.

“Guess I’ll be back tomorrow.” Demyx told the God, “See you then?”

“Sure thing, babycakes.” Hades laughed, waving with only his fingers. Demyx returned the motion, getting a kissy face he didn’t get to reciprocate. Axel grabbed his arm, dragging him through the portal as he made goo-goo eyes at the God he was leaving behind.

“What do you see in that guy, anyway?” Axel asked, green eyes narrowed, obviously grumpy. He was aiming for fury and flames but ended up looking pouty and whiny instead.

“He’s cool, he’s fun and he’s nice to me,” Demyx replied, shrugging. “And people give you more information when you present yourself as open and interested.”

Axel paused at that, blinking a couple of times in confusion before tilting his head and looking at the blond. That made sense, sure, but he didn’t think that Demyx would be the kind of guy to resort to that kind of behavior.

“So… You’re just manipulating him?” Axel asked, frowning as it finally sunk in. “You don’t actually like-like him?”

“I mean, I kinda do.” Demyx smiled fondly, “He reminds me of someone that I do really like. Fiery temper, but can be really sweet. Talented with things, and uh… Really into me.” Axel might as well have been wagging at that.

“Me?” He pointed to himself, sucking his lips into his mouth.

“You,” Demyx replied sweetly, taking the other’s hand and drawing him along. “We can go talk to Saïx and then you and me should go hang out somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.” Winking playfully, he took them through the next portal into the Grey Area and marched right up to Saïx. Giving his report orally, as he did sometimes, he let Saïx write it down before finally taking Axel off towards his room. Lightning coursed through his veins just from holding the other man’s hand, and he was ready to get closer to him again. Sometimes, he missed Axel when they weren’t even that far apart.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

AN: Welp, that took a turn I didn’t expect. Hades literally almost called Demyx ‘sugar tits’. Here I am, writing things that are definitely at least a little bit dirty. Oops! I hope you guys enjoyed it!

Prompt: 8 Days Of Axel Day 3 Missions