Chapter Text
Teddy Bear’s Picnic
Axel strode around the pet shop, casting half bored glances around him. Demyx, shuffling beside him, looked much more interested in the contents of the cages and glass containers. They were here because Axel had declared he’d wanted a pet, and had asked Demyx as his friend to come along. Demyx had thought about getting a fish himself, so he’d readily agreed, although now that they were there, those poison dart frogs over by the front door were looking pretty cute.
They rounded the corner, Demyx still looking back toward the froggies, when he bumped into Axel. The redhead snorted in disgust at the cages in front of him and turned around to try to go to a different aisle. Demyx peered around him and got the shock of his unlife.
“Are those…?” He gasped.
“Teddy bears.” Axel affirmed, grimly. “The worst pets in all the worlds for Nobodies.”
“Why’s that?” Demyx asked idly, drawn to the fluffy creatures that looked exactly like the stuffed bears from his own home world. Only alive.
“They require love to survive. Without hearts, we’d just starve them to death in days.”
“Oh,” Demyx said, disappointed. He longingly remembered his own Teddy, still somewhere on Eårth. Would his parents care for Teddy? No, they always thought he was too old to still be sleeping with a stuffed animal. They’d probably throw Teddy out as soon as he was officially declared missing. His eyes stung at the thought. He hadn’t been able to sleep well since becoming a Nobody, and he rather attributed it to the lack of Teddy in his arms.
So absorbed in thoughts of Teddy as he stared at the bear in front of him, he didn’t notice the high pitched “DADDY!!!!!!” that was coming from a cage farther down the aisle. At the third rendition of the shout, Axel went over and half glared, half looked bewildered at the bear in front of him.
“What the hell?! Would you shut up? How can a newborn Teddy like you speak anyway?”
“We’re sorry for the trouble, sir.” A teenage employee came over, a bear in each arm, as he’d likely been feeding the young bears with hugs and kisses. “As you seem to know, normally it takes fifteen years of constant, consistent love for a Teddy to begin to speak, another five for them to speak fluently. This one, however, was born speaking and demanding her ‘Daddy.’ We’re all at a loss, to be honest.” Demyx had wandered over during the speech and reached out to gently pat the bears in the young man’s arms.
“What are you going on about?! Daddy’s. Right. There! DADDY!!! It’s me!!! Stop patting those guys and LOVE ME!!!”
Something about the impatient tone tugged at Demyx with familiarity. He’d always imagined Teddy to be selfish and demanding: a queen insisting upon his love and devotion and giving it back in equal measure. He looked over and felt stunned. There, sitting in the cage, was a smaller replica of his Teddy.
“Teddy?” He questioned doubtfully.
“Yes, Daddy! It’s me! Teddy! I missed you so much! I waited and waited and waited for you. But you never came back. I waited so long, I-I-I turned to dust.” The little bear was whimpering now. Before Demyx could even think, he found himself scrabbling to open the cage in order to pick up the little bear. Unfortunately, the cage was locked, and Demyx started to summon Arpeggio before the employee gently pushed him aside with a “Let me.” Demyx glanced over and saw Axel now holding the two bearlings the employee had been cuddling, a thoroughly displeased expression on his face. If Demyx wasn’t so concerned with Teddy, he’d worry about how Axel looked like he was about to drop his charges. The employee unlocked the cage and stepped aside, allowing Demyx to carefully pick up the bear.
She was so much heavier like this. Instead of puffy, flexible, lightweight polyester, he could feel the bone and muscle and sinew and warmth radiating from the inside of her body. He gently pressed the sniffling Teddy to his chest, hugging her in the way he always did, only this time more loosely and with his other hand supporting her legs.
“Af-after I died, I felt my heart go away somewhere. There was this, this heart moon and it seemed to tell me without saying anything that it’d send me to Daddy. And then, then I woke up here. But no one would tell me where Daddy was!”
“Shhh. It’s okay, I’m here.” Demyx soothed. “I’ll buy you from the store, and we’ll never have to be parted again.” He kissed her forehead. “How long do Teddy bears live for?” He turned and asked the teenager, who’d taken back the bears from Axel and returned them to their proper cages.
“But, Demyx,” Axel hissed. “Remember what I just told you.”
The teenager looked askance at Axel before replying, “Um, a well cared for Teddy bear can generally live up to a hundred years old, barring accidents. If the owner dies, abandons the bear, or mistreats the bear, sometimes the bear will find a new owner and lead a healthy life, but sometimes he or she will lose the will to live and self starve.”
Demyx nodded. “Please help me pick out the necessary equipment for raising a Teddy bear. I’m buying her.” The teenager nodded with a murmured “of course.” As he started to lead the way to supplies, Axel grabbed Demyx’s arm, forcing the blond to hold still, or risk dropping Teddy.
“Demyx, we can’t raise Teddy bears. We don’t have the hearts to provide them with the love necessary for them to survive. That bear is just going to die.”
“I don’t care.” Demyx said stubbornly. “Heart or no heart, I love Teddy. And nothing and no one is going to keep us apart.” His eyes narrowed, and Axel took a step back, unknown chills giving him goosebumps. Axel gave himself a mental shake. He couldn’t possibly be scared of Demyx…? He raised his hands in surrender.
“Whatever, man. It’s your decision.”
The teenager came back toward them with a basket filled with items. On top was a book titled: Raising Teddy Bears For Dummies. Demyx was amused. He wasn’t sure whether this world happened to have a book series exactly the same as Eårth’s, or whether the translation just twisted into something familiar so he’d understand, but he appreciated seeing the nostalgic title either way.
“One thing you should know,” the boy said while handing him the basket. “While Teddy bears subsist on love, particularly through any sign of affection like hugging, kissing, cuddling, petting, playing, and gifts, they are also omnivorous. They don’t get any nutrition from food, but they enjoy eating it, especially their owners’ favorite foods. So, you need to have mats prepared for when, well, the food leaves their systems.”
Demyx slung the basket around his elbow, inwardly cursing at the weight, as he quickly returned his hand to supporting Teddy before she could fall. He glanced into the basket and saw what looked like an ugly, multicolored collar peeking out from underneath the book, a mini chair, a box proclaiming “Starter Mats!”, a small water bottle, a small thermos, a small table, a small plate, a small utensil set with Velcro straps designed to wrap around a Teddy’s fingerless paw, and a mini blanket. The employee noticed his gaze and explained.
“It’s important for your Teddy to have some sort of identifying collar or ribbon. It will help protect her from being picked up by the pound and will help her be returned to you if she gets lost so long as you place identifying information on any bear tags you might buy. We can customize some tags here in the store for you today. The rest of the items are designed to help your Teddy fit in with your life. Most owners sleep cuddling their Teddies in bed, but some owners have such bad sleeping posture, they find it better to leave their Teddy on a pillow, hence the blanket.”
“Okay, but can we get a different collar? Maybe a ribbon?” Normally, Demyx likes multicolored objects—he thought they were pretty. But the colors on the collar were of such gross, dull shades that they made him shudder to think of the collar around his Teddy’s neck. Five minutes later (and with input from Teddy herself), they’d chosen a beautiful cream colored satin ribbon that complemented Teddy’s gorgeous brown fur. Axel thought she was scruffy, but Axel was an idiot who couldn’t appreciate true beauty, Demyx persuaded the enraged Teddy.
They went over to the register, where Demyx ordered one tag to be engraved with “Teddy” and another with “Return to Demyx if found” to be completed the next day. The engraver asked politely in a way that indicated he thought Demyx was crazy, if he didn’t want to put down his address. Demyx didn’t think Xemnas or Saïx would be okay with him putting down “World That Never Was” and alerting these people, as inconsequential as they seemed, to the existence of other worlds, and especially not to their home base. After several reassurances that no, he didn’t want his address carved, Teddy finally piped up, “I can tell them how to bring me home!” This seemed finally to reassure the engraver, after he had finished jumping in shock, and he stopped pestering Demyx.
Several purchases later, Axel and Demyx exited the shop with their arms much heavier and Demyx’s wallet much lighter. Axel had given up on the idea of getting a pet for himself that day.
“You’re lucky I consider you a friend,” the taller Nobody grumbled.
Teddy popped her head out from around Demyx as she strained to see the redhead as far as the Teddy carrier, which disturbingly resembled a baby carrier, would allow.
“Any friend of Daddy’s is a friend of mine.” She declared magnanimously. “Unless you want to get into Daddy’s pants. Then you need to do a lot more to earn my approval.” She added with a sniff and a scowl. Axel choked and Demyx blushed and groaned.
“Teddddy, no one wants to get in my pants.”
Axel muttered, “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” at the same time Teddy loudly questioned, “Why not?”
“We’re just… we’re just not having this conversation right now.” Demyx finally spluttered. He noticed with relief that they’d finally reached the empty alley they’d used to enter his world in the first place. “It’s time to go home now.” He created a portal and remembered how unusual they were, as well as the danger, only when he heard Teddy’s frightened gasp. “Right, Axel, why don’t you go through first while I get my coat over Teddy?”
“It’s okay. I’ll wait.” The trouble, Demyx quickly found, is that once he had Teddy safely secure inside his coat, while making sure it was unzipped enough she could breathe, he became too bulky to pick up the items he’d set down. Once Axel had finished laughing at him, he helped stuff the bags back into his arms.
And with that, the three of them stepped through the portal to the Castle That Never Was.
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In the original version of this fic, Demyx had the power to grab his things from Eårth at will, and so always had Teddy. Teddy’s original body stayed with him even as Teddy gained sentience a lá Toy Story and chose to reincarnate her heart into a living being. But I sincerely feel that making Demyx as OP as I want in my head is fine, but writing him that way is a little too much. (Says the person who gave Demyx bloodbending powers a few stories ago. *eye roll at self hypocrisy*) So Teddy ended up being alone for hundreds of years, since most stuffed animals are made out of polyester which can take two hundred years to decompose. (I-I’m not crying! You’re crying! ಥ_ಥ)
How was Teddy able to stay alive during those two hundred years without love? Two reasons. First, the rule about Teddy bears needing love to survive exists for Realm of Light Teddy bears. As a stuffed animal from Eårth, this rule did not apply. Second, even if the time between the two universes doesn’t sync up, Demyx never stopped loving Teddy, so even if Teddy required love to survive, the connection between their hearts would still have been there and would have continued to feed her something.
This was supposed to be a one shot. But the story kept on writing details for itself and I felt it needed a chapter break. So, I’ll be splitting it into either two or three chapters. And yes, there will be a Teddy Bear’s Picnic. (And yes, the placement of that apostrophe is deliberate.)
I’m debating whether or not to keep the story gen or put some light pairings in next chapter. Opinions are always appreciated.