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Hop
Xigbar carefully placed the yellow slip of paper into position and was greeted with blinking ocean eyes for his efforts.
“Good morning, Xiggy!” Demyx chirped, sitting up stiffly.
“Good morning, Dem. Sleep well?” Xigbar smiled back.
“Like the dead!” Xigbar didn’t let himself wince.
“Dem, as Nobodies, we kinda are already dead.”
“Oh, right. I guess.” Demyx seemed a little doubtful of this logic. He stood up from the bed and awkwardly bounced over to Xigbar, who was removing the plastic wrap off a croissant, standing over the trash can so he could throw the wrapper away. “Xiggy, I’m huuuungry,” he whined, placing his arms straight out over Xigbar’s shoulders.
“Just let me eat breakfast first, then I’ll feed ya.” Xigbar grumbled.
Demyx hummed in displeasure at having to wait, but otherwise didn’t make any movements… for thirty seconds.
“Did the doctor say how much longer I need to wear this thing?” Demyx lifted the piece of paper stuck to his face, folding his elbow to do so somewhat strangely, so he could get a better look at Xigbar’s croissant.
Xigbar choked on his first bite at the question, the bread going down the wrong way, and spent the next few minutes futilely coughing and thumping his chest. Demyx stepped away and patted his back from afar.
When Xigbar was able to speak again, he replied slightly reproachfully, “Dem. We’ve been over this. You can never take it off. Not when you’re awake. The moment you do, you’ll relapse.”
“I know. I just thought, maybe if I asked again, the answer might somehow change.” Demyx sighed, his expression crumpled.
“It’s… just a piece of paper. It’s not that bad.” Xigbar wasn’t really good at giving comfort.
“Yeah,” Demyx agreed, hollowly.
The next few minutes were spent in silence while Xigbar finished eating. Before he could turn to Demyx and fulfill his promise, however, there was a knock on the door.
“Come in.” Xigbar grunted.
Axel opened the door a crack, not bothering even to poke his head in.
“Mansex is calling an emergency meeting. Probably about…” he waved vaguely in the direction of the middle of the room.
“I haven’t fed him yet.” Xigbar complained irritably. “Why does Xemnas have to call a meeting now?”
Axel held up the hand not holding the door in surrender.
“I’m just the messenger! And I really don’t get why you’d go through all the trouble...” Axel’s tone wavered under Xigbar’s glare. “Hey, man. Your funeral.” He backed away a step. “Meeting starts in ten. I still need to let the others know.” He slammed the door shut.
“Bye, Axel!” Demyx called belatedly, giving a little wave with just his hand. “So, a meeting, huh. It’s been a while since I’ve been to one.” The last statement was part wistful, part hopeful. Being confined to Xigbar’s room for the past few weeks drove him stir crazy enough to miss even Xemnas’s rambling.
“Nope. You know the doctor said you need to rest whenever possible. No meeting for you.”
“Awww, but Xig~gy~!” He wheedled.
“Nope. Back into bed. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Fiiiine.” Demyx huffed, hopping back over to the bed and folding himself on top of it.
Xigbar wandered over.
“Eyes closed?”
“Yup.”
“Thinking sleepy thoughts?”
“Yup!”
“‘Night, Dem.”
“‘Night, Xiggy!”
Xigbar removed the paper, watching it turn to ash in his hand, before returning his gaze to the silent Nocturne.
“I’ll be right back.” He kissed the blond’s forehead. “Stay safe.”
Before he left, he double checked the drawer where he kept the slips of yellow paper, making sure that he still had plenty. Good, it should still be some time until he’d need to procure more.
He strode out of the room, hitting the lights as he left.
***
“Number II, how much longer will you let this atrocity continue?”
Xigbar knew that this meeting was going to give him a headache, but he hadn’t expected Xemnas to sucker punch him verbally right from the start.
“As if I know what you’re talking about.” He snorted.
“The Superior is referring to Number IX,” Saïx helpfully chimed in. “When are you going to let him go?”
“Let him go? He’s a member of the Organization. There shouldn’t be any ‘letting go.’” He drew air quotes around his words, clearly taking vicious pleasure in mocking Saïx.
“Xigbar,” Axel tried to be the voice of reason. “He was my friend. But what you’re doing isn’t right.”
“Agreed.” Zexion sniffed. “It goes against the laws of science.”
“Why won’t you let me study him?” Vexen argued next. “Studying him could help me with my research!”
The meeting devolved into each member giving their own opinions, interrupting each other, and generally adding to the chaos. That was until Larxene shrieked, her higher pitch beating out the others’:
“He’s dead! He’s dead and we shouldn’t be letting a corpse stay here!”
In the pause that followed, Xigbar felt his rage boil over.
“It’s your fault.” His words were low, but enunciated clearly enough that they carried. “You ki—,” he took a sudden breath, unable to say the words. “You did that to him, and now I’m giving him the only chance he has at living.” He turned to the rest of the room. “You will not stop me. Not unless you want us to leave the Organization right now,” he threatened.
There was a stunned silence. Xigbar almost regretted it, not sure if he was strong enough to face them all if he had to. But he didn’t. Because this was for Demyx.
“Fine.” Xemnas submitted. “But you cannot continue to skip your missions. Make sure you have a handle on Number IX. I want him joining you on missions soon.”
“But Superior!” Several voices rang out in various forms of protest, but it was Saïx’s that Xemnas chose to respond to.
“If Xigbar is unable to control Number IX, something will be done.” He reassured.
“Yes, Superior.” Saïx lowered his gaze, even though not everyone else seemed fully convinced.
Xigbar stewed in his chair until the meeting was dismissed, then immediately portaled away, returning to his blond.
***
Demyx’s death was an accident.
It was a three man mission to the Land of Dragons to discover the source of the increased Heartless infestation, a brand new kind of Heartless appearing seemingly overnight, which they were calling the Nightwalkers. Xemnas wanted to know if the Heartless were being artificially created, like the Radiant Garden ones, since an infestation of this size didn’t usually spring into being so quickly. If there was an artificial source, they were to bring it, him, or her back to Never Was to be studied.
Demyx complained the most about being sent. But with his recon abilities, Xigbar’s long range sharpshooting skills, and Larxene’s close range hand-to-hand combat, they made a dream team.
“Cold, cold, cold, cold.” Demyx chanted bitterly into the winter air, as he had been doing for the last ten minutes.
“Will you shut up?” Larxene growled. “You’re just making yourself colder. More importantly, you’re making me colder.”
Demyx shot her a dirty look, before switching tactics. “Witch. Witch. Witch. Witch.” He repeated in pointed revenge.
“For the freak’s sake, you’d better collar your boy toy.” Larxene turned her ire onto Xigbar.
“Dem,” Xigbar mediated. “None of us want to be here. Let’s just get the mission over with, and go back home and get warm.” He raised his eyebrow and smirked meaningfully. Beside him, Larxene gagged. But at least Demyx was now quiet. Well, except for the occasional giggle that burst forth from his imagining of how Xigbar would warm him up.
It took several hours of searching, and by the time they found the Taoist priest, they were all tired and cranky and a bit frost bitten. They caught him red handed out on an abandoned battlefield, where the Heartless were gorging on the dead. The priest was slapping talismans on the bodies, then the feasting Heartless would transform into Nightwalkers and the bodies of the soldiers rose up and mindlessly followed the priest in single file.
“Well, I guess we found our source.” Xigbar squinted. “Now all we have to do is bring him in.”
“Got any ideas, smart stuff?” Larxene sassed.
“Xiggy… I don’t want to go near those guys. They’re creepy!”
“Dem, use your clones to capture the man in the robes. Larxene and I will handle the corpses.”
“Okay.” Demyx summoned Arpeggio.
“Urgh.” Larxene summoned her knives. “Talk about favoritism.”
Xigbar summoned his arrow-guns, and aimed.
“Go!” He commanded, and they all sprang into action.
Demyx was able to quickly take hold of the priest, but the priest was still able to direct the corpses to protect him from them.
Xigbar shooting them didn’t seem to do much, they just kept getting back up. The same for Larxene’s knives. A corpse got too close to her, and in a panic, she released a Thundaga spell.
The spell spread wider than she’d meant it to, and ended up indiscriminately hitting Demyx, who’d slipped on some blood which still hadn’t dried from the battle, and fallen onto his butt, and wasn’t able to dodge in time.
The lightning coursed through him, lethally damaging him, even as the corpses were unaffected.
“Xiggy!” He screamed in shock, as his body started to disappear. “No way!”
“Demyx!” Xigbar shouted, immediately throwing down his guns and running to his lover’s side. “No, no, no, no.” He slid the last few inches to Demyx’s side, falling to his knees, and frantically searching his coat for a potion. But they’d used all their potions up on combating the frostbite on the way here. It had been incredibly dumb. But they’d been overconfident. Now Demyx was paying the price.
“Xiggy,” Demyx cried out, tears in his eyes. “I don’t want to die.”
“You can’t. You won’t. I won’t let you.” Xigbar spouted what they both knew to be lies.
All this time, the corpses had stopped their attack, the priest cautiously deeming his opponents no longer a threat. Larxene kept her knives up, just in case.
Now the priest approached.
“I can bring him back. As long as he stops fading away like that.” The man offered, surprisingly kindly.
Xigbar looked into Demyx’s eyes, saw the blond nod, and barked: “Do it.”
The priest stuffed a talisman into his hands, yellow paper with spells written in red on it.
“Place the talisman onto his forehead.”
Xigbar did so, and the blond stopped fading. But he was also quieter than Xigbar had ever seen him before.
“Most jiangshi don’t keep their minds after the change. With luck, your friend’s strange physique will help keep his mind…” The priest looked down at the Nocturne. “Or regain it.” He added thoughtfully.
“What do you mean ‘keep his mind?’” Xigbar demanded. “Did I just hurt Demyx?!”
“He was already dying. You just preserved your friend.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Preserving your ‘friends?’” Larxene snarked.
“No. These men have died here away from their homes. It is my job to return them home so they may be buried properly.”
“But what about Demyx? I don’t want to bury him! I want to save him!”
“Your friend is dead. As long as he is a jiangshi, his body will remain preserved in the same state as when he first became one. The talisman will allow you to control him. Remove the talisman, and he becomes inanimate once more. But you will need to be careful. He needs to be fed the qi of living beings regularly, or he will grow restless and start attacking the living for their qi indiscriminately.”
“Can I do it? Can he feed off of me?”
The priest eyed him.
“Yes, but it will be dangerous. There is always the chance that he will take too much, and kill you instead.”
“That’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine,” Larxene snarled. “I am not okay with us bringing back a stiff and treating the whole thing like nothing’s happened.”
“Shut up! Don’t think I won’t fill you full of holes for what you did.” He summoned one of his guns and turned it on her. “Is there anything else I need to know?” He addressed the priest, who, all things being said, was being remarkably helpful for a person who’d just been threatened by the Nobodies.
“You should remove the talisman whenever he isn’t being supervised to prevent accidents. Removing the talisman, however, does make it burn up and you’ll need a new one.”
Xigbar considered this.
“Okay. Look. If you give me all the talismans you can spare now, and promise to provide me talismans in the future, I won’t bring you into my boss to be studied.”
“Xigbar,” Larxene hissed. “What are you doing?”
“Larxene, you keep your mouth shut, or I swear on all that Never Was that I will make you regret it.”
“All right,” the priest agreed amiably, stroking his beard. “But it will cost you the price of the materials to make them and labor costs.”
“Fine.” Xigbar agreed. He stood up and held out his hand for the talismans. The priest handed a pile over, leaving several dozens for himself. Xigbar practically threw all the munny he had at him. “Where can I find you when I need more?”
“I’m always traveling. But if you search the empty battlefields, you will likely find me, sooner or later.”
And with a nod, the priest continued his quest of creating jiangshi, the Heartless strangely paying him no mind at all.
“Xigbar. Just what are we going to tell Xemnas?”
“We’ll tell him that the source is natural. That the Nightwalkers are being created from fallen soldiers from the wars here. It’s true, so it’ll sound believable enough. As for Demyx,” he turned and looked down at the still silent Nocturne. “Dem, stand up.”
Demyx stood up.
“I don’t know. We’ll tell him… we’ll tell him… part of the truth, I guess.” He huffed out a breath, defeated. “You killed him, and a wanderer helped revive him. The guy ran off before we could question him further, leaving these talismans to help control Demyx.”
Larxene bit her lip, wanting to protest the whole situation, but not wanting to risk overly upsetting the stronger Nobody.
“Let’s go home, Dem.” Xigbar warmly told Demyx. He created a portal, and with a wary look at Demyx, Larxene stepped through. Xigbar followed, with Demyx hopping after.
***
Xigbar entered his room to find Demyx sitting up and snarling, baring his sharp outward facing teeth in Xigbar’s direction.
“No, no, no, no.” Xigbar muttered under his breath, rushing to the drawer. “I told Xemnas he needed to be fed.” He could hear from behind him the sounds of Demyx’s boots as he made that peculiar hop toward his would-be victim. Xigbar reached into the drawer and grabbed several talismans, quickly turning around and placing one on Demyx’s forehead, just as the jiangshi reached him.
“Demyx, stop.”
Demyx blinked.
“Xiggy! You’re back! How was the meeting?”
Xigbar sagged in relief, letting out the breath he’d been holding since reaching the drawer.
“Boring, Dem. You didn’t miss a thing.” He reassured.
“Xiggy… I’m really, really hungry now.”
“I know, I know. Come here.” He gestured, and Demyx put his arms over Xigbar’s shoulders, the rigor mortis keeping them straight. “Demyx, remember not to take too much,” he ordered.
“Uh-huh.” The blond’s response was unsettlingly flippant.
“Dem, I mean it.”
“You know I wouldn’t hurt you, Xiggy.” Xigbar couldn’t bear to tell him that he couldn’t believe him. Not anymore.
Xigbar kissed him, always being mindful of the teeth, and Demyx used the kiss to suck out Xigbar’s qi, his life force, through their connection.
When Xigbar started to feel faint, he broke the kiss, Demyx growling slightly at not getting more.
“Why don’t I fill you up with other activities?” Xigbar suggested, worried about Demyx’s unusually aggressive reaction. “It’s been a while since we’ve had sex, hasn’t it? Why don’t you get on the bed?” The blond stiffly nodded, before eagerly hopping back toward the bed.
Another knock on their door interrupted them for the second time that day, as Demyx was about three hops from the bed.
“Wait a sec, Dem.” Demyx obediently stopped moving. “Come in.”
It was Marluxia that entered, with his usual cold smirk.
“Superior has ordered all three of us on a mission to Twilight Town tomorrow. I’m to use my plants to subdue it,” he waved at Demyx, “if it makes any wrong moves. I trust there won’t be any problems?”
“No. No problems,” Xigbar gritted out. “So get out of my room.”
“See you tomorrow.” Marluxia swept out of the room.
“Xiggy~,” Demyx whined once the pink haired man was gone. “I’m not an ‘it!’ And I don’t need to be restrained… do I?”
“As if! Marluxia’s got no idea what he’s talking about.”
“Hmm… okay. Let’s have sex now.”
“You don’t want to know more about the mission? It’ll be your first time leaving my room in a while.”
“Didn’t you already say that Xemnas wanted me to go on missions again? Just a few minutes ago?”
“Oh… yeah…” Xigbar faltered, having trouble remembering if he’d indeed said that. It was sometimes so very hard to keep track of their conversations, the grief and stress making his mind somewhat fuzzy.
“Anyway, I want to do it with you, Xiggy! It’s been too long.”
“Yeah… Yeah… let’s do it.”
Demyx finished hopping to the bed, and sat down, purring. “You’ll need to undress me, Xiggy. I’m feeling a little too stiff today.”
“Sure. I can do that.” Xigbar approached and started undressing the blond.
“I love you, Demyx.”
“I love you too, Xiggy.”
***
The next day found Marluxia waiting impatiently for his two mission partners in the Grey Room. Once it reached noon, he strode over to Xigbar’s room and banged on the door.
“Xigbar! Xigbar, wake up! If I come in there and you’re sleeping or in the middle of doing it, so help me…!”
No one answered his knocking, but he heard a faint sound, almost like a growl.
Mentally counting to three to steel himself, he flung open the door.
As he was set upon by a naked Number IX, the second to last thing Marluxia ever saw was Xigbar’s dead body, naked and lying face down on his bed, presumably his life force being completely drained.
The last thing he ever saw was Demyx’s blind, cataract white eyes, as his own life was snuffed out.
******************************************************
Here’s the fan art I mentioned: https://hachamechatomato.tumblr.com/post/188562206946
Demyx became a jiangshi, or Chinese hopping vampire. It’s a little like a vampire and a little like a zombie, but not really quite like either. The Heartless Nightwalkers from the Land of Dragons in KH2 are based off of jiangshi.
I took a few liberties with how jiangshi work because a) Demyx is a Nobody and wouldn’t leave a corpse behind under normal circumstances, b) I couldn’t find a source that explained how a jiangshi sucks out a living person’s qi, and c) some aspects of how the jiangshi work, like how they’re normally created, just didn’t work for the story. One of the ways a jiangshi is supposed to form is a corpse getting hit by lightning, so I tried to keep that aspect in. I did try to keep Demyx as true to a jiangshi as I could.