Boating

Summary: AU. Demyx tells Zexion the story of what he and his brothers did over the summer and how they found a floating dock and rigged it up with a motor and propellers to turn it into a boat.

"Zexion! Hey! Hey, Zexy!" Demyx shouted, shoving his way through a crowd of students. Sure, it would have been easier to go around them, but that wasn't Demyx's way of doing things.

'If I don't answer, maybe he'll go away.' Zexion thought, knowing better than anyone else that once Demyx got his sights set on someone (or something), there was no escape.

"Zeeeexxxiioooooon!"

Zexion winced. Maybe it would be in his best interest to stop walking and wait for his friend before everyone started calling him "the friend of that crazy guy". So far only about half of the people at University called him that.

Demyx nearly fell over as he broke free of the crowd. A broad smile broke out across his face when he saw his best friend standing there waiting for him.

He happily skipped - yes, skipped - over to the shorter male. "I've been looking everywhere for you, Zexy! Where've you been?"

"Don't call me that." Zexion said, ignoring the question.

"Sorry." Demyx apologized. "I'm just excited. After all, I haven't seen you for over a month! And it's all because Backwoods Lake has really sucky service and no internet and Sora wrecked the car one night when him and Roxas were sneaking back in from some barn party they snuck off to so then the car was in the shop for, like, weeks and we were stuck at the house with Riku and Axel!"

Zexion wasn't sure what was more frightening: the fact that Demyx said all of that in one breath or the fact that Demyx, Roxas, Sora, Cloud, Axel, and Riku were stuck in the same house for a month.

"Oh, hey! I have this story you have got to hear!" Demyx said excitedly. "C'mon, lets find a place to sit."

"Don't you have a class to go to?" Zexion asked. If he had been anyone else, he would have said that in a very pleading tone, but he, being himself, was above showing weakness. He knew from experience that showing any weakness only encouraged the blond.

Unfortunately for him, Demyx was able to read him very well.

"Nope!" He happily chirped.

The two of them wandered into the garden and sat down. (Read: Demyx dragged Zexion into the garden so they could sit on a bench in the water garden.) Demyx happily looked around at the plants while tracing his finger across the rippling surface of a "pond". The large goldfish swam lazily up to the surface to nip at his fingertips.

"So, you have a story to tell?" Zexion prodded. He immediately wished he hadn't. Saying those words was a lot like unleashing a swarm of starving piranha upon a poor, unsuspecting animal.

Demyx looked excited again. "Yeah, I do! So listen to this; Riku and Axel join us about halfway through our first week there, just in time for this HUGE fucking storm to crash through the lake." He gestured with his hands, like usual, to convey just how huge the storm was. "So me and Sora and Roxas and Riku run outside to bungee chord our two jet skies so they wouldn't get blown to smithereens halfway across the lake. Anyway, then we went inside after that and stayed up all night drinking soda and eating pizza and pixie sticks and telling ghost stories that had Sora snuggling against Riku all night. And then the next morning we went outside to find this floating dock washed up on our beach and- Hey, you know how Axel usually is, so try to imagine him on a sugar buzz. It's not a pretty sight. Anyway, so Axel gets this great idea to go get the old motor from this boat we have that has a tree growing through the middle of it - don't ask -"

Privately, Zexion thought that he would never even want to ask for fear of having to sit through another long story that made no sense.

"-and somehow attach it to the floating dock and then use the dock as a pontoon boat so we can go driving down the river. Naturally, we thought it was the greatest idea we had ever heard so we set to work rigging it up and- here, let me summarize how our day went. Sora, deity knows how, managed to fall in the lake at least ten times and kept losing the screwdriver in his left shoe; Roxas kept trying to throw things at Riku's head because apparently he's a horrible influence on Sora; Axel kept lighting things on fire and claimed it was completely on accident, which we all know is complete bullshit; Riku spent most of the day alternating between avoiding Roxas's killer aim and trying to keep his hands off Sora; Cloud sat around and watched us the entire time, probably torn between amusement and... no, never mind, just amusement at the sight we made; and I had to play referee and keep Sora from falling in the lake more than he did and keep Roxas from throwing really large and heavy things at Riku's head and stop the fires that Axel started and cook dinner. Now that I think about it, it's a miracle we got our boat dock rigged up where it didn't fall apart the moment we shoved it off the beach and into the water."

Zexion wondered if the end of the story was yet in sight.

"But we finally got the thing fixed up and then we shoved it into the water and cheered when it didn't sink or blow up or do anything that we didn't want it to do. So then we all got on it - except Cloud, 'cause he's tons smarter than the rest of us - and we take off down the lake to show off our spiffy new boat.

"Y'know, spiffy is a fun word to say. Spiffy! Spiff. Eee. Spiffy!"

"Demyx."

"Sorry. So, we're driving around the lake showing off our boat and avoiding all the big fast boats and jet skies and that one paddle boat that kept speeding past us only to get in front of us and slow way down so then we'd speed up and pass by them, while trying to keep Axel from lighting one of them on fire, and then we'd be in front of them and then they'd pass us again and so on. So anyway, we get up there to those cliffs that people always jump off of and that's when we realized that we forgot to put a gas container on the boat to refuel it."

Zexion had a feeling he knew what was coming next.

"I guess that's mainly because we had to put it back inside because Axel kept using it to drown ant nests and then light them on fire. But apparently that wasn't a good idea because we ran out of gas. So then we're floating closer and closer to the cliffs and people are yelling at us to get away from them so they can jump off- I mean, really! They weren't even concerned about us crashing and wrecking our boat and then being stranded there! That's kind of rude, dontcha think?"

"Very rude." Zexion agreed, just so Demyx would get to the end of the story faster.

"Thank you! See, Cloud didn't agree with us when we were telling him about all the rude people up at the cliffs. He said something about how we shouldn't have turned a stolen floating dock into a boat in the first place or some bullshit like that. I mean, c'mon! We didn't actually steal it! It washed up onto our beach and we decided to put it to good use! It's not like we went out before the storm and loosened up someone's floating dock just so we could blame it going missing on the storm and that way we'd get a really awkward boat."

Zexion sighed. 'No, because you guys aren't smart enough to think of something like that.' He privately thought.

"But then Roxas got the great idea to break off one of the boards and use it as a paddle! Or, well, actually he wanted to beat Riku over the head with it and he would have succeeded if Axel hadn't caught him in time and shoved him off the boat. Unfortunately, Axel fell in with him and then Roxas tried to drown him..."

The corners of Zexion's mouth twitched upwards into a possible smile at the mental image he got. 'That would have been worth seeing.'

"Anyway, we got Roxas and Axel back into the boat and broke off another board and then took turns rowing back home. You wouldn't believe how long it took us to paddle back with those boards! It was insane!" Demyx shook his head and sighed before beaming at Zexion. "So, what'd you do over the summer while I was away?"

"I read the dictionary."

Demyx's smile faltered for a moment. "Oh..." Then it returned and he patted Zexion on the back. "Don't worry! On our next break I'll make sure you can come along too! After all, Cloud let Riku and Axel stay so he should have absolutely no problem with you!" He frowned when he didn't get a response from Zexion. "Zexion? Hey, are you alright?"

Zexion sighed and leaned his head back to stare at the sky. 'This is what I get for being best friends with him.' Concerned blue-green eyes entered his line of sight. 'I suppose there are worse fates.'

The End

Isn't it weird how long it takes to finish a simple little one-shot?

Personally, I adore Demyx's random little story's. The way he tells it makes him seem like a complete scatterbrain, but the fact that he was actually the most mature one (besides Cloud) who was at the lake and the fact that he remembers everything that happen shows that he's really not scatterbrained.

And as for Zexion, well he's just a wonderful ball of fun. Yes, that was sarcasm. That's not to say that I hate him; far from it. He's simply not the easiest person to write, although it gets easier every time I do. I suppose "Kioku no Kusari" is helping a little, since he's in there a lot.

There's a story behind this floating-dock-turned-boat, but I can't quite remember what it is...