sirenspull_logs | Hold on, hold on to yourself

Entry tags:

Hold on, hold on to yourself

Who: The Three Amigos
When: Friday 17August, midafternoon
Where: The lakeside beach
Summary: Axel's been holding off telling the kids something pretty important, and finally decides maybe he should just Nobody-up and be straight with them.
Warnings: Mentions of death and possible threats of violence on certain Keyblade wielders.

When Axel had promised to work on not keeping secrets anymore, this particular one hadn't quite factored into the equation. After all, Roxas had even said he didn't want to know about his future, but as time had gone on it had started to eat away at his insides, leaving him feeling sort of raw and hollow. Or, well... more hollow than usual, perhaps. He forgot most of the time that there was really no logical reason for him to be here at all because he was dead, but every once in a while something would remind him and a twinge of guilt would twist up in the pit of his stomach.

There was no telling how long they would be here, any of them. People disappeared from the port often and without warning, and Axel wondered sometimes if their days were numbered or if it was all random. He supposed it didn't really matter. All he knew was that he didn't want to disappear from this place with this secret still a secret from his best friends. If the truth came to light later, from someone else's mouth, that would be even worse. He knew Sora knew the truth, and while he trusted the boy to keep it to himself, Axel wasn't sure how many others knew. He was certain Xigbar and Xemnas knew, and hearing the truth from them would have been devastating, of that he was certain.

Somehow he was surprised it had remained a secret this long. Axel was all for pressing his luck, but maybe not so much when Roxas and Xion were involved. By some unexpected twist of good fortune, he'd been given that second chance he had never thought he would deserve, and wasting it by making the same stupid mistakes all over again wouldn't do at all.

He arrived at the lake before them, a little cooler slung over one shoulder with three ice cream bars inside. It was funny, the way such a small and simple old tradition had become something so important. He didn't expect the ice cream to soften the blow, but somehow he couldn't imagine trying to have this conversation without it as a buffer. Axel hadn't worn his coat for this--he had walked to the lake; he hadn't wanted to tell this story while wearing the Organization's garb, even useful as it was.

Sitting down on a toppled tree trunk, he kicked off his sneakers and buried his feet in the coarse sand of the lakeside, leaning back on his hands to wait for Roxas and Xion to arrive. They weren't going to like this story at all, but he wanted them to hear it from him, not from someone who would relish in the shock value of breaking the news. They said the truth didn't hurt unless it ought to, but Axel would have given just about anything to not have this story end the way he knew it did.

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Roxas was a little surprised by the sudden invitation to the lake, but not at all displeased. It wasn't the Twilight Town clock tower, could never be their special place, but maybe the lake could be a special place—somewhere they could go to have ice cream on special occasions, when they wanted it to be just the three of them.

When he spotted Axel, he nudged Xion to point him out, then lifted a hand into the air as he called out a greeting.

"Nice day," he said once they drew close enough to be heard with raising their voices. "I'm surprised we didn't catch you napping."

Xion responded to the nudge was a small frown of confusion and then a smile as she made out the familiar bush of bright red hair and the lanky frame out by the lake. It was a nice day, and the familiar, tranquil setting made her feel content, happy to spend time out by the water with her two favourite people.

"Maybe that's why we're out here. It must be nice napping in the sunlight, the cats fall asleep in sunspots all the time."

She laughed and flopped down on the grass beside Axel, spreading her arms out and turning her face up towards the sun with her eyes closed. The smell of the earth beneath her, the warmth of the sun on her face... it was lovely.

"I can't blame them."

Axel tilted his head all the way back to look at the kids upside-down, forcing a smile onto his face. Oh, Light, how the hell was he going to do this? How could he? They just looked so darn happy to be here that something in Axel just wanted to call the whole discussion off. It could wait for another day, right? He didn't have to do this now! They could just eat ice cream and hang out at the lake and be normal or something, like they'd done before. They didn't have to think about The Organization, or hearts, or anything they didn't want to! That was the beauty of this place, after all: it was their Next Life, and they could do whatever they wanted with it.

And that was the problem with this place: Axel had learned from his mistakes, really he had! But now he had to prove it. He wasn't going to blow his second chance by making the same bad decisions all over again. No matter how bad the news was, no matter how much he wanted to shield Roxas and Xion from the truth, he wasn't going to. Not this time.

Watching Xion flop down in the grass Axel's thin, plastered smile relaxed a bit into something slightly less pained.

"Well, I was napping," he said, "but then I figured I could make better use of the day." He stretched his leg out and poked Xion gently in the ribs with his foot. "C'mon, half-pints, come siddown up here, I wanna talk to you about something."

He figured that would probably get their attention. Axel wasn't really known for being serious most of the time. He didn't want to make them anxious, but there was really no gentle way to break this news, no matter how many bushes he attempted to beat around. Better to just rip the bandaid off, right?

Well, maybe he wouldn't be that abrupt.

Opening up the cooler he held it out toward them.

"Here, before they melt," he said. At least he hoped the familiarity of the setting would make it a little easier.

There was a slight change in Axel's voice, a tone that wasn't there before—maybe. It was there and gone again, leaving Roxas to wonder if he'd heard anything at all. Or maybe he had, because if this thing he wanted to talk about was the purpose for bringing them here rather than something to do as long as they were in one spot anyway, then it had to be significant. Ice cream on the beach was a casual thing for most people, but not for them.

Still, no reason to jump to conclusions. "I think you need to adjust your nicknames," he said snagging a bar from the cooler. "At least one of us is an adult here. Got the ID and all." Which was technically fake, but hey, seventeen did confer extra privileges in Siren's Port, according to the rules he'd never paid too much attention to. "We're three-quarters pints, at least."

He plopped down to the beach, not sprawling but sitting up straight. He wasn't ready to fully relax until Axel shared what was on his mind.

Edited 2012-08-18 16:47 (UTC)

Xion opened an eye and then the other and pushed herself up into a sitting position. She glanced over at Roxas, hoping that her confusion translated itself on her face and to see what he made of it. It was weird to see Axel so serious about something for a change; it made her get this strange sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling which she squashed down as she reached to take her ice cream from her friend. She made no move to open it from its clear plastic wrap, instead keeping her attention on Axel.

"Is everything okay? You didn't do something stupid did you?"

Edited 2012-08-19 00:38 (UTC)

"Right, right, I forgot, you guys are grownups now," he chuckled, and then silently counted on the fingers of one hand. "How many pints in a quart?"

He waited until they'd both taken their ice creams before retrieving his own and setting the cooler aside. His smile was natural and unforced as he looked at Xion then.

"Who, me? Do something stupid? Psh, if I had feelings I think they'd be hurt!" he said with mock injury, splaying a hand over his chest. Then he unwrapped his ice cream bar and nibbled at the corner. "But no, nothing stupid. Not this week, anyway."

Levity was a tried and true defense mechanism with Axel, and he was sure the kids knew that by then, but old habits died hard. And he wasn't lying. The only stupid thing he'd done this week was forget to put the milk back in the refrigerator before rushing off late to work, and that was fairly easily rectified.

He wagged his ice cream at Xion.

"Everything's fine," he said with a shake of his head, making sure to maintain eye contact. Surely they had learned he always looked away when he was lying--they were pretty perceptive, after all.

Everything was fine! They were here and safe, and he was here and safe, and they were all together and despite knowing that Xemnas and Xigbar were surely up to something Axel was pretty pleased with his life here in Port. It was a perfectly acceptable Next Life, even with all its oddities and unique challenges. Honestly, so long as the kids were here with him he didn't really care how challenging things got.

He shifted his eyes to Roxas then, the smile on his face turning a bit apologetic suddenly.

"But there's something I need to tell you guys," he said, figuring the best approach was a direct one. They were surely tired of his sidewinding when he didn't want to talk about something, and they deserved better than that. "Something about... back home." He lowered his eyes a bit then, frowning at his ice cream. "Roxas, I know you said you didn't want to know anything about your future, and I can appreciate that, but you're gonna have to deal with this one particular bit of knowledge." He lifted his eyes again, the apologetic smile back in place. "I guess I just wanna make sure you hear it from me instead'a somebody else."

He hesitated, then nibbled at the other corner of his ice cream. Man, this was harder than he'd expected, and he'd expected it to be hard. Somehow relating bad news to these two was just the hardest thing ever--he hated upsetting them, and those big soulful blue eyes got him every time.

Roxas' hesitant smile dropped off his face completely, and when he tried to cover that up by taking a bite of ice cream, it tasted like ash in his mouth.

Something was wrong. Something was wrong, and Axel didn't want them to freak out, but the fact that he was even worried about that just meant there was a reason to do so. The future? What about the future? Sure, he'd said he didn't want to know about his future, but that was just it—he didn't want to know details about his future, or lack thereof. He had a pretty good idea of how everyone else's went. Sora defeated the remaining Organization, destroyed the Kingdom Hearts that Roxas had spent so much time building, and everyone went home happy.

Suddenly, he was wondering if there was another chapter to the story he hadn't even realized existed.

"Okay," he said, all teasing demeanor gone. "What is it?"

And why tell us now?

Xion said nothing. She sat very still and very straight, her hands motionless in her lap as she ignored the still unwrapped ice cream to look at Axel carefully.

What could it be? He was visibly uncomfortable beneath all his smiles and glib words and jokes, and for a moment she had a deep, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She'd felt it once before, a long time ago, in a vast empty castle with endless white walls and a myriad of questions that seemed to be without answers.

Maybe... this was how it would feel whenever she had to hear about Axel's future without her and Roxas. She knew he'd be okay, Axel was a fighter, a survivor; he was too smart and cunning to let anything really bad happen to him, even without his best friends to have his back. Still, there were no laws against wondering.

Oh Light he hated this. He hated to see those looks on their faces, the anxiousness, the fear, it made his stomach twist itself into knots. Axel would have done nigh anything to save Roxas and Xion from any sort of pain or discomfort and the fact that he had to break this news to them left an awful bitter taste on his tongue.

They had to know, though; they would find out eventually, of that he was certain, and he refused to let them hear it from anyone else. He hesitated a moment, looking at his ice cream as if it could give him the strength to find these words, and then lifted his head again.

"You probably don't remember," he said, glancing at Roxas, "but we told each other once, after you left the Organization, that we would meet again in the next life." Another pause and he met Xion's eye briefly before casting his gaze out over the lake. "At the time I didn't really put much stock in that; I didn't figure someone like me would get that sort of opportunity, you know?" He twisted the ice cream in his fingers and then sighed, shaking his head. "I hadn't planned on testing it, of course," he added with a chuckle; "you know me--flight over fight unless there's really something important at stake, right?"

Why was it suddenly hard to breathe?

"I guess sometimes you don't realize just how high the stakes are until you're there and there's no turning back."

Okay, deep breath; just get it over with. Twisting the ice cream again and looking from Xion to Roxas and then back over the water, Axel sat up a bit straighter.

"I, ah..." No words he could summon felt like they adequately described a damn thing. "Well, remember when I was sick before and I told you I'd die on my own terms?" He turned and gave Roxas a somber, helpless smile. "I... I did."

Well, at least the bandaid was off. Now it was time to stop the fresh bleeding.

Roxas didn't try to respond as his friend spoke, even when he referenced a scene from Roxas' life that he obviously hadn't lived yet.

The two of them—three, really, but of course they wouldn't have remembered that whenever this happened—together, in another life. It sounded right. That's what he'd wanted, that awful day when he'd run through a dark world toward his destiny. If he couldn't have the old life back, the one before he'd begun to question what he was doing and who he was doing it for, then he'd wanted a new one, and there were only a few people he wanted in it.

And here they were, maybe not how any of them would have imagined it back then, but close enough for Roxas to be satisfied. But there was more to this story, and Axel wouldn't have gathered them just to note that an unremembered promise had more or less been fulfilled.

Roxas let his ice cream bar drift down until it was dripping on the sand, practically forgotten as they gave Axel the time he needed to say what he wanted. And it was a good thing, because when he reached those last few, halting words, something twisted hard in Roxas' stomach and seized up in his chest and he could barely breathe, much less think about eating ice cream.

"What?"

He was startled to realize that was his own voice. But it was too quiet and choked to be his; it didn't sound anything like him. And it couldn't be him who said that, because that would mean Axel really said what Roxas thought he did, and that couldn't be true. No. Not Axel. He was the one who survived, one of fourteen to make it through the purging of Organization XIII. The only one of the three of them who still had a chance to go back and watch the sunset from the clock tower.

He couldn't be dead. Not Axel.

Xion could barely hear Roxas' choked reply through the sudden buzzing in her ears and the rapid realisation that she had just heard that. It played itself out over and over again in her head until the words ran together and barely seemed to make sense anymore, but the meaning wasn't lost, even in the haze of static that her head had become.

I'd die on my own terms

No. No not Axel, not him. Not her brilliant, sarcastic, irrepressible Axel. Never him. He wasn't supposed to die, he wasn't at all, he was supposed to go on and- well of course he wouldn't be able to go on as if nothing had happened once Roxas had gone back to Sora, but he was supposed to go on! He couldn't gutter and go out like a candle, he just couldn't!

'Axel that's not funny,' she wanted to say. 'Good one Axel. Now what do you really want to tell us?'

But she knew she couldn't, some things he wouldn't joke about, and she knew. She knew it was the truth, she knew that look in his eyes. Roxas looked ashen, and in the back of her mind she imagined she didn't look that much hotter, but as she tried to find the voice with which to question this news, she found her mouth too dry and the words sticking at the back of her throat.

How? Why? Who? When? Why why why?

Please don't let this be true.

He out of all of them was supposed to have a happier ending.

Roxas wheezed, and Xion apparently couldn't find her voice at all, and Axel rather felt like he'd been punched in the throat. This was the reaction he'd expected, but he still hadn't been prepared for it somehow. Okay, time for a little triage.

"Hey, come on now, don't... don't look at me like that," he said, sticking his ice cream in his mouth and impulsively reaching out to ruffle both their heads. Biting off a piece of the treat more in an effort to look casual than anything else, he shook his head and wagged the ice cream bar at Roxas. "Need I point out that I'm still here, and... well, frankly this is about the best next life I could have asked for, honestly." That nugget of honesty came easily, naturally, and he was almost a little surprised at himself. "I mean, you're both here, and I'm here, and none of us are under Xemnas' thumb anymore, and really that's all I wanted out of it anyway. Sure, this place has its issues but..."

He sighed and smeared his free hand down his face, gripping his chin a moment before meeting their horrified gazes with a helpless, apologetic attempt at a reassuring smile. He could see the questions in their eyes that they couldn't find words for, questions he'd actually had himself when he'd found out Roxas was really gone, when he had learned--remembered?--the truth about what happened to Xion. There was no easy way to cope with the loss of someone that important to you, no matter how good the reason.

Axel's eyes slid to Xion then and he managed a watery grin.

"It was my own choice," he said. "Don't think it was something lame like I just went and got myself killed; it was deliberate, and it was on my own terms."

He hadn't really done it for Sora. Sure, if Sora had been trapped in Betwixt and Between then Xemnas would have won and that wouldn't have been good for anybody, really, but that wasn't why he'd really done it. He'd done it because somewhere within that heart of Sora's were the only two people Axel could truly say were worth dying to protect. Maybe it was selfish of him, but maybe Axel was okay with that. What good was a world where the two people who matter most to you are lost?

He hadn't followed Sora planning to die, but when it had come down to living and watching Sora fail or dying so that he could succeed, the choice had been obvious.

"It was... well, in the words of somebody I know, it was for the good of everyone."

"Good?" Roxas echoed, his disbelief evident in his tone. "How is that good? And what do you mean it was your choice?"

With or without them, he couldn't see Axel being suicidal. He was the fighter, the one who could never let go—not of them, and not of his own life, Roxas was sure. Or had been. Suddenly he felt like maybe he didn't understand anything.

He'd been in Siren's Port more than two years now, and Axel had been with him for much of that time. And he hadn't breathed a word of this, not either time. How could Roxas have gone this long without knowing, if Axel's story now was true?

Why would he tell it if it wasn't?

"What happened?"

Edited 2012-08-20 03:18 (UTC)

"He means... that there was something more important than himself that he needed to take care of."

Xion wanted to kick herself for how small and shaky her voice sounded now that it had decided to work for her again. She couldn't look at either of them, she especially couldn't look at Roxas because the look on his face brought back memories of cold metal and the furious clash of blade upon blade and a place filled with so much poignancy being desecrated by a fight for survival and sacrifice.

It was my own choice. Don't think it was something lame like I just went and got myself killed; it was deliberate, and it was on my own terms.

No... It was my choice...to go away now. Better that, than to do nothing...and let Xemnas have his way.

Axel's words- her words spoken in his voice- they had the same sobering effect as if she had just been hit with ice water. When he'd said it, when the truth was out and she knew he'd had no future left in the world they'd left behind, she had felt such terrible sorrow and anger that it felt like her chest would burst and now that he had told them why, how, the painful ache in her chest hadn't lessened, not in the least, but...

But how could she stay angry when he had done what she herself had done?

It's for the good of everyone.

How could she have ever said those things to him in the past and not realised how much those words must surely have hurt him the way she was hurting now?

She looked over at Axel, her face still stricken.

"That's it, right?" Her voice wavered at the last. "Sometimes... you have to give everything to save what matters, because you know that it wouldn't be worth living if you didn't."

Of course he expected Xion would understand what he meant; she'd said the same thing, after all. He hadn't understood then, what she truly meant, or how it felt to be torn between wanting to live and knowing that dying for something else was more important. He understood now, though.

Shifting where he sat, Axel slid off the log and onto his knees in the sandy grass, reaching out and putting a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Look, I'm not telling you this because I'm trying to make you upset or... feel sorry for me or something," he said with a shake of his head. "We're all still here, right? And that's what counts. If I had my way I wouldn't have said anything at all, but honestly I'm surprised I've been able to keep it a secret this long. Xemnas and Xigbar know what happened, and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if they were the ones to tell you; got it memorized?"

Roxas had asked what happened, though, and this was the part Axel wasn't quite sure how to explain, not without telling Roxas more than the kid wanted to know. Putting his palms on his thighs and sitting back on his haunches, Axel frowned a bit.

"After you left, Roxas," he began slowly, carefully, "I... spent a lot of time thinking. To be frank, I wanted to go with you that night, but for one thing I figured you'd sooner embed your Keyblade in my skull than have me along at that point, but that's neither here nor there." He ventured a wan smile. "But I guess I want you to know that if I could have left with you I would have."

But there were more important things. If they had both left, the manhunt would have been double. If he hadn't still been in the ranks, someone else would have been sent to retrieve Roxas, and wouldn't have taken pains to be gentle. In the end, Roxas might have been destroyed completely, rather than simply reunited with Sora, and while neither situation was ideal, at least one of them was theoretically changeable.

"In any case," he said then, shaking his head. Back on track. Stay on target. "I wound up defecting eventually--you know, the code of conduct just really didn't sit right with me after that--and... well, the long and short of it is I wound up tailing Sora for a while. I figured the least I could do was help the kid topple Xemnas. I helped him out as much as I could from a distance, but the Organization was catching up more quickly each time." He barked a bitter laugh. "Bein' a fugitive is no fun, I tell you what."

He paused, figuring maybe they would have questions. This was where the story got particularly unpleasant, so while he knew he had to spill it, he didn't mind postponing.

If Xion was rapidly progressing through the stages of grief toward acceptance, Roxas was stuck on denial—or maybe skipped them entirely, because he still could barely believe what he was hearing. Xion choosing to die so he could be the one to live had been catastrophic enough. There was something grotesquely obscene about the idea of Axel choosing to give up everything, too.

But he couldn't find the words to express this thought, so he sat there, ice cream completely forgotten now, gripping at his legs while Axel continued. It almost felt like he couldn't move or speak, and he wondered if this was what going completely numb was like.

Yes, Axel had wanted to leave. Yes, he'd eventually defected. Roxas knew these things, there was no reason for Axel to make some ridiculously tragic gesture in order to prove his sincerity—not that that would really have been his motivation, but dates and events were swirling around in his mind as he tried to make sense of them all.

"You followed Sora?" he managed eventually. For how long? And had he ever caught up? He couldn't bring himself to ask these questions out loud. Maybe he was too afraid of what the answers would be.

Axel sort of gnawed on his lower lip a moment. He couldn't tell Roxas that half the reason he'd followed Sora was because, well... that was as close to following him as he was gonna get. Axel had meant what he'd said, when he'd told Sora that the inexplicable sensation of something like completeness he'd always felt around Roxas was there when he was around Sora as well... maybe he'd been chasing the ghost of that feeling more than anything else. He had known there was nothing he could do to save Roxas, short of turning Sora into a Heartless.

(He had considered it. Once. For about two nanoseconds. And then he'd promptly wanted to stab himself in the face with his own chakram. Killing Vexen had been one thing, but this was Sora! He hadn't even been able to bring himself to fight Sora at 100% in Castle Oblivion, there was no way he would have been able to actually harm him that way. Not even for Roxas' sake. Besides, Roxas would have kicked his ass.)

Taking a moment to carefully collect his thoughts, Axel nodded.

"Yeah," he said, and then chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "You know how he is--somebody's gotta give him a nudge in the right direction or he'd just never figure it out, you know? So I just gave him a couple pointers here and there."

He would leave out the part where he kidnapped Kairi. They didn't need to know about that. He'd apologized to her and made his peace as best he could.

Clearing his throat, he took a deep breath and figured he might as well just drop the other shoe.

"He got ambushed," he said softly, carefull, "in Betwixt and Between. He'd been trying to get to the castle and had finally found a way in, but of course the Organization wasn't going to make it that easy for the hero to get to their stronghold. I'm not sure if the passage was left open as a trap or if ultimately the Dusks were just there as a fallback, but..." He rubbed one arm uncomfortably. "Sora got overwhemled, so I thought I'd even the odds a bit."

And here came the hard part. Axel was no pushover in a fight, and Roxas and Xion knew it. Sure, they'd both whupped his ass once or twice, but when Axel got serious, people got hurt. There was no reason he logically should have been done in by those Dusks, and even he knew that. But running from the Organization had taken its toll, and it hadn't helped that Saïx had struck a blow and left him for dead. Axel had been far from in top form in that fight, and there was a little part of him that was abashed about it. If he had been on his game, he was confident he and Sora could have won that fight easily, but that wasn't the way things had gone. He'd been exhausted, injured, and at the end of a quickly-fraying rope.

Axel shook his head.

"There were too many of them," he said quietly, avoiding the kids' eyes. "By then, I was a full-on turncoat--even my Assassins wouldn't listen to me." Somehow that had only thrown salt in already raw and open wounds. "And so I just... made a decision." He looked up at them briefly before dropping his gaze to his lap and then closing his eyes. "There was no way we were going to win that fight unless something turned the odds around," he said. "If Sora fell there, Xemnas would have won and... well, I don't even want to think about what would have happened after that," he said with a shake of his head.

Axel lifted his head then, straightening his back and squaring his shoulders a bit. This wasn't something he should have been ashamed of. As much as he knew it would hurt the kids to hear the truth, this was the one thing--the one thing--that he'd done that he could really say he'd done right.

"So I turned the odds around," he said with conviction. "Unfortunately, the only way to do it was to give it everything I had. Literally."

He inhaled as if to say something else, and his jaw worked soundlessly for a moment before he just closed it again. He couldn't find any other words right now.

Xion had been sitting quietly, hanging on every terrible word with a growing sense of dread as his drew closer to the account's sad conclusion. Sure she knew things, she knew that at some point or other Axel had taken Kairi, she'd had Sora confirm it too, and she wondered whether that was what he meant by 'pointers'.

As deeply and dearly as she loved Axel, she knew that the Axel she knew best wasn't necessarily the one who'd made himself acquainted with the friends she'd made here, Joe especially.

But even with all that new information, even knowing that he must have gone and died helping Sora- because ultimately, that's what what it came down to- Axel shouldn't have gone down to Dusks, no matter how many. Heck, they used Dusks in training exercises! What had happened in between? Was he telling them everything?

She'd fought Axel. She'd fought him when she was at the height of her strength, leeching off Roxas and leaving him to struggle in his missions, and even then she'd come out of that fight the worst off.

"I don't understand," she said quietly, after a little while. "I mean... I understand why but..."

She looked at her feet, suddenly uncertain.

"I don't understand why you couldn't- why you weren't-"

"I don't understand why he didn't do something," Roxas said, his words clipped and full of frustration. Not directed at Sora, exactly—well, okay, sort of, but it wasn't like he blamed Sora.

But Sora was the Keyblade Master. There was a reason he was supposed to be worth Roxas and Xion giving up their very existences, wasn't there? Because he was suppose to save people, wasn't he? So why couldn't he save Axel?!

He swiped at his eyes with the back of one hand when he realized tears were starting to gather in them. "Did you both just forget to bring a Cure spell?"

There was no good reason to be angry at Axel when he was the one who died, but he couldn't keep the emotion from spilling over into his words. It was still better than continuing to sit still, curling in on himself as a sick feeling uncurled inside him. And it was easier to be angry than to give in to what he really felt.

Guilt.

Axel and Sora got along well, he knew. Sora had the same effect on him that he seemed to have on everyone. People just liked him, wanted to be around him, were better people when they were. But Axel didn't like Sora enough to die for him, he was pretty sure. But in this future that he'd never experienced and hoped he never would, Roxas knew he was with Sora. And Axel would definitely die for his sake. He knew that was true because he'd have done the same for his best friends, if they hadn't both beaten him to it.

Axel forbade himself to flinch at the tone in Roxas' voice. He had always been a little startled at just how well Roxas had been able to mimic real anger--the kid really had had a heart all along, hadn't he? But beneath Roxas' anger was something raw and ragged that Axel recognized all too easily: guilt. He wasn't sure just how much of this future picture Roxas already knew, aside from the fact that he and Sora had been reunited, as it were, but he supposed that was enough. Roxas was a smart kid; Axel had no illusions that he had failed to put two and two together.

Axel hadn't died to save Sora. Axel hadn't died to save the worlds. Axel wasn't that generous.

Axel had died to save his best friend, trapped somewhere within the only person who could save the worlds. Selfishness notwithstanding, Axel's death had achieved something greater than the simple act of sacrificing his own life for that of someone more important, but he honestly didn't care. It wouldn't have mattered to him if the entire Light-damned universe had imploded in on itself, because a universe without his best friend wasn't a universe he wanted to exist in.

Giving Roxas a helpless smile, Axel shook his head.

"Come on, kiddo, you know I suck at Cure," he said, and cursed himself when his voice cracked. He cleared his throat to hide the tremor beneath it and rubbed the back of his neck again. "I think Sora knew there was nothing he could do," he said quietly. "Cure can't fix everything, you know; if it could, the world woulds would be pretty damn crowded. When somebody's spent everything they have, nothing can give that back."

He looked down at the sandy earth between his knees then, shifting to sit cross-legged on the ground. The truth was out, he'd achieved his goal... now all he had to do was figure out how to put the pieces of this picture he'd broken back together.

"I just didn't want you guys to hear it from someone else," he said, unable to meet their eyes suddenly. "Trust me, if we could have just lived here forever without you knowing, I'd have kept it to myself. It's not like I'm expecting to be praised for this uncharacteristic act of selflessness--I've got no illusions like that." Sacrifice was a selfless act by nature, but that didn't mean it was exempt from selfish motivations. "We're here, we're all fine, and that's more than I could have hoped for, but..." He looked up then, his bright eyes shadowed, haunted, and the uneasy smile on his face brittle like old paper. "Well, we can't have everything we want, and I figured it'd be easier to swallow the idea if I was the one telling you."

He folded his arms across his chest, but it wasn't in his usual defiant gesture of guardedness, it was because he suddenly felt more vulnerable than he could recall feeling in... longer than he could remember, actually. Gripping his upper arms as if fighting a chill that wanted to creep up his spine, Axel lowered his eyes again.

"I just... I don't want to lie to you guys anymore," he said quietly, "not ever again. Even if that means telling you something you don't want to hear." That was what had driven the wedge between them in the first place, after all.

Edited 2012-08-21 04:22 (UTC)

The dam of numbness that Xion had been feeling fractured and broke the moment Axel coiled in on himself, and at that moment Xion didn't think she had ever understood her older friend better.

Yes there were questions, there were way too many questions that maybe she'd gather the strength to ask him about, but this wasn't the moment to pursue them. This wasn't at all. All those time when she had suffered alone in silence, only to have one of the others reach out and comfort her without knowing... this was the time for that.

For Axel.

She was clumsy on her knees as she hobbled over to him, not wanting to get to her feet, and threw her arms around him and clung to him as tightly as she could, as if she let him go he would disappear and vanish the way he had before and the way she never wanted him to again, especially knowing that he, like she, had nowhere else to go or be, literally be, beyond the strange and uncertain world of this strange island city.

"I know." And then, without a moment's hesitation, she drew back just enough to kiss him on the forehead before she hugged him again.

What could he even say to that?

Maybe nothing.

It wasn't enough to hear that Sora really hadn't had any hope of pulling off a heroic miracle. It didn't really help that Axel seemed far more at peace with it than Roxas could ever imagine himself being.

Part of him was jealous of Xion, he noted absently as she somehow found the strength to get up hug Axel. Not really, truly jealous, because he knew this must hurt as much for her as it did for him. But it seemed like she was able to haul herself up and stand in the face of this horrifying revelation while Roxas lay shattered on the ground.

There was one thing he could maybe manage, though, if he tried. Stretching out one hand while staying where he saw, he reached out for his friends. Whether that was to touch them and assure himself that they were still here and alive or to let them bring him to them, he really didn't know.

To say Axel was startled by Xion's sudden embrace would have been quite the understatement. Both she and Roxas were a fair bit more tactile than he was, but they seemed to have an unspoken respect for his aversion to PDA and it was rare that they infringed upon his personal space bubble. It wasn't until she had flung her arms around him and was squeezing his shoulders for all she was worth that it really registered that this was what the crushing sensation within his chest had meant. It had been so long since he'd honestly needed someone to remind him that he was here and real and wanted that he'd forgotten what it felt like. Or... forgotten what he remembered it felt like. Or something.

Xion pulled back and pressed a kiss to his brow and he just stared at her a moment, so completely boggled that he was sure he looked absolutely ridiculous. She didn't seem to notice and just hugged him again, and the pressure behind his sternum splintered and spiderwebbed apart.

He realized after a moment that he'd forgotten to breathe and inhaled sharply, audibly, and his eyes swam to Roxas where the boy was reaching feebly from his seat in the grass. Before he really thought about it Axel reached out and closed long fingers around Roxas' wrist and pulled him--not sharply enough to hurt, but firmly enough to uproot him and send him crashing into both he and Xion. They were suddenly a tangle of limbs. Axel hadn't really ever hugged them before--he just didn't hug people--but in that instant it was as if everything depended on his holding the two of them in his awkward, gangly arms.

He had lost his home more than ten years ago, but if home was where the heart was then maybe he wasn't as out of luck as he'd always thought, because if his heart wasn't here with these two then it was surely nowhere to be had.

He loosened his arms after a moment, half worried he might have actually been hurting them but mostly because this was so unusual for him he was sure they were going to suppose he had a fever at this rate. He didn't let go, though; some tiny inane part of him was afraid if he let go now he would find out this had all been some kind of dream. He had carried this on his shoulders for so long, feeling guilty for keeping it from them but too afraid of their reactions to come clean. Suddenly everything felt lighter.

It was okay. This was okay. They would be okay.

"I'm sorry." The words had been so hard to say once; they had never come easier to him. "It was my fault things happened they way they did. I was a damn coward."

Axel pulled back then, conviction in his eyes as he held the two of them at arm's length, one hand on each of their outside shoulders.

"I'm not gonna blow it this time," he said. "You guys... you're the reason I'm a decent person at all, you know? And I was too stupid to see it 'til I'd lost you both."

It took a little wriggling to get into a position that felt less awkward than the initial collision of bodies and limbs against Axel's chest, and for a moment Xion felt her arm was trapped uncomfortably beneath Roxas' body. For a split second she bore with the pain before tugging it free. It took her less than a second to wrap it round Roxas' shoulder as the other clung to Axel.

Axel broke the hug, but Xion kept her grip on both him and Roxas. She looked at him and covered his hand on her shoulder with her own.

"You two are the reason I'm even a person at all. I wouldn't be anything if it weren't for you." Her eyes felt hot, and she knew she was crying but it didn't matter. There had to be some way for all these feelings to escape or she felt like she would buckle under the weight of it all.

"We have to make a promise. Right here. No matter how bad things might get, no matter what happens, we can always tell each other because we're best friends, and we love each other, and as long as we're here together, then we're here for each other."

He hadn't been able to bring himself to move on his own, but as soon as Axel grabbed him, it was like a paralysis spell was broken, and he wrapped his own arms around his friend in return, as best he could.

None of them were supposed to be able to feel anything. But they did, didn't they? It had hurt so badly to lose them the first time. To do so now, after they'd had this time together would be even worse. Hopefully he'd never have to experience it, but the pain that came at simply imagining it, the pain he felt knowing what Axel had done—it was more than a memory of emotion. It had to be.

"I promise," he choked out, clutching desperately at the two of them, even as Axel gave them enough space to look at each other. He was pretty sure his eyes were watering again, but he didn't want to let go long enough to wipe it away.

"None of us are going to lose each other again, got it?" He knew they couldn't promise that—none of them could—but no one really knew what caused the Core to let people go. But i intention and strength of will meant anything, then they'd be here forever.

Axel shook his head at Xion. Usually seeing people cry made Axel a little uncomfortable, but somehow this was different. Lifting his hand from beneath hers he ruffled her head.

"You were always something, kiddo," he said fondly. "All we did was show you what ice cream was."

He sort of balked at her words then, his eyes widening a bit. Love? It hadn't been so very long ago, all things considered, that Roxas had asked him about that very subject, seated atop the clock tower in Twilight Town. What was it he'd said? That Nobodies couldn't love because they lacked that one vital component?

'Once Kingdom Hearts is complete, you'll be able to do all kinds of things.'

Maybe Kingdom Hearts hadn't been such an important prerequisite after all. Hearts or no hearts, whatever they had here was pretty damn special.

Axel nodded.

"I promise too," he said firmly, knowing as well as Roxas did that it was a dangerous sort of promise, given the lack of higher control they had over their presence here. Well, the Powers That Be be damned; he had found his way here after death, he had found his second chance to make things up to the people most important to him... He'd already beaten the odds, so this was a promise he could find the strength to make, uncertainties notwithstanding. "I already promised I'd always be there, didn't I?" he said with a wry grin, lifting his other hand to plop it on top of Roxas' head. "Make sure you commit it to memory this time."

Commit it to memory.

Xion had never had any trouble remembering things; every single detail of those 351 days she had spent alive in the world they came from was etched in her memory, the good and the bad. And she remembered Axel's promise, she remembered what he had angrily sworn when she had turned her Keyblade on him on that awful day, and whatever happened, she would remember it all for all three of them.

Knowing that none of them had anywhere to be outside of the Port made her feel like her stomach was tied in a strange knot, it made her feel almost glad that there was nothing pressing that could ever threaten to take them away from her, even if nothing here was as certain as she hoped it would be.

She caught Roxas' hand and threaded her fingers through his, leant her head into Axel's touch as he ruffled her hair, and closed her eyes.

"It's a forever promise, one we can't break for as long as we're together."

"We won't break it," Roxas said, squeezing Xion's hand back and resting his other arm on Axel's shoulder. "Not ever."

He had a feeling he'd still be processing this while a while. Axel. Dead. The knowledge left the sensation of an awful, yawning pit in his stomach, and if he kept thinking about what had happened and why it had happened and how he never knew, he might cry, scream or have to break something. Maybe all three.

But having his two best friends so close to him pushed away that dark feeling for now. Even if he'd have to face it later, along with the aching guilt that came along with the grief, he could focus on better things now. And Axel and Xion were the best things.

Roxas swallowed a lump in his throat before speaking again. He wasn't sure he had to—here and now, despite the shock he and Xion hadn't seen coming, the three of them understood each other completely. But there was something of value in saying the words anyway. It helped to hear out loud what they already knew.

"We'll remember," he said. "We'll never forget. Never."

"All promises are forever promises, Xion," Axel said firmly. "I don't make a promise I don't intend to keep."

And he meant that with every fiber of his being. As tenuous as this promise might have been, Axel had always placed a lot of weight on keeping every promise he'd ever made, and this one would be no exception. Promises were bonds, and breaking the former could easily break the latter, he knew. Promises, like the friends they were made to, were paramount, and he would never have knowingly jeopardized either.

Taking a deep breath and holding it a moment, Axel found himself wondering why he'd been so worried about this. It was news he wished he hadn't had to tell them, but of course he knew this would never break them apart. He sighed softly and then glanced down at the rapidly melting puddle of blue ice cream nearby.

"... Oh. Maybe I should have saved the ice cream for after the news, huh," he said with a helpless shrug. "Live and learn, I guess. Whaddaya guys say we go get some replacements?"

Xion didn't really feel all that much in the mood for ice cream after all this. Even though she had been the one to bring up keeping promises forever, she knew it only meant for as long as they were all there in the port, and she knew that if they ever left, Roxas and Axel would both fade out of existence never remembering this moment, or this promise, or even the little dark haired girl they used to eat ice cream with once upon a time. The thought left her feeling an uncomfortable emptiness in her stomach.

But she kept all of this to herself, smiled bravely and looked at the melting remains of her ice cream as she made her voice sound cheerful.

"Sure. Why not?"

Roxas laughed, and the sound of it surprised even him, even though it was shakier than usual. He didn't need ice cream right now; though he was sure it wasn't true, at the moment he didn't feel like he'd ever want to eat again.

But he did need his friends, and they needed him. And he didn't intend to let either of them out of his sight for a while.

"Yeah," he said, and smiled and them. "Let's go."

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