Here we are, another songfic. I get so inspired, listening to music as I write and come up with ideas. This fic is based off of a song called Providence by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. That band is really trippy and just generally really great, and it really helped me set the mood for the fiction. Multi-chap, a bit of minor-adult relations (Roxas is like, sixteen or so at this point whereas Axel is like, twenty-three, twenty-four, so nothing crazy crazy, but I should still give warning), crazy talk, the end of the world, and one hardy giant street sign. Do enjoy.
Providence
By: Salem Martin
It wasn't every day someone sat on the street corner and preached.
Roxas lived in a small town, where everyone knew everyone and no one was homeless and the nights were always quiet because the kids didn't care about drugs and partying. It was peaceful, but dull. It was often that Roxas found himself randomly wandering the town, aimlessly looking for purpose. The jobs offered only paid well enough to live in the town and nowhere else. Very few people who grew up in the town left the town, because most weren't crazy enough to try. Roxas wasn't crazy, but he liked to figure that one day, maybe, he'd get himself out of this thing he called everyday life.
He did much of his figuring during his morning runs. A time where it was even more quiet than daytime, but sleepier than nighttime, a sense of stillness surrounding it like pink glass in the dawn. It was the same thing every day, whether he took different routes or not. Same thoughts, same footsteps, same heartbeat. So today, he didn't expect anything different. He ran by the same houses and mailboxes and storefronts and it was the same quiet as every other day. That is, until he reached the intersection at eighth and main street, where the town's lone streetlight blinked green-yellow-red-green on its timer. Roxas slowed his steps, his breath labored, then stopped, staring at the far corner of the intersection.
A man stood there, a very large sign propped up next to him on the streetlight pole proclaiming that the end of the world was coming. Nothing else. Just the end and the world and that it was coming. It was something that Roxas had never really given much thought to, but now that he was presented with such a phrase, it gave him pause. He was given second pause as he studied the man that the sign supposedly belonged to.
The man was very tall and spindly, with girly hips and raggedy clothing that didn't do him justice. He wore a white cut-off tank top that was more dingy grey than anything else and had holes in the bottom and worn blue jeans with frayed hems. His sneakers looked like they'd seen more land than the wind and his hair was pulled back into an insane, spikey, frayed out porcupine of a ponytail, redder than the local fire engine with deeply colored roots. There was something adorning his cheekbones, but Roxas couldn't make it out from where he stood.
On that note, he decided he would go up to the man and inquire about his proclamation because, when one makes such a statement, usually one has a reason for it. Besides, now he'd get to be the first person in the know about something in town, and that would be…well, a first.
Roxas jogged over to the red-haired man, coming to a stop before him cautiously as the man chugged water from a worn out looking plastic water bottle. Green eyes slid over to survey Roxas's blue ones as the blonde panted for breath, the man's Adam's apple bobbing with each swallow. He drew the bottle away from his lips and capped it, still looking at Roxas curiously.
"Well…do you think the end of the world is coming?" The blonde asked breathlessly, trying to get his breath back. The man glanced at his sign, then at the sky, then back to the teen, and shrugged.
"Why else would I be out here, kid? Someone's gotta know and someone's gotta warn the rest of you lazy creatures hiding away in this hole of a place," the man replied. His voice was rough and not as deep as Roxas expected it to be, but it had a sensual undertone to it, like maybe this wasn't the first time this man had stood on a corner selling something. Roxas couldn't help but feel slightly offended at being called a lazy creature in a hole of a place. Hole or not, this was his home, and he had some sort of strange pride of it.
"We're not lazy," he grumbled. "And what makes you so sure of this end?"
The man leaned against the streetlight pole and smiled.
"You'll find out soon enough. I find that preaching this a few times is easier on the throat than a bunch of times. Wait til a crowd forms," he said nonchalantly. "Til then, you got a name, kid?"
Roxas huffed and leaned back to stretch his muscles out a bit. He could have sworn he saw the man eye the way his shirt rode up slightly over his stomach, but dismissed it as the redhead took the opportunity to sip more water.
"Roxas. What about you?"
The redhead capped his water and set it down on the ground carefully.
"Axel. Come back here at noon and I'll tell you all about the end of the world. If you're lucky, maybe I'll save you," he said, winking at the blonde. Roxas glared at him, confused, but turned and took up his jogging anyway. That man gave him a strange feeling, and he didn't like it.
. . .
Breakfast was its normal affair, coffee and orange juice and eggs and toast that his mother so kindly prepared every morning for him and his father. It was summer, so Roxas was out of school, but his father left at eight every morning to go work downtown in the local barber shop. Roxas wondered briefly if he'd notice Axel and his creepy sign. After his normal breakfast and normal conversation with his mother (during which he left out the subject of Axel and the end of the world so as not to worry her too much), he went into the living room to watch normal television.
This was normal.
At noon, his mother made him a normal lunch of sandwiches and milk and carrot sticks, which he ate normally. After lunch, his mother shooed him outside for fresh air, and while that was usually normal, this was where things began to unravel for Roxas in the normal section of life.
He walked down to eighth and main, the sun hot and unforgiving in the piercingly empty blue sky. He figured Axel must be as red as his hair by now, what with the pale skin the man had. As he approached the corner with Axel and the sign, he suddenly wished he'd stayed home.
A small crowd had gathered around Axel, young people and older people and confused people, all staring up at the redhead with some sort of skeptical rapture. He was gesturing wildly (skin as pale as ever, much to Roxas's surprise) and speaking quickly, and with purpose. Roxas sidled up next to one of his teachers to listen.
"And every time you turn on your television, it's just one more way for them to pull you deeper and deeper into total submission, complete nonresistance! They monitor our books, our programs, our radio stations, our music. What we talk about. What we think, write, see. Every part of it is noted and every day you're unknowingly conforming more and more to their sadistic will," Axel ranted, pausing to take a drink of water. Beads of sweat graced his forehead, nose, and neck. He glanced at Roxas, catching his eye for but a moment before returning his attention back to the crowd as a whole. "If we don't do something now, our world will most certainly end and it will end without our even knowing it, people! You have to speak out against the lies, stand up in the masses, create your visions before they get tramped into the ground and beaten out of you! You are sheep and you are being led by the devil in shepard's clothing! Cast off your woolen shackles and become a shepard yourself, and refuse to be silenced!"
The teacher standing next to Roxas shook her head and leaned towards him.
"I don't know what that man is thinking, spouting such hooey in a public place. I didn't think we'd ever get a crazy person like him around these parts. He's probably from some big city up north," she said disdainfully, just loud enough for Axel to hear if he chose to listen. "It's a good thing those northern queers don't last very long in good Christian towns such as these. You'd do well not to listen to his sinful words, Roxas."
And with that she marched away, her ankle length skirt swishing about her feet. Axel's rant hesitated for a moment as he noticed her leave, his hands held out in front of him like he was about to pick up a sub sandwich longways from both ends. After a second or so, he resumed his rant, but his gaze kept returning to Roxas. Roxas listened half-heartedly, his thoughts going back to what his teacher had said to him, and wondering what she'd meant by 'queer'. It was a word he'd heard only in passing, and as one hell of an insult at that, but looking at Axel, he couldn't find much to insult other than his almost obvious homelessness and heavy opinions.
After the teacher left, people began to file away more steadily, until Roxas and Axel were left standing there as the day went on around them as it normally did. People glanced at the sign or Axel and either ignored them or shook their heads and kept walking. Axel sighed and sat down next to his sign, draining the last of his water almost dejectedly. He looked up at Roxas.
"What're you still doin' here? You caught my drift, now you can go back to ignoring the truth like everyone else is," he said spitefully, turning his bitter glare to the concrete sidewalk. Roxas glanced around quickly, then took his advice and walked off, missing the incredulously hurt look Axel threw after him. He walked to his father's barber shop, and glanced back at the redhead, who was now playing with his empty water bottle morosely. Roxas rolled his eyes and opened the door, assaulted immediately with fresh, crisp, cool air. His father smiled at him from over the head of the pastor who lived down the street from them. Roxas smiled and nodded to them before heading to the break room in the very back. He grabbed three water bottles from the small fridge and headed back out to where Axel was sitting. Another glance around, and the blonde sat down next to Axel.
The redhead gazed at him in surprise, almost not realizing that the two water bottles being held out were for him. He took them and nodded his thanks before uncapping one and quickly draining half of the cool liquid.
"So…do you think the end of the world is coming?"
Axel rolled his head over to look at Roxas, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, Roxas, you've heard my argument. Do you?" He asked, and Roxas opened his own water bottle, taking a sip.
"Well…I don't know. When you said end of the world, I guess I pictured something more…" he trailed off, searching for the right word.
"Wrathful? More Judgment Day? More God, less government? Fiction, rather than facts?" Axel suggested. "Let me tell you something, Roxy. The "God" in this end is the government. The government is becoming God. We can't let that happen. Because the day that does is the day you as a free human being die."
Roxas blinked, letting that information sink in and trying not to clock Axel over the head for the nickname.
"And besides," Axel added absently, scratching his chin, "you're too cute to die."
Roxas blinked again, the word his teacher said suddenly coming back to him.
"Axel…"
The redhead grunted in affirmation.
"What does 'queer' mean?"
Axel froze, looking over at Roxas with confusion.
"How do you be this age and not know what that word means, kid?" He replied. Roxas shrugged and looked away. "You think you'd have learned in school, it's something they really throw around down here. Your teach really likes it, I can see that."
"She didn't mean it, if it was rude, she's just…" Roxas petered out in his lame defense. Axel grinned at him.
"If you have to add in the what ifs, then she sure as hell meant it. Don't worry, Roxy, it doesn't bother me anymore," Axel replied, waving his hands dismissively. "Queer, in the traditional sense, means strange. Odd. Unnatural. Nowadays it means you're gay, but hardly anyone uses it to mean that in a nice way. It's a slur, if you will."
Roxas drank some more water, all of a sudden feeling really uncomfortable.
"Was she right?"
Axel glanced at the blonde, then away ashamedly.
"Does that matter? And more importantly, does it have to?" He said awkwardly, and the uncomfortable feeling grew inside of Roxas. "I'm too old to be your friend, kid. Maybe it's best if you left this crazy coot to his scary predictions."
Roxas started to say something, but Axel cut him off.
"Thanks for the water, Roxas. If you see me tomorrow, send some people my way, would ya?"
Roxas paused, then stood.
"Sure," he replied quietly, and turned to walk away from the discomfort he was feeling, back to a life that was normal, and not so queer. He took a step and stopped.
"Hey…Axel?"
He looked over his shoulder at the redhead behind him, who'd stopped in mid-sip of water.
"What did you mean by maybe you'll save me?"