Title: The Road To the Dark City
Author: Lost Experiment
Word Count: 2600+
Rating: R for swearing and moderate sex and violence.
Pairings: Axel/Roxas, ???
Genre: Romance/Supernatural/Adventurey…thing?
Summary: AU. The infamous hitman Axel is not exactly what you would call a nice person, but opposites attract and he fell madly in love with the apparently innocent Roxas. Axel thought he'd lost Roxas forever when a job mistake left Roxas stranded in the dangerous City of Neverwas. When mysterious clues pop up that Roxas is indeed alive, Axel along with his very unwilling friend set out on a trip to find the love of Axel's life…but is this such a good idea?
Chapter 1
There was a body on the floor when Axel woke up in the morning and this did not surprise him in the slightest. It also happened to be the body of the young woman he'd brought home from the bar the other night, and the blood that had dried into a maroon crust around her head had come from a gunshot wound at point blank. This did not surprise him either, but considering he was hung over and miserable he felt the need to complain and share the horrible with whoever was in the near vicinity.
His longtime hitman partner Braig was sitting at the kitchen table, calmly eating a piece of toast and doing something on the laptop. His good eye swivelled towards Axel when he walked in. "Seriously, did you have to do that?" he gestured to the body.
"Had to, the way you were blithering on last night. Jesus Christ, Red, you are a fucking talkative drunk."
Axel rolled his eyes and grabbed the Lucky Charms from the cupboard. "You were pretty shitfaced last time, if I recall." He muttered. He hated it when Braig was right about stuff, and he felt gross and ready to change the topic. "Mail come yet?"
"You waiting for something?"
"Nope, I want the paper."
"I just read it online." Braig glanced at him. "There's nothing about us – clean job as always."
Axel rolled his eyes, determined to get a dig in somewhere. "Some of us like to read real news beyond the equivalent of googling our names."
Braig made a noise that may or may not have been a snort, and Axel decided to take his small victory and run with it. He disappeared into the hall to retrieve the mail. "Bill, one of those pre-approved credit card thingys. Menu for Twilight Town Pizza and a letter for me."
"A letter for you? Who the hell wants to write to your bony ass?"
It was honestly a good question. Being two of the world's most prominent hitmen, neither Axel nor Braig were liberal with who they gave their address out to. "I recognize the handwriting." He said slowly, trying to work out from where. It was a thin envelope, plain white, standard stamp, with nothing unusual marked down on it. Axel was experienced enough not to open anything suspicious, but nothing about this letter so far constituted suspicious.
"I dunno, probably some ridiculous advertisement for a garage sale or something, cleverly disguised as a proper letter so I'll actually be fool enough to open it." He remarked as he slit open the top. Over his newspaper, Braig's good eye watched the procedure critically.
It was definitely not a garage sale advertisement. A single sheet of lined paper with shaky, cramped handwriting tumbled out. Axel picked it up and scanned it, his face steadily draining of colour with every passing second.
"Red?" Braig asked him, somewhere between concern and confusion.
"We're going to Neverwas." Axel said rather shakily.
The change in Braig's demeanour was obvious. "Why?" he asked sharply.
Axel licked his lips a few times and read the short letter once or twice more before replying. "I found Roxas. Or rather, Roxas found me."
"You mean that kid you were fucking? I thought he died."
Axel shook his head. "I....this has got to be him. Look!" he shoved the paper under Braig's nose.
"Axel. They've got me in the dark city. Please come help me. Sora." The other man rolled his eyes at his friend. "Are you halucinating x's or something? So-ra. Rox-as. Not the same thing. I know you were like woobly and gay as hell over that kid, but he's dead. Not coming back. Eat your fucking kiddy cereal and get over it."
Not to be deterred, Axel picked up the paper. "It's an anagram of course!" he said. Look, Sora – Ro-as. With an X, that's Roxas."
"You don't want to go to Neverwas." Braig tried again. "Why the hell did the boss pull you off that job in the first place? Xemnas is not an idiot, he knows full well that place is…well, it'll screw you up."
Axel shook his head "You don't understand. I sent Roxas to Neverwas. If he's there and alive, I have to go find him."
Everyone loved Axel and Roxas. Even the most homophobic individual in Twilight Town had to grudgingly admit they were just the perfect couple. The girls all worshipped one, or the other or both, and Roxas had been mortified to learn that some giggly teenagers had put together some kind of fanclub over at the highschool.
Without question, the boys were less enthusiastic. Not necessarily about the relationship, but because they feared their own attempts at dates being compared with Axel's seemingly endless income.
Roxas was not just some housewife with a penis either. He worked for the bank, and to the best of everyone's knowledge, Axel's career required him to travel a lot. They suspected he was some kind of high powered business man, to which Axel would laugh in private with his partner Braig. "Partly right. I definitely kill a lot of them."
Roxas himself stayed out of Axel and Braig's affairs; while he didn't support Axel's job explicitly, he didn't complain either. So long as Axel kept him out of it, which he did. In fact, it gave their relationship that much more of an aura of innocence if they weren't always talking about his line of work.
They had been dating for at least a year and a half before the hit order in Neverwas came through, practically the day after Axel returned home from one of his bigger jobs in Traverse.
"Rox? Gotta business trip thing."
"Where this time?"
"Neverwas. Spooky huh?" Axel was from Halloween Town as it happened, so there wasn't terribly much that unnerved him, but Neverwas was a strange place, even by Halloween Town standards of spooky.
Roxas paused. "I think I'd like to come with you."
That, Axel hadn't been expecting. "You wanna go to Neverwas?"
"Well, I'll stay in…a hotel or something while you're off doing your…job. You just got back from that one in Traverse, and I miss you baby."
Axel's confusion turned into a grin at the use of the pet name. Roxas never used pet names unless he was explicitly after sex. The idea of having crazy post-kill sex was an even better thought. "I like this idea."
Roxas leaned across the table and kissed Axel's forehead over the laptop. "I always thought Neverwas would be an interesting place to visit. Like going to the Bermuda Triangle or something. I bet half the stories of disappearances and stuff aren't even true."
"Well…" Axel said thoughtfully. "Halloween Town's pretty decent proof that some of that stuff exists. That legendary castle could just be haunted or something."
"So you'll feel right at home." Roxas grinned up at him.
"So the plan was that I was going to send Rox ahead on a jet and just tell all the neighbours we were going on a vacation together, but I needed to do a few things at the 'home office' first."
"Yeah, and then Xemnas called bullshit on that order so we stayed here, I know, and your lover-" Braig drew out the word sarcastically so it sounded like luvverrr "-never came home. You were a whiny little bitch forever, but honestly I think you're clutching at straws here. There's something funny about this whole thing. There was somethin' funny about that Roxas kid too. Never liked him."
"We've been over this. You were the only one who never did. What the hell were you? Jealous?"
Braig didn't say anything for a moment. "Look, I don't like Neverwas for starters, and I definitely don't like this Sora-Roxas business and how it's connected with some bunk job designed to pull the wool over Xem's eyes. I don't like that a guy like him could have been fooled by it for even a little while either."
"Are you trying to tell me that Roxas…MY Roxas is involved in some sort of conspiracy theory against Xemnas?" Axel's jaw dropped. "Hell Braig, I thought you were a scientist. Went and got a good college education and all that. Or should I start getting worried that some of the bombs and shit you put together are going to explode on us?"
It probably should have bothered Axel that Braig didn't react to the dig, even jokingly. Instead, he stayed silent, watching Axel with his single good eye.
"Fine. You can stay here and be a pussy about this, but I am going to find my boyfriend. Learn to deal with your overexcited trigger finger while I'm gone."
Axel stormed into his bedroom, stepping over the dead girl in the process.
Braig's shoulders slumped. "Asshole." He mumbled to himself. "Alright, I'll come with you on this stupid goose chase."
Axel stuck his head out of the door, a glass of water and some painkillers in his hands. "Awesome. It'll be a road trip."
Braig just sighed and went to throw some clothes in a bag. Neverwas was pretty far away. He'd have at least five, maybe six days to convince Axel this was a horrible idea and the world would be a much better place without Roxas. He went to go find the map, considering that his partner seemed to be taking his sweet time. Maybe he would even be able to drag out the trip if he convinced Axel to drive while he navigated.
"Alright. I'm ready."
"Geez Axel, we're not seeing Roxas today." Axel was actually dressed nicely, in dress pants and a button down shirt. As it stood, it seemed like Braig would need every spare second he could scrape together before they got to Neverwas. They wouldn't even get to Neverwas if he had his way, but when Axel got fixated on something, it was damn near impossible to change his mind.
"Hey, Axel? You mind if we stop in Traverse tonight?"
Axel didn't take his eyes off the road, but he frowned. "We could go further than Traverse."
It was ironic, Braig thought, that the unscheduled early stop on their first day out didn't have anything to do with delaying their arrival in the Dark City. "Yeah, I want to. I wanna go see my big sister."
This time, Axel actually briefly took his eyes from the road to gawk at his partner. "You've never mentioned a sister. Damn, she must be like eighty or something"
Braig snorted. "I'm not that old yet. She's not my sister by blood or anything…and she's younger than me by two years, but she took care of me after I left home."
"I dunno, Can't you stop in on the way back?"
"Come on, she runs a bar."
"Are you tempting me with booze? After last night?"
"More of a pub really. She makes fried chicken and…"
"Fine. Sold."
"Thought so."
Traverse Town was one of his favourite places, but even Axel had never been to the Seventh Heaven, which was tucked away under some stairs. It was small and dark, but so was Traverse Town itself. Now that he thought about it, Traverse Town wasn't exactly small – there had to be some other place its inhabitants went to besides the café when they wanted to eat out.
"Tifa?" Braig called as they entered, a small bell above the door chiming to announce their presence.
Before either man had time to blink, a busty girl with long hair appeared out of nowhere, grabbed Braig in a headlock and managed to twist him down halfway to the ground.
Axel was flabbergasted – he couldn't even imagine anyone taking Braig out that easily, though he later reasoned he must have been taught combat from someone. He'd just assumed that someone had been Cid. The crusty old war veteran-turned gangster seemed a far more likely teacher than this pretty girl.
"Crazy bitch!" Braig twisted out of her grasp and the two hugged. Axel had never had siblings so he just shook his head in a bit of confusion at the brother and sister's razzing eachother.
"Ah, and do we have a boyfriend now, Braig?" there was a gleam in the woman's eye that made Axel nervous, but the idea that his partner was gay was just as unexpected as the fact that he had a sister. "Introduce me!"
"Axel, Tifa. Tifa, Axel. Axel's not my boyfriend." He paused, as Tifa had started looking at him in a new light at the revelation. "He's not single either. He's on a quest to find his one true love and rescue him from the Dark City. It's almost fucking painful to say it. It sounds like the plot for a shitty romance story."
A strange look passed between the siblings but Tifa didn't say anything besides "I hope you find him." She then offered them a place at one of the tables and sat and chatted with Braig for a bit before some other customers came in and she had to go attend to them.
Axel ordered the fried chicken Braig had promised, but forwent the alcohol, evidently still thinking of the aftermath of the previous night. He waited until Braig was halfway through his drink before broaching the subject. "So…you're gay?"
"Bi, if anything I guess. Something like yourself."
"Dude, I never would have guessed that. I mean, you always seemed so uncomfortable around Rox and I."
"Well, I'm not denying that I'm a bit more orientated towards women than men, but it's like I told you earlier. I didn't like Roxas."
Axel glared at him and Braig wisely changed the topic. The guy could be an utter asshole but even he knew when to shut up. The conversation grew sparse after that, and Axel left Braig at the bar to continue catching up with Tifa. He went straight to the second district to book them a hotel room at the Traverse Town inn. After shooing out the annoying bellhop, who was convinced that since Axel had just dropped about 1500 munny on the most expensive room they had, he clearly wanted every service the hotel had to offer as well.
"No, I just want you to direct my friend to the room. He'll ask for Axel at the front."
"Yes sir." The defeated salesman to be finally left the redhead to his own devices. Axel took a seat on the edge of the bed and pulled his duffel close, rooting around in it and glad for the peace as he located the photo of Roxas that had adorned his bedside table until earlier this afternoon. The face of the man he'd fallen in love with gazed up at him and he scanned the rare smile and the blue eyes, trying to look for whatever had made Braig so uneasy.
Eventually, he put the photo back with his socks and shirts, frowning. It was Braig, not Roxas who was on his mind right now. How had he worked with a man for so long and known so very little about him. What other secrets was Braig hiding?
He was still awake and pondering this question when Braig himself returned. He wasn't drunk; Braig wasn't the type. However Axel wondered if he might have had enough to give him a slightly less vague answer about this bizarre aversion to Neverwas. Sure, the place was considered creepy and it had a weird reputation, but his partner had barely twitched a brow at some of the things that were on Axel's shortlist of the ridiculously dangerous.
"Hey, you still awake?"
Braig rolled over on the opposite bed from where Axel was resting "What?"
"What's the big deal with Neverwas? City superstitions are bullcrap that kid that Roxas used to hang around believed in. Whatshisface? Hayner. What is your damage?"
He heard Braig let out a whoosh of breath in the dark, but couldn't make out his face. When the answer came, he was glad for it. It seemed to be a night of secrets. "That place changes people. I should know. I escaped."
"What do you mean 'escaped!?'"
There was no reply. Braig's breathing had turned steady and even. Whether or not he was faking sleep right now was irelavent. The issue would still be there in the morning, and Axel wanted answers.
To Be Continued...