Everyone had his favourite patient - Axel's was the little boy in the Amnesia Ward, who often said no more than two words to him in an entire day. Axel, of course, managed to fill the silence by himself, prattling on about his mother and medical school and how he'd have loved to be a doctor, but he wouldn't see Roxas then, would he? He would ruffle the impossibly natural blonde spikes that Roxas grew like a garden on his head, and mosey off to do something else.
He might not have said much, but Axel knew that he listened.
After five years in the hospital's care, seeing the young nurse enter and exit every single day, Roxas' curiosity must have overtaken him. He sat up and just as Axel had been about to leave, he grunted. "What's your name?"
Axel beamed and turned around and told him, the grin not leaving his face for an entire day, even when all he got as response was 'huh.' and little more.
The day after, Roxas lay back for once, complaining of headaches. Axel sat with him and told him about how the traffic had almost made him late this morning, and that the clouds had been forming shapes - but all of them were shapes of things he couldn't name. Roxas told him his head hurt and that he was stupid, but listened all the same.
With paracetemol, finally, the blonde boy drifted off to sleep. Axel drifted out of his room two hours overtime.
Weeks after that day, nothing else had happened. Roxas would nod at him when he entered, saying nothing and barely registering Axel's voice in his ears. He would sit only quietly, staring out of the window - finally, three days and six weeks after the headaches, he coughed. Again, before Axel left. He asked him his name.
Axel did not beam when he told him, wondering how he could have forgotten. Roxas hadn't.
He nodded and bit his lip and ran a hand through his own hair, twisting the covers in his hands. Axel shrugged and ruffled Roxas' hair also, smiling. "See you in the morning, Kid."
He didn't.
A matron told him with duress that the little boy had been moved to another ward, since he was showing signs of stress and they were worried that his fragile condition would worsen, if it wasn't treated. She smiled softly at him, however, and put a hand on Axel's shoulder. "He wouldn't go without a fight, honey. He's a fighter."
But work was hard with all these smiling faceless people, thanking him for the littlest jobs he did. He hated their soft demenours and especially the dying ones who actually knew it - their charts pointing downwards and their faces filled with 'just one more day, maybe two, and you're free'.Axel hated them - but only because they never actually believed they would die.
When work ended it was nine pm, the other people around him milling either in to work at night, or out to get some sleep before morning. He wandered past the various wards, spotting finally an isolated bed and a worried-looking Roxas, still awake. For the first time, when Axel entered, the small boy looked up and smiled.
"Hey." He said softly, and Roxas nodded. He gestured to a nearby chair.
"What happened to you today?" He said nervously, twisting his hands together until they stung.
Axel told him about the dying and the humorless dead, the cold of the bedpans when he handed them out. He told him how dirty the place actually could get, how he wished there was just a little more money for him and how he'd missed him this morning. He said he was proud that the boy had fought, but didn't know why. He didn't ask.
Roxas nodded when Axel started to point at the wide window to their left, how the birds all flew south even though it was the hottest of winters. He noted how reflections did always look like he was in the sky, from a second story window, and how tired he really was at this time of night. He didn't leave that night, instead falling asleep mid-conversation. Roxas had not the heart to wake him.
The next day when he awoke, it was to a different world. The people around him no longer clacked their heels and chattered guardedly - conversation was louder, footsteps thumped rhythmically. Roxas woke him.
"You have to go." He said, clutching the bedspread. "I think i'm having a heart attack."
Roxas rang a bell and Axel stammered, shoved to the corner of the room by a pack of squirming doctors. Roxas calmly lay back and removed his hand from his chest, settling softly into respiration. He drifted in and out of consciousness, never panicking.
He survived.
It was five days before Axel saw him again, and he sat in silence next to the boy, evading his usual duties. He said nothing. Roxas looked at him.
"Are you alright?"
Axel blinked, and laughed. "Am I okay? You had a heart attack!"
"I'm good at them. Still alive. I've had...they told me I've had five, in total." He furrowed his brow. "I only remember two."
Axel nodded. "When...wait. You've been here six years, right?"
Roxas nodded.
"You never get visitors, though." He said softly. "Doesn't anyone know where you are?"
"I don't even know who they are." He laughed. "Who do I have to miss?" Another laugh. "Besides, you visit me, don't you?"
"I dunno. It's my job. Does that count?"
A soft smile spread its way onto Roxas' face. "It does if you stay longer than you're told."
Axel blushed. "Well it's good I did, isn't it? You might've died."
"Like you were any help...and thankyou, but Axel...?" He frowned, looked out the window. "I think you made me sick."
The redhead blinked. "What?"
"When people make me remember things, I go into cardiac arrest. I'll never have total recall, Axel - don't hope for it. If I remembered everything, the shock would kill me."
"Oh." He frowned. "But I remind you of things?"
"Of a person. You didn't know me before I was a patient, did you?"
Axel shook his head. "Not as far as I know. How old are you?"
Roxas smiled. "That, I do know. I'm seventeen."
The nurse smirked back at him. "You're kinda short, for that."
"You're kinda tall, but you don't hear me complaning. How old are you, then?"
"Twenty."
"Definitely too tall." Roxas frowned when he tried to turn sideways and lift himself from the bed, prompting Axel to hook their arms together and help him.
"Are you okay?"
Roxas nodded. "Yeah. I just...need to get up sometimes. I need to have a bit of a walk - don't want bedsores." He laughed, and his legs wobbled.
"How long as it been...since you've had a walk?"
"About a year." The humor was far from lost on Axel, who laughed like a madman, the smaller boy eventually sitting himself down - Axel put a hand on his shoulder.
"It shows." He grinned, and pulled himself so he was cross-legged on the end of the bed. "So tell me. How come you let me potter about for years until you finally said hi?"
"I thought you were an overbearing prick with no manners."
"Touche. What changed your mind?"
"Who said I changed my mind?" Roxas started to laugh. "I'm kidding. I realised you're the only one who made an effort, and I decided to at least know your name. Happy?"
"Very." The two sat in silence for a few moments, Roxas fiddling with his hair and looking out of the window.
"shouldn't you be working?"
Axel shook his head. "I've been savin' my holidays, so I decided to use one today."
"You used a holiday to come and talk to me? Asshole. Don't you have any friends?"
The redhead smiled. "Well sure, but I thought you might appreciate the company. It's been awhile...how about you tell me about yourself?"
"Seeing as the only things I know are five heartattacks, Roxas, and seventeen...why don't you go?"
"There's not much to tell."
"Good. At least I won't get bored."
Axel winked, making the blonde feel vaguely flustered. "Uh...okay. The hair's not dyed, but I don't exactly wake up every morning looking like this.." He giggled at Roxas' expression. "I live in an apartment close to hospital, and i'll probably be here my whole life - like you! See, there are perks."
"Girfriend?"
"Not into girls."
Roxas nodded. "Boyfriend, then?"
"Nope! I'd like to say i've got someone in mind..." He looked down. "But I really haven't."
"Uh...college?"
A nod. "Sure - but it's medical school. Not the best of fun."
"Okay...what do you want? In the future, I mean?"
Axel started to chuckle. "Hmm, a manwife, a house with roses round the door...and 2.4 impossible kids."
Roxas shoved him playfully. "Fine...ignore that." He hummed to himself. "I can't think of anything else."
"Okay then...what do you want in the future?"
The blonde shrugged. "A life. Someone to talk to, from time to time. Maybe the chance to leave my bed more than once a year."
"You'll get it." Axel smiled.