A/N: Yay for Christmas interludes! I got this idea from a song. I don't know its name or who it's by…but it is my single most favorite Christmas song. This is my last Christmas before I go to college. How crazy is that? I have many mixed feelings about the issue, I can assure you. However, my mental breakdown about leaving home is not something you want to hear about, especially around this wonderful time of year. Therefore, I'll just wish you a very Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Sorry.
Axel Sinclair was born to travel. His mother had always told him that from the time he learned to roll over, he was determined to go anywhere and everywhere. It only seemed fitting, then, that after he graduated from high school, Axel decided to travel the world. He worked his way from place to place, sometimes staying only for a few weeks, other times he stayed for six months to a year. Eventually, though, he got restless, and he had to move on. By the time he was twenty-five years old, he spoke twenty-two different languages fluently.
He had been in Paris for almost six months-a lifetime for Axel's short attention span-and finally he was ready to move on. His bag was all packed-everything he owned, he could carry on his back-and waiting for him back in his hotel room. The traveling bug had hit him at an unfortunate time, the day before Christmas Eve. He'd decided to stay until he could attend a party he'd been invited to by a good friend of his. He would only delay his departure by a day. It wouldn't kill him to wait a few more hours.
After only an hour at the party, he'd been very pleased with his decision to stay. That was when The Boy had arrived. He was blonde with big blue eyes and a gorgeous smile. He spent most of the evening in one corner of the room, talking and laughing with two other guys, who would leave him every once in a while to dance together. After his arrival, Axel found himself unable to focus on anything else. He had set a time limit on himself, promising that he would leave at midnight so he could catch some sleep in preparation for his departure.
It was ten thirty and he'd already been watching the blonde for two hours. He very much wanted to dance with him, but for some reason, something was stopping him. Normally, Axel had no problem talking to strangers. When one only stayed in once place for a few months at a time, it was almost impossible not to be at ease around strangers. But there was just something about this boy that made Axel hesitate. He was nervous, he realized. He didn't want the boy to send him away. He's spent the last few hours arguing with himself about whether or not to go over there. He really, really wanted to.
As the clock struck quarter to eleven, Axel's confidence flared back in full force. He was leaving the party at midnight, and France early the next morning. He would probably never see the boy again, and he would forever regret not even taking the chance to talk to him. With those thoughts secure in his mind, Axel set off across the floor in the direction of the boy who had enraptured his attention since he had walked through the door. The blonde watched him come, his pretty blue eyes sparkling in an entrancing way.
"Bonjour," Axel greeted almost breathlessly when he finally arrived at his destination. The walk had seemed to take forever.
"Bonjour," the blonde replied, looking at him expectantly. Axel was suddenly aware that the blonde had known that Axel was watching him the whole time.
"Would you dance with me?" Axel asked him, his French not faltering a note.
The blonde shook his head and shrugged with a grimace as if to show that he did not understand. Axel suddenly knew why he had only spoken to his two friends. It wasn't out of shyness, he just didn't speak French.
"Sprackenzie Deutsch?" he tried, the first European language to come to his head. The blonde shook his head.
"Habla Espanol?" Axel tried again. Spain was only a few hours train ride away, after all.
"Solamente un poco," the blonde said with an apologetic smile. "Habla Ingles?"
"Yes," Axel replied with a grin. "Born and raised in Spokane, Washington."
"New York City," the blonde replied with a grin.
"It's not often I find another American. At least not in the touristy parts of town," Axel said conversationally.
"I'm visiting my cousin," New York explained, "He's lived here for a few years and I thought it would be nice to spend Christmas with him. He came out to spend two weeks, met someone, and never came home."
Axel laughed out loud. "Would you dance with me?" The blonde grinned, taking his hand, and pulling him out to the dance floor.
"I thought you'd never ask. I saw you almost immediately and have been keeping an eye on you since I got here. You keep looking at the clock. Why?"
"I'm a traveling man," Axel explained. "I came to Europe when I was eighteen and I've been all around ever since. I spent a month in Belgium, three in Germany, seven in Spain, two and half in Japan, a few weeks in China…I've been all over the place, really. The travel bug just hit me. I'm leaving France in the morning, and I promised myself I'd be home by midnight so I could get some decent sleep."
"Wow," New York breathed. "How long have you been in France? With how perfect your accent was, I would have thought you were a native."
"Six months," Axel informed him. "And I've always been good at languages. Leave me in a country for two weeks and I'll speak the language damn near fluently. Give me a few more days and I'll have the accent down pat."
"That is really impressive. I took some Spanish in high school, but not enough to actually get anywhere with someone who didn't speak English. The only language I speak fluently is English, and the French really don't appreciate that."
Axel laughed. "Yeah, lovely bunch of people, aren't they? You get used to it." As songs ended and started again, Axel and New York shared dance after dance, talking about anything and everything that came to their minds. New York told Axel about his childhood and how he had graduated high school in the spring but hadn't decided what he wanted to do with his life yet, and therefore hadn't even applied to college. Axel told him about his travels, sharing different comical anecdotes. Axel felt like he could dance and talk with New York forever. Unfortunately, he didn't have forever. After what seemed like only minutes, the clock chimed twelve.
Axel pulled away reluctantly. "I've got to go."
"Will you turn in to a pumpkin?" New York asked with a wry grin. Axel laughed and shook his head. "No. But if a man doesn't keep his word to himself, who can he keep his word to?"
New York smiled sadly. "You're right. It was nice meeting you. I'm glad you asked me to dance." He rose up on his toes and kissed Axel softly on the mouth. "I haven't had this much fun since I arrived in Paris."
"You're definitely the most interesting thing that has ever happened to me, in all my travels," Axel returned the sentiment. Unable to resist the urge, he swept the blonde up in his arms and kissed him harder, only for a moment, before pulling away.
"Good-bye."
"Bye."
Axel had gotten back to his hotel, crawled into bed, and was almost asleep before he realized something. He had never asked New York what his name was, and New York had never asked for his.
Ten years later, Axel was in a small café in Florence, Italy, drinking some coffee and snacking on a buttery pastry. The streets were mostly empty, as it was seven o' clock on Christmas Eve night. Everyone was either at mass or already home, tucked in for the night with their families. Axel hadn't been home for Christmas in about eight years. The second Great War had made it very difficult to travel back and forth between the states and Europe, so he hadn't even tried. Somehow, he had managed to avoid being drafted or caught up in the war. He had spent some time in France, but then the Germans had taken over. He'd then moved on to England, but then the Blitzkrieg had gotten bad and he'd moved on again. He had ended up spending most of his time in different parts of Africa, where the war seemed a bit farther away. The only good thing that could be said from the war was that it had ended the Great Depression. The thirties had been some rough years for Axel, but he'd become used to working his way around the world during that time.
"Ciao," the waitress greeted with a smile. She was a pretty girl, her auburn hair long and hanging to her waist. "Don't you have any family to be spending the holidays with?"
Axel smiled at her, and shook his head. "My family is Stateside," he explained. "It's just me. What about you?"
"No. My mother died when I was young, and my father and brothers died in the war. I am alone, so I offered to work this shift so that the rest could spend time with their families."
"Well, then, I guess you're stuck with an old man like me."
She laughed, the sound musical like a tinkling bell. "I do not think that you are that old, Signore."
"I am thirty-five," Axel informed her with a wink. "Compared to a girl like you-the tender age of seventeen, I would guess-I am an old man."
"Very good," she said, her blue eyes sparkling. "Would you mind if I sat?"
"By all means," Axel said, waving his hand at an empty chair in welcome. She sat, crossing her hands under her chin. "You are an American, yet you sit in an Italian café, speaking fluently with a perfect accent reading a book written in Portuguese. You must be a traveler."
"I am. I've been traveling the world for seventeen years. Mostly Europe, but I've been to six of the seven continents."
"You must have the most wonderful stories," she sighed. "I wonder…would you mind sharing your favorite Christmas story with me? It is a tradition I used to share with my brothers…"
"I would be most honored…"
"Kairi," she answered his unasked question. "I am Axel, and my story is quite true. My favorite Christmas story is a personal experience. I call it The Boy With No Name. It was December 24, 1937, and I was at a party in Paris. I saw the boy there. He was probably the most beautiful person I'd ever seen in my life. He was a blonde, and his bright blue eyes matched his shirt perfectly. I'm so glad I got the courage to ask him to dance, because I swear to you, Kairi, in that hour that we spent together, I fell eternally in love with him. I never learned his name, and I never saw him again…but I know that I'll never be happy with another person."
She was smiling. "That is the most romantic thing I have ever heard in my whole life! You'll find him again, Axel, I know you will. Love like that…there is no keeping it apart."
Another thirty years found Axel back in America. He'd grown too old to move from place to place. Most of the work he'd done as a younger man was too much effort for his old body to handle. In the end, he had admitted defeat. He'd moved back to America, choosing to live in a small one-story in Brooklyn
He'd never married, never met anyone that could replace his longing for that one boy he'd fallen in love with forty years before. His parents had died many years before and he had no siblings. He was truly alone in the world, but for a few neighborhood kids. Every Christmas Eve for the past five years, they had come to his house just before dark. They would sit at his feet and listen to the stories of his travels. They were different every year, but he always ended with the very same one. It was to the point that the kids could tell the story to him, word for word, because he always told it exactly the same way. But still, every year, they would come, and they would listen.
"It was December 24, 1937, and I was at a party in Paris. I saw the boy there. He was probably the most beautiful person I'd ever seen in my life. He was a blonde, and his bright blue eyes matched his shirt perfectly. I'm so glad I got the courage to ask him to dance, because I swear to you, Kids, in that hour that we spent together, I fell eternally in love with him."
Seven years passed, and Axel was seventy-two. His hair, which had once been a vibrant crimson color, was now white. His dazzling green eyes had faded to the color of a worn dollar bill. It was Christmas Eve, and he was in the hospital, alone, dying. The children had all grown up and moved on with their lives. There was no one left for him now except the nurse that sat with him in his last hours.
The nurse was a man named Roxas who didn't seem to be that much younger then Axel himself. He had spent much of the last week vigilantly at Axel's side. The former redhead guessed that he knew that Axel had no one.
Axel had been told that it was likely that he wouldn't live through to the morning, and he could feel how that was probably true. He felt so weak. Though he didn't know the nurse, he was very glad that he was there. He'd spent a lot of his life moving around, never making any true connections. His life had been impulsive and he didn't regret much of it, but he wished dearly that he had someone he loved to hold his hand while he lay here, facing death.
He looked over at the nurse, who was watching him closely. "Roxas," he spoke quietly, his voicing sounding raspy. "Could you share a little holiday cheer? Just one little Christmas story…that's all I want to hear."
"Of course," the nurse answered quietly. As he began to speak, Axel almost thought he would cry, for it was his own very favorite Christmas story that the man told.
"It was December 24, 1937, and I was at a party in Paris. I met a man there. He was probably the most beautiful person I'd ever seen in my life. It was a quarter to eleven when he approached me, and I'm so glad he got the courage to ask me to dance."