Authors Note: "There's a bad moon on the rise..."

Yep indeed, I have returned with yet another romance series to distract me from 'Stranger Than Fiction'. I can't blame Aeirth08 for the idea for this one, but she did threaten to flay me with a dull butterknife if I didn't continue this series, so I guess that counts for something.

All I really want you people to know is that I am not a hopeless romantic, honest. I'm not any kind of romantic. I don't know where these stories keep coming from. It scares me. It really does. My brain is really working against my character on this one. Eep.

I apologize ahead of time for the lack of canon, the unabashed fluff, the depth-less characters and cruddy plotline. I know there are people out there shrieking 'Mary-Sue!' and 'I hate non canon pairings!' already. If you are one of those people, pass this puppy by and go read 'Thunder Struck' instead. If you aren't, please suspend your good taste and set your leniency levels to maximum. And always remember: romance is not m3thod-mak3r's thing. Peace out.

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Everyone, even the most common of men, deserves a miracle at least once in their lives. In a world sore for lack of magic, the wearied soul needs the lift of the extraordinary to buoy it through troughs of depression or even the crushing ordinary. Unfortunately, miracles run on a lottery system (no pun intended), so unless you can spare a trip to Lourdes, you simply have to wait your turn. The unfortunate thing about miracles is that they seem to pass over the completely hopeless; those who are so dampened by sorrow that they can't even pray. Occasionally, there is a soul on the precipice of this rotten despair, clinging to a scant dream of something wonderful just beyond their reach. We can only hope that these teetering few are visited by their miracle soon, before their belief in magic dries up completely, and leaves they heart to curdle. One such soul was Aideen Krelborne..

Aideen had entered her final year of collage in September, and was working hard to pay for her last year of education through her employment at Michael's Arts and Crafts. As with any minimum wage job, her work at Micheal's was physically difficult at times but not intellectually stimulating in the least. During the long, lonely hours spent cleaning the store near closing, she often fantasized about shanking her more difficult managers with a box cutter. Aideen found that the most amusing part of these imaginings was finding a semi-logical justification for the crime to avoid hypothetical jail time, though she was sure any jury who had worked under her bosses would never convict her. When not in a particularly vengeful mood, she would mentally review coursework or compose poetry to a boyfriend she didn't have. Couples who asked her where the wedding section was were often surprised by her icy hostility. These imaginings are worth mentioning only because they are the apex of interest in Aideen's life; the only thing that separates her existence from the thousands of other similarly situated pay-as-you-go college students. To review the rest of her actions, and indeed, her thoughts, would be and exercise in boredom at best.

As far as physical appearance, Aideen was notable only for her mediocrity. Her body type was obscured by ill fitting Walmart brand jeans and polos, not to mention an unflattering red apron bearing the cheerful tag, "Hello! My name is: Aideen I'm in charge of: Customer Service" which was a lie since her mangers would rather die than let her join their ranks and be in charge of anything (or so she thought). Aideen always wore her straight, mousy hair in a tight pony tail, a style which did nothing for her face but keep hair from sticking to her lips. Only the cheapest makeup was in her price range, which she refused to buy anyway because her friend had once told her it caused skin cancer. Perhaps her only truly beautiful trait was her general polite shyness, which had developed fairly recently when she realized she had nothing of importance or consequence to say to anyone.

At 8:27 PM on a Thursday evening, Aideen was knee deep in bottles of glue in aisle 7b. General manager Sarah had given her the task of restocking what amounted to 15 feet worth of shelving and heaving the overstock to the top shelf for storage. Hefting one bottle of Elmers glue is a small task, but Aideen knew too well that a box full of glue was a weighty and unwieldily burden indeed. Once, a few weeks after her initial employment in the summer before Freshman year, her arms gave out and she dumped a medium-sized box full of modge podge all over 7b, which was fortunately devoid of customers at the time. Had someone been in the aisle, they would have been severely concussed...or dead. However, after four years of box-lifting, Aideen was considerably stronger and many times more careful. She managed to drag a box stuffed with Aleene's distinctive gold-colored bottles of glue to the top shelf without dropping so much as a single piece of stock on her head, a feat she thought merited at least a 25 cent raise. It was around then when her miracle walked in.

Aideen was about to sling another box of tacky glue onto the shelf when a man slunk into the aisle. Generally, Aideen payed as much attention to customers as she did potted plants or umbrella stands, but this person was simply so..different..he was impossible to ignore. For one thing, everything about him was loud. Aideen couldn't find any other way of putting it. Even though the man drifted as silently as a cat along the aisle, he had a riotous, almost dangerous air about him. Like Dionysus. thought Aideen Plenty of fun, but don't you dare forget he's a god.

The man was dressed in a tight black shirt, which highlighted his rather anorexic-looking figure. This was complimented by heavy black jeans with long chains hanging from the belt loops. At twenty something, Aideen thought most people were too mature for the goth look, but apparently, this man had missed that memo. Gawd, it even looks like he's wearing eyeliner. Aideen realized. But that wasn't even the most bizarre thing about him. The man had dyed his hair a brilliant red (if Aideen had been in the paint aisle at the time, she could had picked out which shade) and spiked it so it added nearly a foot to his already considerable height. Aideen thought his weekly bill for hair care products might be more than she made in a month. And yet...somehow he looked almost...familiar? The gears in Aideen's mind began turn slowly. With THAT hair? No way I could have forgotten his face completely.

Then it clicked. Sighing heavily, Aideen bounced down the ladder and stared boldly up at the man's face. "Can I...help you?" he asked, looking rather annoyed.

Aideen massaged her forehead. "Yep. It's him. Man, I told them they can't put me in the glue aisle all day. They didn't believe me last time, but jeez. These fumes get in your head. I can't believe I'm seeing stuff again." she moaned.

"Wait...seeing what now?" the man asked, putting down the bottle of 'Krazy Glue' he was holding. He looked almost concerned. Almost.

"No no no. I'm not talking to you. Last time I started talking to a hallucination, I nearly got fired, and boy do I need this job. I'm just gonna take a little walk around the store, and when I come back, you're actually gonna be a shopping cart or something." Aideen said.

"So wait...I'm a hallucination? What the Hell are you on, lady?" asked them man, crossing his arms and laughing outright.

"Glue fumes, apparently. There's no way YOU could be real." she said, grinning a little in spite of herself.

"'Cause I'm so damn sexy?" the man said with a smirk.

"Nah. Because you're Axel or something, from the video game my niece plays. Kingdom Hearts? Yeah that's it. Anyway, video game characters don't exist in the real world, ergo, I am unintentionally high on glue." she said with a wink.

The smile instantly dropped of Axel's face. "You recognize me?" he asked.

"I couldn't forget hair like that if I tried. My brain must have slipped up though. You're not wearing that trenchcoat of yours. And where are your teardrop tattoos hmm?" she asked, examining his face.

"Uh..." said Axel, looking awkward. He was hiding something.

"I bet you're wearing makeup, aren't you?" said Aideen slyly, leaning in a little closer to his face. Since he wasn't real, she didn't think it mattered if she invaded his private space.

"Uhhhh..." replied Axel, looking to the left and massaging the nape of his neck with one hand.

"Heh. I knew it. No wonder people think you're gay." Said Aideen in triumph as she turned on her heel.

"Hey! I'm NOT gay! Get back here." demanded Axel.

Aideen laughed into her hand, "Pretty insistent for a hallucination. I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm telling you, I need this job. Enjoy your glue, pretty boy." Aideen made it about halfway down the aisle when she overheard snaps of conversation from the aisle to her right.

"Did you see that guy's hair?"

"Yeah and..."

"Really RED!..."

Wait so...some customers saw this guy too? So maybe he's actually...thought Aideen.

"Decided to stay and play, beautiful?" asked Axel, grinning ambiguously. His tone was impossible to read. Mocking, earnest or flirty, there was not way to tell.

Before Axel could interpret her movement, Aideen spun around and flung a bottle of tacky glue directly at Axel's head. Impulsive and rash? Yes, but Aideen simply had to know if Axel was real or not. (If the bottle crashed into the display behind him, she decided, he was simply a shopping cart after all.) Aideen felt as though she was in some bizarre reality just a little left of her own, and the end of 7b was the one-way threshold back to her normal, boring existence. If she didn't get her answer about Axel's realness now, she never would, and the incident would simply remain in her mind, unresolved and as mysterious as Mona Lisa's (Axel's?) smile.

Aideen watched as her pitch flew true, the bottle arching toward it's target with genuine determination. Surprise crossed Axel's face, but seconds before the bottle could make impact with his nose, it burst into flames and melted to the floor with a single thick 'plop'. The mixture of sizzling plastic and superheated glue bubbled near Axel's black shoes like the leavings of a seriously ill bird. "You shouldn't have done that." he said in a flat, deadly voice. Aideen was so surprised at the bottle's sudden deconstruction that she barely had the sense to comprehend the magnitude of the event. The magical burning of the glue meant that this was actually the real Axel, somehow pried from his fictional setting and imposed on the mundane reality of Michael's Arts and Crafts. She had proven him 'real' and for that...

"Can't have you blabbing about who I am, can I? You humans just ruin everything for yourselves. I'm going to have to kill you." Axel said, frowning at her as he stalked forward. Oh come on! Where are the customers now!? They won't leave me alone when I'm trying to do work!! Aideen thought as she backed into a box and fell to the dirty linoleum. As she tried to scrabble backwards, Axel leered over her, practically straddling her prone form as he threatened her with a spiny circular weapon that he had apparently snatched from nowhere.

"Good night." Axel said, smirking as he prepared to strike Aideen.

Back throbbing against the ugly floor and shelves of glue soaring up around her pointing towards the flat glare of halogen lighting, Aideen could not think of a worse place to die. Hell no. Not at my fucking job which I HATE. HELL no. Out of self defense options and faced with her imminent demise, Aideen pulled that last card any women has to play, "RAPE!" she shouted as loud as she could, her scream cutting across the Michael's muzak like a dull blade. Shock stayed Axel's hand for the crucial second it took for Aideen to worm away from his strike range. "RAAAAAPE! Oh GOD!!!" She yelled again, and was rewarded by the sound of feet pattering from every corner of the store. Not wanting to expose his video game heritage, Axel allowed his weapon to dissipate into darkness. Shooting Aideen one last spiteful glare, he ran down the aisle just as the first customer rounded the corner.

"The red haired guy! Get him!" The man shouted as Axel dodged around him and headed for the exit. Aideen listened to the shouts of his frustrated pursuers grow fainter as they stormed out of the store and across the parking lot. Feeling a little faint meself. Aideen thought unhappily, struggling to stay calm and conscious. It felt as though someone had pummeled her back with a plank of wood, and her heart was still working overtime out of fear. I wonder what would have happened if he had stabbed me with that thing? I guess I would have just bled out on the floor until some customer tripped on my arm and figured out that it wasn't red paint that I was covered in. She was vaguely aware of someone shouting her name, probably a MOD concerned about a lawsuit being filed by either Aideen or her attacker. Aideen was hoping that Axel was feeling the sting of vigilante justice, though she doubted he was that easily captured. "I'm okay I'm okay..." she mumbled, trying to stand. No less than three pairs of hands kept her on the floor as Sarah the general manager demanded, "Aideen, what happened? Are you alright? Sit down for a moment while you tell us..."

Calling on reserves of theatrical talent she didn't know she had, Aideen began to sob out her tale. The tears were real, but the story.. "I was...I was just p-putting the overstock when tha-that guy asked me to come down a-and tell him where some-something was." she wiped her nose with her apron and continued, "I came d-down the ladder but when I was on the b-bottom step he..he..he kicked me in the back! I fell over and he-he said that he had a knife that I had to go with him to the stock room r-right away or he would stab me. He said he was going to...going to...to." Aideen stopped trying to talk over her tears and simply let her adrenaline take over.

"Call the police!" General manager Sarah said sternly to a sales associate at Aideen's side.

"Already did." Front end manager Kelly said, sounding extremely self important. "And an ambulance too, just in case."

"No..really I'm...I'm okay. Really...I'll just go in the break room and wait for the police to arrive. Really." Aideen insisted. She was no medical expert, but she was fairly sure that kick to the back bruises and fell on the floor bruises looked somewhat different. The managers allowed her to hobble to the back of the store, and demanded the rest of the employees leave her alone for awhile. Aideen was unsure if this was for her benefit, or because they still had a store to run 'attempted rape' or no.

When she was finally free of well-wishers and concerned cashiers, Aideen made herself a cup of instant hot coco from the communal supply and considered what had just happened to her. She doubted the police would ever catch Axel, distinctive red hair or no, since he was a video game character and probably had other weird video game powers that allowed him to evade capture. Damn. Too bad I didn't pay more attention to that stupid game. She thought angrily, stirring her hot coco with vigor. Then I might know a little more about this guy than just 'he had red hair and teardrop tattoos'. GAY tattoos. Like a mime. That last thought cheered her up a little bit. Unfortunately her optimism did not last when she realized that he might be back to get even. She had, after all, publicly humiliated him and caused him to be run out of a craft store. He did not strike her as the type who was accustomed to being one-upped. Balls. She cursed as she sipped her drink. She knew that she had gotten lucky, managing to escape Axel's interest in murder with what was mostly chance. Axel would probably attack her before she had enough luck to escape again.