"Axel, this is ridiculous. This-" Elsa cut off with a grunt as she crashed into Axel's back on the other side of the door. She rubbed her sore nose as he turned around and looked down at her. "This is a waste of time. You're not even-" her words halted again, this time of her own accord as she glanced around. She continued in an terse whisper, "You're not even old enough to drink."
He held up his index finger, then fished through a pocket in his jeans. He pulled out a plastic card and showed it to her. On it was a little picture of some redheaded guy that might be mistaken for Axel if you squinted hard enough, along with information like height, weight, and eye color. It listed the name 'Reno Turk' and claimed the age 25.
"You have a fake I-"
Axel's hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her outburst. Rolling his eyes, he waited a few seconds before removing his hand and walking further inside the room.
It was your average pub, with tables and booths, darts and a rundown pool table in the back. The walls were made up of dingy red bricks and there was a long bar made of polished oak lined with stools. Behind it was a wall of bottles and flasks of varying shapes and sizes, filled with liquids that were all the colors of rainbow. Further down the bar, a bartender was flipping slowly through a magazine with a lack of interest. If he had noticed the two of them come in, he gave no sign. Except for the bartender, Elsa and Axel were alone in the place. Which wasn't that surprising, what with it being still rather early in the afternoon.
Axel plopped down on one of the bar stools. He then flashed her a grin over his shoulder and patted the stool next to him. She chewed her lower lip, looking back at the door. With a sigh, she walked over and sat down on the offered seat.
The bartender took his time making his way over to them and raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Axel. The redhead simply held up his fake ID and waited. Elsa's hands curled into fists in her lap as she suppressed her nervousness. It wouldn't do to frost over the countertop, though that certainly would have been one way to take attention away from the validity of the ID. The bartender's eyes shifted from the card to Axel once, then gave a curt nod.
"Beer and a shot," Axel said as he pocketed the ID with one hand and used the other to point at an orange bottle behind the bar with 'Fireball' printed across the label.
Still not uttering a word, the bartender then looked at Elsa. Her shoulders stiffened and she stuttered, "J-just a water for me. Uh… please. Thanks."
The man nodded again, then shambled off to prepare their orders. Elsa inhaled deeply, her nerves relaxing a bit. She then asked Axel, "Okay… now what?"
He cocked his head to one side, pondering her question. He then promptly began spinning on his stool at dizzying speeds.
She smacked herself on the forehead. After who knows how many rapid rotations, Axel grabbed the bar to stop himself, smirking at Elsa. She just crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him. He opened his mouth as if to say something, seemed to think better of it, then proceeded to spin again.
Elsa snerked. She couldn't help it, it had escaped before she had even realized what was happening. She then broke down into full blown laughter, hiding her smile behind her hands.
"There it is," Axel said as he came to a stop again, resting an elbow against the bar and settling his cheek in his hand. "That's what I was going for. You're wound up too tightly. You need to learn to relax."
She was about to retort when a glint of something caught her notice. She looked down and her eyes widened and her face paled slightly. "Um… Axel? Your leg…"
"Hm? What about it?" He looked down as well. Sticking out of his thigh was one of Larxene's knives. It had ripped a rather sizable hole in his jeans, and the fraying tatters seemed to be stained black. "Oh. How awkward."
"Awkward?" she asked incredulously. "Doesn't it hurt?"
He shrugged. "Not really. Adrenaline, I guess." He glanced over at the bartender, whose back was turned to them as he unhurriedly set about his work. Axel then took a hold of the dagger's handle.
"What are you-" Elsa gasped as he yanked it out of his thigh without so much as a flinch. Instead of blood, some sort of… black, oily ooze seeped out of the gash on his leg, as well as coated the blade. "... what is that?" she whispered as her nose scrunched up.
"Nobodies don't bleed," he said flatly. "Don't have blood, really. Kind of need a heart for that. Instead, we're filled with whatever this stuff is."
"You don't know what it is?" she asked. He lifted his shoulders and let them fall, to which she frowned. Then another thought came to her mind. "Larxene… she can't track that, can she?" Elsa pointed at the dagger.
He shook his head as he tossed it into the nearest trash bin. "Nah. Summon it to herself, yes, but that's it."
"Good," she breathed. "What about…" she gingerly pointed at the spot on his leg that was still leaking black sludge.
Axel wiped the goo away, flinging the stuff off his hand with a flick. Then he pressed two fingers to one side of the puncture and slowly, steadily moved them to the other side of it. He winced and grunted. A faint, almost indistinguishable sizzling sound could be heard. Elsa blinked as she realized he was cauterizing the wound. When he was done, an angry, puffy red and black patch of skin remained. He then gave her the thumbs up.
Her mouth hung open slightly. "...that it?"
"That it? What, you think that was easy?"
"No, but is that all you're going to do? What if an artery was sliced and you're bleeding internally or something?"
He waved a hand dismissively. "It'll be fine. I do this all the time. I have scars all over my body to prove it."
Elsa started to argue, then stopped herself, a curious look on her face. "...all over?"
He nodded, "Yup."
"How did that happen?" she asked distractedly as her mind started filling with unbidden images of a bare-chested, scar-riddled Axel.
Shrugging, he said, "Guess I just get stuck with all the icky jobs." Then he leaned closer to her, eyes half-lidded and a wolfish smirk on his face. "Wanna see them?"
She blushed furiously, planted a hand on his face and shoved him back. "Not interested. And don't change the subject. You should see a doctor or something. You need to take care of yourself."
"Look who's talking," he said simply. At the blank look she gave him, he tapped his cheek.
Puzzled, Elsa mirrored the action, placing a finger on her right cheek and released a surprised hiss through her teeth when she felt a sting. She turned to look at herself in the mirror on the wall behind the bar. The cheek in question was covered in blood. Dried blood, it looked like, thankfully, but still… how…? Then she remembered that instant during the fight where one of Larxene's knives had flown a little too close to Elsa's face. She had felt it when it happened, but there had been no time to check it. Sure enough, squinting at her reflection, she was able to spot what appeared to be a slash in her cheek that was currently clotting over.
And the cut was just the start of it. Frazzled hair, rumpled clothes that she had obviously been wearing for days, dirt smudged all over from head to toe. She was a mess. Axel too. A few days of being on the road, not showering, and fighting Heartless would seem to do that to a person. It was a wonder the bartender hadn't taken one look at the pair of them and thrown them out right away. But he hadn't even batted an eye at their appearance. Perhaps he was used to seeing worse.
Elsa jumped as she felt something cold and wet press to her injured cheek, breaking her train of thought. Squeezing one eye shut, she jerked her head away and eyed the offending item. It was a wet napkin in Axel's hand.
"Relax, it's just water," he said, pointing his chin at a glass that was now in front of her on the bar. It seemed she had been so preoccupied with the sight she currently made that she hadn't noticed her water had finally been brought to her. Two glasses, one much shorter than the other and both filled with amber liquids, were in front of Axel as well. He went on, "Now hold still and let's get you cleaned up a bit."
He extended the wet napkin towards her again, but she stopped it with her hand on his and took it from him. "Thanks, I got it."
He just shrugged. Using the mirror, she delicately wiped the dried blood off her cheek bit by bit. As she did so, she watched Axel's reflection as he poured the contents of his shot glass into the larger mug, letting the liquids mix before he took a sip. They continued this way in silence for a couple minutes, until her cheek was free of blood, leaving behind just the cut that was beginning to heal.
"So…" Elsa began, breaking the quiet. "What was with that other stuff Larxene mentioned?" He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes. "You know. That stuff about being meek and submissive, about you moving on…"
Axel looked down at his drink and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "...she and I… we sort of used to…"
"Oh," Elsa said flatly, as if she understood what he was getting at, which she did not. A beat, then her eyes widened as her mind finally managed to fill in the blank. "Oh!" Her brow knit. "But… I thought Nobodies couldn't feel things like love."
"It had nothing to do with love."
She tilted her head to one side. "Then why…?"
Axel shrugged yet again. "You don't need feelings to have hormones."
It took a few more seconds for his words to fully sink in. When they did, they elicited another soft "oh" from her as her cheeks stained pink. She cleared her throat and fell quiet again.
Looking up, she discovered there was a TV screen mounted high above, just behind the bar. It was on, but the volume was turned all the way down. It was on some news channel that was currently reporting on the disappearance of some girl. They were showing a picture of her. She was pretty, with blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Information scrolling across the screen reported that she hadn't come home one night from her job as a maid. Her name was Cynthia Rella and she was nineteen. Maybe it was just her imagination, but Elsa felt like she had been seeing a lot more reports of people going missing lately, particularly teenage girls. However, news about people going missing had, somewhat understandably, taken a backseat to the whole archipelago of Destiny Islands having been spirited away.
Speaking of which, the news show switched to its top story of the day, if the big red text at the bottom of the screen was any indication. It seemed another location had vanished overnight. This time it had happened on the complete opposite side of the world from Destiny Islands to a little village humbly dubbed Provincial Town. It was now just a gigantic crater. There was nothing left of it or its inhabitants, no remnants to indicate an explosion or anything. Everything was just... gone. It was as if someone had come along with a colossal shovel, scooped the village out of the ground, and hurled it off into space or somewhere else where no one would ever be able to find it.
Elsa watched the story with sadness. The Heartless had claimed another Keyhole. She and the others weren't doing enough, they needed to be moving faster. God, all those people...
"Why doesn't the Organization try to stop it?" she asked, abruptly breaking the silence.
He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Stop what?"
"The city's heart from being taken by the Heartless? If they know it's going to happen, why don't they stop it?"
"...doesn't coincide with their interests," he replied after a pause, taking a pull from his mug.
She raised both eyebrows at that. "So… so they're going to let this city just vanish… let all these people die… just because it doesn't coincide with their interests?" She took his lack of response as confirmation. "Organization XIII doesn't seem very nice."
"What ever gave you the idea that they were?"
"Well… you are."
He blinked at that. Then gave a small, dry smile. "Heh. Me? Nice? If only you knew, Snowflake."
"Knew what?"
He waved it off. "Forget it. In any case, I'm not with the Organization anymore, remember?"
"True," she murmured. Resting her arms on the bar, she hunched forward and used them to cushion her head, face turned towards Axel. "Why did you join them in the first place? Why decide to become a Nobody?"
Axel gave a tired chuckle. "Another Nobody question? What's with the third degree? Honestly, being a Nobody isn't that exciting."
A half smirk upturned one corner of Elsa's mouth. "Given that you can't feel excitement, forgive me if I take that with a grain of salt."
"Got me there," he conceded.
It was silent for a few seconds before Elsa said, "Nevermind. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"Nah, it's cool." His finger traced around the rim of his mug slowly, his eyes not really focused on anything. "My Somebody - that's what we call the people we were before becoming a Nobody - you recall that his mother died, right?"
She nodded, catching the use of the word 'his' instead of 'my.' Now wasn't the time to bring it up however, so she made a mental note to ask about it later.
"She was sick. Cancer. She had been battling it for years. She was in pain, but she never showed it. No, she was… light itself. Bubbling energy and pure joy incarnate. My Somebody... he loved her very much." He closed his eyes and gave a soft snort. "He was a total momma's boy. Pathetic, really.
"When she died, he was devastated. He was so lost, so… so completely and utterly crushed. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. He felt like he had been flayed alive and left to rot. He moved through his life like a zombie, time lost all meaning to him. The pain just seemed like it would last forever.
"But then, one day, one of his friends - actually, his best friend - told him he could help. That he could make it all go away. All the misery, the suffering... just gone." Axel shook his head. "Seemed like a load of crap. But he didn't have anything to lose by trying.
"So he let his friend take him to this big, fancy ass building. They rode the elevator up several floors, then they were led to this empty room. And I mean, literally, there was nothing in it. Nothing to see besides the bland, off white walls." He scratched his temple as he muttered, "Or maybe they were more of an egg white? Bah, in any case, his friend left him alone in that room, saying he'd be right back. Several minutes passed where nothing happened. And then, everything just went dark.
"That was the end of my Somebody, and the birth of the Nobody. Me. When I came to, I felt nothing. Completely empty inside. No sadness or pain or anything. I was free. My friend was waiting for me when I woke up, along with a couple other people. Other members. They told me about the Organization and what had happened to me, and then I was initiated. And that was that."
Elsa raised her head as she stared at him, eyebrows furrowed, not saying anything at first. "Just like that? You didn't get a choice or any say in the matter, they just went ahead and did it? That doesn't seem fair, you didn't even know what was happening to you…"
"I was told enough," he stated, his tone impassive. "That my sorrow would be taken away, and I agreed to that. I can't complain… I got exactly what I wanted."
She pursed her lips. "... and this… friend," she was using the term loosely, "he was a Nobody too?"
"Yup."
"How'd it happen to him?"
"Don't know," he said, sipping his drink. "Never asked. Didn't seem important."
"How could it not? I mean, if his story… or if any of the other members' stories were anything like yours, it seems like Organization XIII just goes around recruiting troubled and depressed teenagers. It sounds like a cult. You never thought to question that?"
Running his fingers through his hair, he mumbled, "Well, when you put it that way… I mean, they always seemed a bit sketchy. But hey. Nobody," he jerked a thumb at himself. "So didn't really care."
She released a frustrated sigh. "...what about your father? Did he notice when you… changed?"
"Pffft. Right. He took his wife's death hard and buried himself in his work. I saw him less and less as he spent more and more time at his office. And when he was around, he never said anything to me or even looked at me. It's like I don't even exist in my own home." His lip twitched as he added, "Which is technically true I guess, being what I am." Elbow against the bar, he propped his chin on his knuckles. "We've been gone, what, three days now? Jerk probably hasn't even noticed that I've up and disappeared."
Her eyebrows slanted, forming a peak. "That's… actually really sad. Not just your dad, but all of it. I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. I'm not. One of the many advantages of being a Nobody," he sighed, almost sounding content. "Though, to be fair, it's not without its drawbacks. Like not being able to get drunk."
She blinked. That she was not expecting. She looked from him to his mug, then back again. Uncertain, she asked, "You can't?"
"Nope. Getting drunk basically has to do with large amounts of alcohol entering the bloodstream too quickly. But, ya know," he pointed at the injury on his leg, "no blood. Whatever this black goop in my veins is, it seems to be able to hold its liquor just fine."
"...but then, why do you drink?"
"Dunno really. Habit? Nostalgia?" He held up the glass and tilted it slightly from one side to the other, churning its contents. "My Somebody loved this Fireball crap... what about you?"
She was taken aback by the random question. "Me?"
His head tipped slightly to the left. "Do you have a favorite drink?"
"Oh. Oh, no. I've never-"
"Heh. You're such a goody two-shoes."
"That'd be illegal," she insisted as she eyed the bartender. He was back to paging through his magazine, oblivious to the rest of the world. Still, she lowered her voice as she added, "I'm underage. You are too."
He clapped a hand to his cheek. "What? No! Seriously?" he asked, mockingly aghast. She gave his shoulder a shove and he laughed. "Want to try some of mine?"
"What? I don't think that-"
"Come on, loosen up. Live a little," he coaxed in a low voice, offering her his glass. It smelled like cinnamon. "Let me live vicariously."
She hesitated. For a moment, Elsa was truly considering it. After all, it would only be a sip. What could be the harm? But then she thought better of it and gently pushed it back towards him. "Maybe we should get going," was her only comment.
He frowned, then shrugged. "You're probably right." In one smooth motion, he downed the rest of his beverage, leaving his mug dry. He then threw some munny on the counter for the barkeep, spun in his stool, and stood up. "Alright, daylight's burning," he said as he moved towards the door and held it open for her. "That Keyhole isn't gonna find itself. Get a move on, ya lush."
"Me?" she snorted as she got up and walked through the exit. "The lush?"
"Yeah, you. You have a real problem, you know. Ever considered AA?" He followed her out, the door clicking shut behind him.
Author's Note: I really love how this chapter turned out. Just a lot of a lil details coming together - the hint of Axel's and Larxene's history, the stories on the news, more of Axel's backstory, plus some more info about Nobodies in this AU, about their "blood" and their nostalgic habits xD I dunno, I just feel that overall, this came out really nice, and was a pleasant break from the action.
But you know who we haven't seen in a while? Punzie! And Flynn! And a couple of twins up to no good xD Next chapter, we shift back to see what all those wily troublemakers are up to!
Special thanks and much love to SoraKairiRikuNamine, Miss PandaManga, and Amarxlen for reviewing, as well as to everyone else who have shown support for my quirky little story! Thank you all for reading, hoped you liked it, please leave a review and let me know what you think! Until next time, hope you all have a wonderful week! :)
