Wishful Thinking - Chapter 9

"I can't grant that."

Roxas stared into Axel's acidic eyes, both calmly and directly. The effect was nonexistent.

"What?"

"I said," Axel repeated tersely, "I can't grant that."

"Why the hell not?" Roxas snapped. The calm before the storm was rapidly being pulled away, and he could feel an anxious knot swelling up in his chest. Before long, the fear was transforming into rage. Axel was on the very brink of dodging his last question.

"It's complicated," Axel dodged, though he retained enough ballsiness to refuse to break eye contact.

"How could it possibly be complicated?"

"There's a self-preservation clause," he answered cryptically. Roxas scowled. The whole genie-master relationship appeared to have more restrictions than a clearance sale. Congratulations! You win your heart's wildest desires. See store for exceptions. He wondered briefly if there was a manual somewhere.

In any case, the idea of a self-preservation clause was perfectly reasonable- Axel certainly couldn't be expected to work his magic if, for example, Roxas wished for him to rip his own throat out, no matter how much he desperately wanted it right now. However, he failed entirely to see how the wish he had made could possibly invoke any sort of self-harm.

"How could answering my one simple teeny tiny itsy bitsy little question possibly hurt the all-powerful, oh-so-mighty genie Axel?" he demanded, scorn in his voice. "Do you spontaneously combust if you tell someone who Sora and Riku are?"

"It's complicated," Axel repeated tonelessly. Roxas wanted to scream.

"Hey, you know what else is complicated?" he shouted, with a hint of crazed giggle. "Seeing people that no one else can see. Getting almost kidnapped by some girls on the beach. Getting dragged out of your house with no warning, only to be chased down by two guys with crazy swords. Throwing up every five minutes. Speaking of which-"

Roxas doubled over and threw up. The nausea that had been plaguing him abated, but only slightly- he coughed again, and something thick and red dribbled out of his throat.

Blood.

Axel was at his side in an instant.

"Whoa," he said, with genuine concern. "Maybe you should sit down." He tried to usher Roxas over onto a musty chair. For the first time since their arrival, Roxas became dimly aware of their surroundings. They were on the inside of some filthy and decrepit old dwelling, and the air was heavy with the scent of mothy fabric, old wood, dust, and of course, fresh vomit. Roxas did not want to sit down.

"I don't want to sit down!" he screamed, tugging himself free. "I want to know what the hell is going on!" Axel dropped his own arms down to his sides, his body language admitting defeat.

"Roxas," he said, slowly and deliberately, as if talking a suicide risk down off a windowsill. Roxas did not appreciate the condescension. "I can't tell you much, but trust me-" certainly not that first time he'd made that request with nothing to back it up- "nothing bad is going to happen to you."

"Bad things are already happening to me!" Frustrated tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

"I think that's just because you're making things too complicated," said Axel, as if that made anything better. "If you'd just be like every other kid and wish for money and phenomenal cosmic power-"

"And what is with you and phenomenal cosmic power!?" Roxas screeched, recalling the number of times Axel had made that very same offer. A record that was now appearing very suspicious. "What's your angle!?"

"Who says I have an angle?" Axel asked innocently, though his twitching fingertips spoke otherwise.

"Axel," Roxas began. The No-Lying Clause, as Roxas had decided to call it, was basically the only weapon he had in his arsenal. "Do you have an angle?"

"Define 'angle,'" Axel said shiftily. Roxas howled with rage.

"God dammit!" he screamed, at no one in particular, though Axel flinched. "What the fuck am I supposed to do?" He really didn't know. "Just wish for you to go the fuck away again-"

Axel cut in.

"You'd be endangering yourself-"

"Then I'll wish for all of you to go the fuck away!" For that, in his heart of hearts, was what Roxas truly wanted. He wanted a return to his painful ordinariness- to playing boring board games with his parents, to being bad at chemistry, being picked on by Seifer and obsessing over Olette.

You never appreciate what you've got until it's gone, a cheerful cliché spoke to him from the back of his mind. He wanted to throttle it.

"It wouldn't work," Axel said sadly. For his tone was indeed sad, and not threatening. He was looking at Roxas with a sympathy that at least appeared genuine. But that didn't make Roxas at all inclined to believe anything he said.

"Why not?" he asked sharply.

"It's complicated," Axel sighed. Roxas seethed.

"Because of your angle, right?" he hissed. "You'd do the wish wrong on purpose."

"No!" Axel shouted, the first time he'd raised his voice. "Because there are some things- a lot of things- that my magic can't do," he finished, shoulders slumping. "I can't rework the whole universe, or undo time."

"Oh, so I get stuck with the defective genie?" Roxas sneered. Axel huffed defensively.

"You don't understand what's after you!"

"Yeah," Roxas countered, "because you won't tell me."

A heavy silence fell over the stinky mansion. Axel and Roxas's eyes were locked, a soundless battle for dominance, until at long last, Axel broke eye contact to stare at the floor.

"I can't," he whispered. "It's better if you don't know."

"Better for who?" Roxas demanded.

"For whom," the genie corrected automatically, dodging the question. Roxas's eyes narrowed. He was beginning to realize that there were quite a lot of things he didn't know. Axel's face was troubled, and the more Roxas tried to peer into it, the more Axel seemed determined to hide.

One thing was certain- Axel was hiding a hefty treasure of information. And not very well, at that. Roxas was always taught, from childhood, to work first with the tools he had readily at his disposal. Axel himself, Roxas's own genie, was the weakest link in this magical mess. He had what Roxas needed. And Roxas himself was feeling rather fed up with beating around the bush.

"Axel- what are you?" he asked bluntly. Axel jolted at the directness of the question, but maintained steady interest in some patterned floor tile.

"Who are you?" Roxas pressed. "You've been with me for weeks and I don't know a single thing." For a long while Axel whistled a jaunty tune and pretended not to have heard. Roxas coughed again, and another trickle of blood came out of his mouth.

"You really don't look so good, Rox," Axel said worriedly. "We should get you in bed."

And, at that moment, Roxas saw an opening.

"I'm not going to bed," Roxas snarled. "I'm too anxious to sleep. And all this anxiety isn't at all good for my constitution, wouldn't you agree, Axel?" His eyes narrowed, and his challenge was clear. Axel's expression showed that he understood perfectly.

If you really care about my well-being, you'll give me what I want.

"There's not much to know," the genie finally said quietly, apparently hoping to pass himself off as shy or humble. Unfortunately, Roxas knew quite well that he was neither shy nor humble, and cut straight through the charade.

"Let's start with basics, then," he said, all business. "Do you have a last name?" That was usually where he started with classmates, and it seemed to apply well enough here.

"Yes," Axel said shortly.

"What is it?"

"Waltz. Axel Waltz. Happy now?"

"No." He had plenty more questions. "Where do genies come from?"

"Birds and the bees, Rox," Axel said irritably. "I have- had- both a mother and a father, and I was birthed unto this mortal coil just like you were. I'm sure it was messy and painful and I'm glad I don't remember it." So, Axel had parents. That was news.

"What happened to your parents?"

"They died." Axel was not volunteering any details. He was usually so chatty that the monosyllables were a little disconcerting.

"When was that?" Roxas pressed.

"Quite a while ago, I'm sure." Axel waved a hand dismissively. Well, his parents had died long enough ago that he'd had plenty of time to get over it. Which begged another question.

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"No- I mean, how old are you really?"

"Sixteen," Axel repeated cheerfully. "Always will be."

"Axel," Roxas gritted out, trying to keep his frustration in check. "How many years have you been alive?"

"A lot."

"How many?"

"Too many." Roxas groaned. Axel grinned triumphantly. Oh well. Time to move on to another branch of questioning. He was a little surprised in spite of himself at how basic the questions he asked were, but that just went to further demonstrate how little he really knew.

"Where are you from?"

"Twilight Town." Roxas hissed and tugged at his bangs. Axel seemed determined to make the entire process as painful as possible. Unfortunately for him, Roxas was equally as stubborn, and not at all the type to give up, well, ever.

"I meant, where did your mother messily give birth to you," he said, in the hope that dragging Axel's mother into it might offend him enough to cough up some answers.

"Twilight Town," he said again. "We're not that different, Rox. I told you I was boring." Roxas ground his teeth. Wait.

"Wait- you really were born in Twilight Town?"

"Yep." That managed to pique his curiosity. He didn't know much of anything about his hometown's history. For whatever reason, it wasn't taught in schools. He'd never thought about it before.

"So what was it like when you lived here?" he asked eagerly.

"The same," Axel yawned. "I even went to your high school." If Roxas hadn't known for a fact that Axel wasn't allowed to lie to him, he would never have believed it.

"Wait," he asked excitedly. "So if I looked up Axel Waltz, you'd be listed as a student there?"

"Well, probably," he shrugged. "I don't know if they keep records that are more than five thousand years old."

"You're more than five thousand years old!?" Axel blinked, and immediately realized that he'd said too much. With a solid glare, he cut the conversation short.

"Ok, that's enough fun for one afternoon. You need to lie down." Before Roxas could say anything else, Axel was scooping him back up into a rather undignified bridal-style carriage.

"Hey!" Roxas squawked.

"Up we go!" Axel strode easily over to the stairs and climbed up, one by one, not the bounding leaps he'd used to get out of Roxas's apartment. He turned into a hallway and kicked open the first door on the left, revealing a tiny room with one twin bed, smaller than that one Roxas had at home. The bedroom had no windows, and no sources of light whatsoever, making the place oppressively dark considering that it was still late afternoon outside. Roxas immediately began to struggle.

"You can't put me in here!" he protested.

"You need to rest. You're going to hurt yourself. And as your self-appointed caretaker, I just can't let that happen." Axel laid Roxas gently on the tiny bed. Roxas continued to fight, but being put into sleep-position triggered something inside of him- a deep fatigue that he hadn't realized he'd been trying to push down. In moments he was sinking into the soft comforter and letting his eyelids droop.

"Wait," he said, though exhaustion slurred his words. "My parents-"

"Are fine," Axel cooed, stroking his hair. Roxas didn't have the energy to get offended. "Just sleep. I'll make sure there's food for you in the morning, ok?"

"Ok," Roxas said drowsily. And then he was asleep, without even taking off his shoes.

Roxas was walking down a beach- not his own beach, but an unfamiliar one. Well, unfamiliar was a strong word. He'd been here before, he just couldn't remember when. Maybe as a little kid, his family had gone on vacation here, or something like that. He knew the place and he didn't all at once.

He walked for what felt like ages, meandering along the seashore, oblivious to everything but the path directly before him. The sunlight was bright and the smell of salt water was overpowering.

He didn't know his destination until he reached it. There, knee-deep in the water, was a girl- the one he'd been looking for. Her long red hair was tied back in a bow. She was staring wistfully out to sea.

"Hi," he said, his words echoing strangely. "Who are you?"

"I'm Ariel. Just Ariel," she said calmly. She didn't turn around to look at who she was talking to. Her eyes were locked on something distant that Roxas couldn't grasp. "Who are you?"

"Roxas," he answered.

"Oh. That's a nice name," she said absently. The beach was fading rapidly, and Ariel was all Roxas could see or hear. Even the smell of the ocean was gone. The entire scenario had a decided air of fast-forward. Something skipped, something important, and before Roxas could catch himself up, his hands were entangled in thick red hair and he was kissing, just kissing, his lips were wet and swollen and everything else had vanished. Everything was upside down and backwards and he felt vaguely nauseous but it might have just been excitement, and he wasn't on the beach anymore, he was somewhere else.

"Ariel," he moaned quietly. He opened his eyes briefly to stare into her bright blue ones. No, green- they were green. He'd misremembered.

"What did you say?" she teased, her voice deepening, a hand reaching around to gently rub the small of his back, slipping down towards his sensitive rear.

"Mmm. Axel," he groaned, leaning up into the embrace. The taller boy laughed, and squeezed him a little tighter. Roxas's world was spinning. He was delirious with pleasure.

"Yeah," his tormentor grinned. "Axel."

Roxas awakened and jolted upright, momentarily unsettled by the strange surroundings and stranger dream. Most of it was slipping away from him, but he was slick with sweat and in proud possession of a raging hard-on, so he could guess at the gist. He briefly remembered his last erotic dream and shuddered, though even as the wave of unease passed through his body, the memory of being boned into oblivion by his male best friend made his penis get a little bit harder.

Yes, Roxas had a problem of a decidedly non-magical nature. And now that he'd begun, his brain hopped to the memory of Riku shoving his hand down Sora's pants. Not even knowing that those two ostensibly wanted to kill him was enough to make the memory any less hot. Almost instinctively, still half-asleep, he was unbuttoning his jeans and shoving a warm hand down his boxers.

The first pump made him gasp a little and buck his hips. How long had it been since the last time he'd had an orgasm? He pushed harder, and soon settled into a steady rhythm, feeling the usual pressure build up inside. How long had it been? Since the dream? He pumped harder. He certainly hadn't been masturbating ever since Axel had shown up. That would work about as well as a car wreck, what with Axel always lurking, watching-

Roxas remembered the content of his most recent dream just as he crested the point of no return.

The resulting shriek-of-horror-combined-with-powerful-orgasm was definitely one of the odder sensations he'd ever felt. The sudden surge of emotion made his limbs shake. Or maybe that was the orgasm part. In any case, Roxas collapsed bonelessly onto the bed, gasping for breath, eyes wide from shock, his spooge all over the already filthy comforter.

Axel, he choked, if it were possibly to choke while thinking. I made out with Axel. Ok, so the boy did have nice abs. No.

Roxas tried desperately to think of anything else, and ended up dwelling on the first half of the dream, the part with nice, wholesome Ariel, before the gender-swapping metamorphosis. Though now all he could think about was how similar she looked to Axel. Something he'd never thought about before, not once.

Wait.

Roxas gasped out loud and jerked upright. Ariel. That was it. Ariel had been able to see Axel. He'd seen it himself. Axel had paused for her in the street, hadn't shoved her out of the way like the others, he'd asked her to move, she'd responded, she'd been looking at him. Both of them. Ariel could see his genie. But how?

While he was coming to one realization, he reached another, just as quickly. Despite his noisy dreaming, jacking off, shriek of horror, and gasp of surprise, Axel had not appeared to tell him to go back to sleep. He was alone.

Which meant that nothing at all was keeping him in the mansion.

Roxas righted his clothes and crept over to the door, clumsily feeling for it in the dark. He turned the knob and pushed it open. No Axel rained down to punish him. So far, so good. He only had one chance, after all- he had to get to Ariel before Axel noticed he was missing. Maybe Ariel, whoever she was really, could give him some of the information that Axel kept so closely guarded.

He crept down the hallway and down the stairs. It was still nighttime, so it was fairly certain that Ariel would still be at her house. The nap had apparently done its job. Roxas's strength was restored, he didn't feel even the slightest bit nauseous, and all of his blood seemed to be staying where it was supposed to be. He sneaked out of the mansion with no difficulty whatsoever. A path from the house was cut through the woods, and in minutes he was back in downtown Twilight Town. He could see the clock tower. The night was young- it wasn't even nine o'clock yet. He had plenty of time.

With no one watching, he set off towards the home of one Ariel Maray.


Hooray! A new chapter! And not even three days after Christmas! Merry Christmas, btw. I'd like to take this moment to semi-publicly thank my beta reader for getting me a KINGDOM HEARTS SNUGGIE for Christmas. Yes, I am the proud owner of a KINGDOM HEARTS SNUGGIE. It's a blanket with sleeves. That has Sora on it. It is my muse. I wore it while writing the dialogue for this chapter. YAY KINGDOM HEARTS SNUGGIE. I HAVE ONE AND YOU DON'T. NEENER NEENER NEENER. Now I just need to start going to snuggie parties and lording it over all the people with their sucky animal prints.

Tune in for our next installment, wherein Roxas and Axel write a bad romance. (Oh, Axel. I want your lovin' and I want your revenge. Uh, I mean, what?)

Q OF THE UPDATE: What is Axel's angle? Or, if you prefer, what is Ariel's angle? Does she have an angle? Well, does she? I don't know, you tell me. ;) Comments expressing a deep and abiding love of Lady Gaga are also welcome.