Several days later, Axel was back up to his full strength and ready to go. More than ready, really. His father was being the soul of hospitality but Axel was not about to lose sight of the fact that he could not be trusted. Until the redhead swore allegiance to his father, Graz'zt would do everything in his power to lure the cambion to his side. Because of that, Axel refused any help beyond a few provisions. He could detect any taint in the food and it would be truly ironic to escape the Abyss only to die of hunger somewhere.
"I've never done this before." Axel confided in Roxas, who looked very nervous as Axel slid his arms around the smaller blonde. "Deliberately anyway. Hold on tight, okay?" Roxas nodded and slid his arms around Axel's neck, clinging tightly to his lover. It felt very nice but he was too worried to really appreciate it.
There was a brief sensation of falling and a feeling like cobwebs across his face. Roxas blinked several times and had to resist the urge to let go of Axel to brush that away. He couldn't see a thing, only pitch black darkness. Abruptly it ended and Roxas clung to Axel as a wave of dizziness swept over him. The cambion stumbled and almost fell, wavering on his feet.
"O – Okay." Axel was breathing heavily and Roxas blinked, steadying the redhead. "Sorry. That takes a lot out of me." Axel rubbed his face for a moment before taking a deep breath and glancing around. "Holy shit." Roxas glanced around with him, suddenly aware of how dark it was. Where were they?
To his surprise, they were standing in a house. No… more of a mansion, or maybe even a keep. They were standing in what Roxas tentatively identified as a ballroom. The floor was dark wood and still in perfect condition although there was a fine coating of dust. Pretty little candelabra decorated with dangling crosses adorned the walls. Roxas examined one of them curiously. The crosses were set with dark red stones that reminded him unpleasantly of blood.
"Why do I feel like I've been here before?" Roxas asked, puzzled. He was sure he'd never been in this place before in his life yet it was achingly familiar. Axel laughed and Roxas blinked at the very harsh tone in his voice.
"Isn't it obvious, Roxy?" The cambion smiled. It wasn't a happy smile. "You saw me get dragged through this room dozens of times." Roxas paled as he suddenly understood.
"This was your home." He whispered and Axel tilted his head to one side thoughtfully before nodding.
"Don't know that I'd call it my home. Call it the witch's home. I'm surprised it's still standing." Axel looked at the dust on the floor. "Looks like it's been abandoned for a while though. I hope it's still sound." He didn't want the roof or the floor to go collapsing on them. Roxas swallowed hard and looked at the candelabra again.
"Why the crosses?" That made no sense at all. Axel's mother had worshipped Graz'zt as well as bound him. Those two things didn't make much sense together to Roxas but he supposed it might be more understandable for another demon worshipper.
"Irony." Axel said with a shrug and Roxas winced. "She liked to mock religious symbols." That didn't really surprise Roxas at all. Something else occurred to him, though, and he looked at Axel speculatively.
"You know, this place probably belongs to you." He pointed out and the redhead looked at him in surprise. "As her son and heir." Axel hesitated, thinking about it.
"I suppose…" Then he shook his head. "No, that's pointless. They'd never let me stay here." Roxas frowned but he suspected Axel was right. The cambion had some serious problems and the foremost of them was the church. The second was the law, and they were likely to go hand in hand. "But we should see if they found her stash. C'mon, this way." Axel led him purposefully out of the room and down into the library. All of the shelves had been emptied and were collecting more dust. The redhead paused at a particularly candelabra and fiddled with the stone. "I saw her do this a thousand times. It can't be that hard – ah!" Just as Roxas remembered from the dreams, a bookshelf suddenly receded into the wall. "Perfect." Lifting a hand, Axel conjured a bit of fire and started down the passageway. Roxas swallowed heavily and then followed. He was sure it wasn't dangerous after all this time. As it turned out, he was correct. The most dangerous thing in the passage proved to be daddy long legs spiders. Axel casually incinerated them, to Roxas' relief. "I can't believe it. They didn't find it." Axel paused admiringly and Roxas peeked over his shoulder.
It was the cold woman's private sacrificial chamber. Roxas swallowed back bile as he saw the dried blood on the altar. At first it seemed unreal, like the set of a movie, but the longer he looked at it the more real it became. The walls were covered in torture implements and some of them were badly corroded from more of the blood. Oddly, there was a little desk in the corner. It had many drawers and was covered in drawings. Axel gestured with one hand and lit several of the candles on the walls. The lamps were empty of fuel after so long.
"Axel, why are we here?" Roxas asked nervously and Axel turned to gently hug him, suddenly aware of how unsettling this place must be for the blonde.
"The desk over there." Axel murmured softly as he stroked Roxas' soft blonde spikes. "It's where she kept some emergency funds. I remember because she gave some to an imp once, when she was buying something from another witch. C'mon, let's see what's there." Roxas nodded, relieved to find out there was a real purpose behind this. Axel didn't seem disturbed by the old torture chamber, but then, he'd observed the rituals here thousands of times. The dreams hadn't gone into the full details but Roxas still knew. He remembered what Axel's mother had said she would do to Namine. The redhead began searching through the desk and suddenly yelped. "Ow!" Roxas blinked and tensed as Axel plucked a little dart out of his skin.
"Axel, are you alright?" Roxas said tautly and the redhead blinked before smiling.
"I'm fine. This was probably poisoned, once upon a time, but very few poisons are still effective after thirty-seven years." Axel tossed away the dart disdainfully. "And cambions are almost immune to poisons anyway." It took a truly impressive poison to slow down a demon for even a moment and cambions took after them that way. Axel kept searching and finally growled. "This thing is locked. Time to do this the hard way." Picking up the chair he yanked off a leg and before Roxas could stop him he started smashing the desk.
"Axel! What are you doing?" The wanton destruction appalled Roxas. "That's a good piece of furniture!" Axel paused long enough to grin.
"So? Can't get it out of here you know. It won't fit." Roxas looked at the passageway and realized that was true. How had the witch got it here in the first place? "And there's money in this thing, I know it. All the magical traps will have dissipated so this is perfectly safe." With that he brought down the leg again and Roxas winced as something tinkled. Then he stared as several something's went rolling across the floor. "Hah! See, I told you."
"What – are those pearls?" Roxas bent down to pick up one of the gems and was impressed by the lustre. Even in the flickering light of the candles the pearls had a beautiful, reflective finish. They were also very large. "Are these real?" Roxas was impressed. Pearl cultivation had always been part of the Destiny Island's but he'd seldom seen pearls of this quality. They were lucky to get them half the size and half as lustrous. Axel shrugged.
"I can't see why she'd have fake pearls in her desk." Roxas started gathering up the gemstones as Axel started working on the desk with his claws. "Ah, here it is!" Roxas looked up as Axel extracted a bundle of bills held together with a leather thong and also a velvet bag. "This looks to be all sorts of jewelry." Axel frowned as he pulled out a small bracelet and a large wedding band. "…Some of this is shit." He pulled out a thong necklace with a little seashell dangling off the end. "Oh. I get it."
"Get what?" Roxas asked and then suddenly knew the answer. "Oh. They were from her victims." Axel nodded somberly and quickly sorted through the jewelry, taking anything of value and leaving the rest.
"Might as well sell it. There's no way we can return it to the families." He said and Roxas winced but nodded. Unless the pieces were signed, there was no way they'd be able to figure out who they had belonged to. "There, I think that's about done it. You got all the pearls?"
"Yes." His pant pockets were full of them. They clinked together unpleasantly as he walked and Roxas made a mental note to find a bag of some sort for them. Axel smiled and started out.
"Great. C'mon, let's go." Roxas didn't need any prompting and followed the redhead closely. He didn't want to spend a moment longer in the torture room than he had to. "Maybe we should go outside, find a good place to sit and you can call your parents?" Axel said with a resigned note to his voice. Roxas sighed and nodded.
"I suppose I have to." He wasn't looking forward to that at all. The priests would have had to explain everything to his parents after the way he'd vanished and there was no way what they'd said would be at all flattering to Axel. They were going to have kittens when he told them he was with the cambion. Big, hairy kittens with very large teeth. Roxas looked up as he realized how silent Axel was and gently touched his arm. "Don't worry. It doesn't matter what they think, I'm always going to be there for you." Axel was his and no one was going to force them apart. The redhead slowly smiled and gently touched Roxas' cheek with one clawed hand.
"You're so sweet." He murmured and Roxas found himself caught in those beautiful, burning green eyes. They kissed slowly and tenderly before Roxas pulled back with a smile.
"Outside?" He reminded Axel who laughed and took his hand. It took a bit of work to find the way out, but then, Axel's mother had never taken him outside. Roxas was rather impressed when he saw the grounds around the manor. It was a beautiful forest with lots of maple and birch trees. There was nothing like a garden though, and the manor looked like it was beginning to fall apart. Vines were slowly pushing apart the stones and the roof looked like it desperately needed some upkeep. "It's a shame really. This is a beautiful building." Roxas gazed at it forlornly.
"Hm. Maybe we could live here someday. Reclaim it…" Axel murmured softly then shook his head. "Not yet." For that to happen he would have to be able to claim his heritage openly. It might never be possible. Roxas nodded and flipped open his cell phone. "I'm going to try to hunt something."
"Thanks." Roxas smiled, appreciating the privacy as Axel loped off into the woods. He didn't really want the cambion to hear his parents' reaction. Taking a deep breath, he dialed the home number.
Hello? Roxas couldn't help but smile at the sound of his mother's voice.
"Hi mom." There was a shocked pause and then Roxas had to hold the cell phone away from his ear as his mother shrieked.
ROXAS! Where have you been?!? It's been a month! Oh my baby, are you alright? What has that monster done to you? Roxas blinked at that. A month? But then, nothing said time had to run at the same rate in the Abyss.
"Um, I kind of went to Hell. The demons were actually really nice about it." Although that was solely due to Axel. Roxas could almost hear his mother's brain imploding. "And he's not a monster mom. He's my boyfriend."
Roxas, you can't mean it. That creature is the son of a demon! He's eaten people. The priests told us everything. His mother sounded distraught now. Roxas gritted his teeth. He wasn't surprised but this still pissed him off.
"Everything? Did they leave out the part about how his mother wouldn't feed him until he ate them?" That was somewhat true since his mother wouldn't give Axel any food for days afterwards. He could have let the rats eat the bodies but the smell in such a confined area… "Did they mention that he was kept in a cellar all his life and he still tried not to eat the first one? He's not evil mother. He's just a bit hot tempered but he's really nice when you get to know him." Roxas wasn't sure he'd be able to convince his parents. They were both pretty religious.
Where are you baby? We'll come get you. His mother had clearly decided not to fight about it for now. Roxas bit his lip. He and Axel had had plenty of time to discuss the problems with his situation.
"So Axel can be whisked off to a sanitarium?" There was a short silence that made Roxas' blood boil. His mother wasn't very good at lying and he was sure that was what they'd do. "No thanks mom. Tell the police I'm fine, I'm not kidnapped and I'm not coming home." Roxas shut the phone with a snap and scowled at it. Then he quickly dialed another number before his mother could call him back.
'Ello? Roxas smiled at the blurry edge to Cloud's voice. Had he been eating something?
"Hi Cloud. How's it going?" He asked. There was a brief pause on the other end.
Holy shit Roxas?!? Are you okay? Everyone's been freaking out! Roxas laughed and quickly reassured Cloud he was fine. That's good. Where have you been?
"Hell. Axel's dad has really nice taste. Although the balor who called me 'snack sized' wasn't so cool." Roxas hadn't really wanted to see a balor but they'd needed to speak to Axel's father again and one had been there. He could see why Axel would be foolish to gate in one without Graz'zt's blessing. He might be strong enough to defeat one but certainly not control it. "Cloud, if mom calls tell her you haven't heard from me. Can Axel and I come live with you and Tifa?"
What? Roxy, what's going on? Roxas gave him a quick rundown of the situation. You really think they'd just ship him off to a sanitarium?
"Cloud… that's what they usually do with cambions. They say it's to evaluate them and determine if they can live outside but there's just no way they'd ever let Axel go." Roxas was unhappily sure of that. The redhead was just too strong. "If we're in the city there would be more protection." The church had a certain degree of authority when it came to things like demons but Roxas and Axel could probably appeal to the police and other civil authorities. How much help that would be was another question. "We're not sure what else to do." The only other option was to leave the country and Roxas didn't want to do that. He hoped he could eventually go home to the islands when everyone had been convinced Axel was under control.
Hm… alright. We've got a guest room, we can put you up for a while. I'm curious to see a cambion. Do you need a pickup? Where are you? Roxas hesitated. He didn't actually know where the cold woman's house was located.
"You know the story of the Witch of the Moor? We're at her home. Axel's home, I guess, he'd own it now. I'm not sure where it is." That was going to be a serious problem soon. Although there was a dirt path leading away from the house and he guessed it had to lead to a larger road.
Hang on a sec. Roxas waited patiently as Cloud tapped on his laptop. Hm, okay. You're about twenty miles away from Visch. Actually… Roxas, just stay where you are. I'll come get you, okay? Roxas blinked at that.
"But Cloud! You have classes and work at the bar." He protested. How could Cloud afford to spare that much time? It would take at least a day, probably two for him to get there and the same coming back. But his brother laughed.
Don't worry! Tifa will give me some time off to help and I can catch up my notes later. Seriously though, your friend must look pretty freakish. Do you really want to be wandering around Visch looking for bus tickets? Roxas winced at the thought. Axel did really stand out. I'll bring a cloak for him. Hell, maybe he can get a job at the bar, most of the drunks wouldn't know the difference, the light's so dim. Roxas choked at the thought, then laughed. Somehow he couldn't imagine Axel serving drinks and dealing with drunk customers. Well, without ripping their lungs out anyway.
"Thanks Cloud, I really appreciate it." Roxas closed his cell as Axel jogged up. He was carrying a freshly killed rabbit. "I hope you know how to cook that?" From the look on the redhead's face he was completely clueless. "Or at least how to skin it?"
"Oh, that I can handle. How did it go?" Axel began to work the skin off , slicing through the carcass with his nails. Roxas sighed, watching him work.
"About how we expected." He said sadly as Axel pitched the innards into the forest, pausing to eat the heart. "Ew, Axel…" The redhead grinned at him and Roxas shook his head with a smile. "Can't you wait until it's cooked?"
"Hearts are better raw." Axel said with mock seriousness. "So your parents didn't take it well?" He knew they were probably going to freak.
"To say the least – ah?" Roxas' cell went off and he lifted it to see his parents number. "It's them. Great… let me see if they have anything new to say." Axel shrugged and started gathering wood for a fire as Roxas talked to his father. The blonde ended up hanging up in disgust. "At least they're not lying to me." His father had been unwilling to give him any promises about Axel being able to stay. Roxas wanted to curse out the priests something fierce. What had they said to his parents? "Cloud is coming to get us, he knows where we are. It might take him a day or two though."
"Well, that's no problem. There's lots of game in the woods and we still have the food the demons gave us." Axel hesitated, looking at Roxas. The blonde was struck by the odd vulnerability in his face. "Are you okay with this? I mean… I'm causing a lot of problems for you." Axel swallowed, looking down. He knew that if he wasn't there Roxas would be able to go right home to the Islands. How were they going to be together? The blonde shook his head, walking over to grip Axel's shoulder. He would have hugged the redhead but there was blood on his hands.
"Don't worry about it. I wouldn't trade you for anything." Roxas said and meant it. Axel smiled and reached up to touch his cheek then pulled his hand away as he remembered the blood. Roxas laughed softly. "You better get that cleaned up before it dries. I doubt there's any running water in the house." Although they'd have to check that. Maybe there was a well. Axel made a face and started to lick off his fingers. Roxas started looking for a nice, sharp stick. He finally found one that looked acceptable and used it to spit the rabbit. It took a while, but between the rabbit and the bread and cheese in their packs, they had a feast.
They fell asleep together outside that night, Roxas curled up on Axel's chest. The redhead watched the stars for a while, marveling in their beauty. In all his life he'd never slept outside before. He found it to be a liberating feeling, lying beneath the wide open sky. And it was even better with Roxas there. The cambion looked down at the sleeping blonde and gently stroked his hair before closing his eyes and drifting off.
He hoped this never ended.