Flurry of Flames Second Chance: Part 9
Axel had tried to get a little more sleep, but only succeed in getting a little doze in here or there before it was time for Natasha to wake up at around 11:00 AM. He had listened for a small amount of the time to her parents, though all of it was muffled, getting ready and eating a small breakfast downstairs. For the most part everything seemed normal, besides the fact that her father's voice seemed deeper and more intimidating than usual. Usually the man had a cheerful disposition with a crude sort of humor that, since it was probably in use from the time he was a teenager, was fine tuned to where it was equally humorous and acceptable to both adults and adolescents. Today he didn't seem to joke much, but Axel brushed it off as a mere bad night of sleep or something like that. He didn't even take into account that it could have been what happened this morning.
When her parents left and the house was quiet he focused on exactly how he was going to say goodbye and leave this place. Leaving Natasha would be the first big step, but the most difficult, emotions set aside anyway, task would be finding someone who knew how he could leave this world. He couldn't even begin to imagine where to start, and with a quick mind he gave up trying for now.
Natasha finally opened her eyes and turned over on her back. His eyes cleared of sleep almost as if she wiped it from his eyes her self. When she looked over at him she stretched. The thin sheets that covered her were playfully thrown off after she looked at the clock and she realized her parents wouldn't be home. She hopped up and watched him expectantly until one of his thin, red eyebrows rose. She rolled her deep, purple eyes and plopped back down on her bed.
"What? Do you feel lazy today?" she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.
He shook his head and spoke rather clearly, his deep, still-young voice reverberating through the quiet room.
"Not really. Why?"
"Because you're not getting up. Usually we'd be downstairs already."
He rolled his green eyes playfully.
"What's your point? Maybe Axel doesn't want to go downstairs today."
She stuck out her little tongue at him, which he returned with a vengeance.
"Okay! Fine, Axel. What do you want to do?" she uncrossed her arms and went over to sit on the floor in front of him.
He looked her up and down once, seeing no real change in her regular appearance than when he first came here. Wasn't she supposed to have changed? Wasn't this the part of the story where he was supposed to look on this person he considered his life-long friend and find all the ways they had grown together? He'd heard something like that in some unimportant book of his past. He realized that even though he felt as strongly for Natasha as the person in that book had felt for their friend they hadn't spent nearly as much time together. It was like five years had passed in the span of the five days he spent under her roof. To someone as inexperienced as he before this event it hardly seemed possible. Yet here he was trying to find a way to express that he had to go without actually saying it like earlier when she was half asleep; doing it twice seemed unfair for her.
But, in the end, he realized, they had to face the truth.
"You have to leave today, don't you?"
He just didn't expect her to be the one to bring it up.
He stared at her for a moment to register what exactly she said and found that his mouth wouldn't move in response to his commands. He glared at nothing in particular then spoke after a few awkward moments.
"Yeah, Tasha. Do you have to sound so sad?" he said in a mocking tone without realizing he was doing it so she might shake it off.
Her face reddened and she straightened her posture.
"Well, I'm going to miss you when you leave." They both gave each other comforting smiles, his still lop-sided like usual.
They talked about a few different things, yet each topic that would have been awkward around people who weren't comfortable with one another flowed out rather easily. The things they had done, the close calls they came to whenever her parents came close to finding him((He told her about the bathroom incident that morning.)), the times he scared her by being awake without her knowing, the ice cream, that certain card game, all of them were mentioned fondly. It all completed their time together, and now that it was coming to an end they found it hard to figure out what else could happen. When the topics wandered to different things something occurred to Natasha. She still didn't know where he was from.
"Hey, Axel?"
"Hey, what?"
"Where exactly did you come from? Absolutely no one I've ever heard of has had red hair and green eyes, and their some of the most defining features of you. Do you come from another continent?"
Axel was about to answer the affirmative, but found that he could not bring himself to lie to someone he now held so dear. There was no alternate way around it, so from where he had come down on the floor to sit next to her, he got up and took a seat on the edge of her bed, the veins near his temples revealing themselves as he built up the nerve to tell her. Natasha watched this new facial expression of his, in which fear mingled with the need to say something, and then went up to sit next to him, putting a hand on his arm for comfort in hopes it would be enough to calm his senses.
"No, I'm not from another continent. I'm from another world."
She breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing those words and gave a little giggle in response. The thought that he was just trying to lighten the mood made her feel a little but more comfortable. Then he looked at her, his green eyes confused and wondering. She stopped when she realized he wasn't kidding.
"Really?" she asked, hoping to god that he wasn't insane.
"Really, Tasha. You know I wouldn't lie to you." He overlapped her hand with his and gave it a gentle squeeze before letting it go. "Organization XIII, that group I was a part of, lived in a world where everything was dark with the exception of the castle we all lived in. All the buildings, except for the castle, were black and tall and skinny like I said before. The castle rooms were all white and we were usually comfortable with each other since we were all suffering from the same fate of having no real feelings. For anything except for our studying I mean." He was purposefully omitting the part about the nobodies, and him being one. As long as he didn't lie he didn't mind hiding something from her that might make her see him in a different light. "Everything was always mundane and old. Really annoying too, and recently I just found myself not caring about the works of the group itself and instead went out to try and find the rouge of our group. That idiot I told I fainted protecting? That was him.
"Anyway, I didn't really think I was fainting. I felt this annoying tiredness and swore that I was dying, but I suppose that was really all I did. Where you said I was seems totally opposite from where I remember being when I collapsed. I was in this place called 'Betwixt and Between', which is a sort of gateway to the world. Pretty weird considering it's totally made up of different colors and didn't really have a ground." He chuckled to himself out of embarrassment. "I don't mind if you don't believe me."
Natasha was still gripping his arm when he finished. Everything he said seemed pretty believable except for the part about being from another world and the weird gateway full of colors with no ground, yet, even though the explanation was bleak and choppy, even that settled okay with her. As he said, she knew he wouldn't lie to her. She felt the arm she was gripping move away from her to the small of her back to rub in little circles. Axel wasn't sure if it was a comforting gesture until she leaned on his shoulder.
"So how are you going to get home, or somewhere familiar if not there?" she asked him with a slightly worried tone.
His hand that wasn't holding her gripped his chin in thought.
"I was thinking that someone around here may know how to get around between worlds, but I have no idea who to begin with."
Natasha had never heard anything about the topic from commoners like herself. There had been a rumor a while back, it occurred to her now, about the continent to the northwest of hers knowing something about traveling through space. But the rumor had long since disappeared when their very kind king put a stop to the thought of there being other worlds to find. She never thought their king would lie to them, but with this new, living, piece of evidence she figured that it might have just been some sort of political ruse now. She expressed this idea to Axel and received a wide, toothy smirk from him that quickly diminished when he saw the sad look on her face.
He directed his green eyes to the floor, trying to find some sort of way to convince her everything would be alright without him, and, possibly, a way to convince himself of the very same. A brilliant idea struck him and he turned his body around to face her.
"Hey, listen, Tasha. When you get older I'll come back for you. Then, if you're bored with this easy life of yours, you can come with me and build a whole new one in a place you would like."
The thought of that made her heart swell. She had always loved foreign things from different continents and such, but the thought of something from an entirely different world amazed and excited her. Yet, even at her teenage level of life, she knew that there was a good chance he would never come back, or that she would miss her family if she did so happen to go. Instead of telling him this, she just nodded with the same look of happiness on her face. He bought it and gave her a quick hug before the solemnity of the moment brought him back to his mind and made him, yet again, wonder how he was going to leave here now. He figured it was best to just get it over with now that he promised to come back.
"When do you think I should leave?"
The happy look on her face dropped somewhat and she looked at her clock.
"Well, perhaps you should stay one more day and leave tonight. My father's shop isn't too far from the main gate and I would have to guide you there because the streets are busy and confusing to a new comer. At night they aren't as busy either so we wouldn't lose each other."
He reflected on the intelligence of her words, and sighed inwardly because the longer he stayed, the harder leaving would actually be. He shrugged and smiled to her, his hands landing on his upper legs so he could help himself up. They spent the rest of the day in a cheerful disposition, going about the same routine as the days prior, until nighttime finally fell.
((A/N: I guess this is kind of a cliff hanger, but rest assured that I will update tomorrow.
Okiegirlforever: Thank you for being excited!
Mooncry: I'll look into it very soon. I'm a little busy preparing for school right now, which makes me glad that a bunch of these parts were already written.
Vampiremist: Thank you very much. Hopefully I feel like continuing on when I reach the end of what I've written already.
Eilinora: Ouch, my first semi-flame. Allow me to withdraw into my indestructible turtle shell. ;-; My self-esteem has just dropped.
InTheDarkWithRiku: At least you took the time to review now! I promise there will be more action later on. Think of this as the 1-6 days you had to spend with Roxas in Twighlight Town and the few days you spent with Sora on the Destiny Islands. After I get these out of the way there will be action. Notice the label for genre.
ShadowShapeshifterAndHerCat: Also refer the response to InTheDarkWithRiku's review. It's for much the same reason as that. Tomorrow I will be posting three, if I remember correctly, parts because they are real shorties and then after that…well I think you will be happy.))