Chapter Two: Omens
Author's note: Ooh, scary chapter title! Hehe. Actually, it's really nothing so ominous. Just some more of angry!spazz!Roxas, and Luxord worrying. And an obligatory appearance by…well, we'll see, won't we? Hospitals are excellent places for Meetings Of Fate. And finding a boyfriend. And many other things. Anyway, I mean not to bore you all! Read on! (Oh, and points for anyone who finds and gets the nineties pop culture reference!)
Anxiety chewed Luxord's gut as he broke two speed limits and about thirty traffic laws in his race to the hospital. The kid wasn't moaning in pain (in fact, all the noise he'd made was cursing so far, not even his name) or fainted from blood loss (because there wasn't any blood) or screaming and writhing against his seatbelt. He just sort of sat there, for all appearances…sulking. Still, what if it was a slow-bleeding internal injury? What if the boy was dying a quiet, painless death and was suddenly going to keel over?
Maybe I should talk to keep him coherent, thought Luxord, hands leaving permanent indentations on the steering wheel. "So, ah…." Brilliant. The boy said nothing. Maybe he was already gone! Oh, shit. "What's your...name?" Yes. Name. That thing you call people so you can tell your insurance company exactly who it was that you mowed down while having your eyes off the road and hands in your lap. Well, not in those last few words exactly, because it sounded like something it wasn't, but the point was he was about to be a lot poorer via a spike in his rates.
"…Roxas."
Luxord winced. Venom seeped from the boy – Roxas' voice. Was it appropriate to turn on music? The silence was heavily uncomfortable, in that 'I am so pissed that if you say something I will jump upon and strangle you, but if you do not speak I might lapse into a coma' way. Unfortunately (or perhaps not so much), this was an unfamiliar kind of uncomfortable silence, not at all like 'you just slept with my little brother!' or 'I am upset because you let my cat die of starvation when I specifically asked you to feed her while I was gone' or even that awkward moment of 'my mom died in a freak liposuction accident' after a "your mom" joke, and so Luxord had no real idea how to deal with it.
He reached for the music dial. Bad choice; the car was flooded with a blast of angry, metal rock music. Who had he loaned the car out to, again? He turned the dial frantically, until a symphony's strains floated out soothingly. The volume was down, everything was good.
"Your tastes suck," observed the – Roxas, acerbically.
"What?" Luxord was given a start by the voluntary speech from the pissed off teen.
"Never mind."
Apparently he had mistaken it for civility. Damn.
So he compromised by turning off the radio altogether, and they rode in silence toward the hospital. They had gone the right direction after all, because the large red cross atop an ugly cement roof enclosure was coming into view above the trees. Luxord sped up a bit more.
--
They went in the exit-only lane, just narrowly avoiding a collision with an outgoing ambulance, and Roxas demanded to get out and walk.
"It's safer than being in here with you!" he argued. Luxord locked the doors in rejoinder, and the boy contented himself to fume quietly in his seat. He's probably kidnapping me, and we're only here so one of his psycho nurse friends can pass him some sort of tranquilizer so I can't scream when he drags me out into the bushes and – The rational part of Roxas' mind interrupted him with a rather loud, derisive snort. Stupid, it said. What has he done, aside from run you over, which was an accident, to show any intention of harming you? Most drivers would tear off and leave you there so you couldn't get a license number! He's driving you to the hospital, where you can wreck his insurance, press charges, and more importantly get treated, you spaz. There was an almost-audible (within the confines of Roxas' mind, at least) "Gawd", valley girl-style, following that diatribe. Roxas found himself bristling but vaguely unsettled that his subconscious was so girly.
Perhaps because he was preoccupied with the fact that he had just nearly killed a very hostile teenager in his just-washed car, or perhaps because the short dialogue had taken place inside Roxas' head and was therefore kept mostly to himself, Luxord seemed wholly unaware that the two parts of said hostile teenager's psyche were socking it out over whether he was a child molester or a decent guy who took his eyes off the road. In his ignorance, he began, "So, Roxas…were you going to school?"
"How do you know what school I go to? Are you stalking me? Jesus, let me out of the car!"
Roxas had begun clawing at the window, and Luxord was worried he might deal irreparable harm to himself – or, more importantly, the upholstery. In what he hoped was a calming manner, he reached out a hand (and nearly lost it for his trouble; Roxas slapped and scratched him in his sudden panic) and placed it on the boy's arm. "Roxas. I am not stalking you. I merely supposed, because it is the right time of morning and you appear to be the right age, that you were walking to a school. You are not in any danger; we are in the middle of a hospital parking lot. You're safe, all right?" It was hard to say all this calmly, when Roxas' peaking anxiety was feeding Luxord's, but he managed.
Something about his voice settled the panic in Roxas' mind, so unthreatening, almost familiar. With a defeated sigh, Roxas drooped back against the seat. Why did this man have so much power over him? They'd never met before, and the guy had run him over, yet Roxas' gut instincts (also known as his Subconscious, which was doing a victory dance somewhere above his left ear and giving him a migraine) trusted him implicitly and forced Roxas to do the same. "Fine. Whatever. You win." He stuck out his lip. "You can let go now, you know."
All of a sudden Luxord had the urge to laugh and ruffle his hair. The kid was so cute when he pouted! Of course, he restrained himself, eyeing the puffy scratches on his hand. Which he still hadn't taken off of Roxas' arm. Oh. Right. No wonder. With a soft, sheepish cough, Luxord removed his hand and placed it back on the steering wheel. This was too weird. He absolutely hated physical contact, for one. Secondly, Roxas had just tried to maul him. Not thinking too much into it, he slipped the car into a parking space which had been vacated sometime while Roxas was having his freak-out moment. "Well…Roxas. Let me help you get out."
"I'm fine," Roxas growled, his heart completely not in it.
Luxord came around and opened the door anyway.
"Hey…mister. You never told me your name."
Oh, yeah. That was true. With a half-smile, he said, "I'm Luxord."
"Do I know you?" Roxas asked skeptically, scrutinizing at the older man's face. "You sure you aren't stalking me?"
"Positive," affirmed Luxord, and this time he did laugh. For a moment their eyes met, and Roxas felt strangely dizzy. He began to slump forward, body making no attempt to recover its balance; Luxord reached out, shaking off the feeling that someone had just walked over his grave, and gripped Roxas' arm. A shock darted between them, and Roxas flinched, suddenly wide awake again.
"Ow, man! What the hell!"
"Did you feel that, just now – not the shock, something…else?" It was something he didn't admit to often, but Luxord was extremely superstitious. Both of them suddenly feeling so strange was…a sign, of something. He wasn't sure what, but it wasn't normal.
With a pinched expression, Roxas shot him down. "Feel what? Maybe you forgot, but you hit me with your car, so I might be a bit dizzy. I'm probably concussed," he added in a mumble.
"Then let's get you inside," sighed Luxord, feeling that Roxas wasn't being straight with him – and if he was, it was almost worse.
--
"Polney, Joseph," announced a bored-sounding orderly, eyes fixed on his clipboard.
A man in a construction worker's uniform got up, gripping his hand and grimacing. Blood showed around the edges of his fingers. Roxas glanced away, trying not to turn his torso; the pain in his ribs had gotten worse when he walked from the car to the ER waiting area. To amuse himself while he waited for his own name to be called, he surveyed the faces of the other patients. There were little kids who looked sort of sick, old people, a bunch of guys in wifebeaters with spiked, dyed hair. This last group caught his eye, and he looked over their faces, a mottled mess of piercings, tattoos and a couple bruises. Gangfight? he guessed by some of their leather clothing and other appearances. Yuck, put in his Subconscious, a distinctively snotty tone in its voice. Talk about 'those boys your parents warned you about'. Hackles raised, Roxas geared up to reply, 'My parents warned me about girls, you moron', but it died a half-born thought as his gaze fell onto one of the gang members.
He stood out, even among those people. His hair was bright, fire-engine red, spiked up so that it flared out like a lion's mane – or a fox who had been sprayed by a skunk, rolled in tomato sauce to kill the stench, fed C4 explosives and then dropped from fifty feet up. Ignoring the rather imaginative imagery filling his mind, Roxas was caught on the man's face. He had the brightest green eyes Roxas had ever seen; they almost glowed in the light, even from across the room. But it wasn't this, or even the feminine, pointed-but-soft good looks the man possessed, that made Roxas' breath catch and his heart stop beating temporarily.
Something had clicked inside him, and Roxas felt that dizzy sensation, accompanied by a tingling rush of blood to his head.
Your brain has blown a circuit and will be back online momentarily, his brain informed him cheerfully.
This guy is major Hot Stuff, and I'm not sure why but if you don't go over there and make nice with him RIGHT NOW you are going to seriously regret it for the rest of your karmic reincarnation cycle, added Subconscious. In other words, go fluff your hair in the bathroom and then flirt like you've never flirted before, kid. Forget the possible spleen damage Peroxide Head gave you and work on filling every gap there might ever be in your future life with just one conversation.
Subconscious had apparently drawn Brain into its evil schemes, but left Nervous System out of the loop. Roxas remained frozen, staring at the redheaded man, his eyes, his crazy hair, his strange face makeup, his tiny eyebrow stud, his tight leather clothing. Tight leather clothing. Tight. Leather. Clothing. Well. Roxas felt particular clothing articles of his own tighten as he skimmed his eyes over the man's torso, then down to his hips and legs. Dude, that guy had the craziest lady-hips Roxas had ever seen! Roxas gulped. I'm checking out some guy in the middle of the ER waiting room, where I am because I got hit by some random guy who gives me the same dizzy feeling (but not the tingly-thing, his Subconscious felt compelled to point out) and he is probably here because he was involved in some gang shooting. And now my brain is telling me to go hit on him. And the worst thing is, I'd actually love to, but I can't move. Mentally, Roxas smacked himself around for admitting that, just as the orderly came in and called another name in the same bored tone of voice.
"Pullman, Axel."
The man stood up, stiffly, a hand clamped over his arm, and followed the orderly. Roxas watched him go, slightly dazed. Axel. Axel Pullman.
Who exactly was that guy?
Author's Addendum: Hah! You all TOALLY didn't see that coming! …Oh, wait, you mean you did? Damn. Anyway, this wasn't too actionful, mainly just mild plot and character exposition, but bear with it! Um, I do have a plan. For the weird tingly thing. And yes, Axel is TOTALLY in a biker gang! Buwahahahaha! …I really enjoyed naming Roxas Various Psychological and Biological Components. Way too much. Tee hee!