" Please don't be yourself." Demyx threw his whole body into the groan that accompanied the request.
Axel had been literally hit in the face with a skyscraper before (Xemnas had not messed around in combat training) and it had less impact than those words.
"Wow," he formed the word with slow, exaggerated lip movements and extended it to multiple syllables to give himself the extra second of processing. "That's quite a request. I'll try not to take it too much to heart." The guardian of light clutched at the front of his shirt for dramatic effect, gathering a ball of material in a closed fist and invariably wrinkling it. "You know that stupid beating organ is still so soft and squishy. It gets offended at the silliest things...like a good friend telling me to throw out my garbage personality." He tasted black coffee on his tongue despite not having drank any. Uncharitably, he hoped crafting a drawn out moment would also cause the guilt to sink in for Demyx. The musician of all people should know how it felt to be told your personality was too much or you were nothing but a joke. Though that path of thinking was dangerous, as Axel found himself rather forcibly reminded that he often had been one of the ones making jokes putting down Demyx and had expected his friend to brush off far worse than 'don't be yourself.' That was before they had hearts though, and Demyx's scrunched brow and worried pout that didn't leave said he was far more sincere than Axel had ever been.
"Come on, man," Demyx dragged his words out even longer than Axel's initial stunned and judgmental wow. His bottom lip protruded almost comically as he blinked rapidly in what looked like a half baked attempt to either force them into filling with moisture and doubling the persuasive power of puppy eyes or to bat his eyelashes like some ill-conceived parody of flirtation, but which fell well short of both and only endeared through sympathy for his clownishness. "I didn't mean it like that ," he wheedled. "I meant, don't be all...you know..." He gestured vaguely at Axel, waving his arm to encompass him head to foot. "...Funny and sexy and charming and stupid tall around Terra."
"I can't be tall?" Axel asked, feigning the confusion that he didn't feel, mood shifting a full one hundred and eighty degrees in a flash as he now understood Demyx's distressed plea. He bit back a smile that threatened to crop up as he rubbed his chin in acted thought and muttered to himself at full volume for Demyx's benefit. "I don't know how I'm going to carry that off. Maybe I'll cut my legs off mid-thigh. Have the fairies make me shorter magical prostheses. Yensid should be able to enchant some if they can't. We'll use the brooms."
"Axel!" Demyx wailed, affronted distress taking on new heights. "I'm serious!"
"I'm treating it seriously!" Axel protested, tone offended and face split in an ear to ear grin that refused to be contained any longer. "I was willing to get broom legs!"
"I like him. " Demyx dropped his voice to a pained whisper, giving all the emphasis a pre-teen would while looking far too aware and mortally ashamed of it. "It's the same as... Don't make me say it." He whined like he had been kicked in the shin.
"But do you like like him?" Axel sing-songed. "When you run supplies to the Land of Departure from Radiant Garden do you put extra check boxes on the delivery forms? Do you want to go steady? Check yes or no. Does he sign for packages with a heart?" The redhead's glee was near manic. It was hard to picture that a scant minute ago he was retreating in on himself and thinking how real friends shouldn't tease each other too harshly. "Packages!" Axel eyes took on a gleam as he rubbed his hands together. "So many jokes it's hard to choose. Give me a second."
"The boxes weren't asking if he wanted to go steady!" Demyx snapped, offended. He crossed his arms and slid his shoulders up, taking refuge in slinking his head down. "I just asked if he wanted to grab some dessert at the bistro."
Axel was brought up short, jolted out of bracket eliminations of the best and worst delivery man package puns. "You didn't."
"Ienzo said it was smooth!"
"Ienzo was frozen with the social mindset of an eight year old for ten years!" Axel focused the full weight of his most exasperated look on Demyx. "If you need wooing advice, talk to me. The advice is: just be yourself, and when you find someone you're into who is into that, then shout woo!" He pumped both arms in the arm to punctuate his point.
"That's easy for you to say," Demyx sighed.
Axel put a sympathetic hand on the mulleted musician's shoulder. "Because I'm stupid tall," he commiserated, turning Demyx's words back on him.
"Because you're stupid tall," Demyx confirmed, smiling a bit despite himself. "Just don't flirt with Terra before I get a chance to make a move."
"What happened with dessert at the bistro? Wasn't that the move?" Axel was settling into semi-seriousness and interested despite himself. That Demyx had a crush on the stoic, quiet keyblade master that still looked far too similar to their old boss for comfort in Axel's eyes was hard to wrap his head around, and he didn't see what they had in common, but he'd be damned if he wasn't invested in his friends' lives. "Did he see Little Chef and bolt?" Hopefully, it was just something that minor and Axel could get the quick fix out of the way so trying to wingman for his friend, as was now his duty, wouldn't cut into his training time with Terra.
"He said he was busy," Demyx muttered. "He was letting me down easy."
"If you believe that, then what difference does it make whether my irresistible charm and animal magnetism has him falling at my feet?" Axel tossed out like a challenge, adding a disclaimer not a breath later, "Which I wouldn't take him up on because I'm not into foot stuff, and, you know, I respect my friendship with you more." He was near sheepish in the confession and followed it up with an airy, "Blah, blah, blah...wouldn't jeopardize it for the world... yada, yada... only best friend I've ever had that I haven't made out with...sober at least."
"You and Xion?" Demyx's eyebrows shot toward his hairline. He'd been about to say something else, but the last of Axel's ramblings had derailed his thoughts.
"Ah," Axel hesitated long enough Demyx thought there actually may have been a story there until he admitted, chagrined, "I forgot about Xion for a moment."
"That's like a thing with you, isn't it?" Demyx continued to search Axel's face for tells.
"Shut up," Axel huffed good-naturedly. "You are deflecting because we are talking about your man and you."
"He's not my man," Demyx ruffled the top of his mullet. "Which is why I need the chance to ask him out again before he realizes I'm the most awkward, least attractive person he knows."
Axel clapped his friend on the shoulder again. "Don't put yourself down that way. You're not most awkward."
"I'm going to drown you in your sleep, dude," Demyx threatened with all the intimidating power of a week old kitten.
"Whatever you say."
"So you're not going to flirt with him?"
"This is a serious apprenticeship. I'll be all business," Axel vowed just before his gummi phone chimed. He took the device out of his pocket, brightening when he saw the caller I.D. "Roxas," he explained and then pumped one fist in a victory pose and yelled, "Woo!" for Demyx's benefit before answering with a, "Hey, babe. Demyx is standing right here so keep the camera above the waist," which had its intended effect of causing both Demyx and Roxas to sputter like Donald. He grinned and amended to, "What's up?" as Demyx retreated, mumbling something about how he had to be going anyway.
"I heard you're spending some time at the Land of Departure." Roxas said with a casualness that could only spell bad tidings. "With Terra . Instead of going to Yensid's tower like you said you were."
"Yeah, Ol' Earthshaker heard the rumor I was seeking out further training and offered to teach me some of the ancient arts. I think it will be good for both of us. Give him something to do so he's not going stir crazy there by himself. My keyblade training with Kairi was mostly just trial and error. The two lessons were 'believe in yourself' and 'swing blade at tree.' You saw how far it got us. Then there were large gaps where none of us picked up a keyblade unless it was an emergency, and life just kind of took over from there. I'd like to take another stab at doing this whole Guardian of Light thing the proper way." He wanted to be able to ask for a Mark of Mastery and feel like he deserved it, but his tongue was frozen shy of saying anything that left him quite that vulnerable and would only lead to Roxas getting distressed about his lack of self-confidence. Self-confidence wasn't the problem. Axel was the most confident person he knew. He just also knew that he was largely unworthy of a keyblade, the sham that had to force one into his hands and saw disbelief in the eyes of everyone he knew that he dared to pretend he could ever measure up. That was all. And that he'd feared failure so much he had delayed further training for a few years. Perfectly normal and understandable.
"Yeah, we talked about all that. I think it's a good idea." There was an unspoken "but" that stretched out tension even with Roxas being nothing more than an image from worlds away captured on a screen. "Is Aqua still searching the empty islands of Scala Ad Caelum?" The blonde shifted topics after a moment. At least Axel thought of it that way.
"Yeah, she and Laurium are going full stop anthropologist. They may both become lost keybearers again," Axel chuckled, missing the way Roxas frowned as he fixated on twirling a loose thread from his shirt around his finger and snapping it free.
"I hope they find what they're looking for. And Ventus? Still travelling?"
"Mhmm, he's taking Max and Pete Jr. on a worlds tour. He keeps saying it's how your first time let loose to explore the universe should be, having a few friends along. It's a little pointed, but I don't think he means to reopen anything. Terra knows he's teasing."
"So you and Terra have been getting cozy already."
"If by cozy you mean we've been talking then yes. It would have been a little weird if I'd been here two days already in complete silence." Axel was starting to suspect that Roxas was taking a roundabout path to a really ugly place. He hoped he was wrong. "The super secret sign language code is going to take a week or more to work out, so for now we are shackled by verbal speech. Cozy like snuggled up together in a large fleece blanket? Don't be silly. It's much too hot for that. In fact, it's so hot we'll probably be walking around in boxers before the night's out."
"Very funny." The irritation that flashed across Roxas's face lasted only a moment before it turned into a sulking look that said the emotion had turned to an internal target. "I'm sorry. It's just..."
"A profound and hurtful lack of trust if you're hinting at what I think you're hinting at about Terra and I being the only ones living in the castle?" Axel supplied.
"We're not together," Roxas sighed.
"Not physically at this moment, which is super weird since usually..."
"Not officially," Roxas clarified, cutting Axel off mid-sentence, a martyred air overtaking him. Axel couldn't have been more baffled. He thought some things didn't need to be said or put into organized boxes. "You can do whatever you want and I don't have a right to be jealous. I know that."
"And you think I'm going to go right out and do Terra?" Axel didn't bother to hide his offense.
"I'm not saying that," Roxas had the grace to look embarrassed. "I'm worried about him. You're really friendly and sometimes you don't realize the effect you have on people...Or you do and you'll go along with something just because you think it's fun to get under people's skin. It's hard to know when to take you seriously."
"It's hard to know when to take me seriously? For you?" Axel repeated the words far more harshly and skeptically than Roxas's pink cheeked mumble. "I'm hanging up now."
"Axel! I..." Roxas's voice was cut off as Axel ended the call.
Axel exhaled a long stream of air through his nostrils, half sure it made an audible noise and puff of steam like certain species of heartless when provoked to charge, and ran both hands through his hair, tugging at the roots after tossing the gummi phone aside. He was well on his way to dwelling, flickering several times a second between the idea of running to the landing pad that very moment and taking his gummi ship right back to Twilight Town and a strong, visceral recoil from that idea paired with the sentiment that Roxas could go jump off the clocktower. Emotions were so much stronger and unpredictable for being bottled away for over a decade, especially when teen hormones had been part of what had been cut off and suppressed in the transformation to Nobody, that they may never even out now. That was the first excuse at least. The second was a reversal, that he wasn't the one who was immature for his nebulous age. Roxas was being immature.
Whatever the case, he shouldn't play into it. He'd come here for a reason. He'd focus on that. Axel left the phone where he discarded it on the grass, righted his hair from where he'd mussed it, and resumed the yoga poses Terra had shown him yesterday he'd been working through before Demyx had interrupted his supposedly mandatory morning meditation by running down the hill from the castle, waving both arms like a loon and shouting like they hadn't seen each other in years, only so he could follow up catching up with personal attacks and a plea to stay away from his crush.
After he'd wasted enough time that he figured he had to be centered by that time whatever that meant to someone who lived and thrived on a tilt-a-whirl, he collected the gummi phone-dismissing a notification from Roxas with his thumb as he did-and the rest of the belongings he'd carted down with him (water bottle, wrist brace, gloves) and made his way up the hill to the castle courtyard. He'd search out Terra, and if the Master was busy he'd go to the library and find some thick, dusty book about keyblade history or philosophy of old wielders to focus on. He was going to be a model student. He was only there to learn.
Not that anyone seemed to believe it.
Aqua was the next to warn him off, calling in the next day like Roxas had to tell Axel to "Be gentle with Terra. He's more sensitive than you may think." He'd protested that she should be telling Terra to be more gentle with him after the way the brunette hadn't even bothered to help him with a cura after throwing him what had to be at least thirty feet while trying to teach him Rising Rock. That hadn't been what Aqua had meant of course. The core of her worry wasn't even because he was Terra's first one on one student. It was because, "Terra is more susceptible to flattery than he'd want to admit and he's awfully easy to fluster."
Xion admonished him for upsetting Roxas by hanging up on him. Axel could have told his side of the story, he was asked for it after all, but he'd chosen to repeat the tactic of hanging up instead.
Ventus sent support, but by the time his face appeared on Axel's gummi phone, the redhead wasn't sure whether to take the cheerful claim that echoed his original thoughts, "I think you two will be good for each other, shake each other up a bit," at face value or read into it.
Kairi was more blatant, summarizing her feelings in two words: Get it. It was distressing on some level how quickly word had spread and which words those seemed to be. Almost as distressing as the close up shot of what he figured out by context was Riku's bare chest with Kairi's manicured hand splayed low over his abdominal muscles that had been sent by Kairi later with the claim she and Sora had been rigorously training under a Master too. Axel would never be able to block it out. He saved the picture just in case though. If an opportunity ever came up where he needed to embarrass Riku, he now had ready ammo since he was sure the silver haired islander didn't know Kairi had sent him what looked like a picture originally meant to be sent to Sora if Axel had to hazard a guess.
Axel was the one to call Isa, seeking reassurances and feeling better for a moment just by hearing his oldest friend, affectionately dismayed, chiding, "Lea, Lea, Lea," a litany of the name that he'd gone back and forth on reclaiming that would surely be followed by some wise words that explained away everyone's assumptions and made him feel better. It was not. Isa had the nerve to be amused by the idea that Roxas was jealous and to call it being trapped in the same patterns with new faces as if there was anything comparable to Isa's own past jealousy of Roxas and Roxas's random delusions about Terra. Axel hung up on him too.
It seemed to Axel that his friends had a very low opinion of him. Maybe he should start living down to expectations.