Hey kids, chapter 40 has been fixed! Thanks for letting me know it was all effed up!
XLVIII.
We walk through the portal Axel has opened and are instantly met with cold. Bitter, penetrating cold that pierces me to my core. The new scars on my body ache, my knees clatter together in my skimpy outfit—something I never would've walked around in, here. My entire body vibrates with shivers, and yet, even with his coat on, Axel shakes harder than me.
"Dammit, you couldn't have chosen a warmer place to hide out in?" He asks, teeth chattering. Meanwhile, I might be going numb, but that's fine.
"Stop bitching, we'll be safe here." We will, I know we will. As much as I didn't want to drag them into this, as much as I wanted them to be safe from the nightmare that has become my reality, this is the final card I have left to play, the final safehouse I can enter. I made a scene of announcing I'd never return to this world after Organization XIII attempted to recruit Del. No one is going to look for us here. And even if they did, I know the lay of this land better than anyone, I can bare the cold better than anyone. This is my turf. Inside the safety of Transmute City, there is nothing that I cannot take on. Except perhaps this reunion.
My old home, the place I shared with Del and Amaya is right in front of us, and yet, the idea of knocking at the door feels horrifying. Who will answer it? And will they be excited to see me? Or will they slam the door in my face and tell me this isn't my home anymore? Somehow, I am doubtful of the latter, but it doesn't quell my worry any. With hands that shake from nerves and the cold, I knock at the door and am greeted by a pale face, framed with shoulder length, black hair. Bright green eyes stare back at me.
"Rueki…." Amaya stands in front of the doorway, her lips parted in utter surprise, her arms hanging limp at her sides. She draws a hand up, reaching out to touch me.
"Sweetheart, not to be a nudge, but—" Axel starts.
"Amaya, it's cold out can we please come in?" I mutter, a little anxiously.
"Oh!" She gasps. "Um, yes, of course." She stutters, stepping aside, allowing room for us to enter, and we do. Axel and I barrel in and suddenly, I am overwhelmed by heat. He takes a deep breath as Amaya pushes the door closed behind us.
"Fuck, Rueks, you're freezing." And there, right in my friends' living room, Axel summons tiny flames to his fingertips and pulls me in tight. It is as though he just remembered how much less I am wearing and how frigid I must be. The drastic temperature change is physically shocking, but I ease into it quickly, my entire body melting under his touch. For a second, I don't even realize that normal people don't summon elements to defrost their significant others. Only for a second. Because I'm shuddering in my man's arms, and my oldest friend is looking at me, trying to keep her jaw off the ground. She wrings her hands, unsure of what to do as Axel pulls away from me, holding me by the top of the arms.
"That's a thing he does, I wouldn't worry about it." I offer her.
"Maya, do we have any chili left over from—" Del's voice sounds off from the hallway that leads to the bedrooms, and suddenly it stops. I know the sound in this house, I know where things echo, depending on which room you are in. I know exactly where Del is standing when he stops speaking and I turn to him, a half smile cracked across my face. Axel turns with me, in perfect sync.
"I'll be damned, definitely not what I pictured when you talked about Del." Axel says.
"No?" I ask.
"He looks like Roxas." Axel replies, and I guess, in a way, he could be an older Roxas. I laugh, throwing my head back.
"Rueki." Del says my name, as though he cannot believe I am here. As though there is a magical light shining on me. His eyes light up in a way that only Del's can. Suddenly, I am not his neglectful ex girlfriend, I am not his cold hearted friend, I am not the girl he put on the backburner for the Keybearer. I am the exciting girl that woke up in the broom closet a decade ago. I am one of his oldest friends. He rushes forward, throwing his arms around me, tackling me out of Axel's grip. I hear my lover make a noise in protest as Del squishes me tight to him. "I thought you were dead!" He cries out. This seems to be all it takes for Amaya to gather up some courage. She shuffles over to me and wraps her arms around the both of us. I feel her prosthetic hand, resting against my elbow. I laugh, beaming as I hug the two of them back.
"Sorry to disappoint." I grin.
"You had us so scared, Rueki! After you stormed out, we went looking for you, we had no idea what happened to you! And then when we saw Sora's Gummi Ship was gone… Rueki, I told you that it was unsalvageable! How are you alive now? That ship shouldn't have been able to make it more than—"
"It didn't make it for shit." I laugh, pushing Amaya and Del both away. "You grew a set while I was gone." I grin at Amaya, who waves away my words with a brush of her hand.
"She sure did." Del laughs.
"What do you mean it didn't make it?" She gasps. "Is that how you got all of those scars, I know you didn't have them when you left!"
"What I mean is the ship exploded, I crash landed. Axel pulled me out of the fire." I say, quickly deflecting as I turn back to him. I offer him a smile and see his eyes warm as I meet them. I think my entire being must thaw, just looking at him. Here and now, I am safe once more. At his side, I will always be safe. I don't think of all of the blood I have lost, I don't think of the rude awakening we had this morning, I don't think of being kept alive on Potions and Elixirs for days. There's only him. There's only this.
"Oh, my goodness!" Amaya claps her hands over her mouth as she looks to him. "I am so sorry, I didn't introduce myself! Where are our manners, Del?" Amaya scolds him before she flutters over to Axel offering him a hand, which he shakes with complete confidence, but unlike what I was used to growing up—I do not watch his eyes linger on every curve of her body. I do not watch him drink in the sight of her. My stomach doesn't drop as I think of how unappealing I must look in comparison to her. I feel no jealousy, no envy. Axel sees no one but me, there's such a deep and beautiful security in that. "I'm Amaya!"
"The Name's Axel, got it memorized?" He grins and I bite back a grin. "And you're Del, right?" Del nods at him.
"Yep, nice to meet you." Del says, so genuinely, he strides over to Axel and takes his hand, clapping him on the shoulder, a true bro hug. Axel shoots me a look. I shrug.
"Likewise, Rueks has told me a lot about both of you." He says as the they draw away from each other. Del's eyebrows raise as he looks between me and Axel.
"You let him call you that?" He asks.
"I let him do a lot of things to me that no one else can." I say and instantly regret it. Kind of a bitchy thing to say, to the guy I used to sleep with, but to my surprise, Del cackles like a hyena. A true belly laugh, he doubles over. Axel starts to laugh, so does Amaya, and now I am smiling as the music of their amusement floods my ears.
"Good for you man, good for you!" Del chuckles, clapping a hand to Axel's back. This is already going worlds better than I could ever have imagined.
"It's so nice to see you, Rueki, you have no idea." Amaya beams, reaching out to squeeze my hand. I squeeze hers back, resolving to keep my mouth shut about the time I saw her and Del when I was here with Luxord.
"You guys too." I nod. "We were hoping for a place to crash for the night, is that something we can—"
"Of course! What do you think, that we would turn you down? You have got to be kidding!" Amaya huffs and for the first time with her, I am the one holding my hands up defensively.
"Jeez, Maya!" I laugh. "Come on. I haven't seen you guys in like a year and a half."
"It really has been a long time." She nods. "Would you like to help me make dinner? I can get something started for the four of us." She offers and for just a second, I think to tell her that it is probably not a good idea for Del and Axel to be left alone. After all, I don't know what to expect, putting my ex and current boyfriend in the same room, but there Del is, chatting animatedly with Axel.
"You summoned fire to your fingertips, right? That's cool you've gotta show me how that works!" Del insists, eyes wide with excitement. Same old Del. Axel offers me a little half grin. I flash him a thumbs up before I take Amaya up on her offer and retreat into the kitchen with her. Together, the two of us start on spaghetti. She cooks ground turkey in pan, separating it, mashing it around with some sort of seasoning that I don't even ask about, because nine years of living with her, even though a large amount of it was in the orphanage, taught me not to question Amaya in the kitchen. The girl can cook, without a doubt. Me? I start boiling water and chopping up tomatoes as she tells me all about how the shop is doing, because that is all I am equipped to handle. I am surprised by how she talks, animatedly, excitedly, with a big smile lighting her features. She is so eager to relay the stories of success to me, to tell me that after Sora left, word got out that the Keybearer himself got his ship repaired by her, and the customers came pouring in. She tells me how they were able to pay off the house completely and are working on doing the same with the shop. She tells me how happy she is to have her prosthetic. She talks and talks, never interrupting herself in embarrassment that she has been rude by not interrogating me. Amaya has come to life in the time that I have been gone and instead of being sad, I find myself happy. So, so happy for her.
"That's good, you know I was pissed when I left, I was talking out of my ass. I never wanted the shop to go under. I'd never want you and Del to have to go through anything bad." I'd never want them to go through anything I've had to go through.
"Oh, I know, Rueki!" She insists, bobbing her head in time as she stirs the pan. "I know, I mean, emotions ran so high for all of us then, I think. And the fact that we didn't know life outside of each other made it worse. I don't want to sound cold, but truly, the best thing for any of us was you leaving."
"We were so codependent on each other, weren't we?" I recall, thinking of the night before I left, how I swore I'd be more self sufficient, and certainly I have become that. I've found I can stand on my own, without them.
"Unhealthily so." Amaya nods. "I mean, even Del and I. We stayed together for a little while after you left, but it wasn't long before we began to wonder what life was like outside of each other and we broke up. At first it felt like we were drifting apart, but the more we grew intrigued by new things, the more we had to tell each other about when we came back together. Our worlds were so small, Rueki. Enclosed in one another. Now, Del is running for city council, I'm running the shop exactly how I want to. We've all grown up so much. You were right about me getting braver. And I mean, Del will always be Del, but instead of acting like a goofy kid all the time, he's channeling his energy and acting like…like…" She licks her lips as she struggles to come up with a proper comparison.
"Like a talk show host?" I offer. She tosses her head back, laughing, a high musical sound.
"Yes, exactly. And you…you seem so much happier." She says, and I genuinely wonder about that. Am I? Have I been? I think of the scars covering my body, I think about the secrets surrounding my world. I think about how my best friend was absorbed by the boy who saved my world, I think of the stories of the past that flood my mind when I sleep and of the panic attacks and the nightmares. I think of all the hell I have been through and then I turn back to look into the living room. Axel is lighting a fire inside of our fireplace while Del watches with baited breath, and my answer comes so easy to me.
"Yeah, I am. I really am." I smile and it lights a spark that touches my eyes. I could cry.
"He's your boyfriend?" Amaya asks for clarification. I bite my lip at the use of the word, because it doesn't sound like enough. But I will never be the girl who calls my significant other my soulmate or my destiny, like ew. Her eyes go wide, and I suppose my expression must register a discomfort at the use of her word. "Rueki, you didn't go off and get married in this past year did you?" She gasps and I snicker.
"No, no, nothing like that. Boyfriend works." I laugh.
"Is he the one?" She asks. This one, I don't even have to think about.
"Yeah, he is. He's everything to me, Maya." I confess. "I didn't know I could love anyone this much. It's overwhelming, it's selfish and selfless all at once. It is humbling but makes me feel so proud. It is beautiful and tragic, I didn't think there was anyone in this world that would ever make me feel as much as he has."
"He was made for you." She says softly, and I think, yeah, he really was. "I could see that, just in the way he warmed you up when you came inside. You'd never let Del take care of you like that."
"Because Del is a child." I remind her. She nods.
"That he is." She agrees. I don't want to tell her that I let Axel warm me up, because it is nothing, when I think about how I puked off the edge of the clock tower and he held my hair back. Nothing compared to turning on the lights when I screamed, in the throws of a panic attack, nothing compared to holding me tight, looking at me with guilty eyes as he accessed the scars his former friend left on my body, nothing compared to sitting at my bedside in Shibuya as Sanae Hanekoma brought me back from death. And it's nothing on what I have done for him in return. "You have no idea how happy I am for you, Rueki. That you found your person."
"You talking about me?" I feel an arm wrap around my middle and Axel's lips at my cheek.
"Stop eavesdropping, nosey." I shrug him off. "You're supposed to be babysitting Del."
"Well excuse me for being intrigued, seeing you around real food, princess. I didn't know you could cook." He says.
"She can't." Amaya giggles, and I shoot her a very half assed glare.
"Well, if some of us weren't so convinced it was possible to live off of sea salt ice cream, you'd know already that I'm shit at cooking." I remind him.
"Sorry, my girlfriend bitches at me for being too skinny, thought the ice cream might help. You should meet her, you'd give her a run for her money." Axel teases.
"Is she prettier than me?" I ask. He shrugs.
"Eh, about the same." He replies. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Amaya smiling, truly glowing.
I twirl my fork through some spaghetti, absent mindedly while Axel devours his like a wild animal.
"Sweetheart, why haven't we been here to see your friends before? Amaya can cook." Axel says, in between bites. I roll my eyes, but Amaya is beaming, truly delighted.
"I'm glad you like it!" She chirps, and still, I feel no jealousy. Axel was not flirting with her, Amaya never meant to 'steal my boyfriend', I know that based on who she is as a person. There is nothing in their interactions that does anything other than warm my heart. I'm just beyond pleased at how well my lover is getting along with my oldest friends.
"He eats like you." I tell Del.
"He talks like you!" Del barks out a laugh. I smirk a little, eyes flicking over to Axel, who is smirking.
"I hate to be a wet blanket on things…" Amaya begins.
"Then don't." I press, eyes suddenly growing hard as I look at her. To my surprise though, she is unwavering, steadfast yet gentle in her approach, and a nasty look from me will not deter her.
"Why are you visiting for the first time in almost two years, Rueki? It's not like you to do something like this out of nowhere." Amaya reminds me. I pout a little.
"Who's to say I haven't changed too?" I ask.
"Oh, give the girl her moment, Rueks, she's right about you." Axel says with the wave of his hand.
"You are never visiting here again." I wag a finger at him. And here I was, thinking Axel used his brain. Nope, apparently, he's utterly ruled by his stomach. "Maya, it's dangerous. There's a lot of stuff I've gotten myself into that you don't need to know about."
"Are you indebted to someone?" She asks. I snort.
"No, no. Nothing that simple." I shake my head. "I've gotten in too deep with a lot of shitty people, so has Axel. We got away, I didn't want to involve you guys, but I don't think they'll follow us here. We won't stay long, we won't leave any trace behind that we were here. We'll be out of your guys' hair in no time, and the less you know, the better." Though ignorance hasn't stopped Saix from torturing people before. My stomach twists, I grip the edge of the table desperately, trying to center myself. Deep breaths, Rueki, deep breaths.
"Is that what your scars are from? You never answered Amaya earlier." Del reminds me. I look to Axel, who looks sick to his stomach, the guilt eating him.
"Stop making that fucking face." I snap at Axel. "I didn't mean it when I got shitty with you last night, you should know that."
"But you were right. I left you alone. Plain and simple. I fucked up, Rueki." He reminds me, but the fact of the matter is, unlike in Oblivion, this was not intentional. Any pain I have endured as of late has all been a very miserable accident. And one that I will be sure Saix pays for, whether Axel likes it or not. But I'm not focused on that. Right now, I'm focused on surviving until Sora gets close enough to kill Xemnas. I'll worry about the details later, and in the meantime, I cannot take his worrying.
"Right, because it's not like I never mouthed off to him, like I didn't put myself right on his shit list." I roll my eyes.
"If I would've stayed with you—"
"We're not doing this." I shake my head, he's not worth arguing with. If he wants to torture himself, I know I won't be able to change his mind. I can scream until I am blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is, he's the only person I know who is as stubborn as me. "Can we just leave it at, I got involved with some bad people?" I ask Amaya. She glares at me, though it still looks cute and meek on her pretty face.
"You know, this is what got us all fighting in the first place. You going out of our way to not connect with us, thinking that this was what it took to protect us." Amaya reminds me.
"You can trust us, Rueki. You and Axel both." Del nods.
"It's not a matter of fucking trust you guys, can't you just accept that things in my life has just gotten a hell of a lot darker than you guys can handle?" I snap.
"Yeah, according to you. You don't know what we can handle, Rueki, we haven't seen you in forever!" Amaya reminds me. And while she's not wrong, I know, I'm not as foolish as they are, I am not so simple minded that I think the power of my old friends will get me through this.
"Stop pushing this, Maya, you're not gonna like where this goes."
"I already don't like where this is going, Rueki. You show up out of nowhere, covered in wounds and then you tell us that you're not staying long because you got involved with some bad people? You don't think that worries us? We're your oldest friends, Rueki, no, we're family! We grew up together, it doesn't matter what happened between us, we're supposed to have each other's backs! And that means that if you're in a bind, we'll help you, of course we will, we always will. But you have to meet us in the middle! How are we supposed to feel good about any of this, if it you don't give us anything to work with? That's using us, not leaning on us!" Amaya insists, her real hand balled up into a fist, her pretty eyes burning into me with an intensity that I have never seen in her. For a second, I am proud of her. The next second, I am annoyed as all hell at her. How the hell dare she? She doesn't know what this is like, she doesn't know how it feels to be in the situation I'm in, and no, maybe I haven't given her anything, but we're friends, she said it herself. Shouldn't she just accept that I'm keeping these secrets to keep her safe? Shouldn't she just trust me?
Trust your partner.
'You can't expect her to trust you if you don't give her anything to work with'. I think of Sanae Hanekoma's words to Axel, and I think of how similar he and I have always been, but how noticeable it has become especially now. Me, keeping secrets to protect the ones I love, acting like I've never been on the other side of things. I heave a sigh, looking to my partner, my boyfriend, my Axel.
"I crash landed in a world filled with a lot of shady people. I fell in love with Axel, we worked the system, trying to find a way out of things, hoping it'd only be a matter of time before we could cut ties with these people." There's safety as I look at him, Amaya's gaze pierces me and Del's makes me nervous, but inside the eyes of the person who knows all of my secrets, I feel safe. And he doesn't stop me. Whether he trusts me to keep my mouth shut about the important details, or just doesn't care if they get out, I am unsure. But he doesn't stop me. And that pushes me forward. "But then a friend of ours…something happened to him and we lost him. Axel was trying to find him, he left me behind, I was supposed to be safe, he struck a deal with the guy in charge. But apparently, I mouthed off too many times and Axel was gone long enough to get deemed a traitor. So, they interrogated me, and I told them to piss off and this was the price I paid. Another friend kept me alive on Potions and as soon as I could stand we got the hell out of there and I found Axel. Now, we're both probably considered traitors, and both have a hell of a bounty on our heads. So, no, I didn't want you guys to know about that, because if anyone in a black trench coat comes knocking, I want you to be able to say 'we don't know anything about Rueki' and have that be true."
"You're being dumb." Del tells me, and here I was thinking I'd previously hit rock bottom, but now, with Del questioning my intelligence, I know I really have. "You think we wouldn't fight for you?"
"No, I know you would." Which is exactly what makes him dumb. "I've made my bed, okay? I've gotta lay in it. I've done a lot of really shitty things since the last time I saw you guys. You're right, I was cold, I was a bitch, I pushed a lot of people away and now, I've done a lot of things for all of the right reasons, but every single one of them ends up being wrong. I haven't been a good person. So please, if someone comes knocking, asking about me, don't sacrifice yourself for me, nothing about me is worth it." There's a discomfort that settles over the room, three people that cannot decide whether or not to argue with me.
"Let's go for a walk. You and me." Del says and I blink at him with wide eyes. He's certainly never been the type to take things into his own hands and smooth over a situation, but maybe running for city councilman has changed that.
"Take my coat." Axel offers me, and I see him unzipping his jacket. I want to scold him and tell him to cover himself up, because I know what kind of body my man has under that coat and I don't need anyone else salivating over him the way I do, but once his coat is off, he flicks his wrist and a black T-shirt materializes in his hands. He pulls it over his head, and it is all I can do not to jump his bones right then and there. He should wear normal clothes more often, especially ones as tight as this T-shirt. "Don't get too cold." He squeezes my hand gently, and I cannot believe this. My boyfriend, giving me his blessing to take a walk with my ex. But for how deeply I trust him, for how I know Axel only sees me, I realize, he must know the same holds true for him. There is no one I could ever love nearly as much as I love him. I zip into his coat and lean in, taking his face into one of my hands. I press my lips firmly against his, savoring the sensation, the warmth, the taste. He leans into me, and I think this is the best place in the world to be.
"I love you." I tell him.
"Love you too, sweetheart. Don't keep me waiting long." He touches my hand and offers it a gentle squeeze before I follow Del, who is now wearing a heavy jacket, out the door. Almost the second we are outside, he pulls out a pack of…
Cigarettes?
"Since when did you start smoking?" I ask him, thankful for the warmth provided by Axel's coat. I delight in how it smells like him and am reminded of back before I had my own coat, when I wore his on missions with Demyx and savored the scent.
"Pretty much when Amaya and I broke up. I was into gambling for a little while, wanted to feel like I was contributing. And I won pretty good for a while, and I smoked and drank for a while. And then, one day, I won big and got mugged by the guy who lost to me. Amaya had to patch me up, and of course she cried, and I cried, because not too long ago, I watched you sew up where her arm had been amputated, and that was when I called it. No more gambling, no more staying on the dark side of things. I was so intrigued, by what I could do for her. I thought, hey, if I just made us more money, we could be happy, maybe we'd get back together. When I realized what I'd become, just to try to win back her affections, I realized just how messed up that was. I lost sight of myself, and it didn't make her want me any more. To be honest, I don't think she's forgiven herself for how you stormed off when you caught her and I hooking up that first time." Del confessed, taking a drag of his cigarette.
"I didn't mean to guilt her." I mutter. "Honestly, when I saw the two of you, the only thing I felt was…disturbed. And not because of you guys. I was disturbed by how little of a shit I gave. I thought, hey, this guy is my boyfriend, I should probably care that he's fucking someone else, but I didn't. If you and I couldn't be happy together, I wish the two of you could've been."
"Yeah. Me too." Del sighs. "But that's why the dark started to appeal to me."
"You used to scream when the lights were out at the orphanage, remember, that's why I learned Alchemy in the first place? So I could relight the lamps with an eternal flame that the caretakers couldn't put out, so you'd never have another nightmare." I remind him. He shrugs.
"I'm not that boy anymore though, Rueki. I really wish I could be. But you left, and things changed and all I wanted to do was be what you were for us. The glue, the one that kept our heads on straight. Amaya got a lot more independent, a lot smarter with money, the way you always were for us. But I wanted to be the one who got things done, the one who was determined and went above and beyond to make sure that things were taken care of for her and I. I was trying so hard to fill your shoes with that, I forgot what it was like to just be carefree and excited all the time." He sighs.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fuck things up by leaving, but in case you've missed it, I'm kind of a selfish asshole." I say.
"You're not though. You wanna say you're a cold bitch and you're selfish and you're not a good person, and yeah, sure, maybe I said those things to you before you left, but I'm sorry about that. I didn't get it at the time, what you were trying to do for us, who you had to be. You're not some kind of wicked witch like you think you are." Del says and I crack a smile, thinking of one of my very first missions with Organization XIII, and the witch in Oz that led to Axel and I getting injured.
"I know." I say.
"And the point I'm trying to get at is, Amaya and I aren't as innocent as we used to be. I'm not going to stomp my foot and throw a tantrum when I don't get my way, she's not going to cry. Whatever you're afraid we can't do, you'd be surprised. We might not live with one foot in the darkness, but we know what it's like to see a side of it and have to fight against it. We're not that immature anymore, Rueki." He insists, and it's funny, to me. So funny, I throw my head back laughing. Del blinks at me, taking a drag. "I was really trying to be serious." He confesses. I shake my head.
"I know, but how fucked up, since I left here, I have been the one throwing a tantrum when I don't get my way and crying, way more than I've ever wanted to. I am such an emotional train wreck." I inform him, still chuckling. "I've felt more in this past year than I ever have in my entire life."
"Maybe that was what you needed. Maybe you had to let your guard down. Maybe you were so tightly wound, trying to keep Amaya and I from messing everything up, that the second you got away from us, all of the emotional build up had to come out." He says, and it makes sense. I think of how I threw myself at Axel the first time I was alone with him, how I so easily fell into the Organization's plans because I needed something to fight for, and why not fight for my lover's heart. For how much hell I've given Del, both out loud and in my own mind about him being dumb, I'm discovering now that in his own way, he can be wise, in his own way, he has matured.
"Maybe." I shrug. "But nothing's changed, Del. It doesn't matter if you and Amaya are pissed at me. We'll be out of here before you wake up tomorrow and that'll be the last time you see me unless I can get these guys off of my back."
"What are you planning to do, Rueki? Kill them?" He scoffs, as though the very idea is so impossibly wrong, and that's when I realize the biggest thing he doesn't know is how truly heartless I am. He doesn't know all of the dark things I have done. I burst into tears and Del looks at me, a look of pure shock painted across his features. He ashes his cigarette and hugs me tight. "Fuck. Goddamn. I'm sorry, Rueki, I'm really sorry." He pats my back as I weep and when finally, I have composed myself, he makes me a promise. "I'll make sure she's asleep, you guys can get out of here without Amaya trying to stop you, I won't say a word to her." Because he gets it now, he gets how truly fucked up beyond all repair I am, and I was right, my oldest friends cannot handle the darkness. "Just as long as you and Axel promise to come back when you're both safe."
Or perhaps they finally can handle it.
It doesn't matter though, because Del holds true on his promise, he keeps Amaya up late with Axel and I and the four of us talk into the early hours of the morning. Amaya has endless questions about mine and Axel's relationship, which we heavily censor so that she doesn't have an inkling of an idea that he doesn't have a heart. Axel asks them about me as a child and laughs like a lunatic when Del tells the story of how I raided the pantry at the orphanage and snuck junk food into the other kids' pillows on Christmas Day. Del tells us about where he's at in his campaign and what he wants to do for Transmute City. We talk until Del literally has to carry Amaya to bed, and that is the only way I know that we will be safe. Amaya is a chronically early riser, but this early into the morning, she might actually sleep in. Axel and I might be able to skate out of here, without hassle.
"I like your friends." He tells me as we sit on the floor in the living room, looking into the fire. He's behind me, with his arms around my middle, his fingers dancing over the plethora of scars on my skin.
"They're different then when I lived with them. They both did a lot of growing up while I was gone, and I did a lot of softening." I confess.
"You, soft?" Axel scoffs.
"Compared to a year ago, I definitely am. Something about a guy fucking me senseless in a library has changed my entire life." I roll my eyes. Axel chuckles.
"Yeah, Amaya kinda said as much about you when you and Del went for a walk. That she had never seen you so at peace before in your life and I said, hell no, that's not because of me, I just make Rueki want to pull her own hair out." He replies.
"You're not wrong, but neither is she. We've been through a lot, but when we're like this, when it's just us and we don't need to fight against the world, I'm happier than I've ever been. It just feels so right like this, relaxing with you, laughing with you, falling asleep beside you." I say.
"Fucking me. Yep, I know." I swear, I can sense him grinning behind me. "Amaya asked me when the wedding was." My stomach does a summersault.
"And when did you tell her?" I ask.
"Ha, you think I'm going to just tell you all of my dark secrets?" He kisses my temple.
I want to tell him that I'd say yes if he asked me right now. Instead, I say "you're such a dick."
"But you love me anyway." His finger dance down my sides.
"I really do." That's all the time we get though, to savor the sweetness. A gut wrenching sensation shakes me to my core, yanking at my insides like a fish hook. I gasp, sucking in a breath as in my mind's eye, I see Sora, Donald and Goofy scared and unsure inside a portal to darkness, a portal to the World That Never Was. I grasp Axel's leg and jolt upright, eyes darting wildly around the room.
"Rueki, are you okay?" He asks, sitting up straight with me, his hands now on my shoulders. I shake my head.
"No. Sora's on his way to the World That Never was, he and Donald and Goofy are getting overwhelmed by Nobodies, Axel it's not good!" I insist, climbing up off of the ground. He frowns and stands up as well, his hand grasping mine.
"And here I was, thinking I'd actually get to enjoy some time with my girl." He opens up a portal and as I go to take a step forward, he yanks me back, by my hand, into his arms. His lips slam down onto mine, fiery, unrelenting, desperate. He tears the breath straight from my lungs and revives me all at once. The passion, the pain, the need, the love, they're almost too much for me to handle. And as quick as we burn together, it's over. He pulls away, eyes intense, and I swear, I can hear a heartbeat hammering from against him.
"Whatever happens, Rueki. I want you to remember, you're it for me. My everything, the love of my damn life, got it memorized?"
That is the last night we spend together.