Two.

"Fuck…"

Roxas groaned tiredly and rolled over in bed, flinging his covers away from his sweat drenched skin. It was that damned, same dream again – the one where he was riding in a car with a wild looking redhead he'd never met, and they ended up getting cleaned up by a truck.

It never changed, and he'd been having it for a number of years now; always randomly, with no known pattern he could decipher. He'd had some pretty wild tasting chinese last night, so maybe that was the cause…

Sitting up slowly and running a hand across his clammy forehead, Roxas sighed wearily and began shuffling his way over to the side of the bed. His alarm clock glowed in the darkness, the numbers there informing him that it was just past six in the morning. He was awake an hour early for work again.

Getting to his feet, he made his way down the hall and into the bathroom. There was no point worrying himself over something he'd never understand. It wasn't the first time he'd dreamt about the mysterious man named Axel, and it definitely wouldn't be the last.

-0-

Now smartly dressed for work in his dress shirt and pants, his suit jacket hanging behind him in the backseat, Roxas drove twenty minutes across town to where he spent the majority of his day. Almost every day. He glanced down at the tachometer and frowned as he noticed that his fuel gauge was nearly on the deadline. Huh. He must have forgotten to fill up yesterday. He didn't have to be at work for another fifteen minutes so he decided he had time.

Indicating off the main road and into the nearest servo he came across, Roxas pulled up at the pump and turned the ignition off. He popped the fuel cap from the little lever down by his feet and climbed out of his car. Lifting the fuel nozzle from its receptacle, he placed it inside the fill pipe and squeezed the handle. Feeling the nozzle lightly vibrating in his hand as it began to dispense, Roxas leaned his free elbow up against the roof of his car; his thoughts already wandering back to his recurring dream. He didn't take any notice of a tall, lanky man entering the 7-11 in front of him.

Just because he didn't understand it, that didn't mean he didn't wonder. He'd initially thought that maybe he'd seen the guy in a movie, or maybe on the street, but no matter how many times he wracked his brain, he could never remember seeing 'Axel' anywhere. He'd once read in a magazine that your brain could never show you something that you hadn't already seen, so what the hell did it mean, then? He'd never gotten into all that wishy-washy past life crap, but maybe…there was some truth behind it, after all.

Maybe, he'd known Axel in a past life…

A loud string of shouting, and a sudden crash made him look up with a start, his eyes immediately pinpointing the drama that was unwittingly unfolding right in front of him. Through the large, plated glass windows of the 7-11 Roxas could see there was a tall man with a black hoodie pulled over his face inside the servo, and he was grappling over the service counter with the attendant.

Roxas's fingers leapt off the handle, halting the flow of fuel instantly.

"What the…" he murmured, his eyes locked on the tall man inside, who lunged wildly and smashed something small and greyish in colour across the attendant's face.

Holy shit, the place was getting robbed!

Having no idea what to do, his body frozen in place, Roxas could only keep watching in shock as the man turned from the counter and came barrelling out of the front doors. One of his gloved hands had a fistful of cash. The man was running now, and Roxas just kept standing there, but for a brief, mind-blowing second his eyes met with the intense, emerald green of the man's own, hiding just underneath his hood.

It couldn't be…

Roxas choked, his lungs locking up the breath in his chest. He reached out a hand.

"Ax…Axel?"

There was a loud burst of sound off to his right that oddly reminded him of someone sharply smacking a piece of corrugated iron with a lump of wood, and the next thing he knew, the man who was running with his fists full of cash was going down, down, down – pitching forward violently, his face slamming into the concrete ground.

The blood was rushing in Roxas' ears and that's all he could hear as he turned his head minutely to the side. The 7-11 attendant was standing there, shaking like a leaf with a glock held in between his trembling hands. He was only a kid, maybe still in school…he'd given chase with the thief's handgun, and he hadn't even thought to pause – to fully take in what he was about to do…

Roxas was moving before he was even aware of it, his feet stumbling out from underneath him, everything else forgotten. He reached the stranger that was now lying motionless on the ground in front of him, and pressed a shaking hand to the back of the man's head. There was blood everywhere.

"Fuck…fuck!" Roxas screamed out, the blood seeping through his fingers. Gently he rolled the man over to face him, and it felt like a knife was just thrust into his chest.

It was him. The man from his dreams.

Beautiful, emerald green eyes starred up at him, long, vibrantly red hair framing a pale, painfully familiar face. Axel's two dash tattoos on each of his cheeks stood out vividly against his deathly, white skin.

He was still alive, but just barely, a death rattle crawling up his throat. Axel stared up at him, his eyebrows furrowed in what Roxas could only take as confusion.

"…" Axel tried to speak.

"You…You fucking idiot!" Roxas grated out, his tears falling on Axel's face, his hand still uselessly trying to stem the man's blood.

"Ro..xas…?"

Roxas' eyes widened in disbelief. This whole situation was completely insane, but Axel knew him, just like he knew Axel! It slowly dawned on him, that maybe he'd been right all along. He never had met Axel before, but his brain had been trying to tell him something…

He was supposed to have found him again…before it was too late.

And now…now…!

Roxas sobbed brokenly, as he cradled Axel's head against his chest; the first siren's shattering the calm, quiet of the morning.