OMFG! I'm sorry I took so long on this... I totally fell in a rut there, but don't worry. This won't die like my last epic did. I've gotten far too attached to this story. Anyway... there's some teasing done in this chapter. Sorry guys :P No action just yet.
Now for the shameless plugging. XD
You all need to seriously love my beta. Mousewolf pulled my out of my little rut and set me back on the big bad broad road to hell for this fic. So expect more soon, and give mighty props!
::: The Mirror Crack'd :::
There's relief.
Axel can see the slow rise and fall of that well muscled chest. It's a long way off, he can tell, because the scar on Demyx's stomach is nothing but a purple line, flat against his rippling toned stomach. He has no idea how the kid can be so ripped and so damn thin at the same time, hard and lean while if he gains any real muscle, it bulks in a way that really doesn't suit. They're complete opposites in that respect.
Demyx sleeps well, and at the same time, he's turning a lovely golden color. He's brilliantly beautiful.
Axel turns over. His belly is a painful shade of lobster-red. He really doesn't mind so much though, although it does amuse the part of him that was his past life. If he gets skin cancer, fine by him. Who cares about hastening the inevitable?
Demyx stirs.
"Ugh," he moans, "My scar is burning. Think we should call it a day, love?"
"One more swim," Axel insists, and they both take to their feet, plunging into the cold blue depths.
The world is quiet here.
"You can't live forever."
A deep voice, cold as the desert at night. Frightening in its confident bleakness.
"Wh… What? Who are you?"
Demyx is looking away into the distance. His eyes are dark, tear-stained.
For some reason he keeps apologizing.
"We were all doomed to return to the darkness from whence we were born. Don't forget that, Number Eight. Never forget that."
The blurry image of a tombstone.
"Time is fractured."
"Saïx? Saïx!"
There's no doubt of soft and smooth baritone, of its owner. Terribly emotionless and flat.
Demyx's hands hesitate, but his will is made. He firms his grip on the ugly Colt .45. He cocks it and holds it up, fascinated by the way the light seems to dance on each jagged corner. It's black and the flat sides absorb the light, swallow it and eject it only at the corners…
He wishes he hadn't been so bright… so blinding.
For the first time, there's real insanity in his blue-blue eyes, fragments of sapphire that cut and tear.
"He's right, Axel. Time is fractured beyond all reckoning. You have the power to rearrange it as you please. The future is your mirror."
It's that frightening voice again… rich basso, dark-bitter as expensive chocolate and so very full of malice.
"I don't understand!" Axel screams, "I don't fucking understand!"
The image twists, contorts painfully. The deep blue is back, and Axel is so confused. He's drowning in premonitions… and all of them seem strangely false.
He's standing in a snow-covered field and Demyx is laying there. He looks like he's sleeping, but it's the blue tinge on his lips, the grayness of his skin that tells the truth. He's frozen solid.
For some reason, the term "Meat Popsicle" surfaces in his mind.
He doesn't know what to think… what to say.
"Is this him, sir?"
"Time is fractured, Axel. Only you know where the tear is. Only you can put it back together again."
"Sir?"
"Saïx… Help, Saïx!" Axel cries, falling to his knees, clutching his head in agony.
"Sir… please just stay calm!"
"What the fuck is going on?" Axel breathes.
And it goes on and on, all night.
--- ---
Axel lurches from the bed in a blind panic and there's no where to run to, the dreams obscuring his vision and trapping the air from his throat. Leto follows, Zipporah trailing somewhat slowly behind. She's getting fat lately. Really fat… almost too fat to be possible.
Axel has been starting to wonder, but right now, he's too busy cowering in the corner of the shower, shaking against the cold tile. The feeling of it against his hot skin is almost soothing, in a way.
Saïx limps into the room, sees Axel in such a horrible state and ambles as best he can to the redhead's side. He seems pained, but he doesn't seem pained enough to keep him from kneeling and pulling the redhead to his chest to try and comfort him. He's hot like a furnace, his skin flushed, his heart is pounding so hard it's almost audible.
Saïx wastes no time. He calls Naminé because she'll know what to do.
She's there in under five minutes.
Another five pass and she's worried out of her mind.
Running a fever of 102ºF. His blood pressure is impossibly high. Heart rate is around 140 beats per minute. Understandably, Naminé is scared, but for some reason, Saïx corrals her, won't let her come near, won't let her touch the raving redhead.
She tries to break away from the blue-haired male, but he's so much stronger than her. He holds her back easily.
"Saïx! He'll die if you don't let me do something!"
"He'll die if you touch him!" Saïx barks, baring his teeth at her in an almost canine snarl.
Naminé is instantly submissive, a lesser pack-member that knows its place. She allows him to pull her hard up against him, hold her tight against his chest. She can tell he's scared too – scared, or maybe excited.
"He's seeing through…"
"What?"
"He's gone into a deep trance. One I can't pull him out of." The diviner's voice is flat, stating the facts as medical science can't. "I told him he shouldn't shatter time like that, but he never listened to me. Now he's gone and got himself into a real mess, the idiot."
Naminé shifts, looks up at his face. "You can change the past, can't you?"
"If I really wanted to…" He bites his lip, almost. "It's just something you really don't do. You have to resist the temptation."
"I remember," Naminé says softly. "I felt so bad with...with Sora."
"Saïx!" Axel cries, half-rising. His eyes are wide, bright and glazed as the glass beads of the bracelet Roxas gave her for her last birthday. He claws desperately at something or other in his dream world.
"That's my cue," the berserker says softly, limps painfully to the bedside, catches Axel's hands in his as he sinks down onto the mattress. There's a look of pain, then he's blank; lifeless, cold and gray like the moon's shining face, almost serene.
Then the peace snaps, vanishes as Saïx wrenches up Axel, who's panting and coughing, lying limply up against the other man, and they hold each other much like rescuer and victim do as soon as the latter is pulled from a river. For some strange reason, Axel seems a completely different person, green eyes sharper than she's ever seen them in this life.
"I…" he breathes, still trying to find a way to synch the rest of his body with his racing pulse, mouth open in a half-grin. "I found… a way."
And maybe… just maybe, we'll make it out of this alive…
--- ---
There's warm lips against his, warmer for the cold around them. He can feel the stale air forced into his lungs. Blue eyes in his vision. They're calm, collected, and cool but behind that thin layer is the stirrings of complete and utter panic, fear, confusion. Axel reaches up a hand, strokes the blond's cheek through the wire mesh before the blond surfaces for another breath.
It's only seconds before he's dived back down, and he's tearing at the wire net again. Axel feels his lungs burning painfully, his heart surging in his ears.
"Truth? Truth is in the eye of the beholder."
Axel can't hold it any more. His breath escapes in a flurry of tiny silver bubbles. Demyx reaches through the tears in the mesh, guides Axel forward, and presses his lips on Axel's again. He's losing his composure.
His breath is heavy with clove. His mouth tastes like gin.
"You'll be the death of me… it'll be in a year, but it will happen."
Demyx surfaces again, comes back down, and this time he grips the wire. He has his pocket knife in his hands, the nice one Axel gave him for their anniversary. How ironic.
He's tearing at the wire, one boot slipped into an existing tear, the pocket knife pulled up against the top of hole, but it's not doing much. He applies extra pressure to the back of the knife with his free hand. There's a small crack and there's blood in the water. Demyx kicks up to the surface again.
Axel loses his breath, looks up to Demyx desperately as he descends. The blond is quick, but Axel can feel his strength flagging quickly. This is torture. Demyx repeats his trip to the surface.
"I know how hard you tried. I'm sorry, Dem. I'm so sorry."
He pushes Demyx away this time. Smiles and lets his breath escape.
Demyx shakes his head, starts ripping at the net. His hands are shredded beyond recognition now. He can barely even get the stiff stuff to budge… and he gives up. Axel reaches through the netting and caresses his lover's cheek once before he nods, shoves the blond back in the direction of the surface.
He can't help but wonder if it will hurt.
"It's so quiet down here…"
A deep intake, sharp and resigned and deliberate. It's hard to tell the difference between the sound of his blood rushing in his ears and the sound of the ocean crashing far above him.
"So this is how it had to be?"
The world is quiet here.
--- ---
Axel sat up, truly calm and sane for the first time in many years.
"You should enjoy it," Saïx said softly. The redhead jumped. It was the first time he'd even noticed the Diviner was sitting next to him on the bed.
"Oh…" Axel replied, "Yeah. I'll definitely enjoy it."
"It's only a few months… maybe a year. Only two years at the most."
"I know." Axel heaved a melancholy sigh, and a wry smile twitched the corner of his mouth. "I think I'm fine with that. He's the one thing I'll ever want to protect in this life. It was meant to be."
"You're such a prick," Saïx hmphed his frustration.
"Always have been, always will." Axel laughed. "Will you do me a favor, Saïx?"
The blue haired male paused for a long moment, then finally spoke in a low voice. "What sort of favor?"
"Will you take care of him? You know… love him like I have?"
Axel knew he'd caused the older man a great deal of pain when a hand strayed up and he pressed his fist over his heart, looked away for a long time. It almost looked as though he wasn't going to speak again, but after the longest minute, he said in the formal tones of the Luna Diviner, "Of course, Axel. You have my word."
For the briefest of instants, the Flurry of the Dancing Flames laughed and spun in the back of his mind in response, then Axel smiled. Thanks for everything, Saïx. I owe you. Feel free to collect in the next life.