Once Upon a Midnight Dream

Chapter 4

I had finally given up on Lae showing up and sat down by my tree. I liked talking to Lae and was missing him greatly. The only time I usually ever talk is while I'm at school or at my aunt's house. Even though Lae is just a creation of mine, he felt real, and it was nice to talk to someone.

My eyes flashed open and my head twisted around at the sound of a twig breaking. A small black thing, for lack of a better word, with really long ears and two big yellow eyes was staring at me. It was kind of cute actually. However, I'd still take Lae over this companion any day.

Then out of nowhere a flash of red and black appeared and kicked the tiny black companion, sending it clear across the beach, "Stay away!" Lae shouted after it. He looked different today. He was still wearing his leather pants but he was also wearing heavy black boots, fingerless leather gloves, and a tight, sleeveless, long coat. It was held together by string in the front which showed off a good portion of his stomach and chest. Finally, the longer portions of his hare were tied back.

"That seemed unnecessary." I commented at his treatment of the tiny black thing.

"Listen, Roxy, its best if you stay away from anything with yellow eyes." Lae informed as he sat down next to me. "Normally they don't come when I'm around, but you can never be too careful."

"I didn't look that dangerous."

"Looks can be deceiving. So what have you been doing?"

"Oh, I invited Axel to my house. I'm a little nervous though. I don't want my mom to wake up while he's over. But at least I'll be able to talk to him."

"That's good. Why do you hope your moms sleeping while he's visiting?" Lae asked.

"It doesn't matter; I want to keep that part of my life out of my dreams."

"If that's what will make you happy." Lae said. I nodded in response. Off in the distance a rather dizzy black 'thing' was zigzagging away from us. I wonder why he wants me to stay away from those.

"Lae, if it's okay with you, I'd like to just lay on the beach today."

"I'm good with that." He smirked at me.

oOo

I woke up in my bed at Castle Oblivion. Roxas and I hadn't talked the rest of the dream. All we did was relax in the sand feeling the warmth of the sun, while I kept the damn heartless away from him. It was nice.

Zexion was the only person who ever liked me. It was nice to add a new person to my list of friends, even if it is against the rules. I've never been one for rules anyway. And everyone, meaning everyone in Oblivion, knows that about me. They all consider me the lowest form of filth. And they're right about that, I chose to save myself instead of protecting my last five charges. Now they're dead, and I have to keep Roxas alive or Xemnas will have his bitch, Saix, kill me. The truth of it is that I am very good at my job, I'm quite capable of keeping someone alive, I just don't like doing it.

"This wasn't my choice. My mom didn't like me so she gave me to Xemnas. Now I'm a rebellious dream guardian who has one friend with the ability to deal with my insanity and one new friend who knows nothing about me and could very well get me killed, and I think, for some scary reason, it might be worth it. And now I'm standing in front of his house.

I brought my gloved hand up to knock on the door three times and wait. He wanted his mom to stay asleep and I was going to try and make sure that happened. Roxas quickly opened the door with a large smile on his adorable face. "Hi La-Axel." I smiled at his fumble.

"La-Axel, huh." I teased.

"Sorry, I was thinking about someone else." Roxas apologized.

"You were thinking about someone, who isn't me!" I said with faux offense.

"I have other friends." Roxas responded jokingly.

"Sure, but I'm your favorite, so you should think about me ninety percent of your day."

"Well, that was the ten percent part of the day." Roxas said.

"Oh good, as long as it's not interrupting Axel time." Roxas laughed and moved so I could enter the house. The first thing I noticed was the overpowering smell of cigarette smoke. I then noticed that this was defiantly a house, not a home. There was 'coldness' to this house. Before I had thought it was because we were dreaming, but that isolated feeling was flooding in every corner of this house. There weren't even pictures.

"Come on, my room's upstairs." Roxas grabbed my hand and pulled me up the squeaky stairs. His room was much better than the rest of the house. He had many drawings tacked up on the wall. I saw one of me as Lae near his bed, and one of me as me, still in his sketchbook, on his desk next to his laptop.

"I like your room." I said, "And your drawings."

"Oh, uh yeah. I draw new people all the time."

"And put them on your wall, or am I special?"

"I…um, thought I did a good job on that one. So I put it on the wall." Roxas attempted. However I'm too cruel to let it slide.

"There's two pictures, Roxy. One's missing the tattoos and a shirt, but they both look like me."

Roxas began blushing madly. It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. "So let's um…we can sit on the floor to work on this. I don't have any books, but we can use my laptop. I'd like to get most of it done today so let's get to work." Roxas avoided the subject. I smiled, knowing the reason for his change of subject. It would probably be embarrassing for him to tell me he's dreaming about me. But I wouldn't really know, no emotions means no embarrassment. I'm good at faking emotion though I just can't feel them. That's why I can see my Roxy outside of dreams.

"If that's what will make you happy." I said and Roxas looked at me funny. Oh Fuck! That's what I told him last night. Shit. "Let's work." I quickly plopped myself on the ground and took a notebook out. Roxas grabbed his laptop and put it down in front of us.

I watched as he typed 'Dream Guardians' into the search engine. I was praying for him not to catch me during this. I'm defiantly dead if he finds out I'm a 300 year old dream guardian sent to protect him. That would be a disaster. "According to the myth," Roxas began and I started writing, "Dream guardians protect the innocent from inside a dream."

"Protect them from what?" I asked, feigning interest and already knowing the answer to a better extent then his website.

"Hmm." Roxas read further, "They protect humans from nightmares and the things that pray on the unconscious mind." He read directly from the computer, "It also says they have the power to force people into sleep, and to keep someone asleep. They can alter reality like they are in a dream and each one has some sort of ability."

"What kind of abilities?" I asked, not interested in the least.

"The example it gives are fire, wind and water." Roxas answered and, unlike me, he seemed very intrigued by the subject.

"Seems pretty cool." I continued my charade of interest.

"Yeah! Oh wait, there's a downside."

"What's that."

"They live forever and have no emotions." Roxas stated, "Can you imagine what it'd be like to not feel?"

"No, not at all, but I bet it'd suck." I muttered loud enough for him to hear. We continued studying dream guardians, writing our essays, and putting our poster together for a few more hours.

"You wanna take a food break?" Roxas asked suddenly.

"Sure." I stood up with him and followed him down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he began scrounging for nonexistent food. My mom may have hated me, but at least she had the decency to give me to Xemnas. Xemnas was no father but he kept me fed, warm and taken care of in between training.

"Um…we have water." Roxas said embarrassed.

"That's good for me." I replied, "I don't eat much anyway, look at me." I modeled my thin physique for him. He smiled at me before making us two glasses of water.

"I'm sorry about the food. Mom forgets to shop sometimes."

As if on cue, a ragged looking blond woman walked into the room. "What sorta things you tellin' your frien', Roxas." She slurred, coming forward. She grabbed Roxas' wrist harshly pulling him closer to her. I stood up just before she raised her hand. When I saw that wretched hand move towards my Roxy I leapt across the table, catching it just before it hit his trembling form. "Don't touch him!" I said sternly, Zexion would be proud.

"He's my son and I can do what I want to him." She tried to get her hand free from my grasp but I held tighter, making her crumble to the floor.

"And I'm telling you now, I'm not afraid to hit a woman." I released her arm and she struggled to her feet. Her eyes glared at Roxas, who was hiding behind me. "Why don't you scramble back to your hole and leave Roxas alone." I demanded. With one last glare she stumbled back to her room. I turned around to see Roxas looking rather ashamed.

I grabbed one of his arms and lifted the sleeve of his hoodie. He was covered in bruises shaped like his mother's hand. She's a truly horrid woman to do this to her own child. I put his sleeve down and dragged his unresponsive body into a chair. "You okay, Roxy?" No one told me he was abused when I was assigned to him.

"Roxas looked up at me and then looked down quickly, "'M fine." I think this may also be embarrassment he's feeling. I wish I could know for sure. Maybe if I tell him something about me he'll feel better. But what can I tell him, when I'm not even supposed to exist. I guess I'll lie as close to the truth as I can.

"When I was four years old, no longer a cute baby, but I child forming a somewhat insane personality, my mom decided she didn't like me anymore." That part's true so far, but now I have to lie "So she gave me to an orphanage." Yep, just pulling the lies out of my ass, "I was adopted by my father Xemnas. He's not really a good father but he takes care of me. And I have a wonderful brother named Zexion, at least he's wonderful when he's not slapping me. No I take that back, even if he's slapping me he's wonderful." Roxas was actually looking at me now. "The least he could do is give me the courtesy of a punch." I joked.

Roxas laughed, "Why does he slap you."

"Oh, he does it when I go off into my own little world and he needs to bring my attention back to him so he can yell at me about how stupid I'm being." I smiled, "He loves me, he just doesn't know it. He punched me yesterday. I was so proud."

"Why did he punch you?" Roxas laughed. Good I'm making progress. Laughing is progress right. It's an action generally associated with happiness.

"I woke him up." I answered, "Or maybe it's because I woke him up by slamming two pans together. I don't know. It's hard to tell sometimes. All I know is he's the only person who can put up with all the shit I do."

"Why would you wake him up with pans?"

"It was funny." I answered simply. Roxas shook his head as he continued to laugh.

"Let's get back to work, Axel." Roxas said and I could swear I heard him add, 'before my mom wakes up again', under his breath.

AN: Well this is the last chapter I have written so far. I'm in the middle of writing Chapter 5 but I had to fix "He Doesn't Look a Thing Like Jesus", so this story has been on hold.

But since I've actually gotten somewhere with "He Doesn't…" I'm going to update this and start writing it again.

As always I appreciate all reviews, favs, and alerts.