CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
If Roxas had had more strength, energy, or even any clue where he was, he'd have probably tried to run for it.
Axel preceded him out the door into the breeze-blown night, white shirt lifting at the hem as he stepped onto the long cement patio stretching along the front of the motel sprawl and turned to usher the blond after him. Shifting into darkness, momentarily blind, with the red-haired man's smoky scent filling his senses, Roxas felt like he was baring his neck for the downward swing; every nerve was on a knife's edge, screaming at him to get the hell away. But then Axel's hand clamped on his elbow, and Roxas had nowhere to go.
His teeth came together, fear and revulsion making him jerk back on the man's grip, but Axel wasn't letting him go that easy – not out here. Rather, he took the boy's elbow with his other hand, and slid an arm around his shoulders, like a prison of limbs. Roxas, malnourished, dehydrated, exhausted, nauseous and light-headed, furious and terrified, could only allow himself to be steered along the dark lane, Axel's fingers like iron around him. Inside of him, a seed of outrage demanded why he was doing this, putting up with it, all reasons and excuses aside. It wanted action, wanted him to prove himself as something more than a pushover… but Axel was so grimly forceful. He never wavered in his step, not once, and at no point did his hold weaken or shift; there was no crack in his demeanour for Roxas to exploit, and this confidence of his was as much the blond's defeat as anything else. Axel expected him to try something, and was acting accordingly, eliminating the resistance before it even occurred, and Roxas was just… a guy. A kid. He didn't know what... to do.
As if alerted by their presence on the walkway, the motel's outdoor lights came flickering on when they were halfway along, bursts of amber glowing through the deepening night, the sun's burn a mere streak across the very base of the black horizon. Even then, Axel didn't falter. Roxas hesitated, head rising, eyes darting to the new illumination, but it was like the redhead was immune, instantly adaptable. He continued on as if his eyes could snap into instant focus from darkness to light, as if there hadn't been a single change in their environment, and swept the boy along with him mercilessly. If Roxas stumbled, the hands around him tightened, and he could imagine the man dragging him if need be. He wondered what really would happen if he opened his mouth and simply let out a scream for help; what Axel's reaction would be, and if he had been anywhere close to serious about the stuff he supposedly had to gain public support if Roxas did try to cry for assistance. Whatever it was, it had to be fake, completely falsified yet genuine-seeming enough to fool the casual inspection… which just held an even deeper level of ominousness than he'd initially suspected, he slowly realised.
If Axel had got these things prepared, procured them from… God only knew where… then that meant that the thought that had gone into all of this had been detailed. Not simply a case of come, see, conquer, but a focused goal to apprehend Roxas, Roxas in particular. And now that he thought about it… Axel had come to Aerith's store looking for him when he'd taken the day off. They'd never met in a face-to-face situation, but the man had named him to Hayner, asked after him, and that meant that – Axel had made his decision already, by that point…?
How… How did this all fit together? Where did it begin?
At this point in the blond's train of thought, Axel navigated him around the corner of the long, flat building that made up the motel's many rooms, the pair of them emerging from the cramped parking lot that formed a square in the centre of the establishment, and Roxas abruptly felt his churning deliberations sputter away. A gust of dry, dust-scented air brushed his hair, filled his lungs, brought dread on tiny, fluttering wings.
"Where am I?" he whispered, the words tumbling from his lips before he was even aware they'd entered his mind. He wanted to slow down, wanted to stop and really… take the situation in, but Axel wouldn't let him, tugged him along even as he dug his heels in, bare feet tripping over the hard, warm bitumen. The man had yet to utter a word since they'd exited the motel's bathroom. Roxas didn't know when he next planned on making conversation, but God fucking damn it, he needed it to be now. "Where am I?" he repeated, louder this time, starting to lift his legs, creating some weight for the redhead to deal with, blue eyes taking in the broad, rocky vista of what looked like a desert spreading out beyond them.
The motel was right on the edge of town, the diner Axel had in mind across the road, its sign garishly neon, an eyesore in the night. To the left of it began a bank of stores jammed wall to wall, some of them illuminated, others dark, but to the right stretched a plain, pale under the rising moon. It was different from the flatlands along the highway between Twilight Town and Traverse, there was more of a permanence about it, not so much like it was empty space between point A and point B but that it was the main event and the town was the interloper, the town was the place between points A and B, with the desert itself as the permanent attraction.
He started to struggle, high fear lending him strength, but before he could get anywhere, Axel sucked in through his nose, swung the boy around, planting him squarely on his feet in front of him, and said sternly, cigarette bobbing between his lips, "Stop. If you start drawing attention to us already, we'll have to turn back, Roxas, and I told you how hungry I am, right?"
"I don't care!" the boy bawled angrily into his tattooed face, yanking back with his elbows, a foot coming up and shoving against his knee. "I want to know where the fuck I am!"
Abruptly, the grips on his arms changed to become painful, aggressive, the redhead bending down to Roxas' height and murmuring, "If I have to take you back to that room and lock you back onto that bed without a goddamn meal in me, Roxas, you are going to be incredibly fucking sorry. Okay?" His hands were vices, squeezing harder all the time, patience thinner than brittle ice. "I won't eat, you won't eat, and you sure as hell won't find out where you are. You let me get something in my stomach, and who knows what I might let slip? It's in your best interests to keep me happy, kid."
Breathing hard, Roxas ground his heel into the man's thigh, hissed up at him, "It's in my best interests to get away from you!"
Axel's expression in the gloom was mockingly hard, eyes glittering. "Well, we know how likely that is right now, don't we?" His grip pulsed once more around Roxas' upper arms, crushing until the boy's foot slipped back down, a gasp slipping out at the pressure. Gradually, Axel's strength returned to its original intensity. He straightened slowly, keeping his gaze on the blond, watchful for any further rebelliousness. Roxas closed his eyes, face twisting to the side, jaw aching with how tightly his teeth were clamped together, and after a pause the prison reformed around him, a shade more determined than it had been.
Calmly, Axel suggested, "Let's continue, shall we?" He resumed their walk. Stumbling along with him, the blond's eyes flashed back open, surveying the scenery again, so alien compared to that of Twilight Town. Hopelessness swelled. More than ever, more than anything, he so badly wanted to be home in his apartment. He wanted to go home. But try as he might, as they crossed the brightly-lit road, a toe stubbing against the bitumen, Roxas couldn't recognise his surroundings. He swivelled his gaze to the extremities of his eye sockets, trying not to alert the redhead to the fact that he was frantically trying to memorise the lay of the land and find some faint familiarity in it all. But even if Axel had let him set off to explore the street unattended, the blond got the sinking feeling that he'd be no more the wiser for it. If he could just know where this place was in relation to Twilight Town, that would be – it would be good. Having no clue like this was like having a bag over his head, the helplessness it inspired in him was smothering.
Axel, content enough to keep it like this, allowed him no leeway, tugging the blond up onto the opposite sidewalk, spitting his cigarette butt onto the pavement and stepping on it as he passed. As they approached the bright door to the diner, his grasp around Roxas' shoulders gave a warning squeeze, a tight smile flashing briefly down at him with narrowed eyes before they pushed their way through into the subtly air-conditioned environment.
Country-fucking-western music was playing. It seemed to be the theme of the place, along with a lot of fake pot-plants, as if at any moment a herd of bison were going to go thundering down along the main street of this one-horse backwater burg. "Now, Roxas," Axel said quietly, between the teeth of his smile, "be nice."
The boy shot him a glare as a waitress approached them, the redhead accepting her greeting cordially. Shoulders hunching as they were guided to an empty table, Roxas' gaze darted around the broad layout of the almost-restaurant, taking instant note of all the doors: bathrooms, kitchen, employees-only, side-exit into the trucker's parking lot…
It looked like it was a regular stopover for the truckers, several of them gathered along the bar, others seated and either partway through meals or inspecting the menu, the evening having only just begun. There was a lull to the place that suggested business was still grinding into gear. Roxas did a swift head-count. Nine; there were nine men ranging between fat and thin, some of them conversing, others keeping to themselves. Perhaps four of them took notice of the entry of the young, attractive male couple – three of them staring at the possessive way the redhead hung onto the blond, and one's eyes flicking down to Roxas' grazed knees and bare feet – but other than that perfunctory glance, the two newcomers were largely ignored.
Axel and Roxas were seated, at the redhead's request, towards the back of the room – out of view of the windows and bulk of the diner, near a fire exit. Back here, there was no one with whom Roxas could make meaningful eye contact or other nonverbal communication, and no one to overhear them. The waitress passed them each a menu, Roxas staring at her hard, then disappeared with a smile, leaving Axel to study the blond with a faint upturning of lips. "I saw what you did there, you know. She's just going to think you're hitting on her."
"Do I give a shit?" Roxas muttered angrily, eyes flicking about, all the while thinking, I can't do this, I can not sit here within reach of help and say nothing.
With an uncanny understanding of his mind, or maybe just reading the signals as they radiated indiscriminately from the blond's body language, Axel laid his menu out flat, propped an elbow on the table, held up his head on a thumb and forefinger, and wearily smirked. "Roxas. Roxas, look at me, come on." The boy refused, a slight stretch of time enveloping them, and in the next second, Axel's other hand was a claw under the table, grabbing hold of Roxas' exposed knee and squeezing. A startled noise escaped his throat before he choked it down, blue eyes wide as they shot over to meet intent green. In a savage, half-demented whisper, Axel repeated, "I said, look at me." After a moment, he suddenly cooled back down, glancing around swiftly as he remembered where they were, then relaxed, fingers loosening but remaining in place. Roxas continued to stare, heart in his throat and thundering. This man had the shortest fuse he'd ever come across – and that counted Hayner in one of his moods.
Slowly, Axel began to apologetically stroke his knee. "Look, forget it. What I'm trying to say is, there's no point, okay? You're not getting away from me."
Roxas' muscles grew tenser and tenser the longer that the man touched him, jaw virtually wired shut, so that he had to forcibly creak it open, gather his thoughts and breath to say, "You think you've got the upper hand here, but there's a whole heap of truckers just around the corner who'd be more than happy to get me out of here, before you can spread your lies about me. You think… that you're tough, don't you? But…" He lifted blazing eyes, piercing the redhead, making the feather touch of fingertips pause. "The guys at that bar could cream you, Axel, long before you could set fire to the place or find a metal rod to attack them with." Was it the first time he'd used the man's name to his face in a civilised setting? The stillness of his expression suggested it was either that, or shock at the impulsive display of defiance. Roxas waited, feeling fiercely triumphant, for his response to this challenge.
What he got, however, was… not what he'd expected.
Rather than fire up, tempting the blond into doing precisely what he'd threatened, rather even than returning the cruel grip to Roxas' knee as intimidation, instead Axel went – dull. His eyes seemed flatter all of a sudden, the colour dimmer than it had been a second ago. His face lost its animation, a coolness sweeping across his features. When the man spoke, his voice was quiet, expressionless: "…You think that's the worst I'd do to keep you?"
Roxas felt a chill. All heat had left the redhead in an instant, like a bucket of snow had been tossed over every one of his assertions and smirks and cockiness. His hand left Roxas' knee with an unintended ticklish brush, causing the boy to shiver. Apprehensively, Roxas drew back a little, viewing the redhead dubiously. "…What's that supposed to mean?"
The waitress chose that moment to return, notepad flipped open and pencil out, ready to take their orders. Subdued, Axel ordered steak for himself and chicken for Roxas, without consulting the blond, saying only once she'd gone again, taking the menus and her brightness with her, "I know the foods you like."
Roxas lowered his face, staring at the tabletop, one hand up on its surface. His gaze slowly shifted focus, until he found himself noticing the raw, shallow cuts around the wrist, caused by how much he'd tugged at the handcuffs. That was what he had facing him when he left this diner: imprisonment, incarceration, yet more fear. He started to shake.
"What you need to ask yourself, in this new incarnation of life you appear to have chosen," Axel struck up softly, before the boy could reach any concrete decisions, "is how much you value the lives of others." His eyes drilled into the blond, still with that unsettlingly flat quality, as if no humour existed within him, no light whatsoever. "Because I would kill them all to get to you." As Roxas felt his world turn to ice, the man went on, "I would, and I could." His hands coming up to rest on the table, fingers lacing together loosely, he met the blond's gaze squarely. "And I would be above the law."
Roxas could hardly breathe. He couldn't meet the man's eyes any longer than a few seconds at a time; somehow, that empty quality was even more frightening than the soul-deep burn they were capable of. How could so many personalities exist within one person like that? How could anyone be this – unpredictable, and still be sane?
Well. The answer to that was clear enough, in Roxas' mind and experience.
He was too intimidated to say anything further on the subject. It sickened him, made the hang-over seem so much worse, because now it wasn't just a queasiness born of poisoning but of venomous regret and some brief, self-directed loathing. It felt so much like cowardice, but that didn't change the fact that he simply couldn't look over to the other end of the small table anymore. He kept his eyes down, fixed over on the gleaming surface of the napkin dispenser against the wall. It took all of his willpower not to tremble. That, and the fact that his hands were clamped together too tightly to allow them to.
Silence closed the air between them until the food came. Roxas looked down at the greasy fare with nausea, but not knowing when his next meal was coming, or from where, was enough motivation to get him picking at it. Across from him, Axel wordlessly consumed his own meal. Cutlery clanked, but no other sounds existed except for those produced by the other patrons, the cheery waitresses, the occasional distant hiss from the direction of the kitchen, and the background music. Roxas was beginning to wish for somewhere where music and other such sounds simply didn't exist; it seemed like since the moment he'd regained consciousness, there'd been nothing but noise, even when there had been silence. Nothing ever just – stopped. It was all going, all the time, and he was the only stationery one in amongst it, powerlessly drawn along. He needed – a pocket of existence in which to hide.
Eventually, after what felt like an interminable period, Axel called for the bill. As they stood, his arm reached automatically around Roxas, the blond stiff within his grasp. Anxious blue eyes scanned the room for anyone noticing that something just wasn't right between them, but it was too much to hope for; not even the waitress who'd overseen their entire visit recognised the desperation in the boy. She merely – wished them a happy evening, and showed them to the door. Before he knew it – as if the time had passed in the blink of an eye now that it was all left to hindsight, as if not a single second of it had dragged – Roxas was back out on the pavement, and nobody knew that he needed rescuing. There hadn't been a soul in that place that he'd ended up alerting; what was worse was that he hadn't even tried.
It was a bitter blow. He honestly could have wept, if pride hadn't been so fiercely in the way, hissing that there was no way in a thousand years he would ever break down in front of that man. Hate, he told himself frantically, trying to drown out the despair. Hate him!
Axel wrapped his free hand around Roxas' upper arm, and guided the boy firmly back over to the other side of the road, back towards captivity. By the time they reached their room, Roxas was breathing shallowly, dismay filling him to choking point, steps faltering now that they were on the doorstep. Axel unlocked the room, thrust him through without gentleness, a moodiness about him now. The lights flashed on, Roxas turning quickly to face him, wondering if now was when he should try a bid for freedom, spurred on by the recognition that if he didn't,he would be spending the entire night with this maniac, handcuffed to his bed, when he obviously harboured a lot more than simple, friendly urges towards the blond.
Once again, though, Axel knew him from the inside out. Before he could do anything, the redhead had slammed the door shut with his heel, grabbed Roxas by the throat, and shoved him clear across the room with the sort of effort normal people used to toss away garbage. His legs hit the bed, a grunt bursting out as he slammed onto the mattress, and with the swift sound of small wheels rolling, Axel yanked open the nightstand drawer, whipped out a pair of the handcuffs, and locked him to the frame at the bed's foot. Blinking at the brightly-lit ceiling, Roxas was left to gasp and flounder, wondering what the hell had just happened. His mind was still back at the door, finding a second's worth of courage with which to fight. Clawing his way up to sitting, he uselessly rattled and yanked at the cuffs, listening to the clang against the cheap metal frame with anguish.
Face whipping around, blue eyes wide, he demanded through his teeth, voice choked, "Let me go!"
"Stop that," Axel replied, referring to the way he continued to pull and wrench against the bed, glancing over only briefly before going into the bathroom, the fluorescent light flickering on. Roxas drew a chest-deep breath, and began to bellow at the top of his lungs, an act which brought the redhead streaking back out and planting an open-hand smack across his face for his efforts. Head ringing, the room suddenly dancing, Roxas fell back without another sound. He couldn't feel the left side of his face; it was gone, didn't exist.
His voice had lasted only for a moment, but it was enough to send Axel stalking over towards the door, swiftly turning off all the lights along the way. In the new darkness, he stood still and ready by the door, prepared for if anyone came investigating. He held no weapon, but the way he held himself seemed dangerous enough; and as Roxas had now personally encountered, the man had a lot of strength in his limbs alone. Some silent minutes passed, every tick of the mental clock deafening in their heads. Axel warily released his tension, turned slowly to the blond and growled, "Try it again, see where it gets you." Then, moving over to the bed, he gripped handfuls of blond close to the scalp, jerked his dazed victim up from the comforter, and kissed him. Where his hold was hard, his mouth was gentle, and for a long moment Roxas simply struggled to adjust to the sudden contrast. A moment later, he was back down on the bed and Axel was gone.
The bathroom light came back on, clattering sounds coming from within, while Roxas lay on the comforter with round eyes, not knowing whether to pant for air or stop breathing altogether. It took about a minute for the man to return to the main room, carrying with him a small toiletries case which he deposited onto the bed up near the pillows before turning the lights on again, turning and crouching and opening the nightstand drawers one by one. Roxas stared at the case, then at his back, the quiet industry with which he operated, emptying the drawers of their meagre contents, one item being the still mostly-full bottle of bourbon. From under the bed he dragged the black bag Roxas' mind somehow recalled seeing the first time he'd come across Axel in Twilight Town, when its contents had been spread across the bed and made him feel so awkward. Seeing it brought a shudder to his frame, feet drawing up off the ground and tucking close to his body; too many what-if's were attached to the sight of that bag.
Axel unzipped it, spread it open and began stuffing the belongings in, what few things there were, along with the toiletries case, shoulders bobbing as he worked. Roxas watched his own wallet join it all. It was like seeing a part of himself be swallowed whole.
Steeling himself with a breath, face fully throbbing now, along with a slight ache across his scalp from having his hair pulled, Roxas asked, in a low, shaky voice, "What are you doing?"
Without looking up, Axel said shortly, "We're leaving."
The blond blinked, glanced around the room, over at his handcuffed wrist. "…What?"
"We don't need to stay any longer," the man explained flatly, the mattress bouncing slightly as he shoved everything to make it fit before zipping the bag back up. "Now that you're conscious and fed, we can go. It's safer to travel at night, to keep moving." When no response was forthcoming to this statement, Axel finally darted him a look, adding, "This is how it's going to be for a while from now on."
Roxas could barely remain sitting for the wave of overwhelming relief that came crashing over him. They wouldn't be spending the night together; they wouldn't be sharing a bed. Axel noticed it, and his expression grew a little blacker, but he spoke nothing further, instead standing and taking the bag over to the door. He opened it, leaned out into the night with one hand clutching the frame, and looked up and down the long patio before returning inside and shutting it again. "Basically clear," he reported tiredly, slinging the bag up over one shoulder. Then, approaching Roxas on the bed, he took out a small set of keys from one pocket, their sound high as they clinked together. The boy tensed, Axel bending over him, his shirt touching the end of Roxas' nose as he fiddled briefly with the shackle that connected him to the frame. There was a brief moment of freedom, his wrist moving away from the bed – but then, with a clear click, Roxas realised that the man's aim was not, in fact, to release him from the metal bracelet just yet.
Axel had cuffed them together – his wrist to Roxas'.
When the blond looked up in amazed, crestfallen bewilderment, Axel curled their fingers together, and returned his gaze seriously. Roxas tried to wriggle his hand away, but the man's grip tightened, immobilising it. Tone soft, Axel said, "So. This is how it's going to work: nice, calm, and happy, we're going to pretend we're a cute couple and walk to my rental. If we see anyone, we ignore them, not even –" his grip tightened in warning "– a glance in their direction." His other hand came up, began smoothing through the boy's slightly greasy hair, Roxas wincing at the intimacy of the contact. Sliding the hand under his chin, Axel angled his face up towards him, locking their eyes together. His thumb brushed gently against the red mark swelling along the blond's cheek. "I've seen those kicked-dog expressions you've been shooting all over the place. The fact of the matter is, though," he went so quiet that Roxas had to strain to hear him, "that I'm not going to let you leave me again. Not again, Roxas." He bent lower, pressing his nose against the boy's hair, eyes shutting for a long moment. Letting out a gradual sigh, Axel murmured, "It was bad enough the first time."
Roxas was trembling, the nails of his free hand biting into the flesh of his thigh. He stared sightlessly into the folds of the redhead's white shirt, once again inhaling his inescapable scent. In the back of his mind, he wondered dully how much more of this he could handle before he snapped. How long, the thought continued, until Axel snapped? How long before the touches and glances and obvious longing became something uncontainable, violent?
He felt like he was counting down the days, if not hours, until that crisis point arrived.
At last, Axel released him, but it was a slow, reluctant action, a disengaging of bodies that the man would have preferred to procrastinate. Roxas lowered his face, incapable of looking at him for fear of what it might invite, and after a moment, Axel tugged at their chained-together wrists. "Come on," he said huskily. "Time to go."
Roxas was pulled to his feet, Axel tucking their bonded hands between their bodies, keeping the boy close as he gave the room its final sweeping glance before switching off the lights once more. Hitching the bag more securely over his shoulder, the slight slosh of liquid from within reminding Roxas of the building headache inside his temples, they exited the room, having barely been back from the diner for more than ten or fifteen minutes.
The gusting breath of the desert-like wind touched against the soreness of his face, making it seem all the more tender. Axel's pace was swift, steady, just like it had been before. Out here in the public eye, he allowed no room for hesitation, no chance for Roxas to do anything but manage to keep up, squeezing his fingers all the while. His steps crunched across the loose rocks littering the asphalt, Roxas' whispering in comparison, occasional flinches twitching the blond whenever he trod on something sharp. Axel's four-door rental was parked at the far end of the lot, away from the administrations office, no doubt where catching glimpses of him entering and exiting the car, complete with apprehended blond, would be less memorable. Roxas felt a stabbing pang of frustration, wondering when exactly the man was going to slip up – so far, his cautiousness was well thought out, obviously not a person for leaving things to chance, despite his series of rash actions back in Twilight Town.
"Okay, welcome to the rental-mobile." Axel unlocked it, scanning the parking lot casually, and, finding nothing to be alarmed about, opened the back door, stuffing the duffel bag down onto the floor. Next was Roxas' door, the man opening it and steering the boy down into the seat. Numbly, Roxas complied, watching as Axel brought out the keys again, unlocked himself from the handcuffs, and swiftly transferred the empty bracelet to the grip at the end of the armrest along the door. To get away now, Roxas would need to bring the entire fucking door along for the ride. Things just went from bad to worse.
"Watch your feet." The redhead shut the door tightly, jogged around to the other side of the car and climbed in, starting the rental up. The air-con came on with the engine, blowing cold air straight into Roxas' eyes, dark eyelashes fluttering as he averted his face, before noticing that Axel was watching with a half-smile on his face. They both glanced away, Axel's demeanour becoming more focused as he checked his mirrors one last time for anyone paying undue attention to them, then shut the cool air off and reversed out of their space. Deftly changing gears, he swung the car around, nosed out of the lot, and turned left onto the main strip road.
The way that they were headed was through the town, lights and passersby making Roxas gaze longingly out like a fish inside an aquarium, shut away behind layers of glass and silence. Evidently, the redhead had stopped at the very first motel he'd come across, literally, no doubt placed there to catch incoming travellers just as the gas station down the other end of town was there to grab them as they left and extort the pants off them with its overpriced fuel. Axel, however, didn't pause, the fuel gauge needle pushing against Full, suggesting he'd already been down this way before Roxas had woken up earlier in the day. They blew past it, the rental sedan picking up speed as the twinkling streetlights petered out, the main road widening, solidifying into a highway affair, double yellow lines leading the way down the dead centre of the tarmac. Into the broad, dark plains they ventured, the moonlight showing up every crag and spindly bit of vegetation for miles around. It wasn't, the blond began noticing, exactly a desert; it didn't have the right sort of feel. But still, he couldn't figure out by their surroundings alone where they'd come to – or where in God's name they'd be headed for next.
He closed his eyes, sinking down into the seat, his free hand coming up to lightly touch the stinging side of his face, feeling coming in more and more to the stunned flesh. Axel caught sight of the motion, glanced sideways at him, compassion on his features. The minutes stretched by, the town vanishing behind them, before he said in a low voice, "I didn't want to hurt you."
"I've heard it before," Roxas muttered back harshly. "'Want' doesn't come into it, though, does it?"
Axel gazed through the windscreen at the road, expression unreadable. Eventually, he replied, "No, it doesn't tend to with me."
Silence fell inside the car, each man tired out in his own individual way, although Axel, for all his exhaustion, had to remain awake and alert for the drive. Roxas yawned over in the other seat, prompting the redhead to sigh, throwing a look sideways. "You should try and sleep." When Roxas said nothing, glaring out the windscreen as if he hadn't spoken, he added tightly, "I won't do anything to you. I know that's what you're worried about."
"…Yeah," the blond responded, soft with a caustic edge. "You always know everything about me, don't you? Always think you do."
"That's because I do," came the sharp reply. Axel shot him a scowl, hands shifting down the steering wheel. "I know everything there is to know about you; more than you know about yourself, that's for sure," he mumbled bitterly. Then, wiping his face roughly with his right hand, pushing it through his hair, Axel advised, "Just go to sleep, Roxas. For both our sakes."
Roxas had no plans to sleep, especially not for the sake of his kidnapper; little had changed in that regard. And yet, it turned out he had no choice in the matter – his body had been pushed too hard in the last week, the last twenty-four hours especially, and no amount of determination could keep him from dropping first into a fitful doze, then falling into deeper slumber. The vibrations of the car soothed his tension, remnant alcohol dragging at his consciousness, and with all his resolve long spent on resisting Axel, he was asleep within the half-hour.
About ninety minutes passed, from that point, before Sora opened his eyes.
Night and the moon had swathed the world in shades of black and silver; as he turned his head, he saw the bleached expanse of dry earth out the window, and thought, Midgar wastelands. The landscape's appearance was unmistakeable, along with its endless, rolling length. He was inside a car, the headlights creating a joint spear of illumination reaching out from the hood and dying some feet ahead, turning the wooden posts methodically studding the road's edge, complete with their reflective discs, into a flickering neon corral. Turning his head to the side, he saw in the lights' backwash the figure of Axel, the man's eyes glassily focused forward, a heavy, weary look about him, mouth turned down at the corners in a permanent grimace.
For some long moments, Sora studied him closely, before shifting his hands in his lap and noticing that he'd been handcuffed to the door. He let out a disappointed breath. This nicely prevented any type of escape or attempt at a fight – certainly he wouldn't be performing any heroic stunts any time soon, unless he planned to go down with the ship in a flaming wreck of metal and righteousness. Alerted by the slight clink of metal, Axel glanced over, noticed the gleam of blue eyes and said, "I wasn't expecting you back before morning."
Sora pressed his lips together, frowning a little. "Axel." The man looked at him more closely, an element of cautious surprise in his features, along with some curiosity. "Why are you doing this?" He turned his face back to the windscreen, the frown remaining in place, a crease between his brows. "How long do you expect it all to last, before it collapses?"
The man blinked rapidly, looking briefly stung, and suddenly more drained than ever. Was it Sora's imagination, or did the dark circles under his eyes blacken just a little bit further? The strained expression on his face had definitely increased, the words obviously bouncing back and forth inside his skull, meeting with intelligence and beginning to combat. The breath he exhaled was short, frustrated. "You don't need to worry about that," he said, a bleak note to his voice. "I'm in control here; I'm taking care of it all."
"By driving? Driving to where? Where can you take me –" he hesitated, had almost said 'us' – "that will be safe enough?"
"I told you already," Axel barked, patience wearing thin at the probing into unsteady plans, "the police are going to forget about you, Roxas. The Organisation have made greater things happen in less time. So I won't have to worry about safety once that happens; they'll cover our tracks for us."
"And who will cover our tracks from them?" the boy returned simply, making Axel take a short, hitching breath, straightening from over the wheel, staring across at him.
"What…? Do you –"
Sora tried to cross his arms tightly, found himself abruptly stopped by the handcuffs, and so instead lowered his chin for a moment, thinking quickly but intensely. In the wing mirror outside his window, he caught a flash of blond hair, ticked his gaze over to look at his reflection, the first time he'd done so in a very, very long time. Previously, mirrors had been the enemy, holding the key, as it were, between delusion and truth. Before, as things had been, Sora had been happy, and Roxas had been happy. Neither had needed to know of the other's existence. But now, Sora could not afford to remain ignorant, and expose himself to the red-haired man, for the consequences of such a revealing would no doubt be dire.
…He would have to speak in keeping with this. "You seem stressed enough," Sora delicately explained, "to be expecting enemies from all sides." When Axel had nothing to say to this, instead going a shade paler and gazing out emptily onto the road ahead, the boy reiterated, "I want to know why you'd do this to yourself."
Axel closed his eyes for a moment, crushed them shut, his entire forehead crinkling with the force of it as he drew a deep, steadying breath. Sora glanced out in front, making sure they wouldn't go swerving off the road, but the man had a firm grip on the wheel, an understanding of the road. They barely shifted between the lines before his eyes snapped back open, pained tenacity in place. Voice tight, choked, he said, shaking slightly, "I know that you don't get it right now, Rox. I don't know, at the moment, if you ever will, all I can do is hope. But the reason I'm 'doing this to myself', as you put it, is because I care about what happens to you. The enemies aren't mine, they're yours; if they found you in this state…"
"The… Organisation?" Sora prompted, seizing on the mentioned word. Axel bit the inside of his lip for a moment, brows coming low, then nodded.
"Yeah. Them. You don't know what you've come out of, Roxas, or what you'd be going back into, but the one thing I know for sure is that if anyone from there thinks that you've flipped and lost your memories like this, due to whatever reason, there's a damn fine chance that – well…" Uneasily, he glanced across, before side-stepping and continuing stiffly, "Whatever. It doesn't matter, because I'm going to make sure nothing can happen to you."
Sora watched him from under half-closed lids, turning his explanation musingly in his mind. "…Why couldn't you have just left me in Twilight Town? I was happy, you know."
"And leave one of them to find you first?" The redhead almost physically spat, perhaps would have if the window had been open. "You really don't know a single one of them, do you? You've gone – innocent. God only knows you're a damn sight cleaner not having memories of them inside your head, I could almost envy you that, I…" He bent, as if the weight of the world was increasing on his shoulders, and suddenly said haggardly, "Roxas, please. No more questions."
Sora looked at him a while longer, then inclined his head. "Okay," he said quietly. "For now." Several minutes of silence passed. "But I hope," he added, as an afterthought, "that you really, really know what you're doing."
If he didn't, then all three of them – Roxas, Sora, Axel – were going to be in a lot of trouble, very quickly. Axel was again looking at him sideways, a frown in place, as if recognising a different attitude coming out of the blond… but Sora turned away, stared out the window, said nothing more.
"You should sleep," Axel told him, to which the boy shook his head faintly.
"I've slept enough."
There was another pause, before the man observed, "You're not usually this receptive to what I've got to say."
Sora didn't look over. "…In the end, everyone has to face the truth. Sometimes, that truth is the worst thing for them; but hiding from it doesn't make it go away. Even if it breaks you, you have to confront it."
Axel asked soberly, "Is that what happened to you?"
Sora lifted a shoulder, one corner of his mouth curling up out of sight of the man. "Who knows? You'd have to ask who I used to be."
Axel had no response to this, and Sora did as bidden, asking no more questions. With time briefly on his side, and the element of surprise hidden within, the boy began planning his plans, watching the world roll by outside the car, and staving off slumber for as long as he could.