CHAPTER NINETEEN
The person Roxas used to be, dressed all in black, heavy cloth yet somehow cold to his deepest veins, sat slumped on his knees in a dark nursery. The room was large, subtly heated, the walls lined with shadowy toy boxes, large stuffed animals, a rocking horse in the corner with a white sheet half-covering it. Broad windows revealed the night sky, black with piercings of light, three-quarters of a moon shining through and gleaming against numerous decals of bumblebees plastering the walls. Between the happy black and yellow fliers, ladybugs and praying mantises completed a garden motif, little pictures of flowers interspersed throughout.
On the far side of the room there stood a pretty bed with rose-coloured sheets, white lace curtains hanging delicately from its four tall posts, lit up like silver webs in the gentle illumination. Within that bed lay a dead young girl, her golden hair spread around her slack face like a soft, blonde cloud on the pillow.
There had been so many pillows on her bed – so many to choose from.
Roxas wished he had been bare of clothing for the act, so that her furious, desperate, short fight could have actually made an impact on him. He would have loved to feel the sting of her nails dragging furrows through his wrists and forearms; would have cherished the pain of having her kicks to his stomach and legs mean something, instead of being muffled by all his layers of dark fabric. Anything at all, any punishment she could mete out – oh, God, he'd have taken it all. He would have nursed those injuries afterward, cold air meeting burning cuts and aching bruises, and recognised that she had been alive. He would have carried them with him like lingering traces of her life force, several days more that she could have existed as a ghost within his pain.
But instead, he was whole and untouched, draped over a doll's cot at the far end of the room, head hanging low, and there was nothing left of her in this world but that empty, cooling corpse. The silence was crushing. The darkness throbbed and pressed down on him; smothering, oppressive walls of night that closed in further and further. And yet, despite that, the room seemed to gape around Roxas, too large, too barren and empty. There was… too much space. He felt breathless, more vulnerable than he knew what to do with. Somewhere nearby, the child's nanny lay unconscious in her own bed with a dose of Ketamine injected into the muscle of her left upper arm, and all he could do was wish she was dead, too – he wanted, in that moment, for everyone in the world to be dead, to just stop, so that it was Roxas and Roxas alone. He needed humanity to be gone, damn it, so that he didn't have to hide like this. There was too much space, too many people, and they all needed to die so that he could finally live.
His knuckles buries themselves into his eyes, face scrunching, tongue dry as he gasped shallowly, teeth gritted together – Roxas was abject misery, sheer despair, cracking apart at the seams. The empty syringe lay on the ground beside him, waiting to be filled, but it was too far to go, too far. If he tried to return to that child and take the blood from her heart, he would die of old age before he got halfway. It was impossible, utterly impossible, he wouldn't do it, he –
.o.O.o.
With a heartbeat like thunder, Roxas came awake all at once, a mixture of shrill and guttural cries cracking from his throat, independent of his mind. Sweat ran rivers down his skin, born from nightmares and the oven that was a parked car under the sun. Blue eyes wide, wild and blind, he thrashed in his seat until the clamping grip of another's set of hands brought him gasping to full consciousness.
Thrusting Axel off him, the man's entreaties lost to the air, the blond snatched at his door handle, wrenched it back, and fell out of the car with a bang of hinges, handcuffs slamming to the end of the handgrip. On his knees in the dirt of the long, pale plain he'd fallen asleep to, Roxas panted the fresh air, then threw up whatever remains he could from dinner the night before. His voice coughed and groaned from deep inside his throat, free hand pressed into the cracked earth, the long highway to one side, the stretching desert on the other, and an endless expanse of sky above.
"Whoa! Hey! Roxas!" Axel, having jumped out and rushed around the rental, dropped down beside the blond, pulling him back from the mess he'd made, his nose almost buried in it. As Roxas whimpered, Axel tried to position him so that he wouldn't hurt his strangling wrist, elbow stuck out at an odd angle from the car door. "Jesus!"
Roxas' let out a hoarsely wailed, "Get off me!" He struggled within the man's grasp, squirming and shoving, gulping like he couldn't get enough oxygen, frighteningly pale. He choked, close to hysteria, eyes squeezing shut, shoulder twisting painfully as his arm jerked against the handcuffs. "Get off me – get off!"
Axel muttered, "Shit," and wrapped his arms more securely around the boy, holding him close, saying, "Roxas, there is no way in hell that I'm letting you go. Okay? I've got you. It's okay, I've got you."
"No," the boy moaned, head shaking from side to side, still pushing at him, but with increasing futility. "I don't want this, let me go, I hate you, I hate you so much, I –" His words were cut off by another bout of retching, Axel quickly helping him to bend over towards the dirt, desperation in his green eyes. While Roxas heaved, he rubbed his back, suddenly so painfully happy he could hardly inhale.
"It's okay, Roxas. It's okay, it'll pass. This is all just the nightmare, it was another nightmare, you're going to feel better soon." He hunched over the blond's sweat-soaked back, pressing his forehead into the groove between Roxas' shoulder-blades, a half-laughing smile lighting his face brighter than it had been in months. "This is – normal, Rox," he breathed. "It's normal, it happens a lot. This is you. It's – it's what you do." Beneath him, Roxas started to cry, and Axel hugged him all the more tightly. "This is Roxas behaviour," the man whispered rapturously. "And that means… it's all going to be okay."
.o.O.o.
One hour had passed, in pure silence. They were back on the highway, Axel looking more alert from the nap he'd pulled over to have at some point during Roxas' unconsciousness, one elbow perched against the window with his fingers absently covering his mouth, while the other hand steered them. Roxas was low in his seat, feet up on the dashboard, Axel making no comment on it unlike Hayner would have. His back and shoulder were aching from the wrenching he'd given them by ignoring the handcuffs, the muscles complaining every time he shifted even the tiniest amount. His mouth tasted acrid, a foul, lingering flavour that made his lips twist. He was hunched against the door, back half-turned to the redhead, pretending, in his own little world, that Axel did not exist, and never had. Now that they were moving again, the air-conditioning was going, eliminating the terrible, smothering sweat that had developed all over his body, but he could still feel the terrible heat of Axel's hands and chest and face against his back; it was a sensation that wouldn't fade, made his stomach coil.
A moodiness had settled over Axel, despite the joy Roxas could remember hearing in his voice as he had crouched heaving on the dirt. An air of contemplation had swallowed him up, eyebrows drawn low as he divided his mind between paying attention to the long road and thinking whatever deep thoughts that were occurring. Roxas, for his part, didn't know what to do anymore. It wasn't like he'd known a single thing to do prior to now, so far he'd been nothing but the hopeless and hapless victim; but he'd reached a point where when he thought about escape, or rescue, his mind hit a numb wall.
This was the first time since Axel had abducted him from Twilight Town that Roxas had been given a substantial chance to think things through; he wasn't drugged or drunk, wasn't underfed or thirsty, wasn't even exhausted, which was a novelty. For once, he had nothing holding him back, except the obvious handicap of the handcuffs… and yet, he was blank. It was – such a large problem to overcome. He had been kidnapped, stolen and taken away from everything he knew. He was watched, constantly, and suspected, also constantly. Axel didn't trust him anymore than Roxas trusted Axel, and for that reason, his opportunities at trying anything were slim to none. He knew now what would happen if he yelled for assistance: he would get bitch-slapped into next week. He also knew the lengths Axel had coldly claimed he would go to in order to eliminate anyone that Roxas alerted to his distress, with all consequences accounted for. So when Roxas tried, tried so hard, to come up with something, to track down some fragment of a possibility of helping himself… there was just – there was nothing.
His best chance, he knew, was simply getting free. If he could run, somehow, if he could find that one-in-a-million chance and flee without Axel instantly being able to grab him, he might be able to manage something. He could go to the police; or, if he felt that Axel's claim of possessing documentation regarding some phantom mental instability was more than just a bluff, he could get to a phone box and call Hayner.
Oh, Hayner. He was an oasis in Roxas' torment. Deep in his heart, Roxas believed, without a single doubt in all the world, that if he could only get to Hayner, it would all be okay. Hayner would fix this, he would protect his best friend, and he would recruit every tough in town to close ranks and do the same. Twilight Town would be a fortress against anyone who tried to make Roxas do anything he didn't want to. If he could only find a way to get back there…
That was his goal. Get back to Hayner – that was what he had to focus his every effort on. With an idea like that to spearhead his escape, he might be able to actually get away. He didn't know yet how he was going to do it, or even how long it might take… but it was a plan. It was a beginning. It was… the only thing he could hope to achieve.
From there, one knuckle stuck meditatively into his mouth, caught between his teeth, the blond frowned out the window, thinking of ways to make it happen. Axel was, of course, the largest and most violent obstacle to overcome. Other things, like transport and money, those would come in time, would be more answerable closer to the moment of need; but Axel, that was the big one. When Roxas was handcuffed to anything that couldn't be moved, how was he going to get away? The key, he supposed grimly, lay in… Axel not handcuffing him.
His gaze slid down to the bright silver of the cuffs, another enemy. Either he had to get the actual key, or he made Axel believe that they were unnecessary. The thing was, though… in order to make that viable, he could only begin to imagine the sorts of things he would have to endure. How the hell did he make Axel trust him? Without whoring himself out in the process. It had been a hell of a lot different in his apartment, waiting to mace him, kissing him like that. And, in a bitter fit of irony, he was pretty sure that it was precisely that act that was going to make it pretty damn hard to try it a second time. Even if he did whore himself out to Axel, would that be any reason for the man to trust him? Would he suddenly think that Roxas was the Roxas he thought he knew, and stop hovering over him every minute of the day? Somehow, he doubted it.
Jesus Christ – what a mess.
There was a sigh from the other side of the car that echoed Roxas' sentiments. When he glanced over, Axel was rubbing his forehead with an expression of frustration. It seemed like he wasn't the only one with mind-consuming issues. Well, it had to be stressful, keeping someone against their will like this. Poor him.
The rental ate up mile after mile, the pale, rocky plains stretching for what felt like an endless distance, with only one brief stop at a lonely gas station-cum-diner, where Axel hadn't bothered to pause for food or drinks, merely refilling the tank and continuing on. At least Roxas had got a clue as to where he was, at that point – the sign above the store had read, Wastelands One-Stop. The only wasteland he'd ever heard about was the one that stretched outside of Midgar. Pence had once said that it took three whole days to get from one end to the other, a prospect that made Roxas' stomach sink. What was worse was that they were heading into some dense cloud overhead, and he was pretty sure he could remember Pence also mentioning the awesome flash-floods that struck the region from time to time. Summer storms in flood regions – God's kick-in-the-teeth answer to the prayers of lost little blonds.
By late afternoon, the sky was the colour of charcoal, threatening to unleash every plague under the sun upon them. Axel had been eyeing it through the windshield for a little over an hour, the hush within the car broken up by the occasional sweeping pitter-patter against the glass or rocking gust of wind, the weather building but still unwilling to shatter its force across the earth. "We'll stop soon," he said at length, reading the tension in Roxas without trying. "I wouldn't try driving through what's coming. It's okay; there's a motel up ahead. I've been this way before." He seemed to accept the blond's lack of response as par for the course, neither demanding nor expecting any type of reaction from him, and life continued as usual.
They drove for forty minutes more, the rain coming down steadily now, and slowly, in the distance, a speck began to grow. In the middle of the vast expanse of land, it looked like a couple of toys some mammoth child had left behind on its daily walk: a long two-story building here, a gas station there, yet another carbon-copy diner stuck onto the side of it, and hey presto, you had yourself a pit-stop that didn't even have its own postal address in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. Roxas was less than impressed, and as the weather-beaten structures grew nearer and more distinct, his opinion didn't waver – the place was like fifty years old. It had been builtold, and would die ancient.
As lightning began to streak the distant horizon, they pulled into the parking lot. With the rain now hammering ceaselessly against the roof and windows, Axel killed the engine, yanking the keys free and unbuckling himself from his seat, throwing Roxas a steady look. For a few moments longer, their tacitly agreed-upon silence extended, before the redhead broke it quietly, with, "If you scream out here, nobody will hear you." Roxas stared, muscles stiffening. Then, Axel nodded out to the elements. "It's too loud, with the rain like this." He started to tuck the keys into his pocket, shifting his pointed knees from under the steering wheel, looking uncomfortable after the long drive. "My point is, don't bother trying, because everyone's hiding from the storm, and all you'll do is make life difficult."
Trying not to let his relief show, Roxas realised that he was only talking about – not making any escape attempts. This wasn't some abrupt decision to cut him up and rape him; Axel was getting ready to go book them a room, which meant leaving him alone in the car for a few minutes.
Just before he opened the door, Axel glanced over his shoulder at the apprehensive blond, and added, "If you're good, I'll get you something from the vending machine, okay? So just – be good."
Roxas bit down the automatic flaring of his temper, the deep-seated need to throw the man's 'vending machine' offer straight back in his face – who the fuck cared about that?! – but with a nudge from his earlier thoughts and ideas, he instead swallowed, gritted his teeth, and… slowly nodded. It kind of – hurt. Somewhere inside, it hurt to do this… but he was supposed to be earning some trust right now, right? Just for now? So – sacrifices were in order. If that sacrifice ended up being his pride, well…
He couldn't bring himself to give any verbal affirmation, but Axel was satisfied enough with the nod. Giving a nod back, he opened his door and exited out into the rain, closing it again with a bang, vanishing behind the water-streaked, condensation-fogged windows. Roxas watched his rippling, red-topped blur hurry away, bent under the force of the weather, before disappearing into one of the doorways of the squat, stretching motel. Letting out a sharp breath, he instantly began a thorough search of the car as far as he could reach, maintaining a careful watch for Axel's return. In the glove compartment, he found a book of maps, a leaflet for the rental company, the car's details, and a Triple A magazine. Under the seats he found bits of lint and a fire blanket. In the pockets on the backs of the seat, he came across some more Triple A advertisements, and that, unfortunately, was the extent of the search. The black duffel bag was still on the floor of the backseat, but Roxas couldn't reach it – the goddamn cuffs kept pulling him short every time he reached over. His brief fantasy of grabbing the bourbon bottle and breaking it over Axel's head was dead.
He settled back down with a spiked obstruction of frustration lodged in his chest, wishing there was more he could do, wishing that his only recourse didn't simply involve sitting on his hands and pretending he'd mended his fucking ways.
The sound of the rain on the car was thunderous, all the more so for having the engine switched off like this. It was so dark outside now, even though sunset was still a few hours off. Roxas gazed through the misted window to his right and wondered what the weather was like in Twilight Town. It was like every train of thought eventually followed a yellow brick road back to home… and his chest ached with the absence of it. Breaths sounding hollow in the tinny, close space, Roxas hung his head, touching it against the warm window. Even with the weather like this, the temperature had barely dropped at all. God damn it. He just wanted this to all be over already. Why couldn't it end up being another one of his nightmares? Why couldn't he wake up on Hayner's sofa all over again, and watch his ass for stalking redheads this time? A – a second chance, that's what he needed. The ability to turn back time. To… not be so stupid as to wander away from Hayner.
So stupid.
He had all but done this to himself.
Roxas' eyes squeezed shut, despair scratching thin claws along his insides, only to be startled upright a moment later by Axel's abrupt return, a gust of air, rain and elemental noise sweeping in as he wrenched the driver's door open and hung in with dripping hair. Green eyes widened at the sight of Roxas sitting there with a bleary, grim expression, Axel's brows rising as he exclaimed, louder than necessary with the hammering against the roof deafening him, "Well, colour me damned! I'd half expected you to have gnawed off your arm by now, Rox."
"…Call me crazy," the blond called back after a beat's hesitation, "but I'm kind of attached to it."
Axel blinked, then grinned, then leaned back out into the rain and let loose a long, loud laugh. Roxas nearly jumped at the sound of it, unaccustomed to such gaiety right now, unappreciative of the man's… absurd appreciation. It was barely even a joke, and had gone against his every instinct to just pull up both middle fingers and then ram them into the man's eyes. Those eyes were virtually twinkling when Axel stuck his head back in, water streaking down the slender planes of his vastly amused face. "Okay. Okay, I get it. We're moving into 'co-operative' mode now? Fine, Roxas, whatever. I like it better than you being grumpy, anyway." Another chuckle, and then the door was slammed shut again, Axel moving around the car to Roxas' side while the blond sat there like a lump of stone, staring. What the fuck had that just been? That – statement, that observation? That distinct feeling of being laughed at?
As Axel opened his door, Roxas' head swivelled, an icy look levelled at the redhead, and Axel, upon seeing it, suddenly lost some of his glitter. He stopped in his motions of reaching for the handcuffs, the sultry rain pouring down around him but seeming, for the moment, to be forgotten. He hesitated, then bent lower and gazed into Roxas' eyes searchingly, intensity increasing slowly the longer that the blond didn't look away. Eventually, Roxas had to blink, had to draw his brows together and glance to the side, frowning. He couldn't – keep it up. As much as it had pissed him off to have Axel acting the way he had, it was… too unnerving to sit here having a staring contest with the man. As his eyes darted briefly back, he was puzzled to see – was it a flash of disappointment in Axel's face?
After a pause, the man resumed moving, returning his focus to the handcuffs, expressionless now. Roxas was unclipped from the armrest, Axel holding onto the open ring tightly, jerking the blond and muttering, "Time to get out." Talk about a mood swing. Feeling cagey, Roxas did as bidden, easing his way out of the car with Axel clutching the other end of the handcuffs like some kind of short leash. The second he entered the rain, Roxas was blind – it consumed the world, filled his eyes and ears, destroyed all sense of direction except for the vague sense of shapes and colours over to the right. Axel gave him a quick, sharp tug, encouraging him to follow, and without another thought Roxas scurried after him, gasping from the violence of the downpour. It took only about a minute to get from the car to their room, the two of them heading past the stairs to the second level and around to the far side of the building, but by the time Axel unlocked the door with the key he'd got from reception, and pushed the blond through into safety, Roxas was soaked to the bone.
The door slammed shut again behind them, and the world became abruptly quieter, Roxas' panting breaths audible, his hair plastered flat to his skull. Axel's hands closed around his shoulders, steering him over towards a small, round two-person table in the corner of the room. Instead of seating him on one of the chairs, however, Axel pushed him firmly to the floor, arching down and clicking the empty handcuff around the dark, metal pole that led to a base of what looked to be made of solid iron.
Pushing the curtain of congealed blond from out of his eyes, bent at an awkward angle beneath the table's circular surface, Roxas squinted up at him, one eye shutting against a trickle of water. Axel gazed back down, face monotonous, whatever thoughts that flitted through his head remaining obscured to the blond on the ground. "…Well," the man said at last, voice low. "This ought to hold you for a while, at any rate."
Anger flickered to life within Roxas, spasming shortly through his features, before being forced into the shadows. He pulled uselessly on the metal chain to prove the man's point, managing to agree, "No doubt about it." He couldn't keep the glare from his brow, no matter how hard he tried, and after a long moment, a softer expression stole through Axel's flatness. Letting out a sigh, some of the stiffness leaving his shoulders, the man scraped his hair back behind his head, the usual spikes so slicked down that they'd melded together into one long, leaking body of red. He closed his eyes, mumbled, "Shit, I left the bag in the car," and entered into a minute's mental debate, Roxas studying him carefully from under the table.
Eventually, after Axel had wasted a while just standing there with one hand over his eyes, he ventured, "So how long do I have to stay like this? Because my neck is already starting to ache." Axel uncovered his face with a grimace, taking note of the less than stellar position he'd jammed the blond into.
"Yeah. Right."
"And I'm hungry," the blond pressed on. "You promised me vending machine food, didn't you? I don't exactly see a Subway anywhere around this dive." A certain sense of boldness had slowly crept into Roxas' attitude, a gradual accomplishment which was only and directly tied to the fact that Axel obviously wasn't going to kill him, or even necessarily attack him any time soon. He was still Roxas' crazy kidnapper, but crazy in the 'I'm-never-letting-you-leave-so-don't-you-try' sort of way, rather than 'I've-been-studying-Hannibal-Lector's-MO-for-five-years-and-I-think-I'm-ready-now'. And that, while far from any ideal within Roxas' mind, was at least something that gave him a little bit of reassurance – enough so at least that he could confront the guy about things like food and comfort.
He had to pause for a moment and wonder if he'd made the right judgement when Axel's expression hardened again, but with a quick glance around the room and a pursing of lips, the redhead nodded reluctantly. "…I guess you're right, huh? You haven't eaten all day, and it's not like you even got to keep all your dinner inside you."
He had angled his gaze at the floor and started pushing at his hair as he spoke, but at the memory of Roxas' nightmare, a tiny smile tugged at Axel's mouth, and his eyes, returning to the blond, were back to being… well, almost gentle. Those eyes unsettled Roxas. Axel, feeling whatever he was feeling right now… it just wasn't right. His gaze spoke of emotions that the blond didn't even want to think about.
"…Well," the man said softly, "I suppose I'll go and get the bag from the car, and buy some food while I'm at it. I saw some machines in reception." He mentioned nothing about shifting Roxas from under the table, but for now, the food would be enough. He'd been keeping a tight grip on his tongue, not wanting to complain to this guy and either annoy him or end up in his debt, but God almighty he was hungry. All traces of hang-over were gone from the previous day's bourbon attack, and now his body was craving sustenance, a rebuilding of energy and strength.
Despite his statement of action, Axel remained rooted in place, watching Roxas until the blond closed his eyes, and let out a breath. "Axel." He said it with effort – he really didn't like using the man's name, it was… too personal. 'Bastard asshole abductor' really fit so much more conveniently. But if Roxas was going to turn this situation around to his advantage, if he was going to make the man ease up on the tight security, then he was going to have to be a lot more personable in general – even if the man decided to call it 'co-operative mode', as though he had it all figured out. "What's wrong? Do you think I'm going to hitch up my skirts and run for it the second you're gone?"
"What I think," replied the redhead, "is that you're going to yell your head off, and I'm going to be all the way around the other side of the building." The rain came down harder, thunder rumbling across the heavens like a scowl.
Roxas sighed. "Yeah, it's a possibility. But you'd get back before anyone figured out how to get me off this damn table, wouldn't you? And then what? You've already threatened to kill people, haven't you? You think I want that on my conscience?"
Axel's eyes narrowed, Roxas feeling a sudden tingle of nervousness. "…You haven't underestimated me before now, Roxas. Please, don't start to. Really. Please."
"What are you –?"
"'Co-operative' mode, Roxas. Acting like you've given up, like all you want is to get through this peacefully, like you want me to trust you. Acting like I can trust you." His gaze hardened. "But I can't. And you know what your big mistake is, in all this?" He shook his head, stepping close and crouching down in front of him, the blond drawing back against the cool metal of the table column. Axel's expression was partly irritated, partly resigned. "I could never trust you, Rox. Not from day one, not back when you knew who you were, and sure as hell not now. You…" He propped an elbow on one knee, the knuckles of his hand supporting his chin. A new look blew across his face, sadder than the last one. "You are part… of Organisation 13. That means that – you're one of the most untrustworthy individuals alive, whether you want to be or not."
With a wary glower, Roxas drew his bare knees up towards his chest. "What is 'Organisation 13'?"
For a stretching minute, Axel just looked at him, blinking slowly, a strange wistfulness in his eyes. "Nothing you need to worry about just yet," he eventually quietly said. "Just stay with me. I'll keep you safe." He eyed Roxas a moment longer, then blew out a hefty breath, shaking his head. "And with that in mind…" He lowered onto one knee, reaching under the table, suddenly sharing Roxas' breathing space with alarming proximity. Green eyes flicked to the boy's face, then focused on his task – unlocking the cuff around the table column. For a surprised few seconds, Roxas wondered if he was going to be taken for the trip to the vending machines – but an instant later, Axel took hold of his free hand, and jerked him even closer. Roxas half-fell into Axel's chest, eyes going round as the man linked their fingers together, dragged his hand forward, and suddenly clipped the cuff onto his wrist. It took the blond a stunned moment to understand what had happened – then it sank in.
Axel had cuffed both fucking hands around the column, his body half-reclining to manage the angle.
Before sense could be made from such an act, Axel drew back a little, Roxas' relief short-lived, spiking into fear as the man started unbuttoning his white shirt. It was wet as hell, like everything else, and had to be literally peeled from his torso, the drenched fabric reluctant to part from his skin. His gaze fixed unwaveringly on Roxas, he finished stripping it from his arms, just the black undershirt left now, arms looking coldly bare with the lighting so dark like this. He hitched a breath, starting back as the redhead leaned in towards him, intent strong on his face. "Hey, now! What exactly are you -!"
He was cut off by a thick wad of the shirt being stuffed in between his teeth. He half-gagged, tongue pushing instinctively against the blockage, Axel moving expertly to wrap the length of shirt once around his head until only the sleeves were hanging out, which he then knotted at the nape of the boy's neck. Roxas, effectively gagged in under a minute, yelled his displeasure in muffled, furious tones.
"Moral of the story, Roxas." Axel met his gaze squarely. "I don't trust you, and I won't. Not in this lifetime, no matter who you think you've become, or how honest that person thinks he is. Although, for the record, I don't think that person would be all that honest, either." Before he pulled back, he left an inexplicably tender kiss on the boy's cheek, near his eye, above where the shirt constricted his flesh. Roxas froze at the touch. "But don't worry," the man murmured into his ear. "I like you anyway." Another kiss, and then he was pulling back, Roxas only now remembering that his legs and feet remained available for kicking. He aimed too late, with a grunt, and barely managed to clip Axel's bent knee, his captor barely even bothering to register the hit.
Straightening again, rising to his feet, Axel looked down at him, and suddenly Roxas was aware of just how damned vulnerable he was. It hadn't had a chance to sink in before now, but all at once he realised that he was down on the floor with his hands chained and no real voice while Axel had full physical capability and all the time in the world. He could do just about anything to Roxas like this, the concept sending chills shooting up his spine. However, the redhead didn't push the advantage any more than he had already with the two small kisses – with a faintly pained expression, he instead turned away from the blond, heading over towards the door.
"I'll be back soon," he promised steadily, reaching for the door handle. "Don't worry, no one else will come in while I'm gone."
Roxas bellowed after him uselessly, but in the next breath, Axel had exited the room, leaving him alone in the dark. Shit! Shit, shit, shit! He hadn't intended on causing trouble, he'd been planning to go along with it, because he'd truly believed there was little point. He knew now that as long as the cuffs were involved, especially when this table was the anchoring point, he was screwed. What would have been the point in screaming his lungs out while Axel was gone, if the man was only going to return before any real progress was made, get mad, and hurt some innocent bystander with the utmost confidence in his ability to get away with it? Roxas had believed him, for Christ's sake, he'd believed Axel could and would do it! That was part of what made the bastard so scary!
On top of that, yes, Roxas was trying to earn some fucking Brownie Points here. Whatever Axel had spouted before, Roxas still thought that as long as he played nice for long enough, the man would come to trust him, at least enough. It wasn't like he could just keep Roxas locked up indefinitely, right?! But rather than let him prove himself in whatever pitiful way he could manage, Axel had robbed him of that, had assumed the worst and nipped it at the bud when there wasn't even a fucking bud to nip.
Oh, God, he was pissed. Roxas was pissed.
He let out one final, unheard shout before subsiding, anger pulsing, helplessness sitting like a rock on his insides. Sucking air through his nostrils, chewing reflexively on increasingly spit-sodden fabric, tasting smoke, rain and what could only be the flavour inherent to Axel's skin, he pulled himself up closer to the table, crawling onto his knees. It was no better a position than the one before, but at least like this he wasn't just spread out across the floor. That was too much humiliation to take.
So, Axel had cuffed him completely, so that he couldn't remove the gag at all, and was now off getting snacks. Fucking great. God damn it. He should've kept his stupid, fat mouth shut and just starved to death.
With the rain and thunder blasting the sky apart, night growing ever nearer, Roxas lowered his forehead to the cold iron base and closed his eyes, left with nothing to do but await his jailor's return.