A/N: Well guys, it's been awhile but here is the next chapter. It's more of character study than an adventure chapter so I hope you enjoy it!
Roxas shifted in his bed. Even in the perpetual night of Darkling he still couldn't fall asleep. Realizing that attempting to sleep would be futile, the blond sat up and kicked the covers to the foot of the bed. He wished he could talk to Axel but the writer had locked himself in the library earlier with the excuse that he had to prepare Roxas' birthday surprise. So the blond had followed Duncan to the second story of Darkling and had retired to try and sleep. His mind and body had other ideas. And he had to go to the bathroom. He swung his feet off the edge of the bed before groping around the room for a light. In the corner of the room he found a wax dollhouse in a constant state of melting as the tiny wax occupants had flames for hair. The blond paused and his staring seemed to be noticed as the largest wax figure leapt to the floor and four others followed, marching single-file to the bedroom door and patiently waiting for the man to open it. Roxas could do nothing but open the door.
The wax men stuck their flaming heads around the lip of the door and looked in both directions before jumping out into the corridor and waving the blond onward. Roxas' steps fell silently in the vacuum of the night. Though the hallways were empty, noise filled the dark and the editor was glad when the candle people halted by the bathroom door. He would have hated to find out what would have happened if, left to his own devices, he had opened the wrong one. Finishing his business Roxas tried to think of something that would help him sleep. In a normal situation the blond would edit or read until he fell asleep but Axel had yet to write his chapter on Halloween Town and the blond hadn't thought to bring a book with him earlier. He knew Axel didn't want him in the library but Roxas thought he could just sneak in and grab Laurel Parker Wolfe's Tales of the Ending - a book he had already started - before returning to his room.
"Could you please take me to the library?" he whispered and the lead candle man nodded briskly before taking off down the grand staircase. As the candle men congregated in front of the door Roxas eased his way into the room. The wax men didn't follow, mindful of the amount of dry paper. Pointedly keeping his eyes on his book he snatched it up before returning quickly to the hallway. "Back to my room, please." He asked.
The wax figures took the man through the House of Darkling a different way than they had come, into an indoor forest with branches made of bone and into a room so dark that Roxas began to feel claustrophobic before a grating noise arrested his attention. The blond inched along the wall, shaking off the candle men who tried to stop him. His path led him to a bas-relief sculpture of marble faces twisted in suffering. With his heart pounding loudly in his ears, Roxas examined the faces. Noticing that one of the eyes was loose in its socket he pressed his index finger into the eye socket and the wall behind the sculpture clicked open.
The room was empty save for a frankly frightening metal chair with restraints and a wheeled table standing beside it. His interest piqued, Roxas passed through the gauzy veiled partitions to the center of the chamber where he knelt down and opened a compartment beneath the table, revealing a dozen rows of smoky-colored phials, each featuring a white label with a concise description - Strangled, Impaled, Burned, Eaten, Frozen . Roxas' finger paused in its trail and he picked up the phial marked "Burned", pulling out the stopper and sniffing at the contents. It smelled of charcoal and before he could stop himself Roxas dipped his finger into the black fluid and placed it in his mouth.
Suddenly, the blond was not himself. The air was burning around him and he was enveloped by wreaths of flame and smoke. He was carrying something important bundled in cloth and he ran from room to room, his skin blistering and cracking. He burst through the door into the cool night air and collapsed to the ground.
The parcel he clutched unraveled to reveal the scorched face of a man with blond hair and a short, pointed nose, a face he beheld in the mirror every day. Roxas screamed, and as he screamed the worlds lipped away into the blackness of oblivion.
Someone grabbed his shoulder and he spun around, nearly dropping the phial, only to find Duncan standing behind him.
"You and your friend are very good at finding Darkling's most hidden rooms."
"What is this room?" Roxas asked shakily.
"The Death Room. There was a time, before death came, that a great many of The Ending's creatures longed for eternal peace. This room was as close as they ever got for a long time. Now there is no need for this room."
"Who's death is this," Roxas asked, lifting the phial. Duncan crossed the room and lifted a leather-bound book. Setting it on the table he cracked it open before trailing his finger along the columns.
"Burned…here we are. Axel Lea." Noticing Roxas' blanched face he continued, "Burned to death saving his spouse, November 21, 1852. You're Axel is still alive," he stated gently and Roxas nodded, backing out of the room and retreating to what comfort could be provided by a strange bed in a strange house.
Roxas woke to the feeling that he was being watched and as he cracked his eyes open he caught sight of Axel sitting in a chair in a corner of the room and reading the book Roxas had grabbed out of the library.
"It's not cool to lurk like a creepy pedophile," Roxas stated, his voice rough from sleep.
"You're an adult." Axel stated as he turned the page. "Sleep well?" Roxas thought back to everything that had happened the previous night - how he had tossed and turned, how he had experienced the excruciating agony of one of Axel's deaths - and replied,
"Surprisingly well." And he had. He thought he'd be tossing and turning but the emotional turmoil had sent him straight to sleep. "Let me grab something to eat and I'll be ready for whatever you planned," he stated as he shoved the covers to the foot of the bed.
"Oh, don't worry about eating," Axel grinned. Roxas shot an inquisitive look in the red-head's direction but the writer merely shook his head and shoved a fresh pair of clothes into the blond's arms before gliding out of the room. "Meet me in the library when you're ready," he called and Roxas was left staring at the now empty doorway. His glance shifted to the clothes in his arms before he hastily changed and trailed after the red-head.
"Axel?" he called, slipping through the partially opened doors into the library. A strong pair of hands gripped his biceps from behind and the blond had to check his natural response to fight.
"Do you trust me?" Axel asked softly and last night's images came flickering through his mind.
"With my life," he answered honestly. Roxas heard a sharp intake of breath from the red-head.
"Stay there," Axel ordered as he released the smaller man. "Close your eyes and don't turn around." Roxas obeyed and he felt something soft whisper across his face. He instinctively jerked back but Axel caught him and pulled him back against his chest. "It's okay; it's just a blindfold," he explained. He tied the blindfold over Roxas' eyes before stepping away. Roxas listened intently as the writer moved around the library and he wondered if Axel knew how big a deal this was - that Roxas was trusting him in the dark - but then Axel was back with an arm wrapped tightly around the blond's waist.
"Axel?" Roxas questioned. A soft kiss to the side of his head was his answer.
"Here we go."
Entering a new world when blindfolded was a singularly unique experience and one that Roxas would be sure to avoid in the future. It was like sitting in one of those spinning teacup rides - the ones that you could manually spin during the ride - with a bunch of kids who were intent on trying to make the teacup spin as fast as humanly possible. The blond leaned heavily on Axel until he felt absolutely certain that his feet were actually on the ground. As Axel untied the knot on the blindfold Roxas prepared himself for the blinding light. Except…the writer had removed the blindfold and there was no blinding light. It was nightfall and in front of him stood the most unique circus he'd ever seen. With eyes wide with wonder he turned to Axel.
"Welcome to Le Cirque des Reves."
Roxas turned his eyes back to the circus - the circus of dreams. The whole circus is formed by a series of circles. Rather than a single tent with rings enclosed within, this circus contained clusters of tents like pyramids, some large and others quite small. The tents were set within circular paths, contained within a circular fence - looping and continuous. But what shocked the blond more than anything were the colors. Roxas was used to bright in-your-face colors which caught your eye and drew your attention. In Le Cirque des Reves, the tents and performers were clothed in nothing but black and white. A brilliant bonfire burned within the gates of the circus and Roxas stared at the white flames.
"Chemicals?" he asked, gesturing to the fire. Axel's grin widened.
"Not quite." His eyes sparkled with mischief at the blond's skeptical look but further debate was cut off as Roxas' stomach growled for its breakfast. Axel laughed. "What would you like? They've got delicious caramel popcorn, caramel apples, cinnamon twist things, hot chocolate…" he trailed off. Roxas stood outside the gate and stared at the taller man. "What?"
"It's my birthday and you brought me to a world with a circus that defies every stereotype, not to mention imagination." Roxas stated. And that's the thing about the blond. For all his sharp comments and dripping sarcasm - for as quickly as he bristles - it is truly, ridiculously easy to please him. Axel barely has time to smile before he has an armful of happy Roxas and just as the red-head regains his equilibrium Roxas is off like a shot, dragging Axel behind him.
The blond wanders around the circus, a cinnamon twist crammed in his mouth while his left hand clutches a bag of caramel popcorn and his right hand holds his hot chocolate. Axel trails after him holding his own hot chocolate and the caramel apples. There are as many attractions outside as there are in the tents and Roxas flits around trying to take in as much as he can. Axel is grateful that when their outfits changed Roxas was graced with a bright red scarf, otherwise the blond would be lost in the sea of black and white. For the moment Axel can catch his breath - Roxas' attention has been arrested. Standing on a platform in the midst of the crowd, high enough that they can be viewed clearly from all angles, are two figures, still as statues.
The woman wears a dress similar to a bridal gown for a ballerina, white and frothy and laced with black ribbons that flutter in the night breeze. Her legs are encased in striped stockings leading down to tall black button-up boots. Her dark hair is piled in waves upon her head, adorned with sprays of white feathers.
The man is handsome, somewhat taller than she, in an impeccably tailed black pinstriped suit. His shirt is a crisp white, his tie black and pristinely knotted with a black bowler hat sitting upon his head.
They stand entwined but not touching, their heads tilted toward each other and lips frozen in the moment before (or after) the kiss. There is no stirring of fingertips or eyelashes; no indication that they are even breathing. But Roxas has keen sight even without cat eyes and Axel, as a writer, is used to observing what others miss. It's the subtlest of motions - the change in the curve of a hand as it hovers near an arm, the shifting angle of a perfectly balanced leg. Each of them always gravitating toward the other, yet they never touch.
Roxas turned and his gaze locked on Axel. He smiled softly and Axel could tell that the blond is feeling more subdued as the initial adrenaline rush wore off. Roxas shifted his attention back to the statues for a moment and Axel took the time to admire how good Roxas looked in a suit before Roxas turned back to the red-head. Finishing his cinnamon twist, Roxas shifted the bag of popcorn into the same hand as the hot chocolate and held his left hand out to Axel. The writer grabbed it and if Roxas' hand was slightly sticky from the cinnamon and caramel, well, Axel would complain about it later but not now.
Axel follows Roxas into another tent and they begin to walk through a hallway full of snow, sparkling flakes catching in their hair and clinging to their clothes.
The hall is lined with doors and they choose one at the very end, trailing a melting breath of snow behind them as they walk into a room where Axel must duck to avoid colliding with the cascade of books suspended from the ceiling, pages tumbling open in frozen waves.
Roxas reaches out a hand to brush over the paper and the entire room sways gently as the motion passes from page to page.
"Tell me about your childhood." Roxas requests quietly. It seems almost a crime to speak in the unending silence but he needs to know and he doesn't think he'll ever be brave enough to ask again. Axel glances sideways at him but doesn't object to the blond's request. Instead, he asks,
"Where do you want me to begin?"
"Where all stories start - at the beginning."
"My father had already bought The World that Never Was by the time I was born. I grew up there with Marluxia and a handful of servants. It was…lonely. Marluxia and I never got on - he had happily been an only child for six years before my parents decided to have me and he resented me from the beginning. It didn't help that I never got along with my father either. He and Marluxia always shared a close bond with their love of science and power. I was the willful child who wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to dream and explore…so I became my mother's child. And my father and brother always made sure I felt that way.
"It might have been better if I could have escaped for a bit for school, but my father felt that the education system was lacking and home-schooled us." Axel grinned wryly. "After I came out my father and Marluxia quit talking to me altogether. So when my mother passed, I left." He shrugged. "I've been traveling and writing ever since." He's examining a shadowed corner when he finishes and doesn't notice Roxas' expression of absolute horror. The thing is Roxas had always thought that Axel played fast and loose when it came to emotions. Now, though, he's beginning to realize that the writer had to learn to reach out - that it wasn't instinct but a learned action. Axel, oblivious to Roxas' inner conflict, reaches into the shadows and opens another door and they pass through - the serious atmosphere dispelled after Roxas trips when his shoes sink into the powder-soft sand that fills the room beyond. The beach atmosphere niggles something at the back of Roxas' mind.
"What about the pirates? How'd you come to be mixed up with them?" he asks as Axel wraps an arm around the smaller man's waist and helps him walk through the sand. Axel sighs before letting go and they split up to try and find the next door.
"When I left home, I wound up in Traverse Town. It's such a small and overlooked planet that I didn't feel I had to worry about my father and brother trying to find me." At Roxas' inquisitive look Axel elaborated. "My mother was worried that they would try to bully me into signing over my inheritance. So anyway, I settled in Traverse Town. And it was nice but boring." He grins at the smaller man from across the room. "You know me and my short attention span. And then one day there's this group of people wandering around the streets searching for something. So I got to talking to this one kid - Demyx - and find out that all these people are part of an organization that's trying to search for this treasure. And I think, 'What the hell?' Right?" he asked, turning to look at the blond. But Roxas has tumbled through a hidden door and is separated from Axel.
He walks down a hallway papered in playing cards - row upon row of clubs and spades. Lanterns fashioned from additional cards hang above and swing gently as he passes by.
A door at the end of the hall leads to a spiraling iron staircase - the stairs go both up and down - and Roxas goes up, finding a trapdoor in the ceiling.
The room it opens into is full of feathers that flutter downward. When he walks through them, they fall like snow over the door in the floor, obscuring it from sight.
There are six identical doors, and Roxas chooses one at random, trailing a few feathers with him. He pays little attention to the evergreen forest, intent on getting outside and trying to find Axel but the trees, bright and white, are difficult to navigate. As soon as he begins walking the walls are lost in shadows and branches.
There is a sound of a man - Axel? - laughing nearby but Roxas puts it down to the rustling of the trees as he pushes his way forward, searching for a way out.
He feels the warmth of breath on his neck but when he turns around there is no one there.
Roxas wanders the circus, his head whipping around at any flash of red. Despite the dramatic black and white of the circus there are many people with splashes of red on their outfit. It confuses the blond and makes him slightly annoyed at how difficult it is to find the red-head. As the night creeps slowly onward Roxas becomes more panicked. He did not realize how large the circus really was and he has no desire to be stuck in this world - Axel, after all, has the key back to Darkling. He is on the verge of a complete freak-out when a hand reaches out of a tent and snags him into it. He is immediately on the defensive but he relaxes when he sees the slim frame of a fortune teller shuffling her cards.
"Care to have your fortune read? It might help you find who you're looking for," she says softly. Roxas bit his lip and eyed the woman.
"Who says I'm searching for anyone?" he questions. The woman merely smiles and shuffles the deck again.
"The cards don't lie, though they don't always offer a clear timeline. Do you want to know?" She inquires. Roxas pauses only a moment before taking a seat. "Cut the deck," she instructs and Roxas does as told, splitting the deck into three. "Which one?" Roxas stares at both decks before tapping the one on his left. The fortune teller stacks the deck once more, keeping that section of cards on the top.
The cards that she places on the table hold no clarity for Roxas. Several cups. The two of swords. La Papessa, the enigmatic Priestess. The fortune teller barely manages to cover her involuntary intake of breath as she lays Le Bateleur over the already placed cards.
"You carry a great many burdens with you," she begins. "A heavy heart. Things you've lost. But you are moving toward change and discovery. There are outside influences that are propelling you forward." She pauses and pushes the cards around. "You're...not fighting, but there's a conflict with something unseen." She placed another card on the table. "But it will be revealed soon."
"How soon?" Roxas asked, swallowing nervously.
"The cards do not make for the clearest of timelines but it is very close." She pulled another card. The two of cups. "There's emotion. Deep emotion but you are only on the shore of it while it's waiting to pull you under. It's nothing that I can clearly see as good or bad, but it is...intense. It almost contradicts itself," she says after a moment. "It's as if there is love and loss at the same time, together in a kind of beautiful pain."
"Well, that sounds like something to look forward to," Roxas says drily, and the fortune teller smiles, glancing up from the cards.
"Turn to the left as you exit the tent. You'll find him searching for you," she told him softly. Roxas nodded before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his money. He didn't bother looking at the amount before setting it down and exiting the tent. He barely managed five steps before running into Axel.
"Where the hell have you been?" Axel asks, clutching Roxas' shoulders in a bruising grip.
"I got lost in the tent. Once I found my way outside I started looking for you." Roxas replied wincing at the bruises he could feel forming on his arms. And suddenly the pressure wasn't a problem anymore because Axel had hauled him in closer and was wrapping him in a hug. Roxas froze before relaxing his body and for the first time in five years returned the hug.
"Don't do that again," Axel muttered and Roxas merely nodded into the taller man's chest before pulling back and tugging on Axel's arm.
"Come on. There's something I want you to see."
Roxas hung back in the fire tent and let Axel roam with free reign. This tent was the editor's way of saying thank-you. He was well aware of Axel's love of fire and he knew the writer would enjoy the performers. In this tent he only illumination comes from the fire - which consists of radiant, flickering white flames like the bonfire.
There is a fire-eater elevated on a striped platform who keeps small bits of flame dancing atop long sticks while he prepares to swallow them whole.
On another platform a woman holds two long chains, with a ball of flame at the end of each. She swings them in loops and circles, leaving glowing trails of white light in their paths, moving so quickly that they look like strings of fire rather than single flames on lengths of chain.
Performers on multiple platforms juggle torches, spinning them high into the air. Occasionally they toss these flaming torches to each other in a shower of sparks.
Elsewhere, there are flaming hoops perched at different levels that performers slip in and out of with ease, as those the hoops were only metal and not encased in flickering flames. Axel is standing in front of this platform and Roxas follows his gaze.
The artist on this platform holds pieces of flame in her bare hands and she forms them into snakes and flowers and all manner of shapes. Sparks fly from shooting stars, birds flame and disappear like miniature phoenixes in her hands. Roxas doesn't recall moving but he's standing next to Axel and they both stare up at her. She smiles at them as they watch the white flames in her hands become, with the deft movement of her fingers, a boat. A book. A heart of fire.
"Amazing," Axel exclaimed, wonder evident on his face as they left the tent and returned to the cool night air. Roxas didn't reply but drained the last of his hot chocolate to hide his please smile. Axel twined their fingers together and they continued their leisurely walk around the circus. "Tell me about growing up on Destiny Island." Roxas jerked at the sudden noise before turning to the red-head but Axel's eyes were focused on where they were walking. The blond supposed it was only fair.
"I suppose I had a regular childhood," he began. "I wouldn't say that Sora and I were close but we didn't hate each other. I suppose any animosity we had stemmed from the fact that our father was always pushing us to join the police academy. It was almost like he wanted us to not only live together but be little clones - one just like the other. Sora handled it better than I did." Roxas continued, swinging their linked hands. "After Sora and Riku came back, things were tense between us for a while. I didn't understand why he wouldn't just talk to me about everything that had happened but, like I told you, after I figured out that they were in love and that it was Riku's secret as much as Sora's we finally started talking again." Roxas sighed and gazed at the circus tents. "The biggest argument came when I accepted my scholarship to Hollow Bastion. My father felt like I was trying to be better than my upbringing. We both said things we shouldn't have and it probably would have gone on forever if Sora hadn't intervened and told him that he couldn't expect to live vicariously through his sons. Sora told him he was more than happy to join the academy but if I wanted something else than he was going to have to let me live my life before he lost both of his sons because Sora wasn't going to let him talk down to me. Sora and I have been best friends since and I barely talk to my dad anymore." The blond shrugged. "I went to college, kept to myself for four years, graduated and started working with XIII. And five years later here we are." Axel squeezed Roxas' hand and they continued wandering along the pathways until dawn began to streak the sky and the circus began closing down the tents. The writer led the way to a hidden train and pulled the blond onto a train car. Sneaking into the compartments, he slipped the Darkling key into a door and led them back to the house.
"Happy Birthday," Axel whispered as they snuck back into their hotel room. Roxas gave the writer a small smile before sliding under the covers and curling into Axel's chest.
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