"Hey Roxas! Want to go on a hike?" Axel plopped down on the sofa beside him, lying down and putting his head in Roxas' lap. Roxas couldn't help but smile as he pushed the grinning redhead away.
"What do you mean? The collar won't let me go that far." He couldn't keep an edge of resentment out of that. He'd tested the collar, and it had been very painful but he'd established that he couldn't even reach the trees before it shocked him.
"I can turn it off." Axel said and Roxas blinked. "For a set amount of time, like say eight hours. That way we won't have to worry about running out of time but you won't be tempted to take off into the woods. Which wouldn't be a good idea, since you'd probably starve or get eaten by a bear, but I don't want to tempt you." Axel doubted Roxas really understood how wild the wilderness was here. He gave the blond a zero percent chance of managing to hike out to civilization, but Roxas might have a higher estimate.
"Oh. That sounds good." Roxas glanced out the window thoughtfully. There was a light dusting of snow on the ground but it wasn't terribly cold out. Still. "Did you sister have a coat I could wear?"
"Yup!" Axel jumped up to go get it, pleased. Soon he came back with a coat that made Roxas blink.
"Axel, is that real fur?" Roxas frowned, running his hand over the glorious trim. It looked real. Axel nodded.
"Yeah, beaver with fox trim. Gorgeous, isn't it?" Roxas shrugged on the coat.
"It's nice." Roxas had to admit that it felt just as good as it looked. He was sure it must have been hideously expensive. Axel was pulling on a similar coat, but in a more masculine style. "But don't let the anti-fur people catch you or you're going to be spray painted."
"Do they really do that?" Axel sounded amused by the prospect. "I'd just buy another, although that would be my allowance for the month. This stupid trust fund has a few advantages." Roxas blinked as he realized that meant the coats must have cost about three thousand dollars each, since Axel had already admitted that was what he got a month.
"You're nuts, Axel, spending that much on a coat." But he wasn't going to say no to the cozy warmth the beaver and fox fur provided. Axel just shrugged with a smile as they left the house.
Roxas was a touch surprised at how glad he was to finally get outside. He had been using the exercise room, and Axel made it a habit to exercise at the same time, but it wasn't the same as a good nature hike. Axel led the way up a steep trail, and soon Roxas was feeling the hike in his legs.
"There's a good lookout spot at the top of this." Axel explained. "And a tree with a great view." Roxas blinked, wondering how a tree could have a good view, but decided not to ask.
It took them several hours to reach the end of the trail, and Roxas wondered how far they had come. It felt like most of it had been straight up. Fortunately, they were both in shape and Axel had brought a water bottle, but he still wanted to rest. Roxas blinked and stared at the view. It really was a tremendous view of the forest, and he swallowed. Axel hadn't been kidding about this being the middle of nowhere. He couldn't see any roads, any other cabins, anything that hinted at civilization at all. Just endless, beautiful forest.
"Here's our tree." Roxas blinked as he saw Axel hugging a tree, and grinned. He'd never pictured Axel as a tree hugger. "There are many trees like it but this tree is ours." Axel started easily climbing up the tree, and Roxas frowned. He wasn't sure he could do that. "Want a hand up?"
"Please." Axel reached down, helping him up and soon they were both sitting on a wide, comfortable branch. The tree was huge and felt solid as a rock. "I wonder. How old is this tree?" It looked ancient. Axel shrugged.
"Got me. All I know is that it has a perfect branch." Axel patted the branch fondly. "Astrid and I came here all the time. This was our special place." Roxas smiled, feeling almost flattered that Axel would bring him here. "It would be a perfect branch to hang myself from." That immediately killed the feeling and Roxas gave the redhead a horrified look. Axel seemed unaware he'd said anything wrong, just looking out over the view and smiling.
"Axel, don't joke about that!" Roxas snapped, feeling a strange fear in his heart. Was Axel serious? The redhead blinked at him, green eyes soft and surprised.
"Oh, sorry." Axel was silent for a moment as Roxas watched him anxiously. The redhead seemed sad now. "I forgot you weren't Astrid, for a moment there."
"You talked to your twin about committing suicide?" Roxas frowned. He'd gotten more details about Astrid out of Axel, and knew she was his twin sister and was a very sweet, gentle girl. This didn't seem to go with the picture Axel had painted of her. Axel smiled, amused at some internal joke.
"You have no idea what we've shared, Roxas." Before Roxas could ask what that meant, Axel turned the conversation around. "Did you and Sora have a special place too?" Axel had been fascinated to find out that Roxas had a twin too. It was like some strange kind of fate. Although if it was really fate, then Roxas' twin would have some incurable disease too, and Axel would never wish that on him.
"Yes." Roxas admitted. "There was a cave down by the river." Roxas found himself telling Axel all about Sora. The way Sora could make him feel, the way they played down by the river, the way they depended on each other for everything when their mother worked all the time to make ends meet. "I miss him so much." Roxas said, rubbing his face, and stiffened for a moment as warm arms went around him. Then he relaxed, letting Axel hold him.
"Oh Roxas, I'm sorry." The redhead murmured, feeling guilt twisting his guts again. It was worse because Roxas was a twin too. He'd had Astrid ripped away from him by her illness and it had felt like the light in his life was suddenly gone. "You'll see him again, I promise."
"When?" Roxas mumbled, closing his eyes and accepting the comfort. He wasn't expecting an answer.
"…Within a year." Roxas blinked, looking up and meeting Axel's sad eyes. He swallowed as he realized what Axel meant. Axel didn't think Astrid could live another year. Was that just his own feeling, or what the doctors were saying? Roxas shook his head, not wanting to ask, and hugged Axel himself. He couldn't have said how long they stayed together that way, but finally Axel shivered. "We ought to be getting back. The wind is picking up." Roxas nodded, glancing at his watch. They had been out for a good three hours and it was almost time for supper. His stomach grumbled at the thought. Axel swung down off the branch, and helped him down.
The walk back to the cabin was a lot easier than the walk up. Roxas sneezed as they walked inside the house, then smiled at the smells of something delicious on the cook. Axel had used the crock pot this morning and it smelled like whatever was in it was almost done. It was quickly revealed to be a delicious chicken stew, along with some crackers.
"Hm. Food supplies are getting a little low, I should do a run soon." Axel mused, then shook his head. "No, I should put it off a week or two so I can get those CD's and movies you wanted at the same time." Roxas nodded. Just in the short time he'd been here, he'd gotten a feeling for how Axel had to ration his time in the outside world. He needed to get groceries and supplies, and every trip ate a day. When you only had fourteen days, that really wasn't very many trips. Especially if Axel wanted to do anything out of the ordinary, like hang out at a bar and find someone to be with for the night. Although it made Roxas wonder who was watching Axel to see he abided by the trust's conditions. Axel seemed paranoid about violating them in any way. "And no, you can't come."
"I know, I know! You're ignorant, not stupid, I have it memorized." Axel blinked then laughed at that caustic reply. "Although I don't know why you say you're ignorant, you don't seem uneducated to me." Axel smiled and shook his head, taking a bite of his stew.
"That's just because I'm smart. I stopped going to school at ten." Roxas stared. That was illegal. "Technically, I was home schooled after that point but, well. More like I just fell through the cracks. I never got a test and didn't learn a thing except what I could from stale books after that. And Astrid was worse. When I met her, she couldn't read at all."
"Wait, back up. When you met her? You weren't raised together?" Axel frowned, scratching his head and clearly thinking about what he should say. Roxas just stared at him, silently daring him to clam up. Axel seemed to catch the message that if he stopped talking, he'd have an unhappy blonde on his hands and opened up a bit further.
"Well, see, it was like this. Mom got married really quickly and had me and Astrid right away. Then she found out dad was into more hardcore porn than our feeble minds could imagine, and she left him." Axel stopped a moment to chew on a cracker. "Now, he told her she could go and he wouldn't fight it if she took only one of us. So she took me and left Astrid. I have no idea how she picked, tossed a coin probably." Axel shrugged as Roxas quietly ate, listening. "I had to go live with him when I was ten, after she was killed in a botched robbery. And you can believe as much or as little of that as you want." Roxas frowned, feeling slightly insulted.
"I'm not doubting you, Axel." After the spiders, he was more inclined to take what Axel told him at face value. Axel blinked, then laughed.
"Not what I meant Roxas. I meant, I don't think it was a robbery, I think it was a hit." Roxas stared as Axel shrugged again, still smiling. "I couldn't prove it but dad didn't seem very surprised to suddenly have me back." Roxas swallowed, then shook his head, wondering how much of Axel's suspicions were true. What kind of monster had his father been?
"So you didn't meet Astrid until you both were ten." A note of uneasiness crept into Roxas voice as he thought about that. "She couldn't read at ten? That doesn't sound much like home schooling." He knew home schooling had rules, although he didn't know anyone who was doing it.
"Well, I guess it technically wasn't home schooling then. I have no idea what to call it. Run wild in the woods schooling? Anyway, I taught her to read and we were like this." Axel made a gesture with one hand, his first finger and thumb close together. "Tighter than tight. The rest, I'd rather not talk about right now." Axel kept eating, and Roxas had to be content with that. He'd learned that if he tried to push Axel when he clearly said he didn't want to talk about something, the redhead would just ignore him.
He didn't know that soon, some of his questions would be answered in an unexpected way.
"There has to be something to watch here." Roxas muttered as he sorted through the movies. There were plenty of titles, but he'd already watched most of them and there was just nothing on the TV tonight. Axel had every channel imaginable and some that weren't, but they seemed to be filled with crap. "Nine hundred channels and there's nothing on-huh?" Roxas blinked as his hands touched a new box. He had to really yank at it to get it out into the light, and frowned at it. "Huh." It had actually been hidden in a cubby hole behind the TV. Suddenly interested, he opened the brown box and tilted his head at the movies inside. They were home movies, and they were all labeled. Roxas smiled as he saw that most of them had Axel and Astrid written on them. They were probably tapes of the twins' childhood. Although the tapes with other names on them were a bit puzzling, but perhaps they were other children in the family. That would make sense. Picking a tape at random, Roxas put it into the VCR and watched as the video started. It was a home video and the quality wasn't great, but it didn't need to be perfect for him to see what was happening on the screen.
"Axel." The girl in the video was stark naked, and Roxas stared in shock. He could easily recognize her as Astrid, although she was much younger and healthy in this video. A boy was kneeling between her legs, and Roxas pressed a hand to his mouth as he recognized Axel. He was a lot smaller and younger, but the spiky red hair was unmistakable. She moaned and arched as he did something to her, her hands tangling in that red hair. Wait. Is that's Astrid and that's Axel who's the cameraman? Roxas thought, feeling sick. Then the video answered that question.
"Good Axel. Take her now." The cameraman… director…? Ordered. Axel lifted his head, expression blank, and Roxas saw he didn't have his tattoos yet. His eyes were completely closed off, without emotion, and he could see that Astrid's were similar. Whatever feelings they had for each other, they were acting for the camera right now.
"Yes dad." Axel crawled up his sister, and kissed her with warmth that belied the emptiness in his eyes. Or was it just good acting? Roxas couldn't tell. Then he-
Roxas almost had a heart attack as a fist smashed into the TV. Suddenly terrified, he looked up and saw Axel, expressionless, his fist wedged in the TV. Axel slowly pulled his hand away, shaking off the glass fragments. He took a deep breath, then looked down at Roxas. Roxas couldn't help but be afraid under the cold, dead weight of the redhead's stare.
"Yeah. I didn't mention it because I didn't think you'd find them, but don't watch those." Calmly, as if he hadn't just destroyed the television, Axel hit the eject button and took the tape out, putting it back into its case and then into the box. "That was actually the most vanilla one you could find, almost. You don't want to see the others." Roxas swallowed, wondering what was on them. But if Axel said he didn't want to see them, he was sure the redhead was right. Axel picked up the box of tapes, then stopped, frowning at the TV. "Could you go get the TV out of the computer room? I hardly ever watch it. I'll have to get a new widescreen." Roxas nodded, scrambling to his feet.
"Axel." Roxas swallowed, trying to think of a question. He had so many that they were running together in his head. Axel seemed to sense that, and shook his head with a small smile, shifting the box onto one arm so he could lay a finger against Roxas' lips.
"Not right now, Roxas. Maybe not ever, but definitely not right now." Roxas hesitated, then nodded. Axel had just shown his temper in a spectacular way, and he didn't want to push him right now. And it would be almost cruel, as well, after seeing that. "I'll put these away. You go get that TV."
"Okay." Roxas obeyed, but he couldn't help but think about what he had seen. Some of his questions about Axel's dad had been answered. But that had only left him with more questions.
He needed to find the answers.
