Axel remembers Naminé's smile on the lone path back to Oblivion, and like her parents the expression is ten years late. Laughing at a joke, whether it's too blatant to not laugh or just one at Axel's expense (jokes at her expense are too much for them both), is not the same as plain smiling--so even a little one like her greeting to Riku, Sora, and Kairi stands out like a candle-flame in the dark.
Why the change after seeing three people drop onto the doorstep? She is as anti-social as Roxas was--just not the bitchy kind. But he admits that seeing the people who kept your temporarily-crazy friend from shooting you would boost anyone's mood.
He would be happy to see anyone after ten years of living with your brother's ghost and the person who killed him, and helping him recover from whatever retaliation Roxas dishes out every week or so. For the first month or so she managed to talk Roxas out of doing too much damage, but eventually he stopped listening.
Their attempts to exorcise him probably didn't help.
-
"This has been going on for weeks?!" The lady's voice shrills over the phone, and Naminé winces as she lies.
"You don't understand, ma'am, it hasn't--well, it has been going on for weeks, but this is the first time Axel's actually told me what--"
"I'm going right now. You're on the main isle, right?"
"But it's six in the eve--"
"Shut up, give me directions, and let me get rid of that thing before one of you dies!"
Don't you dare let her come here! Roxas insists, heaving the couch over in emphasis.
But Naminé is caught between the angry woman on the phone and the angry ghost in the living room, and she sighs and caters to the living person. Western edge of the main isle, you'll have to park a few minutes away because of the clearing.
-
Two hours later and after the couch is righted, a woman parks just outside the clearing and stalks over to the door. Her silver hair is impossibly long, and it makes her gray eyes flare when Naminé opens the door.
"Hello--I'm Yunalesca, let's get this over with. Will Christian exorcisms work on him?" She is annoyingly, beautifully blunt--a stark contrast to the bleeding-hearts who infest the paranormal trade.
"No. Holy water just makes him mad because they get it on everything." Naminé tells her with an almost-sigh while she shakes Yunalesca's hand, and she grimaces as the woman unwittingly grips her hand too tight.
"Good. My husband's a reverend and he usually gets a priest if the task is too big for him, but he's helping his church right now." The minute she steps through the door, a strange look replaces her irritation--she can see where Roxas is standing, mutely furious at her intrusion. "Your brother is the one putting you two in the hospital?"
"He doesn't hurt me, actually--just Axel. Not that that's any better," she catches herself once the habitual "just" sneaks out.
"Well, I can see why someone else would intimidated by him," she remarks, glaring back at a surprised Roxas. "Where on earth did that boy learn manners?"
None of your business, he snaps, and throws a vase at Axel. Yunalesca ducks reflexively (another thing she doesn't share with her fellows, because they never remember that ghosts are territorial or just angry), but it clips Axel's shoulder.
"Ow! Goddamn it, Roxas!"
"Maybe you should tell me why you're the only one he's going for." Her voice is somewhat softer, but Axel does not trust pity. The pitying ones either think they're the ones to deliver him from evil, or they leave right after he gives them more than a few details.
So he goes for the short version. "This place used to be a brothel. I worked here, and the boss kidnapped Roxas and Naminé so they could work here. But I didn't want that to happen, so I… went crazy… and I killed about half of them."
The others freaked out and attacked Sora when he got there; they died of blood loss or shock before he could do anything, and Axel was still considered responsible for their deaths. Indirect manslaughter or something like that.
"What for?" She knows he's not telling her the whole story, and he hates that because it means she won't be duped into accepting a generic sob story.
"Told you, lady, I am not the stablest person here and I didn't want Ansem to make a couple of kids work in a brothel--"
"Everyone hates that thought," she cuts him off imperiously. "You had to go crazy for a reason, and you aren't telling me why."
"Don't!" Roxas' voice manifests in urgency, complete with the deer-about-to-get-shot look. This is as raw as when Riku kicked the door open to save Naminé, and all three of them are avoiding Yunalesca's gaze in hopes that she'll spare their memories, but she stands there as impassively as a statue.
-
"Roxas? Roxas!" Naminé drops to her knees and picks him up with difficulty. Her voice is shrill even for sadness, and Roxas stirs faintly. He's not dead--gunshots don't kill instantly, even point-blank. "Don't leave, please don't leave!"
Axel is standing there blankly as she cries, and he feels Demyx-Larxene-Luxord-Zexion-Roxas' blood coagulate on his hands. The gun moves shakily towards Naminé, and Roxas shifts like he's trying to get back up--
-
Yunalesca's mouth is set in a very grim line; she's probably seen the events play out, and all the reasons why. "You don't want him to leave."
Naminé flinches as if she's been hit, and Yunalesca is pretty strong for someone who looks like a model. "It's not that I--"
"Neither of you want him to leave." She glares at Axel this time.
"No, not really." It's a lot easier to talk without a bleeding-heart railing at him for leading on a teenager like that--as if they can change it, or make everything all shiny and new again. Or keep Roxas from throwing things at him.
"Nobody can do anything until you all get your feelings out of the way." She leaves without another word, stopping outside the clearing to tell her husband she'll be back home at around ten--sorry honey, I got carried away and it turns out they've got baggage to sort out. Then she starts the car and drives out of their lives for the moment, with her hair glinting as she looks back towards the house.
There is something like loss underneath Roxas' anger, so he doesn't look at anyone even though Yunalesca already left.
Axel feels kind of bad, because she's better at her job than most people.
-
Notes: Can you tell that I've watched a lot of paranormal shows? An awful lot of psychics are theatrical and loud--I know what they get involved with isn't the most relaxing thing ever, and there are probably lots of normal psychics that we don't watch on TV because they just aren't working with murdered ghosts (or the ghosts of murderERS), but it's a little far-fetched that they can't rein their emotions in just a little. I wanted to use Aerith as a cheerful psychic at first, but I couldn't figure out how to fit in the flashback without breaking out of the story's writing style. Apologies for not giving you Roxas' SuperDramatic!Death, but remember that Naminé's traumatized, Axel feels guilty, and Roxas is... well, dead.