CHAPTER TWO

It was several days later that Axel saw the young man again. He noticed him immediately, the sound of his violin shifting, becoming – welcoming. Everyone who heard it found themselves smiling, feeling warmer than before. But as soon as Axel noticed this, with some bewilderment, he lost sight of the blond, and suddenly his song was just music again, and everyone was going about their day. Axel glanced around at the park courtyard in which he was playing, where people were walking dogs, exercising, generally just out for some sunlight. No one else seemed to have noticed the shift in mood, and there was no evidence the mystery guy had ever been there. Maybe he was losing it. Maybe this was like… an over-practice mirage. Maybe… there never was a mystery guy.

The thought was enough to cause his bow to fall from the strings, the song cut short. Was he already losing it? Was he not cut out for the pressure of professional music?

"Hey."

He nearly jumped out of his fucking skin. He managed, just barely, to swallow it down, to instead draw a breath and turn to the source of the voice, whereupon he froze. Right there at his side, silent as a goddamn ninja, this kid had positioned himself without Axel ever noticing. His smile was as innocent and pure as anything Axel had seen on this earth.

"You just gonna stare like an asshole?"

Axel blinked. It was a long, hard blink, and all at once he was back inside his own skin instead of blasted out to five feet away watching himself gape stupidly at the significantly shorter person beside him. "Um. Yeah. Oh – I meant no. Shit. Fuck." He reached up to scratch frustratedly at his beanie.

"I'm kidding. Take your time," the guy said, then stepped away, hands in pockets, to slowly wander the area. It gave Axel a moment to get hold of himself and actually take a good look at the blond. He was dressed for the cold, clearly sensitive to it, since most other people were more like Axel in looser-fitting, lighter clothing. Maybe he wasn't from around here.

No, wait. What? 'Take your time'?

"Hey, uh," Axel called out, the blond looking over, "we don't – know each other, do we? We don't have any business to discuss. Or whatever. Whatever you think this is…" He trailed off, as he wondered how he made it through each day able to string even a single cogent thought together.

"No. We do." Axel almost buckled at the knees, clamping the neck of his violin over his mouth to stifle the sudden yell that strangled in his throat as the young man appeared, literally disappeared and reappeared, back beside him to say the words quite clearly into his ear. He spun in a circle, taking several loping steps away, still crushing his mouth and nose, staring wildly at the other people in the area, who were staring at – him. Axel. Like Axel was weird, and some guy hadn't just teleported halfway across the courtyard without so much as an ounce of warning. Not that one could be warned about teleportation.

By the time he made his way back to the guy, who still patiently waited exactly where Axel had left him, he had enough control of himself to squeak past the protection of his violin, "How did you do that?"

The guy shrugged. "How did you digest last night's dinner?" Axel stared, once again robbed of any possible words as the absolute avalanche of thoughts fought to be the first one out. Kicking the ground lightly with a toe, the young man said, "We can get a coffee, if you want." Axel was nodding before he could think about it. Silently, mechanically, he packed away his violin. "I know a place," the guy promised, and with this took the lead, leaving Axel to stumble behind him absolutely awash with bafflement. The kid could have lead him into speeding traffic and he wouldn't have hesitated to step in front of a semi. Axel was questioning… reality.

A couple streets over, they stopped at a café with outdoor tables and selected the empty one closest to the alleyway. Axel down shakily, vaguely aware of asking the waiter for 'strong coffee'. The blond studied him for a moment, then held a hand expectantly over the small table. "Hi. I'm Roxas."

Axel hesitated, flicking a look between Roxas' hand and face, then carefully reached back, grasping his warm hand, giving a slight squeeze as he faintly replied, "Axel."

"Yeah, I know."

Wha – wait. What.

"You know my name?" he asked, suddenly wondering if the thick jacket the kid was wearing was just to conceal his knife collection.

"Sure do. You're Axel." They both paused as the waiter brought their order over. What the fuck. This guy had ordered a goddamn whipped cream shake. It had a cherry on top.

"Wait," Axel complained, "I just told you that."

"I have a confession to make," Roxas said, plucking off the cherry and crushing it between his teeth. "I'm a fan of yours."

Axel's heart skipped a beat. Eyelids fluttering slightly, he cleared his throat, straightened his posture, and thought about that for a moment. "You… like my music?" he asked, somewhat gruffly. Nodding, Roxas was now leaning back in his metal chair, the flats of his shoes against the edge of the table as he held his shake and slurped away at it.

"I've passed you a few times, you know. You never noticed me until the other day."

"Oh." Axel shifted, tapping a nail against the rim of his cup. "Yeah, sorry about that. When I play, I get… pretty involved in my music."

"It wasn't a criticism," Roxas told him, matter-of-factly. "I really am a big fan. When you play, it feels like…" He seemed to search for words, then eventually shrugged and said, "Well, whatever you want, I guess. It's yours, after all."

Axel wiped his face, stressed by the way this guy talked. "That's kind of a weird way to put it, but… thank you? I still don't understand, though. Uh. All this." He drummed his knuckles rapidly on the café table. When Roxas reached over to hold his hand, he thought it was to – to still him, to stop the nervous rapping. But instead, the world unzipped into darkness so deep it was like being in the deepest trenches of the sea, then… then zipped back up around him somewhere completely different. Suddenly, Axel could breathe again. He coughed, screeched for breath, like he'd just passed through the naked vacuum of space. He could see again, hear again, feel again. He'd never felt so cold in his life.

But then a pair of hands were rubbing up and down his arms, and he lifted his confused gaze to see Roxas looking up at him, a little concerned, a little wary. Axel couldn't help flinching, Roxas' hands dropping without resentment. Also, Axel had to amend his earlier observation – he could see, but not well. It was… dim. Like the closest light was from the street, or the moon, maybe, except that that wasn't right because they had just been sitting at a little café, and where was the café? He started looking around, increasingly frantically, as a dumpster and the outline of a door came into view. "Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-" he attempted.

"Take your time." That phrase again, said calmly, reassuringly.

Gasping for air, shivering from the cold, he forced out, "Wh-wh-where's the café? Where's… the café?"

Roxas rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, nodding over Axel's shoulder. "Just over there. We're around the corner in the alleyway."

Next on the agenda. "Ho-how – how – how did..."

"How did I make it so we went from over there to over here?" Axel nodded emphatically. Roxas spread his hands like… like he was releasing a pair of birds. "It's like I told you, it's just natural. It's like how your hair grows. And when I want to…" He looped his thumbs together, and twisted his hands. "I can be other places. Any place, really. Well, sort of," he had to correct himself. At Axel's incredulous look, he clarified, "I – look, sometimes I end up places I don't want to be. And also, there are some places I can't actually get to. Yet. But with enough practice…"

"…The tip of Everest?" Axel feebly had to ask.

"Been there!" Roxas confirmed with a pointed hand gesture.

"What… are you?" Axel asked. Roxas hitched a small half-smile.

"I'm a messenger of the gods."

Axel swayed on his feet, wanting so, so badly to reject this statement, and yet. The café, around the corner. In an instant. He drew a deep breath, started to speak, stopped himself, then started again. "So you're a messenger…" he repeated slowly. "For – for God?"

"Not for God, mono, but the gods." Roxas made sure to emphasise the s at the end. "Plural. Pantheonic."

"Pan-pa… pantheon…" Axel was suddenly feeling the need to – to sit. Yes. Sitting was required. He staggered around to the front of the building and all but collapsed back in front of his coffee. He reached out automatically to bring it shaking to his lips, then winced and cursed as the still-hot liquid scorched his lips. It had, after all, only been a couple minutes since it had been delivered. He sat it back down with a hard clatter, as Roxas cautiously approached and lowered himself opposite. Axel rubbed his mouth briefly to banish the pain, glaring over his knuckles at the pair of glittering eyes watching him closely.

After pursing his lips for a moment, Roxas took a chance and ventured, "You look…" He searched for the right word considering the tempest taking place on Axel's face. "…tense."

Axel just looked at him. Roxas nodded understandingly, looking away and picking his shake back up, going back to sucking at the straw while Axel quietly had an existential crisis opposite him. Eventually, he managed to ask, "Why?"

Roxas quirked his head, pulling the straw away. "Why… why me? Why am I like this? Or why you? Why have I shown this to you?"

Axel took a deep breath, supporting his upper body with the table, his arms wide, hands clutching the metal edges, then simply, tautly replied, "Yes."

"O-kay." Roxas set his drink down, shifting his chair a little closer for privacy. "Well, me. Like I said, I'm a messenger of the gods. I am, in fact, the last messenger. The only one. There's always just one, ever since – oh, thousands of years back." He waved a hand dismissively, as though this was superfluous information.

"W-wait," Axel laughed, half-irritated and half simply terrified, "are you telling me you're, what, thousands of years old?"

"Of course not." Axel's heart started beating again. He'd have sworn it had paused with his breath in that moment. Roxas continued, "No one lives that long, except for the gods, and I'm not a god, I'm like a vessel. I'm just a nineteen-year-old kid from Twilight Town." Axel nodded along cautiously, all of this sounding… completely insane so far, but given the circumstances, they weren't likely to get any worse. But then he said, "No, but you are a god," and it completely fell to pieces.

Axel's head dropped, almost hitting his coffee. He stared down into it, into its inky depths, and felt a chill creeping over him all over again at the reminder of that dark space Roxas had pulled him through. He was also just… really, really tired all of a sudden. He still had to go back and get his bike from the park, and cycle home, and get ready for tomorrow, and just. This was a lot. He picked up his coffee and after several cooling breaths, took a mouthful. It was just the warmth he had been aching for, wending its way into his chest. From there, each subsequent swallow seemed to bring life back to his body bit by bit. Given an eternity, he might have known exactly what to say to Roxas in this moment, but considering they were on a much briefer schedule than that, Axel simply finished his drink, the said quietly, eyes down, "Um. So. No offence, but you're insane, and uh, I think you need to get help." He pulled out money for his coffee. "I hope you get what you need," he softly added. He meant it. Sincerely. Whatever else might, might have happened tonight, this was just a step too far. It had to be fakery. Trickery. Drugging hapless victims. Axel didn't know, and he didn't need to know. He just needed to leave, now.

So that's what he did. He got up, turned and walked away. Grasping his violin case uneasily, he made his way back to the park and unlocked his bike. Clipping on his helmet, he swung a leg over, saw a flash of motion, then – then the darkness, cold, oh so deep, endless, pointless what even is the point of – and he was in apartment, nearly shouting for breath, squeezing his violin handle so tightly it creaked, while in his other hand his bicycle stood next to him in the middle of his living room. Roxas held it up for him as he fell to the side and simply rag-dolled onto the couch. The young man quietly went and propped it against the wall, then came back and stood in front of Axel, who was simply too deep into shock to really notice what was going on.

"…I wanna be mean," Roxas said, somewhere in the distance, "but you look like you're really feeling it." Axel felt a gentle hand press to the side of his face, and he closed his eyes, small tears escaping from the edges of his eyes. "It'll be okay," was the last thing he heard, soft and warm against his ear.

Then, for a while, he was gone.