CHAPTER TEN

When Axel hit the guest bed that night, he was out like a light. It didn't matter that Roxas was sleeping next to him; they'd had their moment of release. Now, Axel was just so bone-weary he couldn't keep his eyelids apart. His mind, his body, there was no part of him that wasn't exhausted. He slept deeply, not waking again until early the next morning. It was only habit that could have stirred him at that hour, causing him to sigh like it usually did.

The sun was peeking over the ocean as he sat upright and stretched, careful not to disturb Roxas, who continued slumbering beside him. Yawning, he left the bed, picking up the plaid shirt and tee that Roxas had brought him, cast off for sleep but needed again now with the morning's chill nipping at his gooseflesh. He shrugged the shirts on, and grabbed his beanie, which, thoughtfully, Roxas had thought to include. Axel was grateful, because he had not washed his hair in an extremely long time now, and he kind of preferred to keep that under wraps. In the small ensuite, he ran some warm water in the sink and rinsed his face, startling slightly when he looked up and saw a face without tattoos looking back. Like Roxas, he felt some disappointment at that. He poked the blank skin ruefully, looking at his face anew. As soon as… all this… was over, maybe he could go get them done again.

Sighing, he picked up his boots and padded softly past the bed, casting one last, lingering look at the slumbering Roxas before closing the door behind him. The sun was starting its ascent, the whole house filled with a hushed veil of twilight. He headed for the kitchen, and found Kairi there making tea, stopping hard and gasping as she came into view, hearing her chuckle as he clutched the counter for support and grabbed his throbbing heart. "God... damn," he eventually hoarsely muttered, before blinking and asking with a furrowed brow, "Oh, wait – is that like actually swearing for someone like you?"

"Oh, golly gosh, Axel, I just can't imagine you saying something like that to my face!" Kairi immediately answered, mockingly gasping and mimicking his chest-grab. "My goodness, I am standing right here, and you are hurting my feelings!" The sarcasm pretty clear pretty goddamn quick, Axel simply cocked his hips and waited with rolled eyes for her to finish. "Oh, the pain of being cursed! Cursed for my godliness! Cursed… by a brother." At this point, her tone softened, and she smiled at him, that same sad, bittersweet look she had worn before. He frowned, searching her expression.

"…Like… actual – brother? Or…"

Kairi turned away a little, the bitterness coming through a little stronger now, but alongside the sorrow. "We were kin," she told him, and when she spoke, it was… as if he was transported, just in his head, but to a whole other… place and time. A shining era, in which the gods shaped reality as they liked, and the humans were their… their wards, of a sort. A small, bright being that came and went with the breeze that carried Death, worthy of joy, of learning, of communication. And those times… those times might have vanished by now, but the way Kairi spoke, it could have happened just last week. And Axel had been there with her. She remembered him. She remembered… all of them.

When she was finished, into the stillness that followed, Axel eventually, emotionally, asked, "If it was like that… why is Xehanort wrong? Would it be so terrible to go back?"

And the look she gave him, oh. It was one of yearning. She wished she could go along with Xehanort on some level. She wished the golden days were still at least a memory in the people she had loved and lost.

But, no.

"No," she said softly. "That time is past. It's up to those bright little beings now." Her face was tender as she spoke. She didn't just love the gods; she loved the humans, too. The regular folk. No wonder she and Sora were best friends. It… made sense now. "Even gods must die. But even at full power, I could never be a match for Xehanort." She held a hand out to a potted plant, which seemed – more vital after she touched it. "This is what I do. I exist to bring things together. To stitch wounds, and make cells new again. I… can't go against my nature. I cannot be a god of war, any more than you could escape the fire in your soul."

"…You won't fight him?" Axel asked, a little hopelessly. Actual god. Pacifist. Not exactly the most helpful combination. But Kairi surprised him with a mischievous smile.

"When did I ever say I wouldn't fight him?" She handed him a cup of fresh mint tea, the scent making his senses bloom. Picking up her own cup, she blew against it, then told him, "I can't defeat Xehanort alone, any more than you can. I might be at full power, and I can fight Xehanort one-on-one if it's required, but it would burn both our vessels to ash." She sent him a wincing smile as he gaped. "Yeah. We like to call that 'Plan Omega'. The total end. You can see why I'm not super-hyped for that one." She frowned resolutely. "But if it comes to it, I'll do it." And right now… Axel was pretty sure it was Kairi talking. She – accepted the possibility.

"That's nuts," he said, voice high-pitched with disbelief. "You can't die for the god shit."

She laughed. She fucking laughed. But then she said, "Axel, if Xehanort takes over…" She inhaled deeply, then simply shook her head. "It's over for humanity. Me included. My parents. My friends. My town. My world. My species. Axel," the chuckle she gave now was dry as paper-thin leaves, "I would give up my life in heartbeat if it meant saving the whole world. That's both of us talking. We will burn ourselves to atoms if it means stopping Xehanort taking this world." She reached out and bumped his shoulder with her knuckles. But like I said!" She suddenly brightened. "That's Plan Omega. Which means it is the very last plan. There are plenty of plans before that, and I plan to fight in every single one of them. Omega's the only one I die on purpose, I swear." She crossed her heart for emphasis, looking deep into his eyes for understanding. Axel held her gaze for a long moment, then glanced uncertainly to the side.

"Okay. So that's Plan… Omega. What's Plan Alpha, then?"

"Oh, I haven't a clue," she answered breezily. "I told you, I'm not a war god. Ansem deals with that side of things."

Bewildered, Axel took an instinctive step back, demanding, "You work for Ansem?"

She shook her head. "No. Ansem is…" she searched for words, eventually settling on, "difficult to work with. He finds my presence… intimidating." In other words, Ansem didn't like having a full-glory god in the room when he was just someone's rerun.

"What is that guy's deal?" Axel asked, leaning against the wall. "What's he the god of?"

Kairi's features twitched a little, chin dipping. "…His name was Eraqus. He can be – rigid. He is a god of judgement and light, and so tends to believe his own path to be the most righteous. That's the thing about light – it can be… blinding."

"He tried to come at me," Axel slowly told her, eyes widening, "and the way the world changed around him… uh, what was he planning to do to me?"

Apparently, this was the first Kairi was hearing of this. She blinked for a long, long moment, then stared hard out the window for a while.

"…Ansem like to erase things. He likes to get rid of problems," she eventually said, selecting each word carefully. "Once he has passed a judgement, which he is convinced is the correct one, he will attempt to remove all light from the existence of the… victim. They effectively cease to be. It is a large responsibility to wield, and I am… sorry to hear that he is using it more carelessly than he should." The god part of her was speaking now. When she looked at him, though, all he saw was a girl. "I'll speak with him. It's not right that he tried to eliminate you like that." She shook her head with some frustration. "All I get is texts from Sora and Roxas, those boys!" She sounded so irritated that Axel had to laugh. Shaking her head wildly, she argued, "No, really, you'll see! They're the worst. They don't tell me shit! You almost died and Roxas is like 'A and Ax had disagreement. Working on it'!"

She huffed and puffed and stomped around the kitchen for a little while, Axel watching with amusement even though he was pretty sure he should have been stomping with her. But it was just so funny to see this ancient god chick having a meltdown on his behalf because teenage boys can't text for shit.

He set his cup down after a minute and reached for her, saying, "Hey, hey, chill, it's fine. I lived. Roxas saved me." He caught her arm as she was passing and pulled her in for a long, warm hug. Oh. Oh. So this is what it was. Hugging Kairi, you could feel it. You could feel the love in this girl's heart, in this god, in this beautiful entity. She was like… the distant smell of flowers from a happy memory just out of reach.

He heard her sob quietly from down in his chest, and tightened his hold on her, curled himself down so she could weep into his shoulder, clutching the shirt on his back. "I haven't seen you in so long," she sniffled, "and those idiots nearly let you die before we could even say hello."

"They saved me," he promised her, holding her tenderly, like something so precious. "Roxas was watching. He saved me. He got me through the fever afterwards, he took care of me."

And suddenly she was laughing, a shaking mess in his arms, but laughing freely up into his face, because, "At least some things never change!"

The world ground to a halt so hard he nearly got whiplash. His knees nearly buckled. Oh, god. He stepped back and gripped her shoulders with some shock. "We've…? Roxas and me, before…?" Demyx had said something, but Axel hadn't been taking notes at the time.

At this, Kairi grew oddly quiet. "Well, yes, and no," she said, correcting her earlier statement. "Um. I don't – I don't think this is my conversation to have with you?" She looked quickly down into her tea like she wanted to vanish inside of it.

Axel pulled his head back, baffled. So, it was – a conversation to have with Roxas? 'Hey, Roxas, just checking – have we shared past lives or not, because that ancient god who I'm pretty sure might be my divine sister was really vague on the topic'?

When she didn't elaborate any further than that, he said, "Um… okay?" and let it go. Because apparently this was a conversation for another time and place, with another person, but he was just… such a torn mix of curiosity and dread he didn't quite know what to do with himself. An awkwardness hung in the air, tolerated by Kairi only for a minute more before she was making excuses to go and see if the neighbourhood cat was about.

Axel went to the front room of the house, the one they'd appeared in yesterday, put on his shoes, and stood staring out through the broad bay window at the ocean. He sipped his tea, the sharpness of the mint helping him to cast off the pall that had settled from the moment Kairi had first hesitated. Was there really another layer of secrets he had yet to crack? How the fuck did these people live with so much stress in their lives. Axel was nearly having a breakdown here.

He didn't hear Roxas enter the room, but felt a set of arms winding themselves around him from behind and quickly surmised the owner. He leaned back, tipping his head back as far as it could go, for which Roxas gave him a kiss. Ouch, though. He straightened back up, massaging a cramp in his neck, while simultaneously turning and tossing the other arm over the blond's shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world. Roxas seemed similarly deeply at home in Axel's grasp, hugging his torso tightly and resting his head against him. "Good morning," Roxas said softly, unaware that any other conversations had taken place between last night and right now. The question was: was Axel willing to toss this moment away and immediately start demanding answers for something that Roxas himself had clearly not deemed ready to be shared yet? The guy had just woken up and was being super sweet. Axel didn't care about all that other shit, not right now. Not when the real thing was right there with him. Nothing else mattered, right? Past lives, future lives, endless lives, none of it was important. Not when he could just quietly hug his boyfriend and drink peppermint tea while watching the sun rising over the glittering ocean.

"Are we official, then?" Roxas smugly asked, at which Axel choked on his tea.

Pulling away, he levelled a hand dramatically at Roxas and exclaimed, "Youuu! You totally just read my mind!"

Roxas danced past his pointing hand and back into his arms, winding his own around Axel's neck and pulling him off balance, nearly spilling the rest of his tea while he struggled to steady the pair of them. This guy and cups of tea were clearly bad together. He carefully set his cup down on one of Kairi's coasters, turning to the grinning blond and remarking with some bemusement, "Someone's feeling pleased with themselves today."

When Roxas again tiptoed into him and started kissing, he gave up and just went with it. Whatever, man. If Roxas was inexplicably happy, then all the better for Axel, evidently. He kissed the boy back passionately, feeling, instead of the usual electricity that Roxas gave him, a sense of fire burning deep within, desire, and it was pushing to get out. It travelled from his mouth to Roxas's, and the kissing grew messy, breathless, hands starting to explore one another until very abruptly they were reminded of where they were by Sora absolutely howling, "Are you actually fucking kidding me?"

This scared the absolute shit out of Axel, who screamed instinctively into Roxas's mouth, which puffed suddenly outward due to too much air, and suddenly the pair exploded apart, choking and coughing and just. Absolutely covered in each other's saliva.

"Fuck you, Sora!" Roxas shrieked between gasps for air, flipping him off with all his might with both hands. Axel, blushing from head to toe, was fighting for dear life to recover his breath, while shaking off that pervading feeling of heat that had come over him.

"I convince Riku to stay in Radiant Garden, and I fly all the fucking way to Destiny Island out of concern for my baby brother," Sora screeched from the doorway.

"Only by thirteen minutes, and you know it, you superior little fuck," Roxas shouted in return.

"…Only to find him practically lubing up to fuck his boyfriend in the middle of the sitting room of my best friend's house!" Sora finished at maximum volume.

From further behind him, Kairi asked uncertainly, "They were doing what now?"

"I'm sorry," Roxas sarcastically made an exaggerated show of apology, "did I forget to set my 'Knows Where Sora Is At Every Moment' transponder to turn back on when woke up this morning?"

"I don't know, I suppose you must have!" Sora roared back, the pair of them ridiculously red in the face as they yelled. Axel's wide eyes met Kairi's over Sora's shoulder, and again she did what she did best: she shrugged. And yeah. Axel got it. What else was there. "I guess," Sora continued, gesturing wildly, "that I just didn't expect to see you basically climbing your boyfriend like a stripper pole when I entered the room?!"

"Ohohoho! OHOHOHO! HO! SORA!" Roxas bellowed in return, pointing at his own head with a frantic expression. "Do you think I can ever – ever – get the image of you getting railed by Riku on the kitchen table out of my head?" His voice dropped to a hiss as his eyes narrowed to the point of closing. "I considered poking my eyes out with knitting needles, Sora."

Axel groaned out loud. "I didn't need to hear that," he complained.

Behind Sora, Kairi raised her hand and declared, "Um, I also didn't need to have that mental image inflicted on me? Please and thanks?"

The twins froze, remembering that they weren't alone. This seemed to be habitual with them. To Kairi, Roxas weakly demanded, "Well – how do you think I felt?" But, thank god, for now, they were back to using regular voices. Axel threw up his arms as they approached each other and hugged firmly.

"How do you think I felt?" Kairi asked Axel past their embrace, and Axel didn't even want to think about it. Growing up with these two brothers must have been chaos incarnate. Only an ancient being full of love for humanity could have handled these twins.

"How are you, dumbass?" Sora asked as they hugged.

"Just fine, thanks, dickhole," Roxas replied, patting him affectionately before letting him go. "What are you even doing here? I told you where we were going."

Sora sighed and turned away, crossing his arms uncomfortably. "Well, you see, about that… Even though he promised me that he wouldn't tell Ansem…" He darted a sideways look at Roxas, who puffed up like a chipmunk trying to look larger than it was.

"No." He didn't ask it. He stated it. No. No way had Riku sold them out to Ansem.

"Well, you know how Cloud is the god of truth," Sora attempted defensively, but Roxas was not letting him get away with this. Suddenly, they were tussling, Roxas holding Sora in a headlock, as Sora yelled and tried to pull a reversal on him.

Helplessly, Axel said to Kairi, who had come to stand beside him, "I wonder what this means for me." He looked down at her. "What do you think? Erasure?"

"Well, no, certainly not if I have any say in it," she replied worriedly, staring at the twins as they rumbled about, knocking things over.

"I told you!" Roxas howled as they wrestled. "I fucking knew you couldn't just keep him quiet with sex!"

"Don't make me sound like I bribed him with my body," Sora started bawling back, but the pair were quieted by a motion by Kairi. It was simple, and gentle, but she just – held out her hands and made a dampening motion, cutting them off before they could get carried away again. Releasing one another, they retreated balefully, breathing hard. Roxas slouched over to Axel, while Kairi went to Sora's side to calm him.

"So, can we assume," Kairi asked blamelessly into the resultant hush, "that this means your apartment isn't safe for Axel anymore?"

"Well, if I had been allowed to finish," Sora said, with a glare at Roxas, who bounced up and down and flipped him off, held in place only by Axel's firm hands, "Ansem has decided that he acted hastily and wants. What do you call it. A truce."

Roxas stared at him disbelievingly. "Wait, why is it such a big deal that you left Riku behind then, if it wasn't to maintain the illusion that everything is normal?"

Sora replied without shame, "Because it means we can't be together."

Axel had to fight to hold Roxas back this time, as he flailed and swore, desperate to get his hands on his twin and apparently beat the ever-loving shit out of him. Kairi was again the one to simmer it down, making a T with her arms and pleading, "Okay, time out, please? For those of us not involved in your weird twin thing?"

"It's not a weird twin thing," the pair said in absolute synchronicity, the same inflection and everything.

They then glared at each other, but before they could resume, Kairi insisted, "Yes, it is a weird twin thing, and the pair of you need to knock it off until Roxas seals the deal properly with Axel, okay?" She winked at Axel. "You wouldn't want to scare him off, would you?"

"Well," Sora said loudly, but Roxas immediately shook his head and started behaving himself.

Ignoring Sora's implication, Axel sceptically asked, "So, what? You're here as an ambassador for Ansem now?"

"Hell no," Sora responded, without even thinking about it. "I used it as an excuse to come to the beach and spend time with my bestiiiiie!" He sideways-hugged Kairi, who laughed, and hugged him back.

Roxas snorted, arms folded, toe tapping impatiently. "So, the truth comes out. You didn't give a shit about 'your baby brother', as you put it."

"Yup." Sora was already reaching into a bag and pulling out Micky Mouse sunglasses, which he slipped on effortlessly before dragging some zinc across his nose. "I lied. I knew you were fine. I just got grossed out from seeing you making out with Axel."

Axel breathed deeply. "So, your message," he said eventually, "is that Ansem is willing to talk to me, and isn't going to try and – make me stop existing?"

"Uh-huh. And Riku said it was real, so it definitely is." When Roxas snorted, Sora shot him a hard glance. "You know that Riku isn't good at lying."

"Then why'd you tell him?" Roxas asked, exasperatedly.

"Because you weren't going to do anything," Sora argued back, stubbornly. "If it had been up to you, Axel would have been on house arrest in our apartment until you 'figured it out'." This, he said in a dopey voice, and Axel had to silently agree that it wouldn't have been… the firmest of plans. "At least Riku was able to listen calmly to Axel and then go and negotiate with Ansem with a cool head. At least it didn't end with things bursting into flames, Roxas."

While Axel closed his eyes and regretted ever having accessed that power, Kairi took a breath and laid it all out. "So you brought Riku in, knowing that he would ultimately tell Ansem, but believing that Axel would be able to sway them based on the innocence of his position."

"You got it, sis," Sora confirmed, pulling a beach towel from his bag and tossing it over his shoulder. "Kairi, get changed, come swim with me."

"You fucking played me?" Roxas demanded incredulously. Sora peered over his glasses.

"You say that like it's a hard thing to do," he commented, before wrinkling his nose to nudge the glasses back up as he lifted his head and told Kairi, "I'll be down by the waves, come find me when you're ready!"

He barged past them and exited the house, leaving a stunned silence in his wake. He really was like a force of nature. Looking at Roxas, Axel dubiously asked, "You're sure Sora's not a god?"

Roxas made a sound of deep disgust. "As if. If that guy was a god, we'd all be fucked." So that was a hard no, then. Kairi sent him a reproachful look.

"Sora doesn't need to be a god to be special," she reminded him.

"Oh, I know. I know I have a very unique brother," Roxas agreed, nodding all the while.

"Roxas," she said, and this time, it was a disappointed sort of sound. He sighed, kicked his foot, looked sideways.

"Fine. No, Sora is not a god. This is something he is vocally relieved about, and we love him exactly as he is." He sounded bored, but Axel knew he meant every word of it. They were just… idiots.

"I understand," he said, and glanced at Kairi as he said it, so that she knew it, too. He understood very little except that this was absolutely a weird twin thing, and that Sora was just fine about being the only human in the room. He was, in fact, inclined to Roxas's way of thinking if it had happened that Sora was a god.

"But if he pulls shit like this again," he threateningly added to Kairi, who conceded the point.

"This… could have been a text, or a call. But consider," she suggested, "would you have really believed him if he hadn't told you in person?" As the two of them pondered this, she went to get changed and ran past a short while later in a cute two-piece bathing suit, a pair of large inflatable rings in her hands. So, that was the life of a true god, was it? Playing in the sun, swimming in the sea. Studying, learning, advancing. That was what Kairi had chosen to do with her immortality, and had no plans on changing that. Xehanort… did he do what he did because it was… his nature? Like how for Kairi, it was so not her nature? Had this been inevitable from the start?

Roxas stroked his face gently. "There's a lot going on in there," he said. "And no, again," he got in first, "I'm not reading your mind. I can't hear your thoughts." He touched Axel's forehead, a bit of a stretch for a little guy. Axel placed his hands on his waist without even thinking about it. "But I can see… all this." His hands outlined the air around Axel. "It has a mood, or a…"

"A message?" Axel offered, with a small grin. He bumped their foreheads together. Roxas's raised hand settled on the back of his head, against the beanie, holding him close.

"So, what next?" Roxas whispered, after a few quiet moments had passed. "What do you want to do?"

"…I'll meet with Ansem," Axel decided. "If Sora's sure that it's legit, then it probably is."

"Sora's an idiot," Roxas informed him.

"So are you," Axel replied, then kissed his hairline. "I'll do it. Even if it's a trap, I'll have you, and Riku might get upset if Ansem stabs me in the back. He seems like… the earnest sort." His eyes touched every part of Roxas's face, Roxas doing the same, his thumbs wistfully rubbing Axel's ex-tattoos. "We'll be okay," he told Roxas. The boy met his gaze, held it, then touched his lips with his fingertips. When Axel parted them slightly, Roxas leaned in and kissed him.

"We'll definitely be okay?" he huskily asked.

Axel thought of all the unknowns of this new world in which he'd found himself. But the one thing… the truly constant thing… had always been Roxas. From the first moment they'd locked eyes. It was like he'd been waiting all his life for that one moment to finally come around. "For you," Axel vowed, looking deep into his eyes, "I will make everything be okay."

The smile that grew on Roxas's face was slow to blossom, but became one of the most enchanting things Axel thought he'd ever seen in his life. He wanted to tattoo that, that fucking moment, deep into his memories. Maybe this life was the only one he could remember… but if he willed it hard enough, there was a chance this one memory would last.

Maybe it would be enough to bring them around to each other again, in another life.