CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was a long night, spent drinking coffee and listening to Kairi sing softly until her voice, with dawn's appearance, had become hoarse. The entire time, Roxas gripped Axel's hand, there to keep his fears at bay like a shield against the darkness itself. His eyes rarely left Axel's face, while his own gaze was fixed emptily on the ground most of the time. All they could do was sit at the table in Kairi's kitchen and… wait. And waiting was the very worst. Axel would have traded it for even hearing the worst-case-scenario. But time didn't work like that, so he was just… stuck there. Drinking so much coffee it made his stomach burn.

Waiting.

With the rising of the sun, Kairi's voice finally trailed off, and Axel, who at that point had been restlessly pacing, went directly to the sitting room. Kairi was leaning back on her heels, pushing the hair away from her exhausted face. Demyx was laid out flat on the floor, unconscious, his sliced shirt still partially attached to his shoulders. Almost too afraid to ask, he stammered, "Did you -? Is he…?"

Kairi met his petrified gaze, and gave a wan smile. "He won't die."

Axel grasped the door frame, clutching it so hard to keep himself upright he got a splinter under one fingernail. The relief was so intense the world whited out for a moment. Next to him, Roxas was asking, "How do you feel?"

Kairi sighed a little. "Tired," she admitted. "I'll need to rest a while after this." She looked down at Demyx's prone form, looking sad. "I don't know… how he'll be when he wakes," she told them softly. "Whatever damage Xehanort did to his mind before he finally let go… All we can do is wait and see how Demyx… is."

"Does that mean Xehanort is out of him?" Axel asked, hopefully.

Kairi exchanged a quick look with Roxas, then shrugged. "Like I said… I don't know what he'll be like." Slowly, clearly in pain from having spent so long hunched over Demyx, she rose to her feet, Roxas going to her side to help her shuffle back to bed. Demyx was left in the middle of the room, looking so vulnerable it nearly broke Axel's heart. He assumed the spot Kairi had been in, feeling the blond's forehead, parting one of his eyelids like this was a TV show and he could figure out what was wrong by inspecting the patient.

But Demyx was totally asleep. He might have been out of the woods, thanks to Kairi, but he didn't appear ready to rouse any time soon. As Axel sighed, he heard Roxas return, turning to face him. The boy hovered uncertainly at the edge of the room. "How does he seem?" he asked.

"…He's alive," Axel offered, and that, for now, was enough. He was grateful beyond words to Kairi, and to Roxas for making this possible. As Roxas came to stand alongside him, he leaned against his legs, the length of the night catching up to him.

"Let's put him in the guest bed," Roxas suggested, and, together, they carried the unconscious Demyx from the floor to the bed in the guest room they had occupied themselves so recently. Axel carefully removed the rags of his shirt, and eased off his shoes, before tucking him securely in. Roxas stood back, watching, allowing him the space to take care of his friend.

Once Axel was satisfied that Demyx was comfortable, the two of them returned to the sitting room, hand in hand, and fell asleep almost immediately upon sitting down. The day passed, the shadows of Destiny Island's palm trees shifting from one side of the house to the other. Axel snapped awake as the afternoon was deepening towards evening, the rattle of the dishwasher touching him through his slumber, causing him to turn his head towards the sound and yawn. He forced his eyes open, finding himself alone, mumbling, "Roxas?" Rolling his long body from the sofa, he stretched out his arms, trying to ease the discomfort of having slept upright.

He stepped into the hallway and frowned, able to see into the kitchen from here, but with no one being actually… about. Had Kairi and Roxas left for some reason? To the grocery store, maybe?

That's when Demyx slammed into him with the force of a sledgehammer, knocking the breath clear from Axel's lungs as he was tackled hard to the side. Pinning him down, Demyx looked at him hungrily, his eyes a confusing swirl of gold and blue. "Finally, it's just us," he said yearningly, and Axel went extremely still in his grip.

Eyes going wide, he asked with a spike of panic, "What does that mean, Demyx? What have you done?"

"You mean to Ventus and the bitch?" Demyx replied, looking almost mischievous. Axel slowly writhed in his grip, shaking his head.

"You didn't," he said, his voice coming from deep in his chest.

Lowering his face to Axel's ear, Demyx said, extremely clearly, "I pushed the largest kitchen knife through the girl's chest. She was so tired, she couldn't even fight me."

Axel was shaking, weeping, shaking his head over and over. Not Demyx. Please, god – not Demyx.

"As for your slut, I cut his throat," Demyx told him, sounding almost disinterested, even as Axel howled beneath him. "He's bleeding out as we speak."

"Roxas," Axel yelled, voice cracking. "Roxas! Roxas!"

"Maybe he's already dead?" Demyx happily suggested, before hugging Axel hard. "Which means, it's back to being just us."

And as Axel drew breath to scream, as Demyx lowered his face to kiss him, as the terrible truth of reality set in – everything…

*Unzipped.

Existence dissolved, became compressed, became inky, void-like, became… nothing.

Then it zipped back up, and everyone was standing a basement floor in Ansem's tower, a series of troubled faces surrounding Roxas, who drew in a breath so sharply that Axel looked down with a small frown.

"…Xehanort doesn't want to create anything," the woman called Aerith uneasily pointed out, her comrades listening closely, a generally stunned air having fallen over them all.

"That's true," Cid muttered, chewing savagely on a sodden toothpick. "That man knows nothing but destruction. Spreads like a virus 'til he's beaten back."

"But." Yuffie spoke up in a small voice, saying the thing they most feared. "We've – killed people. We thought they were beyond redemption, and now, now you're telling us that we were killing real people?" She angrily dashed tears from her eyes with her knuckles. "No way. I want to be convinced. I can't just change my mind because of one time a Nobody acted in a way you weren't expecting."

"She's right. We need proof," Leon agreed, arms folded, nodding resolutely.

Ansem looked at Roxas, Axel, and even included Riku in his question. "Well?" he asked simply. "Have we a means of obtaining this? This – proof?" to which Roxas screamed, "NO!"

Axel was as stunned as anyone as the kid suddenly fell to his knees, curled into himself, and started bawling at full volume. He was… hysterical. Totally hysterical. Bewildered, extremely concerned, Axel crouched down next to Roxas and attempted to touch him. The blond flinched away from him, crying harder, barely able to breathe because of how completely… wild he had become. Axel stood back up and stepped back, unsure how to proceed, completely unprepared for the sheer force of Roxas's emotions.

It was Aerith who managed to reach through the chaos, kneeling beside him and extending a pale green glow which touched Roxas's face like an extension of her hand. He parted his arms and made eye contact with her, then threw his arms around her and sobbed deeply into her chest, as she softly shushed and soothed him. She rocked him slowly, like a mother might, and spoke the sort of sweet nothings an adult offers a child who woke from a nightmare. But Axel couldn't help but notice two people reacting differently from the mystification of the others: Cloud, and Ansem. While every other face was a mixture of confusion, concern, and surprise, those two looked suddenly cold as ice. They exchanged a glance, and Axel knew it for sure. They knew what this was. He pushed past Yuffie and Leon, facing up against Cloud and demanding, "What?"

When the man flatly asked back "What?", Axel glared.

"I saw that. You, and Ansem. You know something. You know why Roxas is like this, don't you?"

"I don't know anything," Cloud replied, looking bored.

"Oh," Axel smiled thinly, "so being the god of truth doesn't mean you can't lie. That's good to know."

When Cloud lowered his brows slightly, Axel knew he'd been right on the money. Leon, who was listening, stared at Cloud, whose expression became shadowed. Axel looked down at Roxas, who was weeping uncontrollably. This time when he bent down, Roxas reached for him immediately, releasing Aerith and latching onto him instead. "Call it off," he babbled into Axel's ear, "call it off, call it off, call it off. No Demyx. Call it – Axel. Axel!" His sobbing increased again for several minutes, during which no one could get anything coherent out of him.

Holding him tightly, mimicking Aerith and rocking him as she continued to sit nearby and watch worriedly, he asked tightly of Ansem, "Okay, so what's the story?" He switched focus to Cloud. "I know that you know something. You're the only one who could know the truth aside from Ansem, aren't you?"

Leon remarked, "That's a pretty good point, Cloud," and though his tone was idle, his words appeared to carry a lot of weight, the others frowning as they considered the possibility.

"So we're all just taking this guy's word for it that everyone, including Ansem, is speaking the truth," Axel said, shifting Roxas in his arms so that he was between the two of them, at which Cloud sighed loudly and tossed up his hands.

"Does it need to be so dramatic?" he asked, irritably. "Whatever I know, it's to no one's detriment."

"Cloud," Ansem rumbled warningly, as Axel incredulously exclaimed, "To no one's detriment!?" He looked down at the shuddering mass in his arms. "Look at him!" He held him closer, and Roxas instantly responded in kind, clutching back so tightly it was painful. "You look at Roxas right now," Axel challenged tersely, "and then you tell me there's no detriment here."

Cloud looked at Ansem, then Leon, then, finally, guiltily, at Roxas. He had started to ease off on the hysterical weeping now, and was instead just shaking, but shaking so incredibly hard that it was almost difficult for Axel keep hold of him.

"He has been severely traumatised," Aerith grimly input, looking accusingly at them. Glancing around, Axel found, in fact, that every single set of eyes was now fixed firmly on Ansem and Cloud.

"In the span of a second?" Yuffie dubiously asked Aerith, not doubting the possibility but just… struggling, like everyone, to understand.

"He was fine before," Leon remarked, rubbing his chin while staring down at him. "I've never seen Roxas like this."

The others were staring at Ansem and Cloud, the pair finding themselves oddly cornered. "Well?" Yuffie demanded. "Is Axel right? You got answers, or what?"

"…Perhaps this is a conversation for another…" Ansem began.

Beside him, Cloud bluntly said, "Kid's Ventus."

Axel got to witness the moment which was Ansem muttering, "Damn it, Cloud."

He then looked around at Riku, demanding, "Did you know?" Riku shook his head slowly. "Well, that's something, I guess." He sniffed and glared up at Ansem. "So, what? Roxas is, Roxas is Ventus? Roxas is a god?"

"…Please, make this a conversation for another time," Ansem said through his teeth, and this time it was a plea as well as an insistence. Axel hesitated, looking down at Roxas, who was oblivious to the conversation thus far, eyes closed, shuddering as he held Axel like he might fly apart at any moment.

"…Another time," Axel finally agreed, but he looked at Ansem as he said it, and it was a vow – he was going to get all the answers, and then some.

For now, there was apparently a medical bay in the building, Axel carrying Roxas while Ansem operated the elevator, leaving the others to talk rapidly among themselves and doubtless grill Cloud for answers. But suddenly the elevator was stopped, the doors parting to the ground floor foyer, Axel frowning at the empty space beyond and saying, "Wait a sec –" when Ansem turned to him and, from a small pouch in his pocket produced a golden, glittering powder that he blew into the faces of both Axel and Roxas. Choking on the sudden cloud, Axel staggered, setting Roxas down, the pair of them clinging to each other and coughing until the haze finally sank and cleared, vanishing upon contact with the ground.

"Honestly, that Cloud," Ansem muttered, before clapping his hands together once, sharply, and declaring, "And so!" Snapping out of the daze they had found themselves in, they frowned, blinked, and straightened.

"Uh," mumbled Axel, trying to remember why they were… here.

"I'm pleased that we were able to reach such an amicable agreement," Ansem said with a businesslike smile, gesturing for them to step out of the elevator car. "Please, return home safely."

They did as bidden and stepped out, returning to Roxas's apartment on foot, hand-in-hand, stumbling slightly as they went. "I'm… I'm pleased that we were able to reach such an… amicable agreement," Axel said to Roxas, feeling confused.

"Yeah, me too," the blond replied, brow furrowed. They staggered home and opened the door, to find chaos reigning on the other side. Riku, who had evidently driven home, was crouched in the corner of the room, shielding himself from a series of objects being hurled at full strength by Sora. Not just pillows, either. A mug smashed against the wall right as they opened the door.

They froze in place, as Sora suddenly yelled, "Roxas!" and ran to his side. He threw himself hard at his twin, hugging him fiercely as Axel closed the door, sending a querying glance at the defensive Riku. He had lowered his arms slightly, the look on his face one of… helpless frustration.

Meanwhile, over a video call, Kairi shrieked, "Is that Roxas?" Sora held up the phone, nodding breathlessly, showing her the pair of them together. Her face was streaked with tears, her frantic expression clearing with relief as he came into view. "Oh, thank god. And Axel?"

Sora held up the phone in Axel's direction, Axel flipping a peace sign. "Uh – hi?" She dissolved into tears, and for a moment this all felt… weirdly déjà vu-ish. To Sora, he asked, "Um – what's happening?"

"You died is what happened!" Sora yelled while gripping the phone, even Kairi wincing at the volume. "Demyx killed you, you dumb sons of bitches!"

Axel immediately shook his head. "No way, Demyx would never –"

"Xehanort's last act," Sora snarled, "isn't to try and kill Demyx, it's to set Demyx up like a time bomb and let him go off on his own. You and Roxas have Kairi save his life, and in return he kills them and claims you."

"Uh, if that happens, why are we still here?" Axel hesitantly asked.

Sora shot Riku a poisonous look. "Well? You are the one who knows."

"I don't know!" Riku argued, shielding his face. "It's just, I…" He threw a helpless glance at Roxas. "I thought I was doing the right thing by you."

Roxas was looking at him with a perturbed expression. "…Speak fast," he suggested, picking up a small jar of pencils next to a pad of paper by the door.

"…Roxas… isn't a messenger of the gods," Riku mumbled, and an astounded Roxas put his hand up to his ear.

"Excuse me? Say that again?"

"You're not a messenger, you're a god," Riku loudly said, Roxas and Axel freezing in place.

"…Shut the fuck up," Roxas uttered.

"It's true," Sora said, wiping crying-swollen eyes.

"Sora said he'd break up with me if I lied again," Riku confessed, holding his hands up in surrender. "I swear, I am telling you the truth."

"And how the hell do you two know about all this?" Roxas asked, looking at Sora, and Kairi on his phone.

The pair hesitated, then Sora said, "We had a dream."

You could have bowled Roxas over with a feather. "You," he echoed, disbelievingly. "You had… a dream."

"The same dream as Kairi," Sora confirmed, not sounding happy about the development. "When we woke up, we called each other. It was the exact same dream." There was a distant look in his gaze for a moment, a memory of… something. Something he clearly wasn't in the mood to talk about.

"And I'm the one people suddenly think is a god," Roxas pointed out with an arched brow.

Glowering at him, Sora said, "I don't know why I saw it, but I did. Maybe because we're twins, I don't know. But I saw you die, and then I…" He struggled for a moment. "I don't know," he mumbled. "I guess I woke up."

"But how does that make me a god?" Roxas demanded, Sora turning fiercely to Riku, who flinched.

"I don't know. It's a big secret. Only Ansem and Cloud know," he said, then ducked as the jar of pencils shattered a foot from his head, yelping, "Holy shit!"

"No way am I a fucking god," Roxas bellowed.

"You fucking are! I told you!" Sora yelled, just as loud, startling him from the side.

"W-well, then, what the fuck does that make you?" Roxas demanded.

"The twin brother of a reincarnation of a god," Sora answered deliberately, and this time, Roxas didn't… fight the concept. Frowning, he thought about it for a long minute.

"But –"

"You can move through space, Roxas," Kairi pointed out over the phone.

"I thought that was just a messenger thing!" he stated, at which Riku shook his head. "Well, why the fuck is it a secret?!" Roxas wondered, already grasping for something new to throw at Riku. Axel provided a snow globe he'd found on a nearby shelf, and he hoped it would hurt.

"I don't know!" Riku answered, and winced as Roxas wound up, but was halted by Axel, who studied Riku curiously.

"…While you're feeling talkative, what's he got on you? Ansem?"

Sora swung around with disbelief. "Pardon?"

Riku shut his eyes resignedly, saying through gritted teeth, "I really wish you hadn't brought that up."

"What the fuck has Ansem got on you?" Sora asked shrilly, Roxas testing the weight of the snow globe.

"He said… he'll pull your protection…" Riku murmured, lips barely moving, eyes suddenly fixed on the carpet.

From the phone, Kairi snapped "He what?" while the rest of them simply stared at him, Riku looking increasingly uncomfortable under their combined gaze.

"Ah, fuck." Roxas handed the snow globe back to Axel, who placed it back on its shelf. He went to where Riku huddled and yanked him up to his feet, pushing him towards Sora. "Hurry and kiss and make up," he instructed the startled couple, then, lest Riku think he was off the hook, pointed hard and said, "Then you. You're telling me what the fuck is going on here."

Axel couldn't have put it better himself.