CHAPTER TWENTY

Axel awoke, foggy-headed, sometime after nightfall, whereupon he immediately started coughing, because he was inhaling – dust. He went to push himself up, then groaned deeply, regretting the act immediately. Deep pain pulsed along the entire right side of his body, but nowhere as acutely as in his shoulder. Looking down, he realised his arm was in a sling, resting against his bloodied, sweaty shirt. He barely even remembered getting hurt.

Moving carefully, wincing the entire way, he eased upright, wiping his face with his free hand and looking around in utter bemusement. He had no idea where he was. There was an oil lantern on the sheet-covered bedside table beside him, the brightness set low, but when he turned it up he saw that – everything was covered in sheets. Everything but the half of the bed he was sitting on. It was… a bedroom, somewhere. High-ceilinged, ornate, and left alone for what seemed to be a long, long time. The layer of dust around the room was all-encompassing. He could feel it entering his airways, covering his mouth and nose with his hand in an attempt to form a filter, choking as he stood up, which only disturbed the dust further.

By the time he got to the door, lantern in hand, he was wheezing. He turned the handle – ornate, elegant brass under the dirt and age – and opened out into a silent hallway. It was still dusty out here, but – clearer. More open. There were further lanterns on the walls, some lit, others left dark, which he followed around various corners until he heard voices, which led him to a large kitchen.

Everyone was there, spaced around an island counter with a single bowl of fresh fruit in the middle, and that 'everyone' included Sora, for some reason. They all paused as Axel entered the room, lantern hanging from his hand, sleepy-faced, pale, and confused. "Where," he rasped, "the fuck are we?"

"A place called Twilight Town," Leon answered, looking tired. "It's an abandoned mansion a short distance from the town, which Roxas knew about through his friends."

"Hayner told me about it," Roxas murmured, Axel shaking his head slightly at this, not knowing who he was talking about.

"His best friend," Sora explained, peeling a banana. Taking a large bite, he added, "Used to live in the area."

Axel's gaze stuck on Roxas briefly. "…Your best friend, huh?"

"He brought us our new sofa, after you set the last one on fire," Sora said, matter-of-factly.

Dipping his head, Axel asked faintly, "I'm sorry, but why is Sora here?"

"Because we've evacuated," Leon dejectedly told him. "And since Sora lives with Roxas, he's at risk as well."

"And because we haven't ruled out that he's involved," Roxas tersely said, Axel jerking in response, eyebrows high.

"Excuse me? Involved? In what?" When Roxas jerked a thumb behind him, Axel slowly walked around the kitchen island to see… dozens of sheets of paper splayed across the tiles, all of them – of that same one girl from last time. Axel picked several up in his free hand, leafing through them slowly. They were almost identical. "Sora. What the hell, man?"

"What?" Sora demanded, hotly, through a mouthful of banana. "I'm taking a break, like I was told to."

On his other side, Riku was staring at his profile with deep concern. Glancing past him at Axel, who was frowning in their direction, he helplessly said, "It seems like he started about the same time as the attack on the tower." He rubbed the back of Sora's neck tenderly, worriedly, as the kid just continued to blithely eat his banana as if the conversation wasn't taking place. Around him. About him. "He won't stop."

"I am taking," Sora insisted, "a break." Upon finishing the banana, he looked around for somewhere to put the skin, Riku taking it from him as, still chewing the last of his snack, he pulled a sheet of paper close and picked up a pencil. He then immediately began drawing, his focus unnatural. It was like he was in a fugue state. No one could get through to him. Riku even gently shook him, but Sora refused to even hesitate in his task. The girl at the table was starting to take shape.

"The only reason he paused was because he just kind of… decided he was hungry," Riku said, gesturing with the peel. "That's when Roxas told him he should take…"

"A break." Axel nodded, all caught up, studying Sora closely. It was like nothing else existed in his head except the pencil in his hand, and the sheet needing to be filled. "And that was it, huh?" He glanced around for a clock. "What time is it?"

Riku checked his wristwatch. "A little after eight."

"You were asleep for a few hours," Roxas said quietly, not looking him in the eye.

"Shit," Axel muttered, rubbing the side of his face roughly to get rid of any lingering sleepiness. "So he's been going this entire time, huh? Did you try just… taking his stuff away?"

"Go ahead and try it," Sora said, brightly, startling Axel, who kinda figured he was basically catatonic at this point.

"Do not try it," Roxas told him, firmly.

"I, uh. I have a lot of… pencil stab wounds," Riku said, shifting uncomfortably, Axel's eyes widening. "Aerith dressed them for me, and I – I changed my shirt. But they're there." Now that he was looking, he could see that Riku was sweating a little, and it wasn't because Axel had raised the temperature in the room. He was also leaning pretty heavily against the counter. Yet, he could still look at Sora as if he was the most cherished being on the planet.

Axel glanced at Roxas, and found him already watching him. They locked gazes, at last. The expression on Roxas's face was… unreadable, for now. It shifted too rapidly for him to be able to pin down, all behind a mask he seemed to think no one could see through. But Axel saw. He saw it all. That must have been what it was like for Roxas, looking at people. Unlike Roxas, however, Axel couldn't interpret it. All he knew was that there was a storm going on behind those blue eyes, and he wasn't entirely sure why. But at the very least, Roxas didn't seem angry with him, he was pretty sure.

"Do we have any idea who the girl is?" he asked, letting the sheets flutter back down to join its sisters.

"Not a one!" Roxas archly replied, all of them lowering their heads, frustration evident. So no one knew who this chick was.

…No one present. "Would Vincent know something, maybe?" Axel ventured, drawing every set of eyes. Feeling pinned by such pressured gazes, he hesitantly went on, "After all, none of our memories are exactly… trustworthy, are they? We've all been dusted by Ansem. But Vincent hasn't. That's how he knew about… Ventus…" He trailed off as the group's focus now shifted to Roxas, who hunched slightly, glancing away.

"Yeah, I still dunno about all that," Yuffie commented, sceptically. "I mean, wasn't Roxas always just the messenger?"

Just the messenger. So this was where it came from. Axel would bet his entire meagre life savings that Ansem had fucking started it, too.

"Back to Vincent," Leon forcefully continued, before she could derail the conversation. He nodded approvingly. "It's a good idea." He straightened, frowning and looking around. "I wonder if there's a working radio around this place somewhere."

"It's old enough," Sora sardonically commented, tossing a completed picture over his shoulder and reaching for the next sheet of paper, which Riku handed him with such deeply tender concern Axel had to look away.

"Cloud woke up," Roxas informed him, mercifully leaving the two to do their thing while everyone else looked somewhere else. "You knocked the absolute shit out of him."

"Yeah, I'm aware." Axel nodded ruefully down at his shoulder-sling.

"If he wasn't a fucking god, he would have been swallowing teeth, is all I'm saying," Roxas said, with… some element of pride in his voice, because it was his boyfriend who did the walloping. Of all the fucking things to take pride in. And now Axel was starting to feel a little proud, too, and, damn it, he hadn't been intending to feel pride about this. At no point did any of this feel like a fucking victory. Plus, you know, the only reason he'd been able to do anything was because of Roxas, and they had yet to talk about that, so. Like. He was having complicated feelings on the matter, and wasn't in the mood for pride over something he couldn't really claim credit for.

"And is he…?" Axel warily asked.

The entire room seemed to sigh. "Still Sephiroth," the dark-haired woman from earlier bitterly confirmed. Then she smiled, reaching out over the kitchen island to shake his hand. "I'm Tifa, by the way. Nice to meet you."

"Axel," he replied, a little distracted before he asked, "Did you say 'still Sephiroth'? So he's… he's definitely…?"

"He is being used by Sephiroth, yes," Leon established, vexation clear.

"We think he's been there a year," Roxas murmured, Axel gaping.

"A year?" he exclaimed, at such volume that he even caught Sora's attention for a moment, before muttering a quick apology. "But still," he went on, more quietly but as confused as ever, "how could he have been controlling Cloud for a full year without anyone noticing?"

"We intend to find out," Leon said gruffly, and when he pushed away from the counter, Axel saw he was wearing a set of brass knuckles.

"Oh, come on," he blurted out, unable to keep quiet. He moved to block Leon's way. "You can't just beat the hell out of the guy."

"Ironic from you," Leon pointed out. Axel opened his mouth, then conceded the point.

"…Yes, it is. But the point stands." He looked around at their grim collection of faces. "I mean, he's still Cloud." Just like Demyx was still Demyx.

Leon stared him in the face for a long moment, then, entirely too easily, relented. "Fine." He slipped off the knuckles and tossed them back to the counter with a sharp clatter. "You can do it, then. You can question Sephiroth."

Axel looked at him quizzically. "I – I don't know how to question someone," he stammered. "I wouldn't even know what to ask!"

"I'll write it down for you," Leon said, clicking his fingers towards Sora, who, shading with one hand, used the other to push across a piece of paper and fresh pencil from the entire box at his disposal. Leon scribbled a series of half-legible questions, Axel squinting and twisting his head, to the other man's increasing displeasure until, eventually, he muttered, "That's enough familiarising. Let's go."

He grabbed Axel by the scruff of his shirt, met by a yelp and a sharp, "Watch the shoulder!" However, Axel allowed himself to be steered – or rather, manhandled – from the kitchen and down one of the passageways to a locked bedroom. Leon fished out the key and unlocked it, opening it to reveal a gloom-filled room. There was a lantern, but it was a long way from the bed. Right in the opposite corner of the room, so that it's light barely even reached the bed, where Cloud had been bound, each hand, each ankle… and to the bed itself. Axel bent and peered beneath the bed frame in astonishment, seeing the rope looped under and pulled taut enough to cut flesh.

Straightening, Axel glanced uncertainly at Leon, who gazed back impassively with folded arms, about to speak up in Cloud's defence when he was stopped by, "Hello, Axel." Cloud's voice sounded… strange. Deeper than usual, and – with that same frightening combination of hunger and menace that had earlier so disturbed Axel. He hesitated.

"…Hi. Cloud?"

"Why don't you come closer, Axel?" Cloud suggested, wriggling slightly towards him. "I can barely hear you all the way over there."

"…It's actually…" Axel glanced down at his distance from the bed, "…not that far." He trailed off, as Cloud gazed at him fixedly, but his eyes… his pupils had gone – narrow, like a cat's eyes. Vertical, with an almost sickening green glow in place of the usually blue irises. "Oh." He uttered it softly, taking an unconscious step further away.

"Ask him," Leon directed, nodding his head at Axel, who just now remembered that he was holding the piece of paper. It trembled slightly in his grasp.

Lifting it up, he cleared his throat a little, then asked, "How did you… manage to spend a year hidden from view?"

"How did you manage to move in front of me?" Cloud hissed back. "From one second to the next, you were there." His strange eyes widened, as he moved his body almost hypnotically across the mattress under the force of the cables crossing his belly. "I know we've never met, you and I. I'd like for us to. Wouldn't you like that, Axel?"

"…We've met, Cloud," Axel weakly offered, the answer so sharp and immediate it made him flinch.

"I am Sephiroth. I was a ruler of gods, of mortals, of life and death…" Cloud's eyes started to lose focus as he went on, the initial flare of power fading fast, leaving him mumbling. "This one was my servant," he whispered hoarsely, then pulled abruptly at is bindings, the entire bed shaking as he strained to break through. But Leon had known what he was doing when he made those knots, and that bed was solid as hell, so all Cloud succeeded in doing was choking his hands off so badly they were starting to turn purple. "He's mine," he savagely declared. "Cloud belongs to me. Don't you come to me with your bullshit questions, don't you even talk to this thing, because it's mine." He gave up on the ropes, sagging wearily back into the bed. "It's inevitable," he muttered. "I am… inevitable."

"Care to try again?" Leon asked Axel tonelessly, after a pause.

"Not really," he replied, quietly traumatised.

"It would be the same even if you did," the man said, staring glumly at the now-resting Cloud, his face turned into his own bicep as he caught his breath from the effort he'd exerted. "He's a mess of Sephiroth's mind traps. He set so many of them before he let Cloud get away from him, it's followed him even through the cycles. Then the second Sephiroth finds him again…" He snapped his fingers sharply. "They both break. Something left over from so long ago no one even remembers…!" He broke off sharply, realising that he was rising in volume, not wanting to disturb Cloud. He looked so… powerless in that moment, staring down at his lover. "Did you know he was just a priest to begin with?" he asked Axel softly, the man shaking his head. "Just a mortal, from way, way back, until Sephiroth took notice of him. He'd just joined the temple with a friend… and ended up deified against his will, so that Sephiroth could control him through eternity."

Axel just stared, then said, "Dude." Leon flashed a rare, small smile at his reaction. "I didn't even know you could de…defy?"

"Deify," Leon corrected, "and yes, it's extraordinarily rare, but it did occur in the very ancient past, when the gods were at full power."

"But Sephiroth remembers?" Axel asked dubiously, before realising and dropping his head. "Because Xehanort wakes him."

"Every goddamn cycle," Leon said, with anger so quiet, but so intense, that Axel was sure he was only catching a glimpse of the eye of a storm. "He can't just… leave them be. If Sephiroth wasn't such an unholy bastard, I'd feel sorry for him." He exhaled heavily. "But no. In the end, the only real victim is Cloud."

"Plus whoever Sephiroth was before he was woken," Axel winced, "because – goddamn. Imagine turning into that." He realised Leon was staring at him, and hurriedly said, "Oh, shit. I'm sorry. I just spoke. I'm not like, agreeing with his ways or exempting him from responsibility, I just…"

"Aerith was right about you," Leon said abruptly. "You see truth." He looked away. "The ones people usually don't want to consider."

Axel awkwardly shuffled his feet. "Uh. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry for doing the one thing the person I love does best," Leon said, hanging his head, turned away from Axel and just… looking so profoundly weighed down.

"We can get Sephiroth out of Cloud though, can't we?" he asked, feeling sorry him. "It's been done before, right?"

"…About fifteen years ago, yeah. Cloud was still pretty young at the time." Grimly, Leon looked over at him, twisting slowly on the bed. "And how we get Sephiroth out has already started." He met Axel's gaze briefly. "It should have been a lot harder to contain Sephiroth. But because of you, we were able to completely neutralise him on the spot." He nodded at the bed. "You see those ropes? They're threaded with steel cable." Axel blinked. "The bed frame is old, but it's incredibly solid carpentry. I'd prefer to have reinforced it with metal plates," Leon sighed, "but we make do with what we have."

"You think he can… break out of that?" Axel feebly asked, every new piece of information Leon laid on him like a resounding slap to his psyche.

"I think he'll try," was Leon's response, not reassuring Axel in the slightest. "Sephiroth requires a substance to maintain his influence over Cloud," he explained gloomily, hunching his shoulders. "Without his supply of Mako, he's basically going to… go through withdrawal symptoms. It's already happening. It's why he's like this." Leon stared down at him, his look one of aching on Cloud's behalf. Apparently, whatever this withdrawal was going to be like – it wasn't going to be fun for Cloud.

"Will Cloud at least be free, then?" he asked, and Leon's jaw tightened.

"…He'll be free from Sephiroth. But it'll take some time to… get him back to normal." He looked away. "I wasn't there the first time. You'd have to ask Aerith or Tifa about that, if you really wanted to know. But I wouldn't advise it." He seemed so sad as he regarded Cloud, who had started blinking, frowning, tugging against his bonds. "That's… not your fight, kid," he muttered. Then, grabbing the list out of Axel's hands, Leon balled it up, leading him back out into the hallway and locking it again behind them. "I didn't mean to be an asshole about that. Sorry," he said shortly.

"Is brutally hurting him really the only way to get through Sephiroth to Cloud?" Axel dubiously asked, not trying to further provoke Leon, but just not entirely… convinced of the need.

"…He begs for it," Leon rumbled in return, his hair covering his face. "During his lucid moments. He'd rather be unconscious, but we don't have any of Aerith's usual ingredients or tools, so we can't – we can't help him through this except with brute strength." He met Axel's gaze painfully. "This was never about questioning Sephiroth," Leon softly said.

"So when you said you intend to find out about Cloud being controlled the full year…"

"I meant, during his moments of lucidity, or afterwards," Leon told him. "The only reason we know it was a year is because Cloud broke through for a couple of minutes." He rubbed his bare knuckles. "If I ] use these… it just draws it out," he softly said. "It just hurts more."

Hurts everyone.

Axel fell silent, plodding after Leon as he returned to the kitchen. "He was starting to wake up a bit," he muttered to Tifa as he grabbed the brass knuckles and slid them over his hand, "so I'm going to stay with him for a while." She nodded, while Aerith, listening in, looked visibly upset. But this was apparently the tried-and-true method. Going to stand beside Roxas, Axel gripped a small handful of the back his shirt, to anchor himself through the madness. Roxas shot him an understanding look, as, on his other side, his brother continued churning out picture after picture.

Axel hitched a breath, grabbed his head, and bent over, gripping the kitchen island for support. He felt sick. He felt… horrified. It was just all so much. He asked, "Can I get a glass of -?" but before he'd even finished the question, Aerith was sliding it across to him from the direction of the sink. "Thank you," he gasped, and gulped it noisily down. Fucking…

He paused, then slammed the base of his glass on the counter, fixed his piercing gaze on Sora, and said, "Hey, Sora." When Sora didn't respond, he sneered, "You're doing god shit."

The endless scratching that had been Sora's pencil behind everything else stopped. The silence that followed felt so absolute, no one wanted to be the one to break it. Riku wasn't even breathing as he stared at Sora, whose gaze rose slowly from his page to glower at Axel.

"…Say that again," Sora dared him.

"You're not allowed to stab me with a pencil for telling you you're doing god shit." Axel made sure to emphasise it a second time, although he did move further away, putting more space and people between them as Sora's eyes narrowed to slits. Axel could see him wrestling with himself, the pencil moving slightly as he squeezed it. What he was debating was still uncertain. Was he figuring out how best to gouge Axel's eyes out? Would the others be able to stop him in time if he tried? As Sora's eyes tracked him closely, he shrugged from the other side of the kitchen island. "I'm not taking your pencils or your paper. I'm not trying to stop you. I'm just saying, is all," he spoke extremely deliberately, picking up an apple from the bowl and balancing it on his fingertips, "that you, Sora, are actively engaging in some pretty. Hefty. God shit."

"Motherfucker, I will push so many pencils down your throat," Sora swore, starting to rise from his stool, Axel dancing quickly away, ready to throw the apple directly between his eyes if he came anywhere near him with that stationery. But this was the most anyone had got out of Sora aside from his banana break and his vicious stabbing of Riku, so no one was quite ready to interfere yet, waiting to see where this was going.

Sora looked down at his latest drawing, then behind him at the many near-identical copies littering the floor. He looked at the pencil in his hand, then over at Riku, who looked momentarily alarmed… until, with great conscious effort, Sora forced his fingers – apart. The pencil dropped. Immediately, he started shivering. "Wh-what's wrong with me?" he wondered, a question that unfortunately no one had an answer to. He turned to Riku, realisation dawning on his features. "Oh, my god. Oh, god, Riku. Oh, my Riku." He started to cry, Riku folding him ] into his arms, letting him sob into the crook of his neck. "My hand really hurts," he howled, an addition which apparently also required acknowledgement. Riku darted Axel a deeply grateful look, while Roxas approached him silently, taking his free hand and squeezing it tightly.

Then and there, it was cemented. Axel was part of the team. Even for Tifa, who he'd only really just met, there was no question that Axel was in the right place, with the right people. He squeezed Roxas's hand back, the pair of them sore, battered, and worn out… but sane, and together. Not everyone in this group could claim both at once.

"Fucking," Axel sighed, "god shit." Riku guided Sora gently away to one of the abandoned mansion's many bedrooms, to doubtless choke on dust and discuss their feelings for a while.

Yuffie, meanwhile, was picking up Sora's pictures one by one, scrutinising them closely. "Now, I'm no artist," she said, "but I do have an eye for detail, and…" She thrust the pile onto the counter for the others to sift through. "Is it just me, or is that girl's mouth moving?"

Suddenly, everyone was poring over Sora's drawings, trying to take them all in at once, peering closely because although the girl never shifted position, never changed from that place behind a table, there were indeed… small changes in her mouth. If it was small enough to make into a flipbook, that would've been real helpful, but for now they were reduced to staring maniacally until every image started to blur together. Also, in some of them, the girl, Axel noticed, was holding a pencil. Was she… drawing too? And if so… what was she drawing? Were she and Sora the same, somehow? But Sora was supposed to be 'just a human', so what the fuck was all this about?

"Oh, my god." Yuffie was the first to decode it, pointing to each mouth in turn. "H. E. L. P. M. E," she spelled out.

"Maybe that was just Sora –" Roxas started to argue, but Yuffie shook her head hard. She kept pointing, to four more pictures.

"S. O. R. A."

"She's saying 'help me, Sora'," Tifa breathed, staring, nodding slowly.

Roxas, almost crushing Axel's hand all of a sudden, croaked, "Well, what the hell does this mean?"

"And who the hell's the girl?" Axel asked, expressing the same bewilderment they were all feeling.

"…Radio!" Yuffie suddenly remembered. "If we can find one, we can contact Vincent, right? And we can ask him if he knows about her."

"Why not just send Roxas?" Tifa asked, arms folding. But Roxas… shook his head, for the first time that Axel had witnessed.

"I'm… I'm starting to feel kinda tapped out," he said, looking down. "After everything that happened today, and then bringing everyone here… I think I need to rest up before I do anything more. It might be quicker to just contact Vincent… directly."

Axel felt that sharp pang of shame, aware that his own actions as Lea hadn't helped matters; and now that Sora's trance had been broken, and Axel was up and about, Roxas was looking… exhausted.

As he sagged, Axel asked him, gently, "Hey – hey, you okay?"

"Take him to lie down for a bit," Aerith advised, quickly feeling Roxas's face and checking inside his mouth. "Ah, wait a moment." She quickly fetched a cup of water and pressed it into Roxas's hands, the blond obediently chugging it down and handing the empty glass back. She smiled and patted his cheek. "Good boy." To Axel, she said, "I know the rooms are dusty, but we thought to leave it until morning to begin cleaning. Just do the best with what you can find."

That seemed to be these people's catchphrase. At the very least, it should have been their motto.

Axel took her advice, Roxas grouching about it but allowing himself to be steered through the hallways until they found a half-decent bedroom. Axel carefully, very carefully, drew the white sheets from over the bed and nearby nightstand. Hopefully, it they didn't disturb the dust too badly –

Then Roxas flopped down face-first, and, after a few seconds, started coughing. With a sigh, Axel tossed the dusty sheets to the edge of the room, where they landed with a visible puff of particles. But, whether that could be attributed to the sheets or the floor itself, Axel didn't have quite enough light to tell. He approved of the plan to wait for morning to start cleaning up, however; they were all still just getting their bearings.

Sounding hoarse, Roxas turned his head and said, slightly sulkily, "I want you over here."

Axel exhaled through his teeth. "Ah, really? It's so dusty…" But he crawled across the bed, careful of his shoulder, and let Roxas latch onto him, hugging him tightly as he tried to get comfortable without kicking up too much of a disturbance. In the dim lantern light, they held on to one another, the house silent now. "Better?" Axel asked Roxas softly, staring at the ceiling.

"…Better," Roxas admitted from somewhere within his chest. Then, after a long pause, he added, voice small, "Thank you for helping Sora."

"For you," Axel answered, kissing the top of his head, "anything."

"Careful," Roxas warned, muffled in such a way that rendered Axel incapable of taking anything he said seriously. "You don't want to promise what you can't deliver."

"What? Anything?" Axel considered, resting his jaw carefully on Roxas's hair, aware that he had… head injuries. "…You're right. It's a big ask. Which is why when I say 'anything', I mean… anything."

Roxas pulled away to scowl at him, apparently ready to get exasperated, until he saw Axel's expression, and faltered. With some disbelief, he repeated, "Anything?"

Axel held his gaze steadily, saying nothing, watching Roxas's face change from incredulity, to uncertainty, and then… quiet awe. "This place is too dusty for sex," Roxas murmured, staring at his lips, Axel starting to feel his own heat rise in response.

"And we're… too injured," Axel agreed, breathing unevenly. Roxas caught his mouth in a kiss. Several more followed, until he leaned a little too heavily into Axel, sparking an involuntary gasp of pain. They broke apart, frustrated, before Axel planted one final kiss on him. A long, promise of a kiss. A vow of so much more to come.

Later.