50

By: Aviantei

Act II: School Life/Loneliness

Scene II: "Were you not going to invite me in to talk things over?"

Rhea had stepped out of Roxas's car more than enough times that she knew what it was supposed to feel like, and getting out of Dew's vehicle was nothing like that. Sure, the logistics of it were the same: open the door, shift your foot to the ground, stand up, and make sure not to hit your head on the doorway on the way out—but none of that accounted for the sensation of her stomach dropping out and surfacing up her throat and losing her balance. Rhea reached back to try and steady herself on the car door, but it was already gone, and she flailed around a bit before landing on her ass on the wet sidewalk.

Oh, yeah. It rained before we left.

That was a surreal concept in of itself, and Rhea still hadn't processed that it had happened, especially since she'd spent the mental equivalent of several days in another dimension. It seemed extra impossible that she'd only been gone for fifty minutes, but when she took a moment to find her phone, it was in her hand, and the call that she'd started was still ongoing, the seconds ticking past the fifty-minute mark.

I guess the magic actually worked, then? For all the rest that Rhea had gotten, she didn't have the patience to even try to break apart the theory, and, even if she did, stuff like that was best left to people like Zexion. All she had to worry about was adjusting back to normalcy after being disconnected from it for so long.

"Have a bit of a rough landing?"

Though he hadn't been around a few moments ago, Axel stood on the sidewalk next to Rhea, apparently spared from the same lack of coordination as she had. He smiled and offered out a gloved hand in a gesture of camaraderie, and Rhea accepted the help up. The feel of the leather was familiar, but the size and shape of the hand encased inside were all wrong. "Are you telling me that you didn't go ahead and fall on your ass the first time that you got back from that place?"

"Oh, sure, I lost my balance, but I didn't trip over myself." Rhea scowled, jerking her hand away the moment she could. "Then again, I had way more experience with hopping through worlds and portals and stuff. It's kind of similar when you get down to it."

Since the closest thing that Rhea had for a reference point to world jumping was riding along with Roxas—where he had complete control of the situation and she hadn't needed to move until the car was parked—she couldn't even call Axel out if he was bullshitting her. "Well, either way, we're back in Temperies. That's one step done. What comes next?"

"Well, we're gonna need to get back to the school first. Roxas may be angry, but he's not the type to go ahead and skip out on school. It'll be better for you to head back, too." Rhea grimaced at the idea of being in the same vicinity as Roxas, though a pang through her chest let her know that she still wanted to be around him, no matter how much it would hurt to have her ignore him. "Look, I know it sucks. But we can better keep an eye on when he goes back to the Castle this way. I mean, I can go ahead and keep an eye on things myself if you want, but two sets of eyes are better than one, you know."

"Yeah, don't worry; I get it." Rhea had been through plenty of pain before, without it ever seeming like there was a chance for things to get better. Putting up with Roxas being openly antagonistic for a bit until they figured out how to get his missing memory back would be more than worth it. Rhea did her best to give Axel a smirk. "Besides, I dunno if I trust you with handling things on your own. Better stick around to keep an eye on you."

"Ouch, you don't pull any punches, do ya?" Rhea shrugged, but Axel's expression was easing back into a grin, and she found that she liked that a whole lot better. "Well, you're better off with some fight in you. Let's get that energy into something productive and start on headed back, yeah?"

Rhea nodded, looking around the street. She hadn't noticed any sort of car when Axel had shown up the first time, and Dew's vehicle clearly wasn't going to be of any use to them. "Your magic doesn't happen to include giving us an easy way back to the school, does it?"

"Sorry, I'm more of a combatant."

A sigh built up in Rhea's throat, but she forced it back down. She had much better uses for her breath, anyways. "Alight, hotshot. Go ahead and lead the way."

Standing in the doorway of her dorm room, Rhea frowned to herself.

Sure, her dorm wasn't anything fancy. Much like a lot of other things about Temperies, the student rooms were rather basic, and Rhea had the essentials: a bed, a dresser, and a desk. However, since there wasn't anything close to real shopping centers around, it wasn't like she had much to customize it with, especially since she hadn't brought anything along with her from her home world. None of that, though, was why she felt so torn.

"You just gonna stand there in the doorway the whole time? Castle crawling experience or no, I figured that after that walk all the way back you'd want to at least sit down and rest a bit."

"That's kind of hard when someone's taking up all sorts of space on my bed right now."

Sure enough, Axel had reclined back on Rhea's bed without any hesitation, his dark hoodie appearing like a stain against the bright colored blankets. Even worse, he looked like he belonged there, despite Rhea's concerns about his older appearance. If she didn't know any better, Rhea would have said that she had walked into the wrong dorm room by mistake.

But nope, my key worked on the door, so this is definitely my place. Axel was just blinking at her with an innocent expression that he could pull off way too well, and Rhea scowled, propping a hand on her hip. "I don't even recall inviting you in."

Axel quirked at eyebrow at her. "Were you not going to invite me in to talk things over?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"I don't see the problem. I took off my boots and everything." Rhea rolled her eyes to the ceiling, let the door fall shut behind her, and tossed her key onto her desk with a series of jangles. It wasn't like Temperies had any sort of real rules about curfews and who was allowed in whose rooms when, anyways. Dropping into her desk chair, Rhea started to work on loosening her own boots' laces. "Don't look so down. I figured you'd at least want a bit of company. Am I wrong?"

That was the frustrating part—he wasn't wrong. In the short amount of time they'd known each other, he'd gotten a pretty good read on her. Rhea felt like she only half grasped Axel, and even then, that connection was shaky. He cares for Roxas, though. That's what really matters. So she hummed and kept the most deadpan tone she could muster in her voice. "If I tell you that you're annoying, will you be sure to memorize that?"

"Trust me," Axel said, tapping at his temple, "I memorize everything important." Rhea rolled her eyes, nudging her boots into their corner by the door as best she could without getting back up. For someone that had spent probably the equivalent of a week lounging around, she sure wanted to do nothing but sit forever. Axel pulled himself up into a sit, hands resting in the middle of his crossed legs. "So, what can I do ya for? More story time? Or were you planning on sharing something good for once?"

"No. No story time." Already her head felt loaded with everything she'd learned in such a short period of time. Knowing that the next day she'd have to face Roxas in some way shape or form, the thought of hearing about a past when he was happy hurt too much. She covered up the hurt with sarcasm. "You don't have anything else interesting to talk about?"

Axel's grin only stretched out wider. "Sure I do. Doesn't mean that I'm offering." Rhea huffed, regretting not kicking Axel off the bed. She'd at least have a pillow to toss at him, then. Chuckling at her reaction, Axel held up his hands in surrender. "I'm kidding. Let's talk about practical stuff. How would you say you are when it comes to combat?"

Rhea stared straight on at him, even though her instinct wanted to look away. "I don't mean to disappoint you, but I'm nothing more than a glorified distraction." There wasn't any way she could have made it as far into the castle as she had without Roxas there—and even then, it was his ability that kept her alive. "I'm not like you. I couldn't just…climb all the way up forty-plus floors on my own." Given past experience, she'd barely make it up two. Maybe with her daggers, three, tops.

Not that I have the things anymore. I unpacked them in Roxas's car, like a dumbass.

She didn't even want to think about asking for them back. Hey, I know you hate my guts now, but could I maybe have my weapons back? Y'know, the ones you leant me? She'd rather head back into the Castle emptyhanded than attempt that.

"There's nothing wrong with being a distraction." Rhea looked to Axel, giving him the most disbelieving expression she could muster. "What? I'm being serious. One extra body for the enemy to keep an eye on can do a lot when you're in a fight, even if you're not a damage dealer. Besides, it's way better for you to know what your limits are than to run off into something you can't handle. If you're not a combatant, you're not a combatant."

Rhea crossed her arms, bouncing her knee despite the faint whine of her muscles from taking a big walk after so little physical activity. "You can try to make it sound great all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm not even useful enough to be a healer. I'm pretty sure if…Roxas wasn't so nice, he would have told me I was in the way a long time ago." She certainly had been the first times she'd gone with him, taking more damage from the enemies than was useful for Roxas to fight.

"Well if you're worried about being in the way, all you gotta do is practice until you get better." Rhea prepared herself to start lecturing Axel about the right timing to make a joke, but when she studied his expression, it was serious. "Come on, have a little faith in yourself. You wouldn't have survived in the Castle this long if you weren't at least halfway decent at your role."

"Again: you do realize Roxas was carrying my ass, right?"

"Yeah, and Roxas is an okay fighter, and the Keyblade definitely helps, but he's still an amateur in terms of experience." On instinct, Rhea went to protest—but then she realized that Axel had been the one to teach Roxas to fight, so he was way more qualified than she was to judge. Rhea was even more of an amateur than Roxas. Axel shifted, so he was no longer sprawled out on the bed, but instead sitting on the edge, his feet planted on the floor. "You're at least skilled enough to survive alongside someone who's by no means an expert at fighting, and that's with your limited skillset. What I want to know is do you wanna get better or not?"

It didn't take long for Rhea to get the implication—she'd been hanging on to every word of Axel's recounting of his time with Roxas. "Do you honestly think you can train me enough to make me worth something?"

"Oh, sweetheart, you obviously don't know what you're saying. That sounded like a challenge to me." It wasn't the first time she'd seen it, but Axel's grin looked more like a feral exposure of teeth than anything joyful, sending a shiver down Rhea's spine that she refused to let show. Axel stood moments later, his ridiculous height seeming like his head could collide with the ceiling if he just stopped slouching so much. "I've been through my fair share of stuff, missy. I may not be some uber-talented all-rounder, but I'll be damned if I don't know how to put up a fight."

Rhea settled into a deadpan expression and tilted her chair back so she wouldn't have to crane her neck so much to look at him. "Why are you so insistent on thinking I'm not going to be a nuisance to you?"

"Why are you so insistent that you will be?" Rhea didn't have a ready response that didn't sound pathetic, so she pursed her lips and glared. Axel didn't back down, letting out a sigh as he crouched to be at eye level with her. "Look, I know stuff happened that wasn't great. But before that, Roxas trusted you to have his back while he fought. So I'm gonna trust that judgement, too." Bringing up Roxas was unfair, and Axel knew it, and that was probably why he'd done it. "Now, back to my first question: Do you want to get better or not? Because I'm pretty sure I can cover us both, but I have no problems helping you out if you want it."

Axel extended his hand, and Rhea stared at it with the same sort of disinterest one had for a dead animal on the side of the road. Though there wasn't any need for them, Axel hadn't ditched his dark gloves, the leather catching the light. For all his joking, Rhea knew he was serious in the offer—and given that he'd taught Roxas from scratch, Axel could probably make Rhea at least halfway decent, even with her crummy skillset. It wasn't a matter of doubting his capability.

It was always a matter of doubting herself.

And yet, back then, I—

"If you're gonna leave me hanging, I'd appreciate it if you make that obvious so I'm not standing around like a dumbass."

"Sorry to inform you that me shaking your hand isn't going to change that much." Though it would have been better for her to let all the feelings out in a rush, it was just easier to push things down and retort with sarcasm. Rhea shrugged, standing up so she could at least take away some of the height advantage Axel had on her. "But if you're so convinced, I'll take some pity on you and help out."

Rather than taking the handshake, Rhea smacked her palm against Axel's as fast as she could. He blinked for a moment—before a fiery grin stretched across his face. "That's what I'm talkin' about," he said. "You better not try and say that it doesn't count as binding just because you didn't shake it. I'm gonna take that as your agreement. You got it memorized?"

"Why bother memorizing it whenever I'm sure you won't let me forget?" The sting of the partial high five still simmered over her palm, and Rhea shoved her fist into a pocket to still it and met Axel's gaze with one of her own. "You just better not go complaining whenever you realize I'm a lost cause. I definitely warned you."

"Yes, yes, you don't have any experience, yadda, yadda. I think I'm going to be the judge of that."

"Suit yourself."

And for the first time in a while, Rhea thought she might be alright.

When Roxas had said that he'd be taking her somewhere else, Rhea hadn't expected it to be a whole other world. She had still been trying to get over the experience of being in a vehicle—the town with no name didn't have much use for the things, considering how small it was—and then everything had seemed to lurch, and she'd had to blink for the sudden spots in her eyes.

Having grown up in nothing but the dark, she almost didn't know how to process the natural light, even if it had a gray sheen of clouds covering it. Behind the wheel of the car, Roxas kept driving as if the shift was nothing for him, but Rhea stared, fascinated by the paved roads, the concrete sidewalks, the brown and gray buildings.

"This is Temperies," Roxas was saying, with a casual lilt in his voice that conveyed his familiarity with the place. "It's really not the most exciting place, I won't lie. But it's still good base to come back to, rather than staying in your world—um, no offense?"

"Don't worry about it," Rhea said, not even remotely offended. She hadn't wanted to stay in the town with no name, anyways, and it wasn't like there was anywhere else in that world that was worth going to. Still, she felt awkward, and she shifted under the seatbelt Roxas had hooked into place for her before they'd left. "Um, is that why you go to the Castle? Because there's nothing to do here."

Roxas let out a nervous laugh. "Would you think less of me if I said it was?" Rhea shook her head. She didn't think it was so bad a reason after all. Better than hers, at any rate. "I mean, it's not all that. Whenever I go there, I can't shake the feeling that something is calling me to the top. But I wouldn't be lying if I said that it's nice to go and do something else for a bit. Especially since I've been in this world for as long as I can remember."

"So anywhere else is better—even without a castle to explore and monsters to fight." Rhea understood. Though she'd just thought they were fairy tales as a kid, she'd always liked the idea of going somewhere else other than the town with no name. Rhea let out a wistful sigh and leaned her head against the window, watching the empty streets pass by. "I wish I could do what you do, Roxas."

"Well why not?"

The question didn't feel like a real question—wasn't the answer to that obvious enough?—but Roxas was earnest. Rhea could tell that much from the little conversation we already had. "Come on, I know I'm not a hero. I don't even know how to fight or anything."

"I didn't know how to fight before I learned! Besides, if you want to, that's more than reason enough to do it."

"Okay, sure, but it's not like I can just snap my fingers and do it." Rhea watched Roxas, but he didn't look convinced. "You're acting pretty confident about someone you just met."

"I have a gut feeling, though, Rhea," Roxas said. "I think you could definitely do it. If you wanna try something new, you should go for it! I mean, you'll never know until you give it a shot. Besides—I'd really like it if we could fight side by side, y'know?"

The offer almost stole her breath from her. The last time she'd had friends, they weren't the type to encourage anyone to reach outside the norm. Hell, they'd spread around Rhea's silly little dreams and laughed about them. But Roxas wasn't like that, Roxas was someone who hopped between worlds and explored new places, and he was saying that Rhea could come with him. The image of them working together in battle was enough to make her heart soar in excitement for a future completely different than the one she'd imagined for herself a few scant hours ago.

"I'd like that, too," she said, not caring that her voice had gone weak and that a fresh round of tears was beginning to spill out of her eyes again. Roxas slowed the car and glanced to her, worried. "I'll be in your care. But if you think I can do it, Roxas, then you're right. There's absolutely no reason I can't at least give it a shot."

"That's the spirit," Roxas said, offering a fist. It took a moment for Rhea to recognize the gesture, but then she raised her own shaky hand to bump their knuckles together.

It was her first fist bump, and it felt like hope.

[Author's Notes]

Dropping in another update to celebrate my fanfiction anniversary/the holiday season. I'm also running out of clever things to say in these update notes, so I'll just send out well wishes to you all.

Could it be, that we're starting to move on a bit from the past and into the future? Axel seems to think he can help get Rhea into fighting shape, but how well will this process go? And will the relationships between our cast remain broken or will they repair? We'll continue exploring some of these questions throughout Act II.

Am planning to start organizing more consistent (I hope?) updates for my different fics soon, so I'll hopefully see you all again in 2021. Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[12.30.2020]