Protecting Me: Chapter 20
I actually decided to post it both here and on ff.net for once
Title: Protecting Me
Pairing: Axel/Roxas, Zexion/Demyx, hints of Marluxia/Larxene
Disclaimer: Yeah okay.
Rating: T as always
Summary: A potion gone wrong causes Roxas to age back to his toddler years. This leaves Axel to look after his three year old best friend who is introducing the concept of feeling and love to the Organization members!
Warnings: This particular chapter is an obvious filler before the ending begins.
After a solid minute of knocking Roxas pressed his body against the large double doors of Namine's room and pushed it open. The room was completely empty when he peeked inside.
While the whole morning had been filled with disconcerting behavior from some of his well known comrades, a sense of comfort and familiarity washed over him once he set foot on the polished floor. The entire room looked like it was crafted for a China doll, gleaming, as if it was made from pure crystal. Everything was white and flowery, from the mirrored floors to the glossy walls. It was her four walled prison with a torturing peek of the outside world through one large window on the outside wall. Marluxia had designed the room himself when Namine was brought to the Organization for their use. The only furniture Namine was allowed was a long table and two chairs placed dead center in the middle of the room, and a small bed pushed up against the furthest wall.
The wall just opposite the window was always covered in Namine's artwork. Namine always drew what she knew, what she saw, and what she remembered. Of course, Namine knew a lot. She knew all the deepest darkest memories stuffed between the cracks of the ever powerful Organization XIII, and with her power she made them come to life on a piece of paper. She was, of course, restricted with her power despite what she had the capabilities of doing. She wasn't allowed to use her powers on an Organization member, and by no means allowed to alter any of their memories.
Roxas always remembered what Namine drew. When he was new to the Organization he absorbed it like a sponge, learning everything about everybody he could. Even after having been there for a while, he still liked to observe the drawings.
Slowly his eyes studied the drawings taped up against Namine's wall, none of them familiar, but all of them very similar. Rushes of colors filled his head to the point where he couldn't take in any more information through sight alone. He reached out his hand and let his fingers brush over the figures in each of the drawings, almost as if he were trying to feel a pulse beneath the surface of the motionless figures. All of them were of him, that much was for sure, but in picture after picture he was very small compared to everyone else. All of them were the same as the picture that Zexion had given to him.
He stopped with his fingertips pressed to a drawing in the middle of the wall. It was a drawing that made his hand twinge; that one drawing that felt as if a heart was beating right under the sealed paper. It was, once again, another one of him and Axel.
Like a flash of lightning his head suddenly seared with pain. He staggered backwards a few paces with his hands pressed desperately against his temples, believing that if he pressed hard enough he could squeeze the horrid pain right from his body. He thought that it was the pain he had been fighting all morning finally beginning to return, but all of a sudden it was as if a memory popped into his head.
He knew Axel was there, he could tell by the familiar scent of smoke and ash that suddenly overtook his senses. He could also tell that his and Axel's bodies were very close, almost as if Axel was holding him close to his own body. A strange warmth enveloped him as Axel's arms wrapped tighter around his lithe body. From what he could tell, his own pair of arms were reaching out, grabbing Axel around the neck to squeeze him tighter. Roxas pulled himself closer to Axel's body, nuzzling his face into the nape of the fire wielders neck. It was so warm, so comfortable, but it only lasted for a second. Everything faded after that. In the time it took to blink an eye the memory was gone, but everything was so vivid that it was as if Roxas could reach out and touch it. The warmth of Axel's body as he was being held close, the fiery color of Axel's hair as his face grazed the fine hairs on the back of Axel's neck.
His head was spinning and his knees were beginning to buckle under him when he felt a cold hand on his shoulder pull him back into reality.
"Are you okay?" A soft voice called out to him. He twisted, slapping the hand off his shoulder in a panic and let himself fall hard against the wall. His breath was ragged as he made a futile attempt to calm the searing pain in his head. Right in front of him Namine stood wide eyed with her hands clasped tightly to her breast. Roxas took a deep breath, pushing himself from the wall.
"Sorry, I didn't hear you come in."
"It's okay," Namine took a deep breath as well, letting herself relax. She still held a strange look about her though, as if she had Roxas trapped under a microscope, examining the other nobody as a rare specimen, "It's just strange seeing you... back to your old self."
"Not you too!" Roxas let out an exasperated moan.
What he remembered mere seconds ago was not his memory. He knew that never before had he been that close to Axel; he wasn't that gutsy. There were times when Axel's hand would accidently brush up against his and he'd have an unearthly urge to wrap it in his own, but he never reached for it. Then there were the times when Axel would smirk, and he had all he could do to stop himself from wiping that smirk from his lips using any means possible, but what those means were, he never knew. He knew he loved being close to Axel, loved feeling the warmth radiating from every pore on his body, but that's all he knew.
As far back as he could remember, since the day he was born as a nobody, he felt awkward desires towards Axel. It wasn't like he knew what to do with them, and he definitely knew better than to act upon them. The memory that flashed through his head was the desire that he's always felt put into action.
He shoved his hand into his pocket, pulling out the crumbled piece of paper Zexion had given him and shoved it in Namine's face with a desperate plea in his voice, "Look at this! I'm in this picture, all of these pictures, and I'm different. Everyone's acting funny and I just stood here and remembered something that I KNOW never happened! You know what's going on, I know you do! What is going on!"
Namine blinked, her hand clenched around the drawing Roxas had forced on her, and even without a heart she could feel the waves of uncertainty falling from Roxas like rain off a rooftop.
"You know what is going on, don't you?" Roxas's eyes were still large and begging as Namine turned away towards her window. The sky was distracting that day as the dark clouds in the distance moved fast passed the heart shaped moon. It was this same foreboding cloud movement that preluded the huge storm the day Axel lost Roxas. She heaved a heavy sigh as she set her hand against the icy cold glass.
"You don't remember anything?"
"I remember," Roxas frowned, his head was spinning and his stomach felt weak. He had no clue what he was supposed to be remembering. Apparently it was important and it had something, more or less, to do with Axel. The last time he remembered seeing Axel before today was when the redhead jumped from his seat the second Roxas began to fall. He remembered going down, his body crashing against the floor, his breath leaving his body in a great heave, and Axel's arms enveloping him before darkness clouded his mind.
"I remember sleeping for a long time," Roxas said in a defeated tone when nothing new came to mind, "not a sound sleep though, just tossing and turning all night... But I just saw- me and Axel were- might have been a dream... It seemed so real."
Namine watched as Roxas mused silently to himself. She shook her own head, "Axel must be upset."
Roxas whipped his head up, eyes once again fully focused on Namine, "He was upset this morning, how did you know?"
Namine said nothing, but instead focused her attention on the clouds swirling outside her window.
"Namine, come on, you have to tell me," Roxas took a weak step in her direction, "I don't want Axel mad at me...Did I upset Axel? Is he mad at me? You drew this picture, you have to know."
After a moment of silence, Namine finally locked eyes with Roxas, "I didn't draw that picture," She unfurled the scribbled drawing and spread it out on the table beside Roxas. It looked like every other drawing Namine had pinned up on her wall. The fair haired girl took a deep breath with her hand pressed to the drawing, "you drew this Roxas."
"What? No I-"
The second Roxas started protesting she pressed her finger to her lips in a hushing gesture. Roxas hugged his arms to his body, pursing his mouth shut as he stared down at the drawing. Looking it over made him feel strangely uncomfortable all of a sudden.
"You weren't yourself when you drew this. You haven't been yourself for a while."
"How was I not myself? How would I not have known? This isn't-" Roxas shuffled away from the table, closer to the window where he could watch the clouds stir in the distance with Namine.
Namine hurried past Roxas to her bed. She lifted her mattress to reveal a small hollowed out hiding space tucked within the frame of her bed. Several spare crayons were scattered over a few books Namine must have hijacked from the library, along with a small pocket calendar she used to keep track of her time in the castle. She snatched the calendar from its hiding spot and held it firmly against her chest with the current date facing her.
"Roxas, what is the last day you remember being awake?"
"Well," Roxas set his hand on his chin while watching her very closely, "yesterday was the thirteenth. That's when I passed out. Why?"
"I want you to stay calm okay Roxas?' She clutched the calendar tighter.
"Namine, why would I-"
The girl flipped the calendar around so that Roxas could finally see the date. He took in a slow breath and let it out as a heavy heave. The calendar had several red dashes slashing through the dates declaring that those dates had long since passed. The closest date that did not have a big red mark over it was the twenty-seventh of June. About two whole weeks had been slashed out since Roxas remembered falling out flat in the dining hall of The World That Never Was.
His eyes opened wide, and once again he felt as if he had no control over his breathing. First, he woke up completely naked with injuries he never remembered getting, then Axel acted like he had a hard time being within three feet of him, and finally he found out that the past two weeks were a giant black hole in the pit of his mind. Wonderful.
"This is impossible. What happened to me..." He hated this. He hated feeling like he was suddenly relying on everyone else to tell him about his own life. Unfortunately Namine didn't answer him, she shook her head and gently set her calendar back by her bed.
"I don't think it's my place to tell you. Axel would know."
"That won't work," Roxas suddenly became very interested in a piece of dirt between his fingernails, "I told you Axel is really upset. I wish I knew what was wrong but he won't open up with me. I'm his best friend. I don't understand why he's acting like this..."
Namine sat close to Roxas, looking into the graceful curves of his forlorn face. Something within her ached when she thought about how hard Axel worked to make Roxas remember so that he wouldn't have to start all over again. There was a fifty percent chance Roxas wouldn't have remembered their efforts and unfortunately they all got the short end of the stick. She wasn't supposed to meddle in the affairs of the Organization. She wasn't supposed to tamper with the memory of an Organization member, but something about how hard Axel worked, how he had failed, how he had to start all over again- it seemed to give her a rebellious streak that she didn't normally have.
She reached her hand under her mattress again, tucked away far under the mattress, she hid her most precious possession, her sketchbook. She tucked a pencil behind her ear, and her sketchbook under her arm.
"Do you feel like sleeping at all?"
Roxas gave her a questioning looks before shrugging his shoulders. He still felt uncomfortable, unsure, and unsettled, "I guess... I could use it."
"I can help," She summoned a portal beside Roxas. She held her hand out to him, beckoning him through. With no other choice and a large heave of his chest, he followed her through.
Roxas was back in his own bedroom. It only made his stomach twist and turn more ferociously than it had in Namine's room. His blankets were still balled up near the closet that he had dragged himself to when he realized he was completely naked. Even as he stood there fully clothed, it felt as if an uneasy breeze was still floating around the room. He hadn't even noticed that the second they ended up in his room Namine begun to make his bed and fluff his pillows.
"Hey, you don't have to-" Roxas made a move to stop her just in time for her to cross her arms and give a satisfied, "done."
"You have to sleep." She declared as she pulled up a chair and flipped to a clean page of her sketchbook. When Roxas just stood in the doorway, arms hugged around his body and a naive look on his face, she continued, "You mentioned you remembered something. This means that the memories of the past two weeks are still with you, but they are unchained and disconnected; you can't reach them by yourself. It's only two weeks worth of memories, it won't take me long to chain them back together, but you have to sleep."
Roxas's eyes lit up, for a moment a smile graced his lips, "This is against the rules."
"It will only take a couple hours," She pressed a finger to her lips.
Roxas let his arms drop to his side as he made a move to crawl into his bed, "Fine, but I want you out of here as soon as you're done. If you get in trouble on my account..."
She smiled, "You've risked a lot more before Roxas."
Finally his throbbing head was cushioned against the soft feathers of his pillow and his body cocooned between the blankets. His skin prickled with goosebumps when Namine pressed her pencil to the blank sheet of paper. His body felt oddly warm and light. His thoughts, empty and tiring.
Roxas watched the tip of the pencil glide across the paper, a thick grey line laying in its wake. The longer the line became, the more exhausted he seemed to become.
The warmth that overtook his body brought him back to the strange vision he saw in Namine's room. It was the warmth he always associated with Axel's presence and the warmth he felt when he was pulled close to Axel's body in that strange memory. His body ached with curiosity the more he thought about it and the more he thought about it, the more he wanted it to be true. If it was something he had forgotten in the past two weeks, if that was what Axel wanted, if he was mad because Roxas didn't give that to him, then he wanted to know.
"I want to know why Axel can't look at me, why he is so angry," Roxas weakly muttered. His head was drooping to the side and it took every muscle in his body to keep his eyes open.
"You'll understand."
It was the last thing Roxas heard. His eyes fell on the quickly sketched image in Namine's book; a picture of him, curled up in bed fast asleep. His legs curl to his chest as he gave way to the impending sleepiness.
-----------------------
A heavy load of books were dropped to the bed; the body carrying them collapsed beside the pile. This was not the Zexion that belonged to the Organization. This was not the Zexion that blindly followed the ideals of a single man in charge. This was not the Zexion that hovered over his work as if it were his life source. The man that collapsed to the bed beside an overbearing pile of books was nothing but a doubtful teenager overcome by the complexities of his reality.
He lay on his stomach, completely paralyzed in the unpleasant silence that took over his room. More than anything, he wished for something that would fill the silence, because the only noise he was aware of was the painful echo in his head of a single voice.
"Demyx might not be exactly like you, but who in their right mind falls in love with someone exactly like themselves. It's unheard of Zexion."
He absolutely could not get the words Axel had said to him out of his head. He thought that the library would help; Maybe reading a favorite book, or even finding something new to fill his time. Every time he opened a book the words just weren't being absorbed. Even worse than that, the speech that seemed to be on permanent repeat in his mind came with the unrelenting image of a certain someone.
"Maybe you need a little of what Demyx has to offer in your life."
There was the smile. The one that glowed with such an unnatural light that it should have been illegal.
"You need someone to pull you away from your work and give you the happiness you're missing."
And he saw them. Those bright teal eyes that, every day without fail, stared into his own with such a level of want and desire...
A knock of his door both pulled him from his thoughts and made him physically flinch. The strength it required to simply push himself out of bed surprised him, but he managed to make it to the door.
"Lab work in an hour small fry. Don't be late," It seemed as if Xigbar only stood in the doorway for a second, just enough time to relay his message and leave. Zexion didn't even get the chance to utter a hello.
Once again he was alone with the silence that was trying to eat away at him. This time he refused to give in to it. Neat in their respective piles were his books and notes that he had so carefully compiled. In one fluid motion he scooped them into his arms and darted from his room. He would kill the silence. He would fill his mind with numbers and figures, and do everything in his power to forget about the want pulsing through every vein in his body.
----------------------
Demyx never found avoiding missions a difficult task, just dangerous. Being caught was when he was in real trouble. Therefore, whenever he did find a clever way to ditch a mission for the day he also had to find a clever place to hide for a couple of hours. To his knowledge, that day most of the other members were either out or in the basements of the castle. With that in mind, he was headed as far from the ground floor as possible. This of course meant that he would be spending a majority of the night on the highest roof of the castle.
With his sitar slung over his back and his hood drawn up tight, he opened the door to the highest point of the castle. The second he took one step outside he was showered with a light downpour. It was hot, muggy, sticky, and Demyx could tell that another storm was on the way. With a soft smile to the skies, he lowered his hood, letting the rain soak his skin.
He needed a break. He needed the fog and the downpour to clear his mind and make him stop thinking. He needed to play his sitar to the invisible crowd he created in his own imagination.
With a satisfied sigh Demyx made his way to the very edge of the roof and sat down to strum on his sitar. Now that everything was put back to the way it belonged, everything was going to go back to normal, at least that is what he was hoping. It would make everything easier.
-----------------------
Never before had Axel completed a mission as fast as he did that day. He couldn't quite pinpoint the reason why his work seemed rushed or hurried. Perhaps it was the anger that bubbled under his skin towards Saix, or the fact that Roxas didn't remember a damned thing! Or maybe it was the uneasiness that seemed to claw at his very skin; the uneasiness that knew how strained and uncomfortable a normal relationship with Roxas was going to be like.
He collapsed on his bed with the intense urge to claw his own eyes out. Thankfully something deterred him from acting upon that urge. Laying beside him was Sora; the abandoned stuffed animal that seemed to have a voice and personality all its own. He picked it up with hesitation, holding it out in front of him.
In his mind, he couldn't make out whether he was happy or upset over the fact that Roxas didn't remember anything that happened. Did he really want to face a knowledgeable Roxas? A Roxas that knew the extent Axel cared for him? A Roxas that could possibly hate him for such thoughts?
Or did he want Roxas to know, simply to know if the so called feeling was mutual.
The beady eyes of the stuffed animal stared lifelessly into his own. They were silent, almost mocking. In his head he couldn't quite sort out whether it would be easier if Roxas knew or not.
The glass of the window across his bed was slowly fogging up as rain trickled from top to bottom. Even though he finished his missions in record time that day, he still didn't have any down time. He was still under strict surveillance and of course, still paying for putting Roxas in danger while he was out of commission.
With his jaw clenched and set, he threw Sora back down on the bed. He had night patrol to do. Rain or not. Restless mind or not. It was his job.