fic: the night we never met
Title: The Night We Never Met
Fandom/Pairing: Kingdom Hearts/mostly onesided RoxasAxel
Genre/ Rating: Drama/Angst/Romance/M
Summary: When his Uncle Auron has been unusually silent and possibly missing, Axel confronts a squatter named Roxas paying bills and keeping house in his stead. Strangely, Roxas claims to know him from a past life. Little Red Riding Hoodesque. Slight AU with mentions of FFX. Contest Entry.
Wordcount: 2882
Music: Kent "If You Were Here"
The apartment complex started out as a commercial building. Uncle Auron’s flat takes up most of the fifth floor and half of the sixth. He has a service elevator to himself that opens with a metal key. Only the doorman has a copy.
They’ve told me he hasn’t been out in nearly three weeks, not even to work, Axel’s mother says on the answering machine. Somehow his bills have all been paid through the mail. I need you to go check on him. It’s not normal for him to stay shut in. It’s just not.
Axel takes a bus across town with a Heineken in a paper bag, pulling his dark blue hood over his scarlet mane to block the noise of the city.
Axel cues up a song in his head, tries to make it drown out the rickety bump bump bump of the bus and the children’s scream, scream, screams.
He gets off on Juniper Road and walks two whole city blocks to Advent Garden. The doorman won’t let him up the service elevator because Auron hasn’t authorized it for today. Axel raises his middle finger. The doorman shrugs.
That’s how it works, he drones.
Fuck you, Axel says but doesn’t mean it.
He takes the regular elevator, clutching the rail when it shudders. It’s nothing but a tall box with a thin carpet and an unpolished wood rail with a measly half door that sticks when it slides open. He thinks he could be claustrophobic, just for that elevator. When he steps out he thinks he might throw himself out a window if he can’t take the service elevator down.
Fuck the stairs, he says to no one in particular.
Auron’s door is nondescript. Axel abuses it with his knuckles. There’s someone rapping at your chamber door. Someone tapping. Only this and nothing more. The door remains shut. Axel withdraws a mess of keys and finds the newest addition. His mother sent him the spare by way of Reno.
The door opens easily.
Auron’s building is on the edge of the seedy part of town, and squatters are commonplace. Axel knows about squatters. He’s seen enough to know their habits. They usually run. This one doesn’t. He’s just a boy, and he doesn’t run.
Get out of here before I call the police, kid, Axel says.
It’s a mild warning. The kid looks harmless. He stays put. Axel notices that it’s not cold in the flat but he’s wearing a long black coat that falls to his knees.
Get the hell out.
The boy locks his eyes onto Axel’s. Very blue.
What green eyes you have, he speaks. I’d forgotten.
His voice is dark, honeyed in the vowels. It’s hard to tell how old he is. Axel puts the beer down on the hall table and picks up the phone, alarmed and angry when there is no dial tone.
I sent in the bill this morning, the boy says, nonchalant.
What the fuck.
You’re staying with me, Axel, the boy says finally, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in a smirk.
How do you know my name Axel asks finally.
He thinks this might be a dream. He’s fallen asleep on the bus.
I know you, the boy answers. You’re Axel.
Auron’s flat is big, but Axel has never seen any pictures of himself or of his mother anywhere. Auron is not his Uncle by blood. The boy can’t have found any information on him in the drawers, in the filing cabinet. Auron is very solitary.
We’re friends, the boy clarifies. We were.
When.
You don’t remember.
It’s not a question at all, which makes everything more confusing. If you had remembered, the boy goes on, you would have come to find me. You didn’t. But I remembered, so I came looking for you.
Well you found me, Axel says lamely.
He thinks the boy might be dangerous, so it would be best to play along. When his back is turned he’ll leave. He’ll tell the doorman to seal the stairwells and the service elevator. Call the police. The boy doesn’t turn his back.
What’s your name, Axel asks.
Roxas, the boy says, the smirk tugging at his mouth. Commit it to memory.
The name almost sounds familiar. Like a distant dream.
What if I tried to, he asks later.
Please don’t leave, Axel. I don’t want to hurt you.
He doesn’t think Roxas can force him to stay. But he stays. It’s dusk. Twilight.
Are you going to tell me how I forgot you, Axel says.
I’m still trying to figure that out, Roxas answers. You want to know about us before you forgot.
Axel doesn’t. He can easily walk away. Roxas isn’t sane. There is something frightening about his calm. He truly believes everything he’s saying. That’s the best kind of liar. The best and the most dangerous. Roxas leans forward in his seat, elbows on knees. Axel convinces himself that he isn’t interested in anything he has to say.
You want proof first, Roxas says.
Axel prepares himself for something vague. A trap. Some meaningless bit of information that anyone could guess or scratch the surface to. Roxas leans forward, more weight on the right elbow, touches a finger to a spot just under Axel’s collarbone, right shoulder.
Scar, he says. Broken glass shard.
Axel jerks back. Roxas smirks. He hasn’t told anyone about it. It was recent, and the memory is still vivid in his mind, a burning square. There had been a fire. He’d seen it from his window. Fire... fascinates him. It also scares him. He isn’t sure why he wanted to get so close to the building. The heat within implodes and pushes out, a hundred windows shattering. Small fragments fly out and graze his arms, his cheek. The biggest one rips into his shirt with the force of a laser arrow, digging into his skin. The small scratches heal almost overnight, but that one remains. He hasn’t told anyone about it.
You always get out of bed on the left side, Roxas continues. You learned how to swim late, and you don’t like going under. The quality you hate most in people is when they seem to use others. I know you.
His last words border on desperate, but he doesn’t move.
How long were you looking for me, Axel finally asks.
You don’t trust me, Roxas says.
He looks disappointed, but not so much that Axel guesses he was prepared for this.
I remembered you on my thirteenth Birthday, he says. It was strange. I woke up and felt different. I sort of forgot who I was... It took me a long minute of staring in the mirror to remember my name, say it out loud, and realize why it sounded foreign to me. Then I remembered your name. I felt like I’d heard it in a dream, but as the day went on, I saw your face in my mind, and by the time I went to sleep that night, I was restless.
And then you started looking for me.
Not right away, Roxas confesses. I didn’t know if you remembered... if you even were. But then I decided that since I remembered, you must... but you didn’t come looking for me.
He’s urgent now, fingering the drawstrings of his hood, allowing himself the hope that Axel isn’t just playing along. He lets himself think that telling the whole story will make him believe. Night has fallen, and Axel hasn’t called his mother about Auron. He has the sudden urge to finish the Heineken and just sleep, wake up to a hangover and nothing else.
How did you find me, he asks instead.
Your Uncle. Auron.
Roxas pulls something from his pocket. It’s a check stamp, which explains how the bills have been paid. The red ink is dry on it, seeping into the embossing of the mark.
I met him when he was crossing over. He sensed I was missing something, and I told him about you.
What do you mean he was crossing over, Axel asks.
It’s puzzling and frustrating the way Roxas seems to tipiase around details. Axel thinks that is there’s any credibility in any of this, Roxas is hiding something.
I mean he came to where I was, from here, Roxas says. He told me to come here. He knew you would come to see why he’d been so quiet.
Auron being quiet isn’t unordinary.
He knew someone would take notice.
Where is he, Axel says.
He doesn’t care if it’s a story. If he can have something to tell his mother then at least it would stall her for now.
Spira, maybe. I think that’s what he told me.
Where is that.
He didn’t say.
Axel knows that he’s lying now. He can tell by the way Roxas holds his gaze. If anyone else were to look at him that way he’d be convinced. But Roxas’s eyes, even though he seems to be able to lie even to himself, are lighter and unblinking.
I’m going to try to believe you, he says. But you’re not telling me everything. If you want my trust, tell me what it is that you’re being so careful about.
Roxas looks away, seems to withdraw into his coat. He puts his feet up on the couch, leans back into the cushions.
Spira, he says. It’s another... existence. Plane.
He looks up, waits for Axel to react. Surprisingly, nothing happens. Axel simply reaches over to turn on a lamp.
And you’re from another one. Not Spira. You crossed over.
I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. I was lucky.
They sit in silence for a long time, and Axel finishes the beer. He considers going downstairs to a payphone and calling his mother. But he doesn’t know how to explain to her about Spira. He still isn’t sure he believes it, though he said he would. More than that he doesn’t know what he’ll do after he makes the call. He should go back home. He left a load of clothes in the washer.
You still don’t believe me.
Does it count that I want to.
I guess.
What do you guess.
It’s better than where we started.
Do you want me to stay.
Roxas closes his eyes, exhales, nods. I won’t make you. But please. There’s... something else.
Will I believe you.
It doesn’t matter. I just need you to forgive me.
I might not.
Roxas nods again. Only the lamp is on. Axel can hear the sound of the refrigerator humming and he hears the sound of a garbage truck in the street below.
I betrayed you.
Axel isn’t expecting this.
The last time I saw you I was being selfish, Axel. I cared more about myself and finding myself than you. You warned me not to take off, but I did.
Axel believes him, this much. Did you die then.
I think so.
Axel doesn’t want more silence, so he gets up and is glad that the beer was a small one. Auron usually has sea salt ice cream in his freezer. It’s weird, but it tastes okay.
Salty but sweet, Roxas agrees. Axel gets them each a bowl.
Tell me about us before, then.
Roxas contemplates the pale blue frosted puddle in his bowl. We were part of an organization. I guess you’d call it a cult, now. The Superior questioned... emotions. Like, the heart is a physical organ, but it only serves to pump blood, circulate it. What arteries are the ones that signal our actions to love. His spoon clatters against the porcelain. He shrugs. It’s not easy to explain. We were part of it because we had certain skills.
Like what skills, Roxas.
I’m being honest when I say I don’t remember. I think that’s the one thing I wasn’t supposed to. He pauses, fingering the drawstrings of his hood again. I do know that there was someone like me, with the same abilities, I mean. But he was working against us. I wanted to know why we had that connection. So I left.
That isn’t selfish.
Roxas shrugged. I felt bad about it right afterward, and I didn’t even look back. The guilt carried over to this life.
I think I would have forgiven you.
That’s what I came for, I guess.
You do a lot of that. Try to be certain of something.
There is one thing.
Roxas lets his feet down and leans forward again, elbows on knees. He gives Axel that look again, the one that seems to hide something. This time Axel isn’t put off by it.
I’m certain we were best friends. The Superior didn’t know, though. Having a friend sort of went against what we studied. But we knew we were friends.
It’s late now. Axel pulls something out of the freezer for them and microwaves it. It’s a lasagna, and despite everything they eat every last bite.
I have one last thing, Roxas says. I think you’d believe me then.
Axel doubts it, but asks to hear it. Roxas’s eyes are so very blue. All the better to lie with.
You have a reoccurring nightmare. You’re trapped in a burning building.
He touches the scar under his collarbone. Fire fascinates him as much as it scares him, and it scares him because of the nightmares. He’s only ever told Ienzo about it, and the stoic young man hadn’t even pressed for the information, certainly gave no impression that he would remember it enough to tell anyone else. Axel had been drunk. He doesn’t’ remember if he even got the details right.
Did I then, he asks. When we were friends did I tell you about it.
Roxas shakes his head.
That’s how the Superior found you.
It’s near midnight. Axel decides to stay.
I don’t trust the buses this time of night. It’s more likely to get robbed on a bus at night with the driver and a load of passengers as witness than in broad daylight anywhere with no one watching.
Roxas smirks.
I’ll sleep on the couch. I’ve been using the guest room, but it’s your right.
Axel doesn’t argue. He thinks Roxas might be gone in the morning. He thinks he might be okay with that.
The guest room is small, only a twin bed with a bookcase crammed between the headboard and the wall. Axel doesn’t mind. He’s crashed here on nights when he gets stuck at Ienzo’s or Braig’s, usually buzzed if not drunk. He doesn’t trust the buses at night.
The bed is worn in the middle, and he knows, without having to question Roxas or himself if it’s true and why, that Roxas curls up into a fetal position when he sleeps, ignores the pillow. The quilt smells like asphalt after rain.
He wakes up before the sun, tosses the quilt aside and puts his head between his knees, taking deep breaths.
It was just a dream, Axel.
Roxas is standing in the doorway. The coat is gone, and in place of his black jeans he wears pale heather grey sweat pants. He looks as though he hasn’t slept. He’s been waiting.
It just feels so real.
It was. Once.
Axel doesn’t have to say anything about believing or trust. Roxas gets it. He lets himself in and wads the thin quilt up, shoves it to the edge of the mattress between the sheets and the headboard. Axel props the pillow against it and leans back.
Will it ever stop.
Maybe if you remember.
He doesn’t try to explain that accepting things has nothing to do with remembering. Axel knows. He knows what was. They’re just not his memories.
Roxas exhales slowly, fits the bridge of his nose to the curve of Axel’s collarbone. Their legs shift and Axel feels warmth, heavy against his thigh. His hand closes around it with equal hesitation and need.
That’s what you weren’t telling me.
Roxas’s hand fists the fabric of his shirt. Fuck, he says. He’s hard in Axel’s hand.
It's okay, Axel murmurs, not knowing what else to say.
Roxas tilts his head back. In the dim of the hall light spilling in he locks his gaze steadily to Axel’s mouth, leans the barest inch forward. Axel has been kissed before. Innocent firsts, drunken ones that he’s lost count of, ones that he insisted meant something. Never like this. There is yearning in it, Roxas’s hand light on his jaw, the gentle sounds he makes in the gasps of air irrevocably perfect. Axel’s hand tightens.
Roxas doesn’t seem ashamed. He pulls away slowly but doesn’t move. The smell is tinted heavily with musk, salted and saccharine. Axel slips his fingers past the waistband of Roxas’s pants, presses them deep into the flesh.
Roxas.
In the morning, I’m going to cross over again.
Axel draws him close, trails slow kisses from his temple downward.
I’ll go looking for you this time. I’ll remember.
In the morning Roxas is gone.
When Axel looks in the mirror he sees two faint marks under his eyes. His fingertips tingle like match heads struck again and again against sandpaper, just before the flame bursts into existence.