i don't feel so well

[got_it_memorized]

Who: Axel and Riku
When: 02June, for the Outbreak plot; mid-afternoon
Where: House of the Rising Tsun
What: Riku is down with the sickness
Warnings: prolly nothing


While the Initiative-issued tablets were definitely a bit higher-tech than he had grown accustomed to back home, there was one thing Axel had found made it worth trying to figure out all the buttons and options: games. Sure, a walkie was good enough for him, in most cases--keep it simple, stupid!--but you couldn't play games on a walkie. Having discovered the option to kill time without sitting up had been a huge breakthrough in Axel's laziness regime, and he had quickly downloaded half a dozen games to find out which ones were the most entertaining.

Most of the games had premises that made little to no sense, he'd found. He had quickly grown addicted to one where the only purpose was to fling oddly-shaped birds at buildings in an effort to crush any green pigs dwelling within. It was actually more difficult than it sounded.

Stretched out on the couch, the tablet resting on his abdomen as he attempted to demolish the landscape using his supply of avian ammunition, Axel had already beaten his high score. It had been a most productive day indeed. He was pretty sure it was his turn to make dinner, but until someone came home and confirmed this, he was content to continue wasting time.

Comments

[got_it_memorized]

"Famous last words," he said with a sly grin, and then leaned back to rap his knuckles on the coffee table: knock on wood!

As he sat back up though, an involuntary groan grated from his throat and his hand moved to the small of his back.

"Ugh, five hours in a chair does a number on your spine," he complained, arching his back and grimacing at the audible popping sounds it made. "If I wind up a hunchback I'm holding you responsible, sheepdog." Propping the heel of his hand against his chin, he whipped his head one way, then the other, an unsettling crrrrrakk! lilting through the air as he did so, and then he sighed, getting to his feet and pushing the chair aside to flop down on the other end of the couch instead. "Much better."

When Riku's breath shuddered and rattled softly as he inhaled, though, Axel closed his eyes and refused to look at him. Famous last words indeed. He was a lousy nurse, but that didn't mean he wasn't familiar with what illness could do to people. Even if their friendship was fragile and fledgling, watching the kid die once was more than enough.

He cast Riku a sidelong glance when he spoke then, something uncertain in his eyes. It was a little ironic, he thought, that he, the treacherous two-faced double agent that had been the downfall of the Organization's forces in Castle Oblivion should question whether or not he could trust someone's word. Certainly Riku dying for him had said more than words, but while Axel didn't really like to entertain himself a villain, somehow it felt easier as a Bad Guy to take the path of least resistance and stop fighting the Good Guy than for a Good Guy to actually want to be friends with a Bad Guy. He didn't want to admit it, but if he was honest with himself (perish the thought!) he was... kind of lonesome. He missed Roxas and Xion, in a way he was certain it took a heart to experience, and somehow his hands had felt beyond empty since they'd gone back home. There were no heads to ruffle, no shared sunsets, no chats over ice cream, no explaining the ways of the world through obtuse cheesy metaphor, and he hadn't realized how much he'd depended on those things until he didn't have them anymore.

Axel wanted that again. But at the same time, he never wanted to go through what had happened with Roxas and Xion again. It didn't hurt to lose people if you didn't have them in the first place, right? Was this worth it?

He hesitated, then folded his arms and gently kicked Riku's ankle.

"Right, yeah, friends die for each other all the time," he grumbled. "I keep a running tally."

[limitstorm]

"I'm gonna have to ask you to quit calling me sheepdog, or I'll call you hedgehog," Riku noted as Stellaluna perched on his shoulder. "I meant sacrificing, not actually dying. I'd do it for Sora and Kairi, anyway, so don't think you're too special," he raise his eyebrows, before cringing as the Dream Eater started to chatter in his ear, yanking on his hair.

Riku, unlike Axel, seemed used to the action. "What's with you? I--"

A moment of thought and realization was all it took for Riku to jump up to his feet, wobble, and then slump back down with a groan. "Ugh. I slept through your feeding, I get it, give me a minute." Snatching up his glass of half-full, temperate juice, he moved past Axel with a slight stumble as he got to the kitchen, ducking down underneath the sink to fetch her usual, tossing up a Shield Cookie (he made them himself--he wasn't sure if she liked them as much as the ones he'd always found, but she gobbled them up without any sad screeching, so he figured he'd been pretty close) and letting her catch it in the air, twirling around his head.

A moment of pause, and then he peeked his head over the counter. "Uh, if I offered to cook, you'd say no, wouldn't you?"

[got_it_memorized]

"Hedgehog, really?" Axel reached up and tugged at one of the spikes of hair that arched forward from his hairline and then gave Riku a somewhat indignant look. "I was thinking more along the lines of an echidna," he said then, pressing the side of his index finger against the bridge of his nose, "what with my distinctive very straight nose."

Axel had found that it was easier to help in making a bit of self-deprecating fun of himself than to get angry about it. It tended to confuse people, and that was far more entertaining.

He folded his arms then. "I'll think I'm special if I wanna think I'm special, thank you very much," he said in a You're Not The Boss Of Me tone. Watching as Riku sort of stumbled toward the kitchen, Axel made a face as he fed his bat thing. "She eats cookies?" he asked, and then shook his head befuddledly. "I thought bats ate like... fruit and stuff. Or sucked blood, you know?"

Maybe offering her cereal hadn't been as far off as he'd thought. At Riku's question, though, Axel tapped the tip of his nose and grinned.

"Bingo!" he said, and then got to his feet. Leaning in the kitchen ingress, he shook his head. "Seems to me that working over an open flame is the last thing you need right now, Mr. Fahrenheit. Sheena'd kill me if she found out you were still playing chef with a fever, and I'm never interested in being on the receiving end of a woman's wrath." He made a shooing motion then. "So am-scray." And with that, Axel tugged open one of the lower cabinets and rummaged through the contents in search of a particular bag among the cans and boxes.

[limitstorm]

"We don't have those where I'm from," he called back, raising a brow. Echidna? What kind of name was that for an animal, anyway?

Looking back to Stellaluna as she scarfed down her cookie, he looked to Axel as he got to his feet and shrugged, moving back out of the kitchen. "She eats candy, chocolate and ice cream, too, actually. She likes a lot of sweet things, including fruits." He toyed with an ear of hers as she rolled happily, almost crooning for affection. Riku took in a breath before giving her a good scratchdown, a pink-like glow emanating from the bat as she squealed and bounced in her spot, little claws clacking against the counter.

As he looked up to see Axel opening the cabinets, however, he froze and then groaned. "Great," he muttered, perching his chin in his palm. "I might die anyway."

[got_it_memorized]

"Me either," Axel said with a shrug, "they live in Australia; I read about 'em when I was doing a little research before that mission we did for the Initiative. I mostly just thought the name sounded cool."

He nodded a bit when Riku detailed the bat's diet. "She's got good taste," he said. "Is that... healthy, though?" he asked, more curious than indicting. "I mean, I dunno the first thing about keeping a... whatever she actually is, but even with the fruit in there that doesn't sound like a very balanced diet."

When he heard Riku groan, though, Axel huffed audibly and got to his feet, grabbing a spatula and shaking it at him.

"Rude," he said. "You know, for a Keyblade master you really have terrible manners." Turning and tugging the freezer open, he pulled out one of the little squishy ice packs someone had bought for bag lunches or something and plunked it down on top of the boy's head. "Go siddown," he said, pointing with the spatula out toward the living room. "If I wanted to kill you I'd'a done so a long time ago, and I certainly would have been a bit more creative than poisoning your food or something, sheesh. Give me a little credit as a capable assassin."

[limitstorm]

"I don't know if it's healthy," Riku admitted, poking Stellaluna's stomach and giving it a little rub. "She's a Dream Eater--she eats nightmares, too. Not mine, but other people's." His voice turned slightly sour then. It wasn't Stellaluna's fault, he knew. It seemed to be one of the drawbacks of being pulled into this world, by the Initiative's technology. "Bad dreams are most of her diet, I think. She's pretty full otherwise... which doesn't say anything good about the other transports." He shook his head. "Besides, she was shaped by my dreams, and if I know anything about myself, it's that I've got a huge sweet tooth."

A pause.

"And I've got great manners, I was raised right," he muttered under his breath, pulling the ice pack against his cheek. Almost immediately, he relaxed soundlessly, like someone letting the air out of a balloon.

"Yeah, yeah," Riku waved his free hand, trodding back to the living room to sit down. "You'd... I don't know what you'd do. I'm not much of an assassin. I guess it'd be something worth seeing? I think I like you better when you're saving people, not assassinating them."

[got_it_memorized]

Axel barked a sharp laugh. "I'd tell her to get crackin' on mine, in that case, but she'd prolly get indigestion."

And then he froze. He hadn't meant to say that. ... He blamed it on bizarre interrupted sleep, yes. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he found the pancake mix and set it down on the counter, scooping some into a bowl and the moving to the sink to add some water.

"So you dream about rainbow sherbet a lot, I take it?" he asked, hoping to change the subject.

He snapped his fingers to start up one of the burners on the stove, then set a flat pan atop the flame. He viciously mixed the pancake batter together, but paused before ladling onto the pan when Riku spoke then. He stepped out of the kitchen to frown at him a moment.

Axel had always been quick to make jokes about being an assassin, but he had never really enjoyed it. Killing Vexen and Zexion surely were two of his lowest moments, in his opinion. Somehow hearing this from Riku made his stomach turn a bit, and he sighed softly.

"Yeah, well... I think I'm better at hurting people than I am at saving them," he said darkly. "They say stick to what you're good at, but what if you're good at somethin' you don't like, huh?" He leaned in the ingress a moment, halfheartedly poking at the pancake mix with the spoon, then lifted his eyes to look at Riku. "If it means anything, I guess I can tell you... I got no plans to go back to the Organization, really. I mean, I guess I can't change my future, which is apparently my past so far as you know, but..." He shrugged one shoulder. "If Xemnas showed up here one day? I think I'd tell him to get bent."

[limitstorm]

There was a silent pause; it almost seemed as if Riku hadn't even heard Axel's first comment or his second question before he spoke.

"Maybe your nightmares are too much like mine," he confessed, voice quiet and earnest as he folded his arms on the table, moving his fingers against his arm to direct a thread of darkness around the ice pack, settling it against the back of his neck and relaxing more. Then, somewhat sardonically: "Yeah, you know, I have a lot of dreams about beating Sora at Candyland, it's the only board game he could beat me at."

Which was true, but he hoped that he'd said it with enough sarcasm that Axel wouldn't think so. Riku didn't say a thing in relation to Axel's allegiances at first, simply poking Stellaluna in rhythm, her eyes shining a bright green after enough contact.

He straightened and swallowed down the itch in his throat. "I think you're being way too hard on yourself. Just because the circumstances aren't right to save someone, doesn't mean you're bad at it."

Riku glanced to Axel, then. "But it's good to hear you'd tell him to scram."

[got_it_memorized]

"Candyland?" Axel scrunched up his face a bit. "Haven't played that one. You could prolly beat me at cards sometime, though, if you want. Despite having a champion pokerface I suck at cards." Or maybe it had all been Luxord's fault; he still wasn't quite sure.

He held Riku's gaze a moment, then made a wordless noise of alarm and ducked back into the kitchen to splash some water on the griddle, which had started smoking in the downtime. It hissed and spat, and then he ladled out two pancakes to cook, grabbing a spatula.

"Yeah, well, I didn't have anybody else around to be hard on me," he said with a chuckle. Isa had always been the one to keep him in line, to keep him grounded, to keep his feet on the ground even if his head was always in the clouds. He had lost Isa a long time ago, and had then lost Saïx as well. Whatever had happened to him, he hadn't been able to stop it. Had he even tried hard enough? He and Saïx had been drifting apart for years and all he had done was watch it happen. He had tried to maintain what he could, but... he wondered sometimes if all he'd done was stand on the pier and watch as Saïx was swept away by something he couldn't see, instead of throwing him a rope instead.

Flipping the pancakes over and grabbing a plate from the cabinet, Axel waited until they were cooked on the other side and then flipped them onto the plate. Moving to the ingress again he held the plate up.

"Butter 'n syrup?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows and not really acknowledging the Xemnas subject. He found himself desperately hoping Xemnas wouldn't show up, if only because he knew Xemnas was the sort to hurt others by using the people close to them. He knew that Riku had wrangled with his own darkness already, and had gained control over it for the most part, but what about Ahiru? Larsa? What about Sheena? And Kagura... Axel could sense a lot of darkness within her, and even though she seemed to hail as a villain, the reason he found her so interesting was because she reminded him of himself. She may not have been nice, but she wasn't cruel or malicious, and it seemed she had issues of her own back home that weren't unlike his.

If Xemnas came to Exsilium and Axel told him to get lost, every single person Axel knew would be a target. And he really wasn't okay with that. He'd already found out the hard way he was no good at protecting anybody, and he didn't want a reminder.

[limitstorm]

Riku stayed silent as Axel talked.

He'd brought up a point. If Xemnas showed up here one day...

What if they didn't stop there? What if it was Xehanort, Master Xehanort that appeared one day? He'd never had a chance to fight him, but the younger version of himself was strong enough for Riku to have to struggle through it and be too weak to really defend himself against the events that'd followed when he'd tried to save Sora from their clutches. It'd only been Lea that'd saved Sora, in the end, Riku had been near powerless.

What would happen if Xehanort appeared? His stomach dropped. If Riku couldn't protect everyone, if Axel was still himself--he'd have backup (maybe; he wasn't going to sign Axel up for something he might be against in the first place) but he'd likely lose.

Losing to Xehanort, here? It made a chill run down his spine.

"Hey, Axel," he started, then paused as he realized he'd near cut the redhead off. ... right. Maybe it was best to forget what he'd thought about. "... uh, butter, thanks. No syrup."

[got_it_memorized]

Axel knew that bait-and-switch tone. He'd used it many a time himself, when he'd started to say something and then thought better of it.

Narrowing his eyes a bit at Riku, he swiveled back into the kitchen and dolloped a thick slice of butter onto each pancake, stacking them and sliding a fork beneath the lower one. He wordlessly slid the plate onto the coffee table, then paused a moment, giving Riku a glance before he went back into the kitchen to make himself a plate.

With two pancakes of his own (drowned in syrup), Axel returned to the living room and plunked down in his chair, backwards, using the arm of the couch as a table. Hacking off a piece of pancake, he twisted it in the air and then sort of wagged it at Riku.

"You should say what's on your mind, kid," he said, popping the food into his mouth then and twisting the fork between his fingers again. "Keep everything bottled up and you'll get sick."

Well. Riku kind of already was, apparently, but that was beside the point. The Pot calling the Kettle black was also beside the point.

[limitstorm]

"I'm already sick," he pointed out simply, taking a bite.

He grew silent, surprised that it wasn't completely liquid in the middle (he made that mistake before) or hard as a brick (he'd made that mistake too) and didn't have an odd texture (sora'd made that mistake). It was actually good, even if it was from a mix. He shot a glance over at Axel, surprised, but grateful.

Riku let the silence grow between them before speaking, again, rolling a shoulder back. "All I wanted to say was that if someone named Xehanort shows up..." a moment of hesitation. "... you better tell me."

[got_it_memorized]

Already sick? You don't say. Axel quirked his mouth to one side, then hacked off another piece of pancake, twisting the syrup strings off and holding it off to one side.

"Okay, this?" he said, indicating the be-pancaked fork. "This is the point. And this?" He flattened his other hand, then sent it soaring over the fork with an airplane noise. "Yeah that was you."

He made a face then, putting the fork in his mouth and letting it hang there a moment before removing it.

"Xheha-ort?" he asked with his mouth full, and then swallowed. "What, that dorky forgetful labcoat guy with the white hair and the bad tan?" He stabbed at the pancakes again. "What's that guy got to do with anything?"

[limitstorm]

"You'd be good at feeding toddlers," Riku said with a roll of his eyes, propping his chin up in one hand before wincing and pulling his hand away. Pressing the back of it against his forehead, he chewed the inside of his cheek and moved the fork in his other hand back into his mouth.

Riku ate almost too delicately. He'd had manners drilled into him since he was old enough to walk and babble; eating finely came out of muscle memory.

"He has a lot to do with everyone. I don't know if we're talking about the same person, though," he raised an eyebrow at Axel. "Master Xehanort is an old guy. Last time I saw him, he was hunched over and didn't have any hair. You're talking about the Xehanort that was Ansem the Wise's apprentice, aren't you?" DiZ had mentioned him when they were in the Castle that Never Was, before the encoder had blown up... it hadn't taken too long for Riku to put together some pieces, when he'd talked with Yen Sid and the Apprentices.

"It's complicated. Xemnas is that guy's Nobody, and Xehanort's Heartless," Riku pushed down the grimace in his face, not quite willing on sharing that part just yet, "is... well, his Heartless. When you get rid of the Heartless and the Nobody, they come back."

[got_it_memorized]

Axel watched as Riku flinched and then ate gingerly, as though the very act of chewing might be painful, but said nothing. If he had learned anything about Riku thus far it was that the kid had about as much dumb pride as he did, if not more.

"Whaddaya mean not talking about the same person?" Axel asked, his eyebrows arched dramatically. "How many guys named 'Xehanort' can there be?" Riku pls. Sure, some names were pretty common, but he couldn't imagine something as weird as Xehanort happened more than once or twice like... ever. He knew the apprentice one, he'd seen him a few times when he and Isa had tried to break into the castle. He'd never really known him, though. Then he scratched his head. "Wait, Master? Like Keyblade Master, like you?" He took another bite of his pancakes and then gesticulated with the fork. "If he's a Keyblader how bad can he be, right? Don't you kinda have to be cut from a special kind'a cloth to wield one'a those things?"

He nearly choked on his pancakes at Riku's next announcement though, and after pounding on his chest and setting his plate aside on the coffee table, he gave the boy an incredulous look.

"Riku I think that fever's made you delirious," he guffawed, swiping a bit of syrup from the corner of his mouth. "If all we had to do to get our hearts back was die I'm sure Xemnas would have done that ages ago."

[limitstorm]

Riku outright glared before he tried to school himself.

10, 9, 8, 7...

"You already have your heart back," he said, words low and a bit angry on Axel's behalf, unable to stop himself. "It's been growing back. If Nobodies really can't feel, why were you best friends with Roxas? You can't be best friends without feeling something. Xemnas didn't tell you because he needs everyone in the Organization for his own plot. He wants something--" explaining the χ-blade would take too long, "--and he's using all of you to get it."

As for being a Keyblade Master--

Riku didn't answer that. He was as confused as Axel on that front.

[got_it_memorized]

The glare caught Axel by surprise. He figured Riku was perceptive enough to pick up on sarcasm when it was thrown at him, but really--how could the kid possibly expect him to buy that? Destroy two halves to recreate the whole? In what universe did that make any sense?

When Riku claimed he already had his heart back, however, all Axel could do was stare at him. His words were like needles that pricked at his skin, they hurt somehow, but not enough to really react more than with a flicker of a grimace and perhaps confusion. Where had this pain come from, anyway? It was... what was it? What was this feeling? What was the name for this feeling he was trying to remember how to feel?

Why was he best friends with Roxas? Well, why was he? It hadn't started out that way, after all; he'd been put in charge of Roxas' training, and later Xion's, and he had taken that job seriously. Why, though? Certainly Axel had taken his responsibilities at the Organization seriously (if he'd schlepped off it would have hurt his and Saïx's plans, right?), but why had he taken Roxas and Xion so seriously? He had let the kids interfere with those plans. The kids had somehow become more important than his plans with his old friend. For that matter, he hadn't even known the extent of Saïx's goals. He had known that the plan was for Saïx to climb through the ranks, and then they would... what? Unseat Xemnas? How? And then what? When he sat down and thought about it, the plan really wasn't very solid... so why had he gone along with it?

Because Saïx--no... Isa. Isa had been his friend! Isa had always come up with good plans! Isa had always jumped in and rescued him when his own harebrained ideas had gone awry! Of course he had gone along with Saïx's plan, what else should he have done?

So why had Roxas and Xion come to trump that? How? Axel had tried not to think about it too much, the fact that technically his lack of heart should have made the friendship with the kids impossible... but somewhere in the back of his mind he'd known that wasn't the case. He had cared about Roxas, about Xion... he'd even cared about Demyx, to an extent! Demyx was his direct subordinate, had been his very first pupil... and he'd given a damn about what might happen to him.

Why?

He exhaled in a wheeze, not even realizing he'd been holding his breath until he suddenly grew lightheaded, and somewhere along the way he had tangled one long hand in the front of his tee shirt.

His jaw worked soundlessly for a moment, his stomach having dropped to his feet, and when he met Riku's eyes with his own, bright and fierce and lost, he just shook his head.

"We were to complete Kingdom Hearts," he said, shaking his head again, "and when that happened, we would... we would get out hearts back. That's what we'd been working toward. That was always the plan."

For the better part of a decade, that had been the plan. All those years, all that time... all those Heartless that they had destroyed, those worlds that they'd haunted, the lives they had stolen for the sake of creating strong Heartless... Had that all been for nothing? If the goal hadn't been to fill the heart-shaped moon that hung listlessly in the skies over Never Was, what had they been doing all this time? He had no doubt that Xemnas had been using all of them, but it was a goal that they all sought for.

Wasn't it?

Axel's brows crashed together and his expression twisted with disbelief and something like pain.

"What I feel or don't feel is no business of yours," he said, his voice low and sharp and dangerous, "and my friendship with Roxas and Xion has nothing to do with the Organization's goals. If we've had our hearts the whole time, then what the hell are we?"

They had lost their hearts. He knew that much. There was no denying it, no questioning it. They had lost their hearts and now skulked somewhere between light and darkness, between day and night, black and white, lost in the grey spaces between spaces and the shadows that bled from the bottoms of every world they touched. He had spent far too much time believing that what he'd been doing had been for a good reason--it was the only reason he'd done most of it.

To think that it had all been a lie was too much.

[limitstorm]

Riku stared at his plate.

Why did he always blurt things out? Moreever, why did he blurt the wrong things out? What could he say, here, to ease Axel's pain? He wished he could point out that Axel wouldn't have acted this way if he didn't have a heart--but he figured this would just be putting the nail in the coffin for himself.

He wasn't sure he wanted to go on. He took another bite of pancake, trying to find a way to think of how to word this as delicately as he could. He'd never been directly affected by this--he'd always thought Nobodies had hearts. It just seemed too improbable, they moved too similarly to the way he did, with a heart. It didn't make sense to him. It never had, but he'd convinced himself they didn't have hearts--at least, when he was striking them down. It was horrific otherwise.

"You guys were Organization XIII because he needed thirteen darknesses," he started slowly, heart hammering in his chest. "He was planning on making thirteen vessels to clash against the seven lights."

He couldn't leave Axel there. Just telling him that it was a lie wasn't enough--he had to tell him the truth of the matter, even if it hurt.

[got_it_memorized]

"You can't expect me to buy this!"

Axel snapped to his feet, shoving his chair aside, the plate of pancakes forgotten now. Who the hell did Riku think he was?

"Do you think this is funny?" he snapped, swiping one hand through the air like he could just shove everything the boy had said aside and ignore it. "Think it's funny to make jokes at the expense of the guy with no heart? Sure, fine, I know I was an ass to you and your friends in the past--I was an ass to my own comrades in the past--but this is just cruel, you know?" He spun on his heel and stalked toward the kitchen, then whirled back and extended one hand. "That's how you Keyblade masters get your kicks, is it? Shine just enough of that light of yours into our little boxes and then tear it all away?"

Roxas had been his friend, had reminded him what it felt like to care about someone. Roxas had walked away. Xion had been his friend, had shown him that sometimes the needs of someone else were more important than your own. Xion had been taken away. And now Riku--Riku!--who had proven that maybe bad blood and past mistakes didn't have to ruin alliances of the future... Now Riku was going to throw this at him?

"Thirteen vessels of darkness clashing with seven of light--what the hell for?" he snarled. "Sounds like a cheesy dramatic video game if you ask me. Besides, that plan fell through long ago--five of those thirteen were wiped out, remember?" He held up one hand and folded down one finger for each name, "Vexen, Zexion, Lexaeus, Marluxia, Larxene." And then he shook his fist. "Gone. That leaves seven. Only seven."

Seven lights, thirteen darknesses... what the hell would that accomplish anyway?

[limitstorm]

"What are you--?"

Riku swallowed down the rest of his words. ... of course. Why was it that when he was telling the truth (like Riku had any need to lie) people wanted to think that he was lying? What to say now? Could he stop now?

Why did he even ask himself that? He knew he couldn't, and set down his fork to pinch the bridge of his nose before he tried to collect his thoughts and count back from ten. Breathe in, breathe out...

He stood, trying to catch Axel's gaze, unable to at the table. With a sigh, he moved over to the kitchen, striding in a few steps, hooking his hand at the edge of the counter.

"I'm saying this to help, Axel," he replied as calmly as he could, jutting his thumb into a little crack on the edge. "He wants to make something called the χ-blade, so he can get to Kingdom Hearts and harness its power. Besides, he was using past versions of himself at first to make the others. He's still got Braig and Isa--I don't know how many other people he's got, or who he's planning to make a vessel... for all we know, anyone's a target. You can't just ignore this, Axel."

[got_it_memorized]

"Versions of himself?" Axel snorted sharply. "What, is he a computer program now? Xehanort 2.0? Been working with that computer they hide down in the castle basement in Hollow Bastion, I suppose."

As soon as Isa's name fell from Riku's lips, though, Axel went rigid. Isa. Xehanort had Isa? The rest of Riku's spiel went unheard and there was a sharp buzzing sound somewhere in the back of his head. How? How could this Xehanort person have Isa? Was that why Saïx had been so cold? Had he somehow split them apart? No, that was ridiculous, that made no sense!

Suddenly all the anger, the indignation, the fear that he'd been trying to remember how to swallow, it all turned to ice and sunk into the bottom of his belly like a stone.

Xehanort had Isa. No matter what the rest of it meant, heart or no heart, vessels and Keyblades (χ-blades?) and Kingdom Hearts, suddenly none of that mattered. If Xehanort had Isa, that changed the whole game. Screw Braig; he'd never had much against Xigbar, really, but he figured the old man would stab him in the back without a second thought if it came down to it. But Isa... Axel would have given anything to have been able to save Isa, to stop him from becoming... whatever it was that Saïx had become. Isa had been terse and dry, but Isa had known how to smile. How to laugh. How to have fun. How to be happy. Isa had known how to be someone's best friend.

Saïx didn't believe such things could exist, it seemed.

Was there still a chance he could save him?

Without thinking about it, Axel snapped both hands out and grabbed Riku by the shoulders, his eyes suddenly wild and desperate.

"Isa? You said he's got Isa?"

[limitstorm]

The moment Axel went rigid, the thought to stop talking flew across Riku's mind. He quelled it. Axel needed to hear this. He couldn't keep it a secret anymore, it felt too much like lying, and the only reason he lied to his friends was to protect them. Even then, it was usually just an omission of a certain detail--this was an omission of an entire event. He couldn't turn a blind eye to this. He wouldn't let Axel do so, either.

What he hadn't expected was the sudden jolt of hands and, in Axel's grip, Riku flinched hard, bringing his shoulders up and a tense, claw-formed hand as well to summon Dark Shield. He expected something violent. He'd been grabbed by the shoulders and slammed against a wall before, he'd been shaken like a doll before, so his eyes screw tight expecting sharp, rough movement, jaw clenched. He's warmer than before. Officially, he's 102, and officially, Riku jerks back after a moment, wincing as his shoulder hits the edge of the kitchenette, gripping it tightly and moving back a few steps from Axel, heart racing.

"I said he's got Isa," he muttered numbly, opening his eyes and forcing them away.

[got_it_memorized]

Lies of omission were certainly familiar territory for Axel; he'd made a few himself, of course, but he'd been on the receiving end of more than one, of that he was certain. He just... hadn't expected this to be one of them. Who was this old man, Xehanort, then? What had he done to Isa?

As soon as he took Riku's shoulders, though, a jolt of clarity broke through the haze of panic in Axel's brain. The questions tumbled clumsily from his mouth even as he wrangled to regain control of his racing mind and his pulse pounding in his ears, but as Riku quailed in his grip and jerked back, Axel immediately opened his hands. Riku staggered back. Axel stared at him a moment, then looked down at his palms.

Riku had flinched like he had expected to be struck, and he had never experienced that before. He'd taken both Roxas and Xion by the shoulders, just the way he had Riku, and while they may have been angry, confused, or even frightened at the time, it had never been of him.

Axel was a good assassin... but he didn't want Riku to think of him as one. He wouldn't have hurt the kid unless he'd had no choice. Even back in Castle Oblivion, when they had clearly stood on opposite sides of the line in the sand, Axel would have been fairly hard-pressed to bring physical harm to him. Hurting kids really wasn't his style.

More than that, Riku wasn't well, and wasn't getting any better, either, it seemed. Closing his palms together, Axel inhaled through his nose and then exhaled slowly. 39 degrees Celsius. Just over 102. This wasn't the time to be fighting--they were supposed to be allies. He was supposed to be watching Riku's back, not freaking the kid out and making him sicker. He had let Isa down, let Roxas and Xion down... he couldn't let himself disappoint anyone else. He wasn't going to watch sickness slowly destroy anyone else.

Taking a small step back, Axel raked a hand through his hair and then stepped into the kitchen. Opening the freezer he pulled out another slushy ice pack and turned back to Riku. He reached forward, slowly this time, like he was approaching a scared animal, and took one of Riku's wrists, planting the ice pack against the underside of it and then releasing him. He backpedaled and held his hands up, as if to show he was unarmed. Riku couldn't have known who Isa truly was--not even Roxas had known of the long-standing relationship he had with his old friend. No one but Saïx knew that they had been best friends practically their whole lives. And it seemed not even Saïx knew that Axel was prepared to do whatever it took to get that back.

"If this Xehanort guy has Isa, I want to know everything," he said darkly, and then lowered his hands to his sides. "But... it can wait." He couldn't do anything from here anyway. He pressed the heels of both hands into his eyes and shook his head, grinding his teeth. "I don't-- Ngh." His head ached fiercely all of a sudden. "I don't think you're a liar, Riku, but... I don't want to believe what you're saying," he said finally, trying to find the right words. Riku didn't know what he'd done. He didn't know that he'd killed two of his own colleagues. If Vexen and Zexion had had hearts, that... that made him a murderer, didn't it?

Axel had always taken a small grain of pride in his efficiency as a member of the Organization. He had liked feeling powerful, feeling deadly, it meant that he didn't have anything to be afraid of.

Suddenly being powerful and deadly was the scariest thing he could think of.

Vexen's sins aside, Zexion's meddling aside, if they'd had hearts all along, they were people. They were people! Axel could have destroyed Heartless until Twilight Town's sun set. He could have taken out as many Nobodies as was necessary. They didn't matter, right? They didn't really exist, they were just fragments, byproducts, leftovers of lives that weren't there anymore!

If what Riku was saying was true, then suddenly Axel had more blood on his hands than he wanted to think about, and the very idea made him sick to his stomach.

[limitstorm]

Roxas and Xion had put their faith in Axel.

The only people Riku put faith in was Sora and Kairi. Riku was not just a teenager; being told you're destined for greatness at age five makes you grow up quickly, ineffectually. There was still a large part of himself that was still a child; still reacted like a smart-aleck nine-year-old who was too full of himself and had a big head. The part that'd never grown up flinched like he was about to be struck because, in his mind, he was. It wasn't as if Riku hadn't, in the past, been beat up, and it wasn't as if it'd been for his fault entirely. Most of the time, it was to protect his other friends, and it came out of nowhere. He knew how to defend himself when everyone else was too weak to come to his rescue, he knew that when someone grabbed you, the first thing you did was prepare to react.

It'd simply carried over to his fighting style.

Maybe if Axel hadn't had such an emotional response, he wouldn't have had such a violent reaction. In Axel's hand, his wrist flinched slightly before he held onto the ice pack, rising his eyes to watch Axel as he stepped back.

Maybe if Riku felt better, he would've retorted about Axel being overly serious or acting like he was some sort of wounded lion, but he just looked down and silently took the pack that'd melted off of the back of his neck, replacing it with the cold one once over with a shudder. He didn't argue against his actions, nor did he try to immediately shrug it off as some sort of freak accident. It was what it was, and he didn't know if there was anything Axel hadn't understood from his sudden movement.

The problem was, Riku didn't want to talk anymore. His heart still rammed in his chest, just a frightened, caged dog pounding against his ribs in an effort to escape as he swallowed and quickly rebuilt a stern facade.

"I know you don't," he finally ventured, crossing his arms over his chest, defensive, hands clasping onto his biceps. "I'm sorry. I'll... tell you when I can."

[got_it_memorized]

Yes, Roxas and Xion had put their faith in Axel... and he had been unable to extend them the same faith. He hadn't trusted them enough to tell them the truth, to be straightforward about their destinies. Could he have changed things if only he'd believed they were capable of handling it?

He supposed he would never know.

If he had this alleged heart after all, though, why hadn't he had the heart to do the right thing? He had known that lying to the kids was wrong, but he'd done it anyway. ... Maybe a heart and a conscience were mutually exclusive.

Axel shook his head.

"I wasn't aiming for this to be a fight," he admitted, waving one hand, the other still pressed against his eye. "'Specially not with you all... sick and whatever." Why was this so awkward suddenly?

He moved past Riku then, not too quickly, and picked up his plate from the table. Setting it on the kitchen counter he hesitated, then decided he didn't have the energy for this right now.

"I forbid you to do dishes," he said, emerging from the kitchen again and giving Riku a stern look that somehow had the barest hint of an apology in it. He would never say he was sorry aloud, not for this, anyway, but maybe he could look a hair remorseful for freaking the kid out. "You, ah..." He cleared his throat roughly. "You should go lie down or something." Rubbing his forehead, the ache behind his eyes still lingering, Axel took a step backward toward his room. "I'm... just gonna..." And he jerked his thumb over his shoulder before backpedaling more quickly.

He stopped short in the doorway.

"You're--" He sort of flailed his hands helplessly. "I mean, y'ain't gonna like die or anything, right?" That was honestly probably the last thing he wanted right now. Much as he didn't want this to be true, he knew Riku wouldn't lie to his face. Riku wasn't a liar like he was.

He didn't want this to be true... but he wanted to hear it. He could wait until Riku felt up to it (he wasn't exactly feeling right as rain at the moment anyway).