i also really wanna post more about dreamtime au.. ive done so much rouwlse development and i think he deserves a good ending design + i want to explore his dynamic with mettateal better when it isn’t just blinding jealousy
Of course Xemnas had gone for Kairi. And Isa’s passing was a sore that Lea wasn’t ready to look at, wasn’t ready to embrace for the possibility it was. But Roxas and Xion were here, and when Xion burst into relieved tears, Roxas looked as shocked and startled as Lea felt.
She had...never cried in front of him before. Not even when she learned the truth. Not even at the end.
"I...wish I brought some ice cream,” he threw out, hoping the oddball nature of it would lighten the mood. Who brought ice cream to a fight to the death? But both of them turned and smiled at him like they didn’t even need it, and Lea saw the tears swimming in both their big, expressive eyes, and--
In the moment before his arms would have closed around them, Axel woke up.
He panted disjointedly in the darkness of his room, jade eyes darting around for imagined enemies as every horror and every elation in the dream assaulted him at once. Even though he was awake now, the dream remained in crystal clarity, detail for detail, with every domino leading to the next and the next. Axel could see them all, reflected in the life he’d re-entered, just waiting for the first one to waver.
Sitting up, he swept his fingers over his eyes and cupped his face. Was that real? Had that happened? Stupid question, when he was still in his room at Never Was. But he flung aside the covers on a whim and turned on the light, padding quickly over to the mirror and staring into it.
Two fingers pressed down on the purple tear under his right eye, and released. Still there.
They were permanent, he reminded himself. Like all of this. What the hell kind of logic was it, that “recompletion” or whatever would just erase them? The thought bothered him. If that future came to pass, and Isa never returned, then...
It would be the only thing left to Lea to remember him by.
Axel leaned forward, numbing his forehead against the mirror as his thoughts raced. It couldn’t be true. None of this was right. None of it would come to pass, but yet...but.
Xion was a Replica. And Roxas grew weaker, day by day.
---
“I’m just talking theoretically,” Axel said, tentatively laying down a seven of clubs. “I mean, if anyone’s an expert on predicting the future, it’s probably you.”
“Hardly,” Luxord said, and the Gambler Nobody at Axel’s right laid down a three of clubs in turn. “The future is anybody’s game. I live entirely in the now,” he said, dropping the Queen of Spades with a flourish.
Axel made a pained noise, but reluctantly collected the trick. “Alright, I mean, but...what if it’s. Not like that? What if it’s already written.”
Luxord didn’t answer that.
They played until Axel lost horribly, trading his breezy Twilight Town mission for Luxord’s in Neverland (as both of them pretended this hadn’t been the inevitable outcome), and only then did Luxord return to the subject. “If the future were so linear,” he said thoughtfully, frowning at the idea; “then knowing its secrets would be a terrible fate indeed.”
As he probably should have expected, Axel left Luxord’s company worse off than he’d started.
---
How would he explain it to Roxas? That thought haunted him. Already it was so difficult to put things into words around them both, and Axel didn’t expect Roxas to understand. There was a part of him that wanted to enjoy this while it lasted, put it off, deny. But he’d seen the results, and the only way to fight that outcome was to risk it all and welcome the worst with open arms.
“Axel!” Xion said in surprise, when he answered her offer to come in. She was already partway to the door, most likely expecting Roxas instead, and her eyes widened at the look on his face. “What’s wrong?”
And Axel took a deep breath.
“Xion...” he got out, and took both her shoulders in his hands. “Listen to me. There’s someone who can fix all this. But it’s...it’s gonna be really hard.”
Xion’s eyebrows turned up and a worried look crossed her face. “Sora.”
Clenching his jaw, Axel nodded.
Xion’s lips turned up in a trembling, sad smile, and she put a hand over one of his, closing her eyes.
“I understand.”
---
There was one more loose end.
No matter how Axel turned it over in his mind, he knew it’d never work. Saix already couldn’t even see what drew Axel to Xion, and there was no way he’d understand Axel taking them both and fleeing the Organization to turn them over to the Organization’s enemies directly. It would be a betrayal, no matter what he did. All he could do was make it painless.
And take Saix’s choices away.
So he visited in Saix’s office, the place where Saix was most likely to be distracted. Just like he would any other day, he entered with a flourish and a casual skim of his fingertips over the desk, his face as empty of emotion as any Nobody’s, with a joker’s grin that didn’t reach his eyes. He’d prepared enough, and all the pieces were in place for this last little show.
And, unlike his last card game, Axel had an ace up his sleeve.
“Hey. You busy, or can I monopolize you for a bit?”
