Protect: My character keeps yours safe from harm.
“Maybe we should’ve just taken the train…”
Axel glanced back along the tracks, where Roxas was stepping deliberately from plank to plank while Axel perched on one of the rails. “No, silly, we can’t take the train ‘cause there’s people on it. We’d get seen.”
“Right,” Roxas said in a tone that still communicated that this was not as exciting as he’d hoped. “Well, what if we rode on top of it?”
“That’s even more dangerous than this one,” Axel pointed out, eyeing the tunnel again. He’d expected it to open up soon and give them room, just in case they needed it, but it wasn’t really doing that and it was starting to concern him.
“This doesn’t feel dangerous.”
“It doesn’t feel much, I’ll give you that.”
They continued in silence for another moment, and then Roxas rapped the Keyblade impatiently on the wall, making a noise that echoed down the tunnel. “C’mon out, Heartless! We don’t have all day!”
“No, I mean–” And that’s when Axel realized that the sound was not an echo, but a faint rumble.
And it was getting louder.
A whistle drowned him out, and Axel saw the light coming around the corner at them and realized there would be no time to safely negotiate a portal and it wasn’t wide enough for one of his fast ones. He had just enough time to close the distance between them, throw Roxas at the wall, and brace himself in front of the kid as a human shield before it came tearing through, whipping past Axel so fast and so close that for a moment he was sure it took part of him with it. It almost knocked him off his feet, too, and he noticed Roxas wobble and start to fall just in time to take a hand away from the wall and catch him by the shoulder. His hair behind him flickered like a kite in the wind and any warning or question either of them could have yelled would have been drowned out by the rushing clatter and screech of wheels.
The moments stretched into a horrifying eternity that seemed like it was over just as soon as it’d started, leaving Axel’s heart (his physical one anyway) drumming in his ears and Roxas’s eyes wide and scared. But finally Axel’s back was clear, and he staggered free, watching the tail end of the train as it receded down the tunnel behind them and around another curve. “Woo!” Axel said, deflating a little but also grinning the dazed grin of someone drunk on sheer luck. “That’ll wake ya up. You alright?”
Roxas stared out at him from a thousand miles away. “I…we could’ve–”
“But we didn’t,” Axel said, quickly and firmly. He rubbed the back of his neck ruefully. “Don’t think we’re gonna take this route again, though.”
Roxas looked at his hands, as if confirming that he was still there. “Ow,” he said suddenly, touching his head and hissing.
“What? Lemme see.” Axel parted the hair over the swelling a bit and inhaled sympathetically. “I gotcha, huh. Need a potion?”
“It’ll go down,” Roxas mumbled.
Axel nodded. “Well, I think we’re outta luck for today anyway. That thing’s making enough of a racket to scare it off, and we definitely need more recon here. Let’s get goin’.” He stepped away and called a portal out of there, not keen on risking a walk back, but Roxas didn’t move. “Roxas?”
Roxas seemed to struggle with words for a moment, and finally just giggled, and then that turned into a full on laugh.
Axel crooked an eyebrow. “What?”
“What d’you--oh for.” Axel belatedly struggled to get it in some kind of order, which only made Roxas laugh harder. “Shut up, c’mon--get outta here you...”
Sourly, as he pushed Roxas at the portal, Axel wondered if it would’ve just been better to take the damn train.
