Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Alkalinity ❯ Phosphate ( Chapter 9 )

A/N: I spent sooo much time stressing over this chapter. I had finally hit the part of the story where things were murkier, and I didn't have the road half-paved before me. So I kept pondering and worrying it like a loose tooth, because I feel like I owe this story more than forced, trite ideas. Today the premise of this chapter finally came to me, and I hope I serve it well.

 

 

Also, since I was probably opaque at the end of the last chapter; the hand reference was Roxas remembering the shape of the mark he scrubbed away with the nail file. You might remember that Axel gripped him by the shoulder before he fainted, and that it was their first physical contact. Hence the mark. That's all I can explain away for now, I'm afraid.

 

 

And humor me in this; the summary? Was the old summary preferable to the drama of the new one?

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

He was cut from the stomach of his first mother prematurely, as her body succumbed to the damage from her burning apartment. She died before his eyes opened. Her name was Kaijin. He had grown up thinking it meant “sea god” or “mysterious person.” Then he learned that written, it meant “ash.”

 

 

It wasn't the first time he reflected that the gods had a sick sense of humor.

 

 

The first time he had experienced the thought was more of a sensation. It was when he was just old enough to begin preserving memories.

 

 

Because the memories that came in flashes were indistinct and incomplete. They were far removed from the cream-colored carpets and soft voices that had so far filled his world.

 

 

His second mother went to bed one night with a handful of pills and a bottle of bourbon.

 

 

His third father took him back before earning the title.

 

 

He knew that he was Axel. That he was seventeen, and he hated citrus fruit. That he had a scar on his knee shaped like Florida, the result of an ill-conceived experiment with a skateboard. That after a long day he preferred to find Demyx and go smoke in the parking lot while the nuns ushered all the others into the cafeteria. He knew that other than being somewhat striking in appearance and possessing a charismatic speaking voice, there was nothing about him that was particularly noteworthy.

 

 

He also knew that he was older than any language still spoken on earth. He knew that whatever corporeal bubble was currently housing him would be fleeting. And at least this time he wasn't a leper. He knew that he had a soul, and that it was eternal, as surely as he knew that he didn't mean it when he fooled around with Demyx (or Zexion or Larxene or Xemnas). He knew exactly who and what he was waiting for.

 

 

It didn't make the waiting any easier. Surprisingly, he seemed unable to escape the angst-ridden doldrums of pubescence, and was unable to gather patience from his millennia of remembrance.

 

 

In college he found fire, and he wondered where she had been all his life. By the time he was old enough to drink, his scars were many and varied; the swirling constellations of his forearms, the intricate spirals of his abdomen, and the bold lines of his hips that gleamed with scar tissue.

 

 

He knew even as he knew he was eternal that fire was not enough to fill the void, or sex, or liquor, or dope-crack-cigarettes-pills-ether-shrooms-LSD-morning-glory-meth-mescaline- ecstasy-ephedra-morphine-heroin-cough-syrup-PCP-special-K-valium-lotusate-s hit.

 

 

He did them all anyway.

 

 

Because it was Roxas' fault for making him wait.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

He hated birds.

 

 

He couldn't bring himself to kill them, but he spooked them with noises and thrown objects. He couldn't sit through Hitchcock without grasping his side in remembered agony, and hating Roxas just a little for not being there, and for accepting the guilt so sincerely.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

When he was very still at night, he could hear a second heartbeat. He would walk miles as he followed it, until it faded away and left him shivering at daybreak.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

He knew that he would be a teacher at the academy. It was never a question. It was where all the Reiketsukan went, because they always ended up back in the orphanage that gave them their name.

 

 

It was infuriating later, knowing that he could have sought Roxas that way. That his father had come from the orphanage, that he was at the benefits every year, that he could have easily been persuaded to bring his children by with a bit of subtle suggestion.

 

 

Then Axel pictured himself sexually assaulting an eight-year-old, and laughed until he cried. And cried until he found someone to screw.

 

 

He blamed Roxas, because Roxas wanted to be blamed.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

He went through a stage involving data. He catalogued everything as precisely as possible, from where they had been reborn, to how long they had lived and what they died of, when he knew.

 

 

And in the end he was left with only one certainty.

 

 

No matter how perfectly things turned out, how hard they tried, how upright their lifestyle; it would end tragically. Always.

 

 

Because tragically was how it began.

 

 

For days he tried to smother the following realization, but it lingered within the corners of his mind until he acknowledged it and the inevitable questions.

 

 

If it turned out right, with nothing tragic whatsoever, would they still come back? Or would their purpose be fulfilled?

 

 

And if that was true…

 

 

If it was…

 

 

Would he destroy them in one life just to be reunited in another?

 

 

What chilled him most was the certainty with which he answered: YES.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

The edges weren't always clean.

 

 

Sometimes he reached for a paintbrush that had been in his studio in Florence. Sometimes he began conversations with his soldiers. Sometimes he heard his wife screaming when he smothered her.

 

 

Sometimes he resented all the past not-quite-hims taking up space, cluttering his thoughts.

 

 

Then he remembered Roxas, and he forgave them.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

Leijhana tu'sai to all readers and reviewers!

 

 

Remember to chip in about the summary.