Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Burn ❯ Chapter 4 Axel ( Chapter 4 )

Burn

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters associated with Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II. These, I'm merely borrowing. Any unrecognizable characters belong to me and aren't to be used without my permission.

Character Ages:

Sora/Roxas: 15

Riku: 16

Kairi/Naminé: 15

Hayner, Pence, and Olette: 15

Axel/Zexion: 17

Cloud/Leon: 28

Marluxia: 29

 

Chapter 4 Axel

I started physical therapy today.

It was hellish. Becky came in at eight to feed me and get me ready for physical therapy. Instead of the usual hospital gown, I got to wear a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and a loose T-shirt. It hurt a lot when Becky got me dressed. Kinda pathetic, huh? I'm seventeen years old and I can't even get myself dressed, let alone feed myself.

After Becky apologized for the gazillionth time, she sent for a wheelchair and helped me to the edge of the bed. The wheelchair was brought in and Becky apologized a million times more as she moved me from the bed and into the wheelchair. I swore under my breath as she moved my tender legs so she could put up the footrests. As the two of us left the room, I glanced over at Roxas. Sleeping peacefully. Come to think of it, I haven't seen his parents yet. The only one who visited him is Sora. I wonder if the poor kid got saddled with parents who don't care. That's depressing.

I looked around curiously at the hospital as Becky took me. Hey, I had only seen bits and pieces of the hospital since I was brought here. I had a right to be at least a little curious. We got in a huge elevator and went down from the fifth floor (yeah, pretty high up, I know) to the second floor. We went through a whole maze of hallways and finally stopped outside a door. Above it, there was a plaque bearing the names of all the doctors practicing there. Becky opened the door and wheeled me in. She left me for a moment to talk to the receptionist. I took a chance to look around. It looked like a standard waiting room with the usual hard-looking chairs, tables with piles of outdated magazines, and TV's hanging suspended from the ceiling with all sorts of boring news channels on. Yup, just your normal waiting room.

Becky finished talking to the receptionist and came and sat next to me. We waited for a while before a nurse came and called my name. Becky stood up and wheeled me over to the door.

“I'll see you in an hour. Behave yourself,” she said.
“Always.” I grinned up at her. Becky rolled her eyes and walked away.

The new nurse grabbed the wheelchair handles and pushed me into the back. She introduced herself as Rose and chattered on about the facility they had there. I did my best to listen to what she was saying. She put me in a small room and was about to leave me.

“Wait!” I protested. Rose turned around. “You haven't told me anything about my physical therapist.”

Rose smiled. “You'll meet him soon enough.”
“What's his name at least?”
Rose smiled even more. “Marluxia.” She left.

Marluxia, huh? What an oddball name. What are the chances of him being an oddball?
…

Very good as I found out seven seconds later as Marluxia came in. He was in his mid-to-late-twenties dressed in a pair of navy sweatshirt and a tie-dyed Yale T-shirt that clashed terribly with the pants. But that wasn't the weirdest thing about him. No, that would have to be his hair. It was pink. I'm not talking about cotton candy or Pepto Bismal pink but a soft rosy pink. It hung down to his shoulders. He caught me staring at him, or to be more precise, his hair, and raised his eyebrows.

“What?” he asked. “This is my natural hair color.”

“I didn't say anything,” I protested.

“Yeah, but you were staring.”

“And?” I demanded, sensing that he wasn't done.

“Is that really your natural hair color?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Marluxia looked at me skeptically. He didn't believe me!

“Look, there are ways for me to prove that this is my natural hair color…but I don't really think you want to look there.”

“No.” There was an awkward silence. “So…Axel, right?”
“Yes.”
“Seventeen?”
̶ 0;Yes.”
“Severely burned your arms and your legs…in a fire…you started yourself…on purpose?”

“That's right.”

Marluxia grumbled something under his breath.

“Moving on…” he said. “Can you feel your legs at all?”

“Only when I try to move them…or if someone tries to move them for me. They hurt like a bitch.”
“What about your arms?”
“It's the same.”
“Can you move either your arms or legs independently at all?”

“Not my legs. I can lift my arms up and hold them there for a little while before they start hurting. But that's about it.”
Marluxia made notes. “Okay. Have you tried to move any of your fingers yet?”

“Uh, not yet.”
“We'll start with your fingers then. Do you mind if I remove the ace bandages?”
I shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Okay then.”
Marluxia carefully unwrapped my arms, not even flinching when he saw all the scars.

“Let me know if I'm hurting you too much,” he said.

“Okay.”
Marluxia gently curled my fingers into a fist and then uncurled them. He did this several times until he was satisfied. Then, he did the same thing with my other hand.
“I forgot to ask you: are you left-handed or right-handed?”

“Left, believe it or not,” I answered.

Marluxia grumbled something else under his breath and switched around.

“Okay, I want you to clench your fingers into a fist and unclench them a couple times without me helping you. Do you think you can do that?” he said a few minutes later.

“Yes,” I responded, grimacing at being treated like a stupid person. I did what he wanted me to do several times with both my left and right hands. I had to do this over and over again. Just when I was starting to tire of this, he made me stop.

“Good. Very good,” he said with a smile. “Now let's try your wrists.”

He moved my wrists around and then made me do it. Then we moved onto my arms. My arms hurt the most. I couldn't wait to get out of there. It was so goddamned boring and so painful. Finally, my hour was over. Marluxia rewrapped the ace bandages and made sure they were secure.
“I will see you again on Wednesday,” he said, making several notes on his clipboard. Then, he left. Rose came in and took me back to the front where Becky was waiting.

“So how was it?” she asked as she wheeled me out of there.

“Terrible,” I answered with a grimace.

“Oh come on. It couldn't have been that bad.”
“My arms hurt like hell now.”

“You'll get used to it.”

“Right.”
When we got back to the room, there were two strange men visiting Roxas. One had long brown hair and a scar across his face. The other had spiky blond hair and piercing blue eyes. They were about the same age as Marluxia. I looked up at Becky inquisitively. She made a gesture that said that she'd tell me in a minute. Both men looked over as Becky wheeled me over to my bed and got me back where I belonged. She drew the curtain around the bed before speaking in a low voice, “those are Roxas's godparents.”

“But they're both men,” I protested.

“I know.” I stared at Becky for a few moments before I caught on.

“OH!” It finally clicked. The two of them were a couple. Duh. Wake up and get your head out of the clouds, Axel. Stupid stupid stupid me.

“What about his parents?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice soft.

“Dunno. Haven't seen them yet.”
“Huh.” I fell silent, trying to digest these bits of information.

Becky made sure that I was comfortable and left. She returned a couple minutes later.

“You have a visitor. Shall I send him in?” she said.

“Yeah,” I answered. Becky went and got my visitor. Turned out to be Zexion. My best friend took a seat as Becky left again.

“Who were the two visiting that kid Roxas?” he asked right off the bat.

“His godparents,” I answered.

Zexion looked surprised. “You mean they're together?”
“Yes Zexion. According to Becky, that is.”

Zexion snuck a glance at them.

“They don't look gay.” He frowned, crossing his arms as he usually did when he was frustrated.

“You don't either,” I countered. Zexion glared at me.

“What about his parents?” he asked.

“Haven't shown their faces yet.”
“Do you think they don't care?”
“I'm not sure.”

“Do you think this is why the kid tried to kill himself?”

“What do you mean?” It was my turn to frown.

“Think about it Axel. If your parents didn't care about you at all, wouldn't you feel like there was nothing to live for and try to kill yourself?”
“I guess.”
“I think it makes sense.”
“Whatever Zex.”

 

The next several days passed without any incident. Nothing happened. It was quite boring. Even physical therapy was quite boring. We just did the same things over and over again. He started me on lifting weights, but it was still very repetitive. However, what I didn't know was that Marluxia was setting me up so that I could start doing tasks on my own. Such as eating. Soon I was able to start feeding myself, though I was rather clumsy. That went away with time. I also started meeting with some psychologists and had another evaluation done. There was talk about moving me into the Psych Ward soon to “help me heal”. Whatever.

After Marluxia was satisfied with my arm movement, we moved onto my legs. That was an adventure in itself. First there were problems because my legs weren't fully healed yet and then there were a million other things wrong that I won't even go into. Finally, though, I started physical therapy for my legs. God did it ever hurt! The nice thing about it, though, was that I could wear regular clothes. Now that I could dress myself again, I could start wearing normal clothes instead of the shitty hospital gowns. Not like Roxas.

Not much to say about my roommate except that he lies there. More and more people visit him now. At first they weren't sure if they wanted all these people coming in because it might upset me, but hey, it's fine with me. Now he gets all sorts of visitors. Makes you wonder why he tried to kill himself in the first place—he's got so many people who obviously loved and cared about him.

Like I said before, nothing really happened.

Until one night.

It was really late. I woke up to the sound of someone moaning and crying. It took me a few moments to realize that it was Roxas. I was torn between getting my ass out of bed and dragging myself out of bed to his side to see what was wrong or calling my nurse. When the moaning got worse, I chose Option A. I sat up, drew the curtain back, and got out of bed. Now, I was unable to walk, but I could drag myself across the room, which is what I did. I literally dragged myself across the room. Don't ask me why. Hurt like hell though. When I finally got there and pushed his curtain open, I was surprised to see him staring up at me. My breath caught in my throat when I saw those eyes. They were just so blue. They were framed by thick eyelashes that made him look almost girly. Almost. He was so pretty. And I was so in love with him.

To be continued…

A/N: Heh, I don't think there's such a word as `gazillionth' so I guess I just made up a word. I have no idea if Axel is right-handed or left-handed. I find him to be an oddball so I made him left-handed. I've been listening to “Dream On” by Aerosmith so much lately. It makes me think of Axel. I don't even know why. I'm just reminded of him. Another good song is “What I've Done” by Linkin Park. I was listening to it over the weekend for, like the millionth time, and I realized that the lyrics fit his final scene perfectly. If you've played the game you'll understand. If not, then play it! It's a good game! And I won't spoil it for those who haven't played it yet. If you haven't heard either of these songs and want to, I can send out a copy. Heh, I'll stop rambling now and work on the next chapter. I've got some really good ideas for it.