Author's Notes: Thank you guys so much for continuing to read this fic. Really, it means a lot. I wish I could explain how much to you, but I can't. Those of you who also write probably have an idea though.

Standard warnings and disclaimers apply.

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Chapter Five: Too Good to be True

-oOo-

Riku didn't need to look so bereaved and heroic at once; Axel decided this the moment he saw the teenager gliding down the church steps to approach him. The kid was an actor. He played every role in his life—boyfriend, son, student—to perfection. Even now, Riku was struggling just the right amount, looking endearingly out of his element, but still so capable underneath it all. While Axel had genuinely messed up more than a few times in his life, even Riku's mistakes seemed calculated, as if they were ploys to make him more relatable, likable even.

Axel had fallen for the act. Since meeting Roxas, he had honestly come to think of Riku as a friend, so he wasn't prepared to loath the sight of him so much when they met at the funeral. If Axel hadn't realized it before, he knew in that moment: everything was different without Roxas. It was Roxas who had brought them together, and without Roxas, Riku didn't matter. Riku expressing his regrets meant nothing.

Axel expected the day of Roxas's funeral to be excruciating. He knew it was going to be worse than anything he'd experienced in his home, including watching his father leave and his mother subsequently destroy herself. He didn't need Riku making it worse.

When Riku had the nerve to mention his smoking, Axel stopped suppressing his irritation and gave into his desire to tell the boy off. The moment Demyx offered the brat a drag of their cigarette, Axel knew there would be trouble. Riku's judgmental "since when do you smoke?" was the last thing Axel needed to hear. There was, however, something so satisfying about flicking his cancer-ridden ashes in Riku's aristocratic face after the comment.

"I'll smoke whatever I want," Axel said sardonically as he completed the aforementioned act. "Unless you can bring him back or make me stop blaming myself, there's nothing you can do about it, Riku."

When the exchange was over and Riku was walking away, half-bewildered, half-indignant, Demyx spoke first. He began with a brief, "Hey."

Axel looked to his roommate as if surprised to find him there. He hadn't forgotten about Demyx; he just wasn't sure if he would ever get used to having his current companion see him in this light.

Usually they knew each other as long-time friends, present-time frat-brothers without the fraternity. They pulled stupid college pranks, got drunk on occasion, played video games; Demyx made mix tapes, and Axel referenced Freud whenever possible. They didn't comfort one another; they didn't even have serious discussions—they just had fun.

This new bereaved existence was nothing like that. Demyx was less of a friend, more of a support these days. Axel was still adjusting to that.

Demyx was the only person he knew who had cared enough to accompany him to the funeral. True, Axel had made it clear that he wanted to go alone and had done his best to keep the date and time of funeral private, but the information was available to anyone who cared to look. Demyx had watched Axel each morning since Roxas's death, waiting for him to pull out a dress shirt and black pants, his half-complete suit. When Axel walked into the small kitchen of their apartment in his funeral attire, Demyx immediately put down his coffee and dressed too.

Now that the much-dreaded event was over, Axel sensed the many questions in Demyx's voice and continued to look at his friend with an evaluative gaze.

"You blame yourself?" Demyx asked, his brow furrowed with concern.

God damn it. Axel hadn't been thinking about how Demyx would take that statement when he had said it. He had only wanted Riku to know how much worse off he was. He was the one who had seen Roxas in all that pain and hadn't been able to get him to the hospital in time. Because he had driven Roxas down some fucking country road in a shit-box of a car. He lived with that, not Riku.

Then there were the things Sora had hissed at him in the hospital. While he thought about Demyx's question, the accusations came back to him, as they often did.

"What did you do to him?"... "Right so suddenly he's sick after he takes off with you and you—you gave him drugs, didn't you? If he's overdosing you have to tell them!"

Hadn't Riku interjected then?

Yes, Axel remembered. Riku had taken Sora by the elbow first, then the wrist and calmly led him away so they could talk. But wasn't that just part of Riku's act? Wasn't he just playing at being rational, mature and fair? He probably blamed Axel just as much as everyone else.

But Sora accusing Axel of doing drugs—of giving Roxas drugs—was worse than Riku's critical reaction to his smoking, wasn't it?

Sora was the only person who really understood what Axel was going through, though. They'd spoken several times since that moment in the hospital, and it was clear they needed each other.

Conflicted, Axel glanced over to where Riku was standing, already surrounded by friends again. Riku who had Sora, while Axel was without Roxas. At the heart of it all, that was the problem. Axel didn't hate Riku for his personality or even his money-buys-everything background; he simply couldn't stand to look at the person who had gotten to keep Sora when he had lost Roxas.

"Yeah," was Axel's much-delayed answer to Demyx's question of blame. "I do. Just me. Not Riku."

Demyx looked at him sadly, but just for a moment, because he soon shrugged and observed, "He's a prick anyway."

Axel managed to laugh. Just something about the way Demyx said it conveyed so much understanding that he even took satisfaction in his last drag of their cigarette. Someday he would have to thank Demyx for making this part of his life slightly less unbearable.

-oOo-

It was always sunny when Axel visited his mom, which he did three days after the funeral. Fucking bizarre, he thought as he noted the unchanging weather, simultaneously filling out the visitor's form at the front desk. He had never seen the window behind the receptionist dark with clouds; the waiting room in which he now stood, with its coffee table and few chairs, was always bathed in sunlight. It was beginning to seem like the rehabilitation centre manufactured it all.

Keepin' it sunny for the clients, Axel imagined one of the salesman-type directors boasting.

Before he could think on the prospect of climate control for too long, he entered a windowless hallway and made his way to room 115. His mom was sitting up in an elevated bed, her pretty red cascading over her shoulders in need of a cut. Only Axel would realize that, though. The nurses didn't know that when he was young, his mom had one of those shoulder-length bobs that had been so popular in the 90s. They didn't know Axel preferred her with short hair. It was better suited to her age anyway. She may have been as dependent as a five year old, but that didn't mean she didn't deserve to look mature and sophisticated, beautiful even.

Axel scoffed at himself. Sure, he had all these thoughts, but what did he ever do about them? Visiting once a week out of guilt, usually in secret, was not much of a help. He could only convince himself that studying psychology and the effects of brain damage was enough for so long. His mom needed improvements now, not in four or five years when he had his degree. Even then, he doubted his work would ever help her—other people hopefully, but not his mom. Too late for that.

He took a seat in the chair nearest to her bed. "Wanna know how the story ends?" he asked. He didn't bother with greetings anymore; it was doubtful social constructs meant anything to his mom.

The movements of her eyes became more rapid, indicating she did. She may have known what Axel was asking, but she didn't understand that the story wasn't supposed to end yet. That the Blacksmith and the Prince were actually him and Roxas. That the duels were Roxas's soccer games. That the letters snuck into the castle were actually just phone calls, text messages, and e-mails.

Or maybe she didn't even realize that a tale was unfolding as Axel spoke. The doctors always said she simply responded to the familiar sound of his voice.

It didn't matter; he needed to tell the story anyway. He had been letting his mom learn about Roxas this way since they had met. Even the initial rejections from Roxas had been turned into part of the fairytale he was spinning. He liked talking to his mom about Roxas, probably because he knew that if she could truly understand, she would be happy for him. But since she didn't, he made his experiences into a story, thinking maybe it would trigger some script in her mind and she would know how to feel.

The strange thing was, while his mom heard elaborate accounts of his relationship with Roxas, Axel had never given Roxas any details about her. He wasn't hiding her condition; he just honestly believed there would be time to discuss it later. Almost those exact words had been uttered to Roxas at least once that he could remember, the last time they saw each other. Roxas had said, "You don't tell me a lot about your past, Axel." Even the concerned look in his eyes hadn't been enough to get Axel to open up.

"Plenty of time for that, right?"

That was how he responded. Plenty of time to tell Roxas about his cheating father and the drugs his mother took, the overdose that put her in a coma and left her with permanent brain damage.

The reality of everything set in, and Axel couldn't stand to think about those circumstances anymore. He began to tell his story instead. Before it had been the best way he could devise to let his mother know that he was truly happy and in love. Now it would be the means of conveying Roxas's death to the woman whom Roxas had never gotten to know.

"The Blacksmith, having finally completed his work for the day, snuck into court with the help of the Prince's dear brother—also a prince of course, but not the Blacksmith's prince, not first in line for their father's throne. The Blacksmith's Prince himself was just returning from a joust, and in his lingering excitement, he demanded that the Blacksmith take him somewhere.

"The Blacksmith protested—he wasn't sure of the horse he had just fitted. Such things could be tricky.

"But the Prince had the brightest blue eyes in the kingdom. Even brighter than those of his twin brother's, though that opinion was frequently debated by courtiers with little to do... Whatever the case, his eyes were so enchanting that the Blacksmith could never deny him anything. He would swim alligator-infested moats, climb stone walls, and slay dragons for the Prince."

His mother stiffened appropriately, responding to the heightening drama in Axel's voice. He smiled vaguely at her and his own overly theatrical tone before continuing.

"So the Prince's current request was no obstacle. The Blacksmith readied two horses, and they went riding. They rode until they stopped in a field where they let the tall grass and wild flowers hide them as they laid together. So far from court, there was a sense of freedom about them, but also a strangely ephemeral atmosphere.

"'I like it here with you,' said the Prince. 'But I feel as if this cannot last.'

"'It's the season,' reasoned the Blacksmith. 'It's changing. In a moment, it will be winter. Nothing feels permanent at the solstice.'"

Now that he was almost at the end of his time with Roxas, Axel wasn't sure where he was going or how to explain what happened as they sped to the hospital. How should he blend the Prince's suspicion of transience with the final reality of Roxas's death? He tried to think of the fairytales he knew as a kid, the Disney ones his father had been so disturbed to know he watched. Soon Sleeping Beauty was predominant in his mind, and as he recalled the curse, he went from there, his heart beating in his throat.

"But the Prince's time was running short. For when he was born, a spell was placed on him by a wicked sorcerer who desperately wanted power. Only three forest nymphs knew of the curse, having been the ones to try to undo it. The Prince himself had often suspected something, especially when he looked at his brother and saw a healthier, more substantial version of himself. He didn't know how precise his premonitions would be until that moment.

"'No,' he told the Blacksmith. 'I can feel you growing distant.'

"The Blacksmith, too, could see the Prince fading before his eyes. It made his stomach go cold, and he made a move to get them back to horses. But the Prince stopped him and asked just to be held. That was how he wished to go, even as the curse became agonizing.

"'I know it's hard for to watch,' he said, thinking of the Blacksmith first. 'But I love you. I love you so much.'

"There was little comfort in those words as the Prince finally faded completely. The Blacksmith left, broken heartened. In his daze, he wandered into in the forest, stopping only when he came to a small stream. One of his boots had already entered the current, and he did not step back. Instead he fell to his knees, then flopped face down in the shallow water. As the cool river rushed over him, the fairy voices were almost lost in the babble, but eventually he heard words within the water.

"'We gave all the time we could,' the first fairy explained. 'Three months from the day he fell in love. We delayed his fate, but the sorcerer's spell was strong.'

"'The young prince could not have both love and a kingdom,' the second fairy added. 'The moment he did, the hourglass turned on his last days.'

"'It was the best we could manage,' the third fairy promised, sounding the most apologetic and genuinely regretful. 'That and to give the Queen a second son, an image of the first that the sorcerer had not foreseen. I'm sorry it was your Prince whom we could not save. But you must not dwell on the time you shall not have, but be grateful for that which you did share.'"

For a few moments, Axel was lost again, fumbling within the depths of his loss. Did he really think that? Did he really believe he needed to view his time with Roxas as a gift, however short it was?

Maybe. Maybe he did.

Then it all came to him, the bittersweet conclusion that described what he felt: "The Blacksmith burst from the water, coughing and astonished. He first wondered if the three fairies had thought about the Prince's future lover when they devised such an unsatisfactory compromise. Why did they allow two souls to fall into a doomed love? What was the other half of the affair to do?

"But then the Blacksmith realized exactly what they had said. Three months from the day he fell in love. The Blacksmith thought back to when he and the Prince met, and realized how very recently it had been, how very precisely the dates aligned. Three months ago their eyes had meet as he brought the Prince his horse. Three months later the Prince was dying calmly in his arms. The Prince had loved him from first sight. So many words had never been uttered, but he knew it as fact regardless. That would sustain him for the lonely years to come."

His mom moaned, exactly the way a mother would if she knew her son had just told her he didn't know when he would ever feel happy again. The strength of her reaction made Axel flinch, though he couldn't say definitively if it was a response to his story, or one of the painful muscle spasms his mother sometimes suffered. Did the story even make sense? He didn't care. He wasn't a writer. He felt like he had conveyed some fragment of what he had experienced, and that was enough for now. Time to return his mother to her normal state of calm. Or despondency. Axel wasn't sure what the usual dead look in her eyes meant, but he knew he couldn't leave her in such an agitated state.

"I'm sorry, Mom. Look. I'm smiling. Okay? I'm smiling... Everything's okay."

She relaxed and stayed that way until Axel left.

-oOo-

With nothing left to do and nowhere else to go, Axel headed home after visiting his mom. As he drove he felt the kind of anxious exhaustion that he hadn't felt since he was fifteen and his body was still too stupid to know how to stop craving everything in sight. For long time, he had learned how to stop wanting, which was a necessity when you were poor and hopelessly skinny, but trying to make something of yourself. He was disciplined for a lengthy couple of years as he finished high school, and his grades picked up dramatically as a result. No underage drinking, smoking, very little sex, all of it safe but relatively anonymous.

Then Roxas had come along, and everything in his life had felt whole. He had had no reason to want.

Now he wanted all over again. A million things. All the thousands of places his car could take him. Sucking on a cigarette, letting the smoke drift out the window and down the road behind him, wasn't helping. He wanted to bolt; the desire was overwhelming.

Who would tell him to stay? His mother was basically a vegetable. His father was long gone. Roxas was recently gone. Sora might miss him. Demyx would, definitely.

Axel's relationship with his roommate couldn't have been more bizarre and yet perfectly typical. He thought about this as he climbed the three flights of stairs to their apartment. (His urge to leave town had been abandoned when he, intentionally or not, had missed the last exit.) Demyx was his first everything, from stupid little things like climbing a tree, to big stupid things like awkwardly coming in someone's hand.

Demyx skipped stones with him because his dad was always busy having affairs. Demyx sucked his cock because they were both young and horny and it was hard to imagine that anyone would ever want a couple of underfed, pimply guys like them. They did so many brutally embarrassing things together, they exposed themselves so completely that it was astounding they could still look each other in the eyes, never mind live together.

But they managed like any other roommates. They had rules and schedules for cleaning. Axel got pissed off if Demyx finished his cereal, and Demyx didn't appreciate finding Axel's red hair in their sink. They were typical college kids; outside of one experiment-filled year, their relationship was incredibly normal.

Now Demyx was standing in the living room they shared with his hand between a woman's legs, his palm against her silk panties. Her breasts, round and full, were exposed, and her pert nipples suggested Demyx's hands had been teasing them earlier. Pretty soon she would start moaning. Demyx was already making tight noises of arousal, whispering a few dirty intentions.

Her name was Tifa. She was thirty-two and Demyx was nineteen, and Axel could only assume it worked because they both fucked like they were sixteen.

The entire sight was just another thing that should have made it impossible for Axel to live with Demyx in peace and without awkwardness. But it didn't matter. Axel knew he'd see Demyx the next morning, and whether he said something or not wouldn't matter. They would just be friends either way. It wouldn't be the last time one would walk in on the other's intimate situation.

For now, though, Axel had to leave. He thought about going to the library and finally resurrecting his homework... But his books were in his room. He'd probably have to interrupt the whole thing to get them. Then, once they knew he was home, there would be no point in leaving. They would probably just finish in the shower and spend the rest of evening making sure he wasn't too depressed.

He wouldn't have minded, but he knew how long Demyx had been without Tifa. Demyx had suffered enough for Axel's sake lately.

So Axel, having already left the apartment, stood in the corridor thinking of where else he would be welcome. He had a few friends from his classes, but none of them were close enough to go to in a time like this. After quickly dismissing that option, he thought of the pact he and Sora had made to remain friends. He thought about how it would piss Riku off if he started spending time with the young brunette, then smiled and headed down to his car.

-oOo-

Axel told himself not to compare Sora's room to Roxas's, but it happened anyway. There were so many things, he was learning, that occurred without permission when a person was grieving. Now, no matter how badly he wanted to spare himself the misery, he found himself looking for things that were missing in Sora's room.

Roxas had more posters, perhaps surprisingly. He didn't have a single picture of real people, though, as far as Axel could remember. Sora, on the other hand, had pictures of him and Roxas, as well as of both of them with their parents, the family photograph from that forgotten time when they were still four. A lot of the pictures were probably out because they had been used in the slideshow shown at Roxas's funeral and Sora hadn't found the strength to put them away yet.

The pictures with Riku, of both him and Sora being obviously couple-y, touching or hugging or smiling, Axel ignored. They were on a desk with so many other things: mail, a cinnamon-scented candle, a charger for some electronic device, burnt CDs, a keychain from Hawaii. All of these items, however, were pushed against the wall to make room for Sora to work.

"What's all this?" Axel asked, lifting one of the books on Sora's desk. Another text appeared beneath the first, along with a stack of feverishly scribbled-on papers.

"Oh, homework," Sora said simply. He shut his door and sat down on the edge of his bed, though he didn't bother to tell Axel to do the same. He must have known Axel was too restless to sit.

"I know that but..." But what? Axel wasn't even sure what he wanted to say. Instead he asked the same question he often got. It was a question he hated, but now understood. "You feel up to all this, Sora?"

Sora shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah. I mean, everyone keeps telling me to stay busy, and I think that helps, don't you?"

Axel decided not to tell Sora about the archive of readings and overdue papers he was amassing. "Yeah, it's better than doing nothing."

"Uh huh. I'm even doing extra credit to make up for everything I've missed. I'm going to try out for the swim team. And Riku always plans something if I have down time, so it's good. It's what Roxas would have wanted, right?"

Later, Axel would realize how very close to manic Sora sounded, but at the time, he only saw what Sora wanted him to see: look how good I'm doing, look how okay I am. He didn't think to question the logic behind Sora keeping his mind of off Roxas. He didn't wonder what would happen when Sora just couldn't stay busy any longer, when everything caught up to him at once. All he really saw was on the surface, and from that perspective, Sora was so much better off than him.

"You're handling this really well."

"Well, I'm trying. I don't want my dad to worry. Hopefully he'll feel like going back to work next week—I think that would be better for him."

"Yeah... His students miss him, I'm sure."

"What about you? How are doing?"

Axel finally left like he could sit and let some of the tension dissipate from his body. "I'm okay," he began, now beside Sora on his bed. "I keep thinking about him. I can't stop yet."

"It's still so recent," Sora said knowingly. "It just means you really loved him."

"Yeah... I—fuck, I go back and forth between being so glad I had any time with him at all, and just—wondering what the point was."

"I think my dad feels that way sometimes. Not so much with Roxas, but about my mom... He would never say it, but there's always the fact that if he had met someone else and married her, he would probably still have a wife."

"He wouldn't have you," Axel said quickly, and Sora nodded just as freely in response.

"I know. He wouldn't change anything. I don't think you would either."

All Axel had to do was think about how good it felt to have Roxas embrace him to know that Sora was right. It was infinitely better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, as the cliché went. Sora gave him a small smile, as if he had read Axel's mind and approved of his conclusion.

In return, Axel was suddenly struck by Sora's amazing maturity. Sora's blue eyes. How close they were to each other. His thoughts were so apt to drift these days; there were so many ways for him to get lost within his own psyche. He was still so susceptible to wanting. If he reached out, touched Sora's side, and trailed his fingers down—there—there hipbones just like Roxas's. Smooth skin under a t-shirt. That feeling was so familiar. He wasn't thinking about Sora anymore. It was barely two weeks ago... him and Roxas...

"Axel." Sora's voice trembled. "Stop."

"I'm sorry." He felt instantly sick inside, no longer able to meet Sora's gaze as his heart pounded guiltily against his chest. What the hell am I doing? Roxas would hate me right now. Sora has every right to—

"It's okay. I... I think you're in the wrong room."

Sora's voice was so steady that Axel believed him instantly. Everything really was okay. Just a simple mistake. Follow Sora into the next room, and everything will be okay.

"Here."

Sora let him into Roxas's room without turning the light on, as if flicking the switch was a choice Axel had to make for himself. He decided to use what was left of the natural light. He didn't really need to see; he just needed to be there. Because the ridiculous truth was, the blankets really did smell like Roxas. He wrapped himself in them and tried not to think about how very empty the feeling really was.

-oOo-

An hour after the sun set completely, Axel had finally taken all the comfort he could from the room. He smoothed his clothes first, then put the blankets back in order. It was a long drive across the city, so he only said a brief goodbye to Sora, who was studying anyway. He tried not to think about how weird it felt to leave the house without having seen Roxas. Worse than that, he had to stop himself from asking how long they'd be leaving Roxas's room the way it was. He didn't know if he had any say in the matter, but he was sure he wouldn't have been able to pin down an answer either way.

When he got back to his place, he was ready to collapse. It wasn't that late, but given how exhausted he was, he was surprised to find that Demyx was still up. As much as Axel just wanted to crawl into his own bed, he still managed to flop down on the couch beside his roommate and stare at the television. All the other lights were off, so even though Demyx was only watching reruns of Iron Chef, the glow from the TV seemed extremely important. Axel waited for a commercial break to speak.

"Where's Tifa?" he asked, his way of letting Demyx know what he had seen. He wasn't expressing any anger, though; he just wanted it out in the open.

"Oh... she's sleeping. I stayed up to give you this." Demyx leaned forward and grabbed the papers that were next to his feet on the coffee table.

Axel raised an eyebrow as he took them and read what had been written at the top. "You wrote my psychology paper?"

"No..." Then, to the surprise of both of them, Demyx laughed nostalgically. "We're not in high school anymore. I know you wouldn't feel right about cheating. Not that you would want me to write your paper anyway—you're the expert."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"I just did some research for you. You know, to encourage you to get a start on it. And there's this too..."

A tape. Axel accepted it and turned the case over to see the list of songs about death and loss and funerals. Demyx had included all the typical sentimental favourites, a couple of which had actually been played at Roxas's funeral. If there was one thing Demyx knew, it was standards. It was the last three songs, however, that really caught Axel's eye.

Highway to Hell – AC/DC

Another One Bites the Dust – Queen

We're Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time) - Trooper

He couldn't help laughing as he read the titles out loud incredulously. He started to ask, "What the..." but he knew exactly why Demyx had put those songs on the tape. Better to laugh than cry—that was Demyx's approach... Sora's was to stay busy. Riku was taking care of everyone else first. They were all devising ways of coping. Axel would to, eventually. For now, he would put Demyx's mix in his car's tape deck and try to remember that three months with Roxas was worth all the loneliness in the world.

-oOo-

End Notes: Next up, a look into how Sora's really dealing... Followed by the Cloud chapter, which I am really looking forward to. :) Thanks for reading.