[Fic] Nobody's Fool 10/10 (Kingdom Hearts 1930s AU, Axel/Sora)
Title: Nobody's Fool (10/10)
Author: harukami
Prompt: Kingdom Hearts 1930s AU
Pairing: Axel/Sora, Axel/Roxas, some others indicated
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1419 of total 14948
Summary: A hard-boiled detective gets hired to do a job for a girl who's worried about her sister.
A/N: In ten parts. Complete! Thank you all again for your patience.




It was the right time of day to see Sora, and there wasn't much sign of activity in the building when I entered; presumably the others were out again. It was shameful, perhaps, how much I found myself depending on him already; he was just a teenager and just as stuck in his life as I was in mine, but being around him always felt... comforting. Embarrassing, but all I could do as I walked up those stairs was think about how nice it would be to just settle in and not have to think about plots and plans and the cruelty of the human heart.

When I rounded the corner to his room, however, he wasn't there.

Riku was, however; Riku who I'd only heard about before and seen vaguely around the docks, getting food to support himself and Sora and Kairi, an older, leaner, angrier teenage boy with platinum blond hair and a face that would be pretty if it wasn't so sharp.

"I thought you'd come," Riku said.

I raised my brows, slowly. "What, you were expecting me?"

"Sora was acting funny," Riku said. "I asked. He spilled everything."

Ah, I thought. I leaned against the wall and let out a laugh. "Everything, huh?"

"I don't care who you are and what you want," Riku said, voice growing darker, the threat in it obvious. "It's obvious you're not good for Sora. So I've taken him away. Give up on finding him; you aren't going to find him again even if you looked."

It was familiar; completely different, yet so familiar. I hunched my shoulders and grinned painfully at him. "Did Sora say he didn't want to see me?"

"That doesn't matter!" Riku said. He pointed at me accusingly. "It's obvious you're no good. Why're you so interested in Sora anyway?"

It was a hard question to answer, asked flat out like that. I closed my eyes and thought about it, about the rush of excitement I had thinking about him, the elation, the freedom it felt like I had when we were just talking, about the sudden heavy speed in my heartbeat. I licked my lips. "He reminds me of someone," I said, and waved a hand, though I didn't know what part of that I was trying to dismiss.

"Roxas?" Riku asked.

My eyes flew open and suddenly, for a long moment, all I was hearing was white noise. It took a few tries before I could even form words. "You know something about Roxas?" I asked finally; it all came out in a rush.

"I do," Riku said. He walked past me, towards the door, glaring at me the entire way. "And if you know what's good for you, you won't look for him or Sora. Sora doesn't remember what happened, but I do. Don't bring Roxas up again."

He was gone before I had a chance to ask him what he meant. I thought about chasing after him, but my legs didn't want to move; kept shaking and wouldn't hold me properly. The weight of the room seemed to crash down on me without the ceiling having to fall or the walls crumbling; the place felt empty, alone, a single spot of helpless imprisonment that only highlighted how small and unfriendly the world itself was.

I was laughing, I was crying. Slowly, my legs gave and I sank down to sit against the wall, my long limbs bent and ungainly. Like I could give up just like that, I thought. Sora? Roxas? Who were they to each other. They were the same age; was Sora Roxas after all? They were so different, yet so much alike, and Sora had never heard of Roxas. But in a way, talking with Sora had been like talking with Roxas again, a side of Roxas I'd never been able to see. What had happened? What was the thing that Sora didn't remember, but Riku did?

There weren't any easy answers, and the pain wasn't stopping.

*

It was a long time before I was able to gather my strength about me and head back to my office. When I got there, I found the police had come and gone, and taken Saix and the tape with them -- and found that Demyx was in a fit, shaking and furious.

"Oh God," I said, looking at him, tired.

"How could you?" he asked, trembling with range and pointing a finger at me. "How dare you, Axel?"

I hadn't even had a chance to take my coat off yet. I headed over to my desk and pulled a drawer out to get a cigar. It was heavy, heavier than I'd remembered. "Got a light?"

Demyx slammed a hand against the desk. "How could you do that to her?"

"Because she was a guilty thief. Anyway, she got away. If you don't have a light, where the hell are my matches?"

"Maybe she was!" Demyx said. "But did you ever wonder why? Why was she a thief? Because she needed money? Why did she need money? Sometimes people have needs!"

"She was after this for years," I said. "And got by just fine in the meantime. No, I don't know why she needed it, or Marly did, or Saix did, or any fucking other person might have, Demyx, just that she tried to steal something that wasn't hers."

"What about that Namine girl, then?" Demyx demanded. "She's getting picked up too! You already told me she had to -- that Marluxia had been threatening her!"

"She made her choices," I said. "Even she did, Demyx. Maybe she only did it because she was forced to, and maybe she didn't, but either way she did something illegal and she'll be damned in the eyes of the law. You know what we are, Demyx? People who care about laws more than people."

"But she wasn't a bad person!" Demyx said, and he looked desperate, looked really desperate to believe it. When had I lost that? Before Roxas had left, I thought, and wondered, hopelessly, if that was one of the reasons why he'd gone.

I was so damn tired. I put my head down on the desk and tilted it just enough to look up at him. "You know, Demyx? You might be right. But people aren't always who we think they are. None of them. You, me -- that Larxene and Namine as well. Even they might not know who they are, why they care about the things they do. There comes a time when reason doesn't factor into it any more. They're doing it because it's what they feel they have to be doing, right then. And, good or bad, there's so many people who don't know why themselves. Why they're doing the things they're doing while they're doing them, what they mean to the person they are. You just do them because they're all you can do, all you know. Why are you yelling at me, Demyx? What does this prove? Do you know?"

"Because it wasn't right!" he said, and, God help him, he sounded like he believed it.

"What would be right?" I asked. "Letting people go after they broke the law, broke it over and over again after planning how to do it? No, Demyx. I did what was right. I always have -- it's the only thing I do. I bring in the people I should bring in when it's the right thing to do, and I let go of the people I should let go, when it's the right thing to do. What the hell else can I do?!"

Demyx grabbed me, shook hard. "People can change!" he insisted.

I looked up at him, and there was determination there, and fury, and pain. I said, "Maybe they can. Maybe they can't. I'm tired, Demyx, and I'm going to sleep. Can you manage the business on your own for a while, starting tomorrow?"

He straightened, and while the fury didn't drain away, it seemed to sink into resignation. "How long do you plan to sleep?"

"Not long," I said, and closed my eyes. I was tired, and the world felt so damn small and so damn big all at once; no matter how wide the bars were, I was still in the cage the world had seemed to make of itself for me. "I've gotta go out tomorrow and take care of some personal business."

"Personal business?"

"I lost something," I muttered; it was something undefinable, and it wore Roxas's face, Sora's face, but it was more than that; distance and space and other choices.

Demyx sounded confused. "Lost--?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm going to try to find it again."