The Sacred Sneer: TDA

This is my December, this is my time of the year, this is my December, this is all so clear.


Episode One:
Casa-Rover?


“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Axel asked his blonde counterpart.

“Just shut up, it’s your fault we got into this big mess anyways.”

We meet our two young hero’s as they wander down the path from Noivilbo on their new journey.

“It’s not like they have any proof that I took those meat rolls!”

“Axel, if you say one more word, I swear I will cut you.”

“Awe, come on Rox, you know I’m innocent don’t you?”

Roxas stopped in his tracks from walking down the beaten path to round on his partner. Shaking a small fist at the red head he glowered, as only Roxas could.
“Look here, I know for certain that you took those meat rolls from the cook, there is no doubt in my mind. And on top of that, it’s your fault that we now have to do messenger work while everyone else gets special lessons from the Castle XIII Guards while they’re here! Why can’t you just keep your piggish ways to yourself?”

Throughout this whole tirade Roxas had repeatedly poked Axel square in the middle of his chest, making the taller boy back up a few paces until his back ended up against a tree trunk.

“Hey hey, Rox, come on, cut me a little slack would ya? Besides, the meat rolls weren’t for me. Do you really think I’m that much of a pig?”

“You’re asking me that question? Wasn’t it you that ate both your own dinner AND mine last night?”

Axel grinned sheepishly and Roxas sighed. Sometimes he felt like such a parent. It had only been one month since he had met Axel and Roxas would swear that Axel would forget to tie his hose on in the morning if he didn’t remind him. Roxas had to admit, though, that where he was Axel’s reminder-er, Axel was his complete support, in every sense of the word. Without Axel, he wouldn’t be able to make it through all the tough stuff.

So Roxas’s sigh soon turned into a smirk, and he punched Axel lightly in the arm. “Alright, weirdo, I’m sorry I said that I didn’t believe you.”

Axel grinned and Roxas’s heart flopped over in the strange ways that it had been doing recently. He just ignored it and smiled though, like he always did. He refused to think that he was sick in any way shape or form.

For Axel, there was really nothing that could go wrong. Sure, he thought that the meals that he was fed were meager helpings at best. Sure, he was continuously in trouble (and dragging Roxas along with him.) Sure, he thought that the classes were boring, but he had no regrets, and was wanting for nothing. It was all thanks to that blushing blonde too.

Axel had had a few friends, yeah, but none as close as Roxas was to him. In the few weeks that he had known the blonde fire ball, they had become fast friends. In fact, Axel was almost positive that Roxas knew more about him then he knew about himself. And they could relate in almost all things. For lack of better terms, Roxas really. . . Completed him. Yeah.

Roxas snapped his fingers a few times in front of Axel’s face and it brought the red head out of his musings.

“Hm?” Axel asked, blinking once or twice.

“I said, if you didn’t take the rolls for yourself, who were they for?”

Axel smiled sheepishly and ran his fingers through his red spikes in a way that Roxas knew was trouble.

“Oh god Axel, what have you done now?”

Turning, Axel began to dig through the large canvas bag that held their supplies and the messages they were to deliver. Roxas’s eyes went wide as he heard a soft yipping sound.

“You didn’t. . .”

But as his face was enthusiastically licked by the ugliest dog he had ever seen, Roxas was quite adamantly informed that Axel had.


---

This is my December, this is my snow covered hall, this is my December, this is me alone.

Episode Two:
Trouble


As slobber ran down to his chin, Roxas stared in absolute shock at his red haired best friend.

“You got. . . a puppy?”

Axel smiled sheepishly once more, and pulled the puppy towards his face to rub the ugly dog against his check, cuddling him close to his face.

“Yeah, isn’t she cute?”

As Roxas surveyed the dog, he would have to say that the puppy was anything but cute. It was obvious that the little runt was underfed because her ribs suck out. The dog’s fur was strung sickly over bone, and her tail hung limply in two places, broken and healed incorrectly. But still, though she was no beauty, as the dog eagerly licked Axel’s face, Roxas did feel a sort of childlike glee at being near a small animal. And Roxas had to admit, though the dog was ugly as sin, she was full of life an energy. In a surprisingly uncharacteristic bought of wanting, Roxas had a desperate urge the hold the puppy, as Axel was and to run and play with her. Not that he’d ever admit it.

So he squared his shoulders as best as his young frame would allow him, and huffed in Axel’s direction. “You know we can’t keep pets!”

Axel looked positively crestfallen, and his head hung down. Roxas had never actually seen such a change in his friend before. In fact, he had never really seen Axel looking sad
before he was always so. . . optimistic.  It was very scary for Roxas, who knew better then anyone just how much he depended on Axel. Axel was the one person who liked him for who he was and didn’t whisper behind his back. Axel was. . . Axel was. . .

“Okay, I’ll help you figure out a way to keep the dog.”

Axel gave a little pathetic whimper through the bangs that had plopped over his face. “Do you. . . Do you. . . promise?”

To Roxas’s ears, Axel sounded like he was almost close to tears. This alarmed him to no end and he nodded his head quickly up and down, holding his hands out in front of him in the most reassuring gesture he knew how to do. “Yes! I promise now Axel please don’t-”

But when Axel looked up through his bangs with the most mischievous grin that the blonde had ever seen, Roxas knew he had been had.

“Yay! Did you hear short stuff? He said that we’ll keep you yes we will! There’s a good girl. . .”

“Axel. . .” Roxas was positively livid, perhaps more from his own foolishness than anything else, and he stepped a menacing pace closer to the taller and older male. Axel seemed to realize that he was about to be ripped into tiny pieces as he smiled and moved back a few paces.

“Now Roxas… Calm down…”

But he was cut off at a rustling in the brush. The puppy in Axel’s arms gave off a faint growling sound as she pressed herself closer into Axel’s chest. Roxas and Axel both looked around in alarm and found that, while they had been arguing, they had been secretly surrounded. And this gang of about six were not the nicest looking of bunches.

A tall portly man with a full beard stepped forward from the circle surrounding Axel and Roxas. In respond Axel and Roxas stepped closer to each other, Roxas instinctively grabbing Axel’s hand and only beginning to breath once more when Axel gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

---

And I, look back on everything that I thought I missed, And I, wish I could get back all the things I’d missed.

Three:
Misfortune


It was apparent that the one who had stepped forward was the leader, as he stood a head or so above all the others, even Axel only making it to the man’s belly button. On top of his monstrous size the man held what appeared to be a large club made of oak, sprouting a large knob on the end of one side. If even once blow landed with such a weapon, either of the boys would be easily defeated. Or dead.

Axel looked down at Roxas’s pale face and realized that this was the first time that either of them had ever been in a situation as such. The practice courts had in no way readied them for this type of thing. And even though Axel knew that Roxas was the best fighter in the whole of Noivilbo, even surpassing his own abilities, if Roxas’s shaking was any sign, the blonde was downright terrified. Hell, Axel himself was shaking so hard he felt like his bones were rattling inside his skin. But he hadn’t lived this whole time, carrying his painful memories and his happy ones, just to be beat in the middle of no where and left for dead. Besides, now, he had something to protect.

Shielding Roxas with his own body, Axel stepped forward and stood as tall as he possibly could.

“What do you want?” He shouted defiantly towards the one who he had assumed was the leader.

And his assumptions were correct. The large man looked taken aback for a moment, not anticipating such bravado from someone so young, but his composure soon returned.

“We’re not going to hurt you little ones, we just want the documents you were supposed to be delivering. Hand them over and no one gets hurt.”

Roxas was shaking from head to foot now, and he knew he had a death grip on Axel’s hand, but his brain was still thinking mostly rational. Well, perhaps it wasn’t, but when Axel had stepped in front of him, Roxas had felt an overwhelming urge to push him to the floor and protect him with his body and his life. Maybe there was no reason, or maybe their was, but in that instant Roxas knew he had to get his act together. They needed to find a way to escape, because in hand to hand combat they would lose just from the huge difference in strength. To their left were two men each wielding battered swords that had obviously seen quite  a bit of action. To their right another pair of sword wielding comrades, almost identical to their left side counterparts, save physical appearances. Behind them proved to hold another pair of vagrants. Who were these people anyways?

But now was not the time to be asking questions. The circle surrounding them was getting tighter; the ring of armed men was moving in closer.

“Now come on lads, give us the papers and we’ll let you free.”

Roxas opened his mouth, hoping to buy time with some carefully worded phrases but his own red headed friend beat him to it.  It was a painful moment for “No! If you want them, you’re going to have to come and take them!”

That seemed to be the end of the large man’s patience. A large blood vessel became apparent on the side of his face and his eyes started to bulge from his heads. Roxas gulped a large and frightened wad of saliva down his throat as his shaking worsened. What had Axel done?! If he lived, Roxas swore he would kick his friends green-beanish butt until he cried for putting both of them in this kind of situation.

“Kill them!” The leader shouted, his voice reverberating through the trees.

The man raised a fist large enough to be a ham and Roxas crouched into a fighting stance automatically, as did Axel. If they were going to die, they would go down fighting.

...TBC