When Axel stirred, he did not immediately realize that he was dreaming. His body was bare, stretched languidly over sun-warmed stone. The light permeated his skin and soaked into the underlying muscle like warm water. The air he so luxuriously inhaled was sharp and clean, with the crisp edge of early autumn. It was blissfully quiet; on the high plateau no sound reached him aside from the faint chirrups of insects in long grass, and the occasional faraway cries of birds.

Birds. Fucking birds.

He sat up with a start when the realization hit him. That he had a reason to hate the damn things. And he hadn't hated them before, so that meant he was after. So easily he had slipped into his old skin. But the before was gone, was never coming back, had long since abandoned him.

And so he knew he was dreaming.

With the thought came change. Even as he let his eyes rest on the surrounding mountains they blurred and bled and became other.

The familiar stone beneath him became cold marble. The bright, empty sky was supplanted by a high arched ceiling. Color had been leached from the room as marrow from a bone – it was a monument to weariness in blues, grays, and shadows. When he glanced ahead and discerned that he was not alone in this strange place (strange, though he knew he had been there before) it was more because his eye was caught by the throne and its raised platform than the figure cradled within it.

His face, ever so slightly out of focus no matter how powerfully Axel squinted, seemed terribly young. Gaunt and pale, he carried the haggard exhaustion of one far older. Lank pale hair fell into his thin face, and his white garments were frayed. Threadbare jeans; a sweater, the dangling sleeves of which swallowed his arms while the collar gaped and exposed his vulnerable neck and pronounced collarbones; scuffed sneakers with unkempt laces. A large cut gem hung heavily over his chest and glinted, jade pale.

He was wrong. Out of time, out of place.

Axel felt his pulse quicken as a chill ghosted over his skin. He was no longer nude, at least. Some simple tunic covered him from shoulder to knee.

Growing disquiet caused his voice to emit as a guttural growl.

"Where is Oneiros?"

The boy – Axel could not bring himself to think of him as a man, even a young one, when he seemed so wan and frail – did not acknowledge him. He remained slumped in the throne, his head wearily bent. Axel intended to rise, but not to shout. Yet both occurred.

"Where is Morpheus? Where is Dream?!"

Then the boy raised his head and from within his black eyes (black, all black, with no white to relieve it) shone stars.

It aged him even further. His voice, low and tired, was not a child's. When he spoke, the stone surrounding them reverberated faintly, hummed as if recognizing ownership.

"This is no longer Morpheus' realm."

The statement drew an involuntary shudder from him before he regained command of his composure.

"Dream had a son…" he said slowly. "But you are not Orpheus."

The boy took on what he may have intended to be a comforting tone, but his voice was still too detached and alien to inspire any sort of comfort.

"No. Orpheus is dead, and Dream soon after.

"I was once David. I am Dream now, and always have been, and always will be. And I am responsible for fulfilling my fa- my predecessor's obligation."

Axel did not immediately take his meaning; when he did, he scoffed audibly.

"Are you now? And it just so happens to come a century late?"

The dark, brooding presence faded, leaving him with the wan-faced boy tilting his head to the side, and observing his visitor with the sort of perplexed blankness one might bestow on a struggling insect.

And then Axel woke.

xXx

He called in a sick day, instructing his three classes to distribute as was necessary. Larxene, Xigbar, and Zexion would all cover for him during their respective planning periods.

Was it better to live without meeting Roxas at all, or to encounter him only to be kept at arm's length? Memory overcame him.

He remembered the war (a war, he amended. There had been so very many.) He remembered the "trench foot" that became gangrenous and attracted hordes of stinging flies. He had lost half the leg a few months later, torn to ribbons by shrapnel before he ever saw a physician for the prior affliction.

He remembered the rats that skittered over his fingers. If you slept too soundly, or grew too still, you became food. The meals rationed to the soldiers were little better fare; cold pea soup and rancid horse meat, month after month, were hard to swallow. But they did. They fought as they were told to fight, and bled as they were told to bleed, because the Kaiser had promised to make them a great nation once more.

He remembered being very young, and terribly afraid. Huddling in his dugout within the trench, he listened to the approaching front and its staccato chorus of artillery.

He remembered his first skirmish. The downpour had soaked him to the bone in an instant and transformed an already barren field into a treacherous sheet of sludge that tangled wary steps. It seemed the most likely place to encounter his yang, after all. It was suitably tragic. He always paused before shooting to squint through the deluge for Roxas' face.

Two members of his regiment died for those pauses.

So Axel stopped looking.

In that life he died before his twenty-third birthday. It was July of 1918, at Chateau-Thierry. The Allies won, and the war was nearly ended.

He never saw the end.

He never saw Roxas.

xXx

When he was drawn from his memories, it was not by the polite chirp of his egg timer, or the keen whistling of the kettle, or even the sharp hiss as the water boiled over the edges and dripped into the flickering flame. It was his cigarette, burning to a cinder against his knuckles.

He watched it glow from within for a long moment as it ate away his skin. Then he tossed it into the sink, taking the kettle from the stove first so that he might run cool water over both his fresh burn and the welt across his palm that he was ready for when he lifted the hot metal by hand.

It distracted him, and more than anything he wished to be distracted.

xXx

If there was one virtue he could attribute to Demyx (a ridiculous thought, when so many were present) it was that his friend had an uncanny sense of empathy. Axel's pride would never allow him to seek comfort, but no matter where he hid himself, the moment he fell into dark Demyx found him.

True to form, Demyx was at the door before the ointment had time to seep fully into his skin. Another well-meaning friend might have brought soup or medicine for his "illness." Demyx knew him better, and brought him beer and fresh cigarettes. Axel was more than happy to sweep a stack of ungraded quizzes from his kitchen table to make room.

They were each on their third (No that wasn't right, he corrected himself. Demyx was on his second, and he was on his fourth. Still, the sum was the same.) when Demyx took it upon himself to begin offering hesitant love advice.

"Maybe… you could try the direct approach?" he suggested doubtfully.

Axel laughed so hard and sudden that he swallowed his smoke. He coughed as he wiped at the bitterly mirthful dampness gathering around his eyes.

"Directness with Roxas is a path to direct dismemberment. He's… you have to think of it as handling an unstable element. You handle him carefully, with some necessary distance."

"I'm just saying," Demyx murmured. He paused with the bottle to his lips. "Your results so far haven't exactly been dazzling. Has your way ever worked?"

Despite his frustration, Axel smiled faintly. Of all his old friends, only Demyx and Xemnas knew why he was so… well… as Xigbar had once so poetically phrased it, "royally fucked up." Demyx because he had earned that trust, and Xemnas because he was too discerning for his own damn good. Demyx had seemed to regard it as an indulgent fiction until Roxas finally appeared. Now he was gradually accepting a reality that, to his mind, could not possibly exist.

"I've had more success in prior ventures. There were a handful of blissful times when he came to me. I mean…" He swallowed a mirthless laugh. "He always finds me. But there were times when he wanted me. When he loved me, and needed me more than air. Times when it wasn't hard until I lost him again."

Talking about Roxas always made Axel's speech peculiarly fluid. He was often sparing in his speech, as words spilled from his lips in awkward, tangled forms not to his liking. But he had lifetimes of Roxas, millennia of practice. What began as a small but relevant anecdote would flow into hours of reminiscence without his realization. These hours disturbed him somewhat – in them he became not himself. Axel Reiketsukan: irreverent chemistry instructor, sometime pyromaniac, orphan and licensed sushi chef… he ceased to exist. His usual tenuous balance of past and present fell away, and memories were all he had. It stripped skin and flesh from him until all that remained were the bones, eternal and unchaning.

And yet he welcomed it when it came. He told Demyx of Egypt, of Rome, of Russia. He told him a fraction of what Roxas had done to him, and what he had done to Roxas. He told him of the beautiful, soft-eyed woman who would lead Demyx away on the day of his death. (She and Axel were old friends now. He wondered how long it would be before he could ask her about the new Dream.)

It was hours later, when the noon sun streamed through his long kitchen windows, that the conversation finally lulled. The alcohol and the golden warmth of the light through his clothes left him heavy-lidded and drowsy. The intervals between moments became indistinct, as if viewed through flickering strobe light. He was not sure when he and Demyx had slumped their way down to the kitchen floor in a tangled heap, or how Demyx's shirt had come to be pooled in the corner, or how his friend's collarbone had ended up caught lightly between his teeth. He paused with his lips pressed against the soft skin.

It was a familiar position, in many respects a comforting one. It could have been any one of numerous hazy afternoons, so spent since they were teenagers. But in the pit of his stomach he was sick, and not from substances consumed. He drew away slightly, though his arms remained loosely draped: one tangled gently in the soft, short hair at the base of Demyx's neck, the other wrapped around his slim waist.

Demyx stilled as well, awkward despite his usual grace. They remained facing one another, Demyx kneeling between Axel's folded legs. His neck and spine, arched in response to the bite, slumped. He exhaled before speaking softly.

"Is it… because it's me, or because I'm not him?"

Axel flinched minutely, knowing even as he tried to mask the expression that Demyx could read him perfectly well. He wrapped his arms more securely around Demyx's shoulders, careful to keep the embrace soothing rather than sexual.

"You're one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen, Dem. But even if I want you – and believe me, I do – I need Roxas. Trying to substitute anything for him now will just end up hurting. And Dem… don't you think it's time you took your own advice? What we do may feel good, but you need Zexion. We both know he wants you, at least, and I'm fairly sure he needs you, too."

Demyx snorted abruptly. "Well that's encouraging. But I want him to love me more than I want him to need me, and I'm not sure he can do that. Now," he continued, standing so abruptly that his belt buckle nearly caught Axel's nose, "let's drink to your emotional drama. I didn't come over here to talk about mine."

xXx

Axel mumbled his way through the next day's classes without ever fully removing his throbbing head from his desk. The following day, however, he bounded into his classroom fresh and hangover-free. Unwilling to allow himself to be deflated by the day's usual tedium, he assigned his students independent study while he reaffirmed the temperatures at which various office supplies melted.

When Roxas' class began to trickle in, though, he paused, the flaming end of a red pencil still dangling idly from his fingers. When Roxas himself meandered sullenly in, he was decided. The sort of giddy excitement he thought he had outgrown years ago bubble up in his stomach.

"Field trip," he announced, rising from his chair so abruptly that it overturned with a clatter. His students froze like so many deer, many caught in the process of preparing for class, as if any reaction to the sacred words might cause them to evaporate. Only Roxas remained aloof, watching him with hooded, suspicious eyes.

"Now," he added. Satchels were slipped from shoulders and voluminous textbooks were abandoned to unoccupied desks. His herd followed him eagerly out the door and down the hall. He could hear their whispered speculations, but they did not directly ask him what their destination would be.

Once he had led them from the building itself, he halted their tremulous party upon the sprawling lawn.

"Go ahead and split into pairs. You are to stay with your partner at all times. You try to reenter the building without them and I'll lock your ass out."

He half watched them scatter and reassemble, the rest of his attention diverted to observing the weather. The hot blue sky was strung with wisps of cloud, though not nearly enough to promise any degree of rain. The only real impediment to his venture was the air itself, scorched and crushingly humid. He was beginning to remove his navy button-down when Sora's piping voice carried over from the opposite side of the flock.

"Oh, good, we're an even number. Hey, Roxas, do you want-

"Sora!" Axel barked. The boy's spine snapped to ramrod straightness with gratifying alacrity. "Go partner with Yuffie and your sister." He couldn't remember any movement on the part of his feet, but he was conveniently next to Roxas now. He took his student (though Roxas was just his student like Demyx was just his drinking buddy) by one slim shoulder and dragged him to the front of the flock. To his surprise, Roxas (though hardly enthusiastic) did not dig in his heels. He finished removing his shirt and tied it around his waist, ignoring a muttered comment on Roxas' part which sounded suspiciously like "very professional."

His class looked laughably conspicuous in their black and brocade as he led them over hills and through shady copses. The attire, which was so suitable in the overtly baroque academy, was made ridiculous when smeared with soil and dampened by sweat. Even the light was too bright, too warm. In more thickly wooded areas he heard the occasional grunts when they tripped over roots, or squeals when they walked through spiderwebs. When he himself tripped, however, they were in an open clearing.

Roxas had apparently decided that there were fates worse than looking unprofessional – such as heatstroke. He first loosed him tie, stuffing it in the pocket of his jacket. Then he tugged off the jacket itself, securing the sleeves around his own narrow waist.

Axel had countless memories, recalled often and desperately, of Roxas in far more extensive states of undress, in far more intimate situations. But memories, no matter how vivid, were a poor substitute for physical presence. It was the first time, he realized, that he had seen so much of Roxas' bare skin with his eyes rather than his mind.

He was so flawless, so thoughtlessly sensual, that it hurt. He was rather too thin, true, but the bones of his shoulders and ribs, not to mention his spine and slim hips, were erotic where they pushed against his luminescent skin. Fine downy hairs dusted the nape of his neck. The rest of the class had halted when their professor did, but Roxas strode ahead several paces before pausing to turn. It afforded Axel a better view of the taut flatness of his stomach, as well as the graceful hollows of his throat and collarbones. Metal glinted in his navel, as well as in a delicate ring puncturing one rosy nipple. His eyes wandered up Roxas' slender neck – he could not look at it without remembering how it appeared when arching, how Roxas' back bowed when he screamed his climax.

His face was cherubic, as always, but it was lent a new and feral edge by the piercings in his brow and lip. The intricate shells of his ears were likewise ornamented.

He did not know what expression was in his eyes when he met the icy, near-hostile gaze being leveled his way. Whatever it was sent a shudder through Roxas. He turned and strode ahead as though nothing had passed between them, and Axel let him go.

xXx

In the end, the trek was slightly longer than Axel remembered. A little over an hour had elapsed since their departure: time enough for his pace to weary a number of his less hardy pupils.

Their whines and protests dried up when they crested the final hillock. He supposed they had come to take their isolation for granted. Again, only Roxas seemed unamazed. Axel supposed he was one of the few, if not the only student, who had noted the fields of corn and wheat through which they passed – and their implications.

The village looked unchanged as always. It was dominated by its well-trodden square, and edged in clusters of simple houses. There were more scattered across several miles, belonging to the more industrious farmers who carted in their wares. Mr. S had caused quite a stir the year before in buying a decrepit old French truck to drive down the unpaved paths to town, but all his fellows were content to retain usage of their horse carts.

Axel was more than pleased with the status quo – the village was generally timeless, a soothing balm to his too-often exacerbated nerves.

Most of the faces that greeted him were familiar and welcoming. Two twin girls darted past him, their pale hair hanging tangled down their backs, their flushed cheeks streaked with mud. He remembered their births, a first broken bone, a first venture beyond the village's indistinct borders. They flitted back to tug at his wrists and babble their incoherent enthusiasm, and he ruffled their flaxen hair before gently but firmly steering them away.

Tedious moments were expended to release his stunned class with a few succinct directions. Once they had scattered from sight he inhaled deeply and relaxed as though his strings had been cut.