Aces and Spades
Part Deux

--

Kairi's got her eyes squeezed shut as everything goes cold, then warm again. Axel's hand is a little looser around her wrist: not so much that she can pull free and maybe run, but not so tight that she's sure she'll bruise. She stumbles a bit as he tugs her forward, towards something she doesn't want to see, and she almost cries out as her ankle twists painfully.

This, she thinks, shaking a little, isn't happening. I'm going to open my eyes and I'll be lying in a ditch, staring up at the cloudy sky with a headache and maybe a sprained ankle. I'm going to get up, limp home, call Riku and Sora and Yuffie and Roxas and they're all going to come over and we're going to make bad jokes and watch sappy romance movies and me and Yuffie are going to beat the boys at Tekken 4 and Roxas is going to fight with Riku and I'm going to be home when I open my eyes. Home with the only people that matter. I'm going to open my eyes and I won't be here and I won't be with him.

Kairi opens her eyes, blinks rapidly and squints a little as sunlight blinds her temporarily, and stares out in front of her at the hedge separating her and Axel from whatever lies beyond.

"We're going to have to walk from here," Axel says, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. "Since there's this wonderful little enchantment that prevents anyone from warping in or out of the damn place."

He doesn't wait for her to comment and tugs her forward again, towards the entrance to the maze. Kairi, normally, would stand her ground, plant her feet firmly in the dirt and tell him to screw off because she wasn't going anywhere, but her ankle is throbbing and all that happens is her left leg gives out under her and she goes head first towards a boulder.

Axel's hand drops from her wrist and wraps around her waist quicker than she can blink and then he's picked her up bridal style and is looking down at her with one eyebrow raised. "Not very graceful, are you, Princess?"

Kairi glares at him. I hate you, she thinks.

"I'm not a princess," she says testily. "And put me down. I can walk myself, you know."

He laughs. He doesn't chuckle or smirk; he laughs and it's quieter than she thought it'd be and the most sincere thing she's heard come out of his mouth all day. "If what just happened is any indication," he says, lips quirked, "you are not in any condition to walk. So sit back and enjoy the ride."

"No," she argues vehemently, squirming in his arms. "Put me down right now. I just want to go home!" She smacks him in the shoulder and tries to drop her legs to the side, but his grip is tight and rather uncomfortable.

"This is home now, sweetheart," he replies, before shifting his arms slightly and tossing her over his shoulder easily and continuing into the woods. "So you better get used to it."

I hate you, she thinks.

"What do you want with me, anyways?" she half-asks, half-shrieks, pounding on his back with her fists. "And, put me down!"

"I'll pass," he says offhandedly, "And I want you to shut up, feisty as you are."

"Well," she snaps, "maybe if you put me down, I'll stop being a pest."

"Like I said before," he replies. "I'll pass." His hand slips a little higher up her thigh and Kairi, suppressing a squeak, is very glad she's wearing jeans and not a skirt.

I hate you, she thinks. But she doesn't say anything the rest of the way.

--

Eventually, green turns into red and white and pillars of stone leading up to a rather elaborate looking throne with doors on either side. Axel sets her down, none too gently, and Kairi has to grab his shoulder to keep herself from tumbling sideways as she lands on her twisted ankle first and winces. Axel smirks.

"Looks like I'm going to have to carry you to your room," he muses before swooping down to pick her up bridal style again, far quicker than he had before. Kairi squeals, legs flailing, and locks her arms around his neck as the ground suddenly disappears.

"You. That. What," Kairi splutters, staring at him, bewildered. Axel's smirk widens and then he walks towards the door on the right, glancing around with an impressed look on his face.

"Those Darkness Dwellers cleaned up good," he says, mostly to himself. "I should've gone to them sooner."

Kairi stiffens a little and suddenly feels very cold as she remembers what Demyx said back when he and Axel were arguing.

Who was it that sent the Darkness Dwellers after your own supposed comrades?

Oh God, she thinks, panicked and scared, I'm being carried by a man who murdered his own comrades, people who trusted him, for his own personal gain.

"What's the matter, Kairi," he purrs in her ear as he feels her tense up. "You're not scared of me, are you?"

"O-Of course not," she snaps, with no conviction in her voice. "Why on earth would I be scared of you?"

"Because I'm a cold-blooded killer who does whatever it takes to get what he wants," he says nonchalantly. "And because you have no idea what I'm going to do with you. Do to you."

"I think I want to get down now," Kairi says nervously, pulling her arms towards her chest when she realizes they're still around his neck. Axel chuckles.

"Too bad," he teases, fingers dancing along her thighs. "Because I don't want to put you down."

I hate you, she thinks again, glowering at a rip in the knee of her jeans. "How long are you going to keep me here?" she asks.

He shrugs and she goes up, then back down with the movement. "Until I get bored with you, I guess."

"You're not very organized for a killer," she points out.

"You're not very freaked out for a captive," he retorts. "Now shut up." He somehow manages to get the door open and kicks it with his foot, before walking inside and dropping her onto a bed. "You'll be staying here," he informs her. "I'm in the other room."

Kairi glares at him, arms crossed over her chest. "Fine."

He shrugs again. "Alright then. G'night, Princess."

The door clicks behind him and Kairi can't tell if it's because he's closing it, or because he's locking it.

--

She wakes up with the blankets tangled around her legs and tries to figure out what time it is. There's no light streaming under her door, so the sun isn't up yet, but she can't tell how late it is. Or if it's even late at all; for all she knows the sky has just gone black for a few minutes.

She contemplates going back to sleep, but figures it's a hopeless cause. All she does is dream about sea salt ice cream and vintage stores and immature fathers anyways.

Sighing, she sits up, unravels herself from the comforter, and goes for the door.

Time to be an optimist, Kairi, she tells herself. Maybe he didn't lock the door. Maybe he didn't think he'd need to. Maybe he thinks you're just going to sit around and play complacent hostage for him.

Her hand wraps around the doorknob. God, I hope it's open.

It is.

She stares at her hand, sitting on the underside of the knob after she turns it, and exhales slowly. Maybe it's a trick and maybe Axel's waiting for her out front with a knife and a threat, and maybe she's imagining all of it, but Kairi doesn't care as she pushes the door open and welcomes the rush of cold night air that hits her face.

The courtyard, if Kairi can even call it that, is empty from what she can see. Which isn't very far, as it's dark, but there's nothing lurking just outside the door, so Kairi takes this as a good sign and steps forward, closing the door quietly behind her.

"The hedge is the only way in and out," she mutters. "I hope my navigational skills are still as good as they were when I was twelve."

She shuffles around slowly, careful to not make any noise, and keep her arms in front of her so she doesn't bump into any of the pillars. She goes straight, until the prickle of the hedge's bushes brushed her skin, then left, feeling along for the gap in between shrubbery.

Her fingers meet empty air and then someone clears their throat behind her. Kairi blanches and turns slowly on her heel, staring down the red carpet, towards the thrown. A light flickers from somewhere she can't pinpoint and for a few short seconds, Kairi sees Axel sitting there and Axel sees Kairi standing there.

The second the light dies, Kairi whips around and takes off sprinting into the maze as fast as she can with a sprained ankle, with every intention of simply running through the bushes in a straight line until she makes it to the other side. Something whizzes past her arm, and a branch scratches her cheek, but she doesn't falter until she bursts through the third wall of bushes and twined wood and stumbles over a root.

Someone, Axel, she thinks, catches her around the waist with both arms and leans down next to her ear, hair brushing the back of her neck. "Gotcha."

Kairi whimpers as he nips at her earlobe, chuckling, and squirms in his grip. "Let go of me!"

"We've already had this conversation, Kairi," he muses, throwing her over his shoulder again. "You're not going anywhere until I get tired of you. And, to be honest, at the rate you're going, I don't think I'll ever get bored with you around."

I hate you, she thinks bitterly as he marches back towards the courtyard, turning and twisting his way through the maze with ease. I really hate you.

--

The next time Kairi wakes up, her ankle is throbbing and Axel is lounging next to her, head propped up on his hand, acid green eyes observant.

"What're you doing?" Kairi stammers, pulling the blankets up to her chin, wide-eyed. Axel rolls his eyes and flicks her in the nose.

"Scaring the shit out of you, obviously," he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Do you realize that you talk in your sleep?"

She pales. "What do I say?"

Axel shrugs and pulls the blankets away from her. "Hell if I know," he says, tracing patterns on the skin of her stomach that isn't covered by her rumpled t-shirt, amused by the goosebumps that rises up in the wake of his wandering digits. "It all sounded like gibberish."

His hand drifts higher, lifting the edge of her shirt to her ribcage as his fingers keep moving. Kairi's mouth is dry and she bites her lip hard as his fingers dance over her ribs. "So, you're watching me sleep now?" she manages to say without gasping. "What are you, a stalker?"

"Nah," he says, eyes never moving from her exposed skin. "Just a very watchful keeper." He let his hand wander down again and trace circles around her navel. "After that stunt you pulled last night, I had to be sure you didn't try and run again."

"Really, now," she breathes, eyes fluttering shut. "And, uh, do you plan on watching me every night?"

His fingers wander across where the waistband of her jeans met pale skin. "If you keep reacting like this," he says and Kairi can hear the smirk in his voice, "I might just have to."

She opens her eyes slowly, first staring at the ceiling, then turning her head to the side to look at him. Licking her lower lip, she asks, "What do you want with me?"

He shrugs and tugs her shirt back down over her stomach before rolling onto his back and stretching out. "Lots of things," he says cryptically. "You'll just have to wait and find out what they are."

Glaring at the side of his head, she sits up and straightens herself out. "Are you bi-polar?" she asks, "Because, most of the time, you're a horrible person, but, sometimes, you seem almost… normal."

He sits up as well and shifts so he can look at her, one leg behind her back, the other laying over her knees. "I'm dangerous, Kairi," he says seriously, leaning forward to bite down on her lower lip so quickly she barely registers what's going on. "Remember that."

He's gone in a flash and Kairi falls back down on the bed, suddenly very aware of just what kind of 'things' Axel might have in store for her.

--

Demyx comes looking for her. Kairi sort of expects it to happen, because he's a friend, sort of, and he seemed genuinely upset about assisting in taking her from her world, and when she thinks about it, if Sora or Riku or Yuffie or Roxas were being mauled every day, she'd do the same thing to save them.

So Kairi doesn't blame him and when he comes looking for her, she's glad. Because despite the rare occasions where Axel is almost human and she can stand him, she hates him. And she doesn't think it'll be much longer before he does something.

So Demyx is standing at the hedge entrance, a little bruised and a little scratched, but determined, and holding an instrument that bears a strong resemblance to a guitar. Kairi sighs in relief and is halfway across the courtyard when Axel jumps off his throne, and strides over to him.

"What the hell do you want?" He snarls, blocking Kairi's path towards the blond nymph. "She's none of your concern anymore and I held up my end of the goddamn deal. You should do the same."

"My part of the deal," Demyx says coolly, "was to help you bring her here. There was never anything said about me not rescuing her from you afterwards."

"You think you can take me on, water boy?" Axel laughs mirthlessly and summons two spinning wheels with metal spikes. "It'll be fun to watch you go up in flames."

Demyx glares at him hard, and then the two of them are moving lightning quick around the courtyard. Kairi blinks, unable to track them, and then finds herself sitting on the throne Axel once occupied.

"Keep it warm for me, sweetheart," Axel calls as he slices through one of the waves of water Demyx is conjuring out of nowhere. Kairi, for one single moment, is under the impression that he actually cares about her. Then she remembers everything he went through to get her and realizes she's more like a trophy to him than anything.

"I don't want to keep your stupid seat warm," she grumbles, slouching down in the seat, too afraid of leaving Demyx alone with her captor to move. "I want out of here."

And, even though Axel can't hear her and doesn't respond, Kairi can hear his voice in her head: Not going to happen, Princess. Never going to happen.

She'd take the opportunity to run, while the two men are locked in battle, but she refuses to leave Demyx to fend for himself (even if he is technically doing that anyways; it's not like she's helping,) and her ankle is a throbbing mess; she can barely walk on it now, much less run.

She isn't focused on her ankle, though; she's focused on Demyx and Axel, both of whom are flinging spirals of water and fireballs, respectively, at one another. Demyx has a slash across his shoulder from Axel's weapons and Axel is drenched from head to toe and slower than usual, his leather coat waterlogged and weighing him down.

All in all, they look like they're evenly matched. And then Axel does something with his hand, Kairi blinks, and Demyx goes shooting backwards about ten feet and into the hedge.

Axel wipes his soaking wet hair away from his face and glances over at Kairi with a smirk. She blinks again, still trying to process what's just happened, and then Axel is dry as a bone. She stares at him, rubs her eyes, and then stares some more.

"Think I should call those Darkness Dwellers to finish him off?" he asks with this sadistic sort of glee. "Or should I go in and finish the job myself?"

Kairi, finally realizing that Demyx is lying unconscious somewhere in the hedge, shoots out of her seat with a 'No!' but stumbles slightly because of her ankle. Axel waves one hand around and his weapons disappear into thin air. Then he's sitting behind her and pulling her into his lap.

"Ankle hurt?" he asks, tickling the back of her neck with his breath. Kairi twists sideways in his grip in response and glares at him, a little more scared of him than she was before, and far more concerned with Demyx's well being than with her own situation.

He raises his eyebrows at her and drops his chin onto her shoulder. "What's the matter, Kairi?" he drawls. "Cat got your tongue?"

"Leave Demyx alone," she says. "He's only being a friend."

"A pest is more like it," he replies easily, lips quirking upwards. "Besides, why would I do that? All he'll do is come back and get in the way. I'm not going to get anything out of keeping him alive."

Kairi bites her lip, notices the way Axel drops his gaze to them, and takes a deep breath.

I can't believe I'm going to do this, she thinks. But Demyx has someone who loves him and he can't die.

"If you leave him alone," she says slowly and Axel looks at her, intrigued, "I'll kiss you."

He raises his eyebrows at her and chuckles. "Don't you think," he says, "if I wanted a kiss, I'd have stolen one already?"

"No," Kairi replies. "I have to think that even you have some respect for another person's privacy."

"You think too highly of me," he says simply before leaning in and running his tongue along her lower lip. "See?" he says when he pulls back, smirking cockily as she turns pink. "That was easy."

"Well," she says, breathing a little faster, "What's it going to take to make you stay away from him?"

Axel's smirk is wide and disconcerting. "You."

"Me?" Kairi chokes out. "What do you mean, me? You've already got me."

He shakes his head and drops his chin back on her shoulder. "When I say I want you, I mean I want you complacent. If you want me to leave Demyx alone, you've got to give yourself to me. Whatever I want, whatever I say, whatever I ask for, you do."

"How about no?" she snaps, glowering at him. "I refuse to be your slave."

"No big deal," Axel says with a shrug, moving to stand up. "I've got to go finish what I started, then. So, if you don't mind getting off me…"

"Wait!" she exclaims, one hand on his shoulder. "If I do this, do you promise to leave him alone?"

"I won't touch a hair on his head," he says with about as much honesty as Kairi thinks he can muster. "But only if you say yes."

"I…" she pauses, bites her lip and thinks hard. Give up the freedom she never really had and save someone's life, or keep it, live with the guilt and continue hoping in vain that she'll ever go home? The decision was easier to make than she'd thought. "I'll do it."

Axel looks victorious, which worries Kairi slightly, but not enough to ring any alarm bells in her head. "Alright then," he says. "I won't touch Demyx."

And something in the way he says that makes Kairi think she's overlooked something. It doesn't matter though, because he's hiked her shirt up her side and is sliding his fingers along her skin, pressing his lips against the side of her neck and biting down. Kairi gasps and lets her eyes close, savoring the heat he exudes.

He nips and sucks his way up her neck, tugs at her earlobe, and breathes out, "I won't touch him at all."

--

Kairi wakes up, bleary eyed and sore, with Axel laying on top of her, face pressed into her neck, hands on her thighs. Despite the lanky frame, he's all muscle and it takes her a good ten minutes to push him off.

Good thing he sleeps like a rock, she thinks, wincing slightly as she sits up and fumbles for her shirt. God, she looks down at the bruises on her hips and the bite marks on her chest, what did he do to me?

She's buttoning her jeans when he finally starts to stir, burying his face in a pillow before realizing it isn't her and shooting up so fast she's amazed he doesn't pull something. "What're you doing?" he says groggily, wild hair even wilder, eyes only half open.

"Getting dressed," she says in a tone reserved for small children. He narrows his eyes at her.

"Why? It's not like you're going anywhere."

"Thanks for reminding me," she grumbles, running a hand through her hair. "I just don't like staying in my pajamas all day."

"But you weren't wearing pajamas," he points out, rubbing his head. "You were naked and I was sleeping on you. So strip and get back here."

Kairi flushes pink and shakes her head. "No way. I want to go out and actually do something today. If I'm going to be stuck here for the rest of me life, I might as well enjoy it."

"Fine," he grumbles. "Just, let me find my pants."

--

Axel, Kairi discovers, can be tolerable so long as he's getting what he wants. She dares to even say that sometimes he's pleasant. Ever since their deal was made, he'd taken her anywhere he'd deemed even remotely interesting. It'd been rather amusing to meet the one eyed pirate Xigbar on the coast of the red sea (which was, quite literally, red,) and talking to Luxord again had been nice, even though there was some (understandable) hostility between him and Axel.

They're just wandering today, and by what Kairi assumes is noon, they're back in the courtyard. Axel plops himself down on his throne and pulls Kairi into his lap, the crown Kairi had found at the base of nearby tree one day lopsided on his head.

"So, bored with me yet?" she asks, raising her eyebrows. He snorts and runs his hand up and down her thigh.

"You wish," he says, glancing past her towards the entrance to the hedge. "Oh, look; we've got company. Again."

Kairi turns and sees Demyx standing there, instrument in hand, and is struck with a case of déjà vu as she remembers him looking the exact same way the first time he'd come to fight Axel.

"Back to get your ass kicked again?" Axel asks, smirking. "I thought you got the message the first time. She's none of your concern anymore."

"She is, actually," Demyx says testily, "because she's a friend and I helped get her into this mess, so I'm helping get her out. In other words," he snarls, "get your hands off of her."

Kairi shoots Axel a look when he goes to stand. "We made a deal, remember?" she whispers harshly. "You go back on it now and I'm out of here."

He looks at her with a bored expression on his face. "Alright then. I won't touch him." He waves his hand around theatrically, and as Demyx moves to attack, groups of scuttling black creatures with yellow eyes and antennae rise up from the shadows and move towards him.

Kairi gasps. "What," she stammers. "What are those?"

"Darkness Dwellers," Axel says offhandedly, observing the battle with only a mild interest, still rubbing her thigh. "They have an acquired taste for nymph."

Kairi looks at him sharply, eyes wide and fearful. "You said you wouldn't hurt him!"

"And I won't," he says smoothly. "I told you I wouldn't touch him."

Kairi splutters and struggles in his grip while the creatures move in on Demyx, forcing him back into the hedge and out of sight. "You lied to me!" she exclaims, smacking his arm. "I can't believe you!"

"Oh, sorry," Axel says sarcastically, " Did I catch you off guard? I only kidnapped you, killed a couple of people I was working with, and then kidnapped you again because I was bored. Sorry if I forgot to drop a fucking clue. Besides," he continues, tangling his fingers in her hair. "I didn't lie. I just manipulated you to get what I wanted."

Kairi makes an unintelligible noise and Axel's pulls her towards him to kiss her hard, tongue pressed against hers as Demyx cries out from somewhere neither of them can see. Kairi jerks away, glances over at the hedge, terrified, and looks back at the redhead under her.

"He'll be dead in no time," Axel muses. "He's got to be pretty tough, though, if it's taking them this long." He shrugs. "Oh well. So long as he's out of my way."

He kisses her again, just as hard as before, and she hisses between clenched teeth and bruising lips, "I hate you."

Axel just laughs.

--

Finito.