exsiliumlogs | nothing's really making any sense...

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nothing's really making any sense...

Date & Time: Saturday, 29June, evening
Location: House of the Rising Tsun
Characters: Axel and Sheena
Summary: Sheena's having some issues. So obviously talking about them with the guy who has no heart is the best solution.
Warnings: Bad romance novel excerpt within. You have been warned.

Riku was a dope, and Axel would never be convinced otherwise. The kid had nearly died like less than ten days ago and he was already back out running around like an idiot, training and working and probably helping random strangers. Dope. Axel wasn't having any of that nonsense; he hadn't minded helping out when they were all stuck down in the catacombs, sure, but he wasn't about to go looking to play Good Samaritan.

Besides, he was very busy. His Royal Pleasure wasn't going to read itself, after all. Axel had discovered the joys of trashy romance novels on a mission in London once: they were far more hilarious than any comedic movie he'd ever seen. With their clunky euphemisms, awkward and clumsy erotic moments, and contrite melodramatic dialogue, they were truly nothing less than comedy gold.

Also the protagonist in this one was named Alex, which was an anagram for Axel, so he was of course interested in seeing if he fared any better with his lady love than any of the previous dumb sots he'd read the tales of.

He mastered her mouth and her body until she was weeping with it. He murmured brokenly in French, and her arousal gushed through her like a tidal wave, a solid wall of incredible pleasure that took her past the point of return. Ripples of ecstasy flooded through her, changing her, making her indelibly his.

Distantly, Alex heard her cries, and they touched him as nothing ever had. He felt the first rush and jerked. His blood roared through his veins like wildfire, burning and stinging. He buried his face in her shoulder and muffed his shout. Then, surrendering to the longest, hottest release of his life, he joined Katherine in a world where he'd never been.

It took a while for him to find himself again.

Axel found himself trying so hard to stifle his laughter into one hand that he actually had to take a moment to regain his composure. After all that weeping and gushing and flooding, he had to wonder if they needed to do laundry. So far as he was concerned, the only reason Alex took a while to find himself was because he was a bit out of his mind.

((kari would like to state for the record that that is a real live actual trashy romance novel and a real live actual excerpt from it and she is not responsible for the existence of that drivel.))

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Sheena was wet and miserable. Despite wearing a thick (if not worn) wool coat to blend in, her extra time outside with the rebuilding efforts meant that the rain inevitably found its way down her hood, in her shoes, everything. She was cold and tired and ready to pass out, but she knew if she tried to sleep right now, nothing would happen. She let herself in without much fanfare and worked on stripping her coat off, leaving it to hang by the door.

What was that weird noise? Oh-- that must be Axel. "What are you up to?" She glanced over at his reading material. From here, the cover looked terribly suggestive. She may have been a bit of a sheltered ninja, but she knew a romance novel when she saw it. "... Are you seriously reading that?"

He glanced up when Sheena entered the apartment, but made no effort to hide his book or his amusement with it: he wasn't ashamed of it.

"Am I reading it? Yes," he said, and then wagged a finger at her. "Am I reading it seriously? Hell no." He snorted and shook his head, laughter shaking his shoulders again. "I find myself wondering what my direct superior back home would do if I submitted an excerpt from this nonsense in one of my reports. Just to see if he's actually reading them."

He dog-eared the page and set the book down on the coffee table, slouching back into the couch and draping his arms across the top of it.

"You're looking a bit waterlogged," he said, and waved a hand at her coat. "That's wool, ain't it? Can't just leave it to dry like that, it'll shrink; want me to take care of it?"

Hey, Axel knew a thing or two about coats.

"That would be a pretty good way to get their attention... if they did read it, anyway." Sheena stripped off her gloves and shook them out. She hung those up too, since they didn't need to be washed so much as just... dried out.

Axel had a point though. Sheena wasn't totally sure what the coat was made of, except that it was warmer than that plastic crap most of the town wore. "Huh? Oh, sure. I found it the other day, so I'm not really sure how to take care of it." She took the coat off the rack and held it out. "How are you supposed to dry it, then?"

Axel got to his feet and took the coat from her, holding it out at arm's length. It was a little worn, but in fairly good shape, actually. No sense stretching it out and having it dry in weird shapes. Tossing it over his shoulder and heading down the hall to get a large towel from the linen closet, he returned to the living room and tossed his book onto the couch, laying the towel onto the table.

"Wool'll stretch if you hang it wet," he said. "My ma got me this heavy wool coat when I was a kid, for wintertime, you know? And man I hated it then, it was all scratchy... I wore it out in the rain once and hung it up when i got home. Next day it was all misshapen and ma yelled at me for not drying it properly."

He spread the coat on the towel and sort of tugged it into the proper shape, then rolled the towel into a long tube shape, the coat inside of it.

"Granted, it would'a been a lot easier at the time if I'd been able to do this," he said, and cast a weak Aero spell on the roll. The wind whorled up around it, spinning the tube upright and then unrolling it with a sharp snap. Axel reached out and caught the coat as it fell back toward the table, then shook it out. "Voila," he said, handing it back to her. Then he grabbed the towel and tossed it over her wet head before flopping back down on the couch. "So how was it?" he asked. "I hear the natives are getting nastier."

Sheena watched him work. She wasn't entirely sure how wrapping something in a tube would help it dry, but then he worked the water out of it with a little wind magic. She wasn't expecting that, and it showed in her face, but the surprise soon turned to cheer. "Hey, thanks!" Even if she had to say it through a towel.

Sheena took the cue to let her hair down and work the towel through it. She wrapped her pink ribbon around her wrist. "Yeah, they are. If they think you're a transport, they're mean. Sometimes hostile. I haven't ran into the latter since I'm working on rebuilding, but some of the emptier parts of town are like that."

She tossed the towel into her room, then put her hair back up. It was a bit messy, but until she could shower and draw a brush through it properly, it would have to do. It was a lot better than letting it hang down to her waist and dealing with the poofiness later. Damn this humidity! It'd been months but she could never get used to it.

She kicked off her boots, too, and finally let herself sit in her usual chair.

He didn't really acknowledge her gratitude beyond a nonchalant sort of nod he hoped she would interpret as the 'anytime' he intended for it to indicate. Axel wasn't an unhelpful sort of fellow, he was just selectively proactive when it came to lending people a hand.

"I don't see why they're being mean to us, honestly," Axel grumbled, folding his arms across his chest. "It's not our fault the UE is a bunch of jerks. Here we are helping these ingrates and they're being belligerent."

Oh, right, that was the other reason Axel wasn't bothering to go out of his way to play Good Samaritan. If the natives thought they could handle themselves alone, let 'em. As Sheena headed down the hall to her room, Axel picked up his book again, but he set it back down in his lap when she returned to the living room and sank into her chair. Axel was no mind reader, but he had an inkling something was a little off with her today. It wasn't particularly unusual for her to hang out in the common space, but something about the way she carried herself this evening struck him as heavy, troubled.

Setting the book down again, he stretched his legs out and put stocking feet up on the coffee table, threading his fingers behind his head.

"Whaddaya wanna do for dinner?" he asked. It was technically her turn to cook, but perhaps this was a good way to test the waters.

Sheena wiggled her toes as she stretched out similarly. A little lever in the chair allowed her to tilt back some, and she closed her eyes, trying to get some peace. Not that Axel was purposely trying to ruin that. If she really wanted a nap, it would be easy to lock herself in her room and do it that way.

But that wasn't really what she wanted. What Sheena wanted was an answer, a clear grid to make sense of everything going on in her life right now. She shouldn't have been so bothered by what happened with Zelos the other day, but she was. He never listened. It felt like he only listened when she was talking about herself, and she hated that. She wanted to talk about him, but he was so damn frustrating.

She wanted to drag him outside and beat some sense into him, but he only had one good leg and she felt bad enough as it was. That had started this whole thing. This whole... whatever the hell it was. It bothered her to a point that she didn't want to cook dinner, which was unusual, seeing as she usually liked cooking a lot.

"I don't know. What do you feel like?" She wasn't trying to shrug him off or be rude, but she sounded distracted.

Now he was sure something was off. Sheena loved to cook, and the fact that she didn't seem at all interested in doing so was extremely suspect. He watched her recline in the chair, then got to his feet. Rounding the couch and moving into his room, he grabbed something from a little jar on his desk. Returning to the living room, he stood over where Sheena was reclined, peering down at her upside-down, before holding his hand up.

In his fingers was a small blue and gold multifaceted orb. He waited until she clearly saw it and looked briefly confused, then reached over her and set it in her lap before moving back to the couch.

"A munny for your thoughts," was all he said.

Sheena opened her eyes when Axel didn't really respond to her question. Never answer a question with a question, right? She was surprised to see him above her, though. Blinking, and not really sure what to expect, she was nonetheless confused when he dropped the little orb into her lap.

She cradled it in her small hands, trying to make sense of what it was.

"A munny? ... Is this what you guys use instead of gald?"

She wasn't sure how to deal with the actual subject. Maybe she could get out of talking about it.

"Mmhm, it's kind of a universal currency where I'm from," he said. "Each world has its own, sure, but you can almost always find a moogle somewhere with prices in munny. Some of 'em'll even exchange to local currency for you." He frowned. "Their exchange rates are bogus though, I think."

The evasion wasn't lost on him, though, and Axel wasn't the sort to force someone to talk if they didn't want to. He could stick to the munny topic for now.

"I'm told the expression is a penny for your thoughts in some places," he said, "and that voicing an opinion is know as putting in your 'two cents'... " He rubbed his chin. "A penny is worth one cent, as far as I can tell," he said, and wagged a finger at her. "So if it's a penny for your thoughts, and you put in your two cents... what happens to the other penny?" He narrowed his eyes and folded his arms. "Someone's making a profit here."

Edited 2013-06-30 05:52 (UTC)

Oh, Axel. Sheena tried to follow his train of thought. It was a lot harder than it sounded. Axel's train tended to go backwards for ten minutes before suddenly teleporting forward, but she managed to catch the gist of what he was saying-- enough that she laughed. Kind of. It was more like a quiet chuckle, but it was better than looking like someone had ruined her birthday cake.

She examined the munny again, turning it over and over in her palm. It was pretty, in a strange way. She kind of liked it. Much more colorful than gald.

"Doesn't really make sense to pay for giving your thoughts, either. Does that mean people with a lot of ideas go broke?"

"Never said it made much sense," he replied, and then looked thoughtful a moment. "Maybe it's viewed as an investment. You think there's tax on that sort of thing?"

It was good to see her smile a bit. He didn't like it when people looked too troubled: their faces looked all heavy and drawn too tight, like it was just so much effort to keep whatever was bothering them quiet. Axel didn't like putting forth too much effort. Even seeing other people do it made him tired. Riku exhausted him. He didn't even want to think about all the effort Sora went to. Nope.

Meeting her eye, he asked, "So what's this 'gald' of yours look like? Since we're apparently having a foreign currency show and tell..."

Hahah, tax. Really? Even abstract, silly things like this were better than dwelling on the rain that never seemed to stop. Still, she felt like-- she had to say something, or else he might confuse her to the point where she'd blurt it out anyway. She met his eyes and felt a little like he was trying to peel off one of her layers. Totally unintentional on his part-- probably-- but she wasn't able to really hold that gaze. Her brown eyes shifted to the floor as she slid a hand into her obi.

"Here," Sheena offered, tossing a coin in his direction. There was nothing particularly exciting about it. Gald was gald. It looked like a gold-covered penny and was worth little more. She set her hands in her lap, staring at the munny and wondering if there was something she could do to make this right. She wasn't even sure what was wrong in the first place.

"Hey, Axel. It makes sense to apologize when you say something wrong, doesn't it? What if you say something that... you're not sure if it's wrong or not?"

He caught the coin in one hand and turned it over in his fingers. It was small and simple, looked a bit like some of the coins he'd seen in the Land of Dragons, only without the hole in the middle.

Glancing up when she addressed him, Axel lifted his eyebrows curiously. Ah, there it was. He had hoped she might broach the subject of whatever was on her mind without his overtly prompting her. Flicking the gald piece up in the air and catching it in his palm, Axel pressed his lips together.

"I'm not really big on apologizing, to be frank," he said candidly, leaning back into the couch. "I mean, let's face it, words are just words, right? Saying something wrong and doing something wrong are pretty vastly different. I could say that your hair is green. And that'd be wrong. But it's really not important, you know? Or I could call you a lunkhead, which would also be pretty wrong, but in the end it's just sticks and stones for the most part." He flicked the coin again. "But if I actually did something that wronged you, that'd be a completely different story. I'd wanna do something to make it up to you." He held the coin between his thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light, then looked past it at Sheena. "So I guess I'm more of an actions speak louder than words kind'a guy."

That was a good approach, and a nice analogy, but it didn't really help Sheena with her problem. "Well, it was more than just words. You probably noticed that Kaneis and I fight sometimes." She ran a hand through her bangs. They were damp enough to stick up for a moment before flopping back to some appropriation of where they ought to be. "The other day, I went over to apologize. I felt bad. I mean, we usually tease each other, but I feel like I crossed a line somewhere and I had to... make it up somehow. Because we're friends."

But that wasn't the whole story, and Sheena's expression darkened.

"It just got worse from there."

The fighting? "... Yeah, I might have noticed a little tension here and there, just in passing," he admitted drily. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, when she elaborated, albeit vaguely. His brow knit together. "Got worse?" He shook his head, pressing the knuckle of his index finger against his chin. "So... you went to apologize for arguing with him... and it turned into an argument?"

Well that seemed counterintuitive. There must have been more to the story.

Sheena looked a little sheepish. She pulled her knees up onto the recliner, sort of hiding behind them, behind her now-folded arms. "Basically." He hoped Axel didn't find it too funny. It sounded ridiculous, but her friend's loneliness-- coupled with his complete lack of self-worth-- was nothing to make fun of.

Sheena was self-conscious, but Zelos made it into an art.

"We usually argue about stupid stuff. He likes poking fun at me, you know. I thought it was the usual, and then I said something really dumb that made it sound like-- like I was in love with him or something." She sighed in exasperation. "It wasn't what I meant at all. I told him that, but now that it's out there, I feel like... everything's changed."

Her toes scrunched up against the recliner's fabric. "How do I apologize for something like that?"

Axel was a bit taken aback, both by the story and the very fact that she was telling him about it. Axel's mind was a veritable safe--he could keep a secret forever even under torture or pain of death--but he had never really thought himself the confidant sort. Certainly he was full of advice, usually in the form of cheesy anecdotes or slightly obtuse analogies, but he really couldn't remember the last time someone had really confided something like this in him.

Had anyone ever?

He inhaled to speak, then hesitated, and finally lifted one hand. "Okay, I have to disclaim what I'm about to ask--I'm not trying to insinuate anything, so please don't hit me," he said, and then sort of shrugged. "Are you? In love with him, I mean. 'Cuz... he's pretty obviously got a thing for you. In my opinion anyway." It seemed plain as day to him, really; the way Kaneis had looked at her in the catacombs had just screamed of something unrequited, something honest and candid that he simply lacked the courage to be honest and candid about.

Sheena wasn't trying to pressure him or anything. In fact, she felt a bit like maybe she was making him uncomfortable. Without any real understanding of what he was or what he was supposed to be, Sheena treated Axel like a normal person. Besides, if given the chance? She'd probably beat the snot out of him for even insinuating that he couldn't feel anything.

She trusted him enough that she could tell him about what bothered her, and that was enough. They were friends, not just roommates, and that made all the difference. Sheena wasn't alone anymore. She didn't have to deal with her stupid thoughts and stupid decisions by herself. Months after the journey, she was still trying to wrap her head around it. It'd been... almost a year, actually, since they'd revived the tree. It was strange to think about. Had she changed, or had Zelos changed? Maybe both of them had changed.

If she was expecting an answer to her question, she forgot about it as soon as Axel said something about Kaneis having feelings for her. "What...?" It was just impossible. He had a bad habit of hitting on her and making fun of her body. How could he possibly--

She sat up in her chair, fingers digging into the armrests.

"But that... that doesn't make any sense! At home, he was always surrounded by girls. Sometimes he makes passes at me, but-- that doesn't mean anything. It's just because I'm a commoner and he likes getting me worked up."

"Feelings don't make much sense, says I," he replied, "and admittedly, I'm hardly an expert in the field."

Courtesy laugh.

He shrugged then.

"Look, I'm not claiming to know Kaneis at all--I'm not even claiming to know you all that well--but I know a gaze of affection when I see one." Even if he couldn't feel emotions, he still remembered them. Riku would have argued he did feel them, but Axel wasn't prepared to make that leap just yet.

He made a bit of a face then.

"All that aside, why would you feel the need to apologize for having feelings about someone anyway?"

Sheena had at least twenty other reasons why Zelos wouldn't do something like fall in love with her, but she forgot most of them when her face began to heat up. She ignored it as best as she could, which wasn't really her best at all, and huffed and turned away like that would help.

"How do you know if you have feelings for someone? It's such a bad idea on every level... I don't even want to think about it. That's why I want to apologize, I guess. That, and..." Her fingers tightened in the loose fabric of her tunic. "Like I said before, it felt like that was the wrong thing to say. He probably hates me. Wouldn't you, if you thought someone liked you but they were lying?"

Axel held his hands up and waved them a bit frantically.

"Whoa, whoa, let's back up a bit," he said, shaking his head; "I am not the guy you wanna ask about figuring out your emotions, got it memorized?" And then he gestured at her with both hands. "Look, I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to matters of the heart, but I'm pretty sure that caring about somebody is never a bad idea. Even when it seems like a really bad idea." He turned his hands palm up then, sort of shrugging helplessly. "So even if you're not in love with the guy, he's your friend right?" He paused briefly, not necessarily expecting an actual answer, and then continued, "So that's gotta count for something."

Axel sighed then, kneading his brow. This was so far outside his area of expertise he needed a passport. At her inquiry, though, something tightened in his throat and squeezed painfully around his lungs. If you thought someone liked you but they were lying...

i'm not the one who changed. you did.

Yeah, he knew all about friends who lied. He had one. He was one. And maybe it wasn't the same situation in either case, but... he had to hope that Roxas didn't hate him any more than he could hate Saïx, despite the bad blood and burned bridges between them. He closed his fingers in the front of his shirt, then quickly released it when he caught himself doing so, meeting Sheena's eye. There was a haunted look to his face as he shook his head.

"If he hates you for being his friend instead of his girlfriend, then he's a moron."

Edited 2013-06-30 10:10 (UTC)

Sheena stared at Axel in a way that begged to know why he had an extra arm growing out of his head. Basically. But she let him speak, and like many times, his words made an easygoing kind of sense. Maybe he wasn't an expert in matters of the heart, but Axel understood what it was like to have friends, and caring for them, and things like that.

"Y-yeah, you're right," she murmured. Judging by the way her lips made a line, she felt guilty about forcing this issue on Axel, not to mention Zelos who-- if Axel was to be believed-- basically got his hopes up for nothing.

That made her heart lurch. Why was it that when she thought about it, it scared her? She was never scared of Zelos before, not like this. Not ever. If she didn't care about him then it shouldn't matter, but knowing that he might actually...

Fffff. She let out a little breath and looked to Axel again. "Thanks for listening. I'm not really used to talking to people about stuff like this. I don't feel like I killed a friendship anymore, so that's an improvement."

If it would have served as a consolation at all, Axel would have told her she hadn't forced a damn thing on him. He'd been curious about what was bothering her, after all. He waved a hand dismissively when she thanked him.

"Nah, you don't gotta thank me," he said, folding his arms over his chest again. "Friends do that sort'a thing for each other, right?"

He'd said it before he really thought about it, and his eyes widened briefly at how easy it had been to say. Certainly he thought of Sheena as a friend, but to say it aloud without hesitation like that? Sheesh, Roxas and Xion had really rubbed off on him.

Clearing his throat he added, "I'm not very good at talking about myself either, for what it's worth. But I guess... well..." He threaded his hands behind his head and leaned back again. "I'm a pretty good listener."

It was sort of the closest thing to an open invitation he could really muster. Hey, give him a break, he was still figuring this whole friendship gig out.

Sheena appreciated the remark. It made sense. They were friends, not just roommates. You could have a roommate that wasn't your friend, after all. But real friendship, like helping one another, taking a hit for someone, or just spending time together?

Yeah, she was okay with that.

She relaxed a little more, turned the munny over and over in her hands appreciatively. "Sometimes that's what people need. It's good to know that... that you're not alone, you know?"

Axel had had plenty of roommates who weren't his friends. In fact, he'd had nearly a dozen. And they'd all lived in the same place. And it had sucked. Living with people he could actually trust not to stab him in the back? People he could really believe would stick up for him?

That was kinda nice.

"Being alone sucks," he said flatly. "So... yeah, it's good to know."

Friends could be a liability, a chink in your armor, and he had learned that firsthand. But the fact of the matter was, what he'd learned just a little too late to stop everything from going to hell back home, was that it was a risk worth taking. He fidgeted a little, then cleared his throat awkwardly and got to his feet.

"I'll, ah... I can make something to eat," he said, and then grinned at her. "You can just owe me."

Sheena didn't know what it was like to be suspicious of everyone. If anything, it'd always been the other way around. No matter where she went, she was met with resistance because of being from Mizuho, or because she had killed a quarter of her own village with that one accident. There was a time when she thought nothing of herself, and she still struggled with those thoughts sometimes.

But... surrounded by people who cared genuinely about her fate, and being a part of something greater, had changed Sheena monumentally. It was that change that drove her to be a better person rather than beating herself into infinity. Though Sheena knew people who betrayed her, she never held it against them, not even a little bit. She knew there was always a reason, having betrayed her village and spared someone's life. It was the right thing to do, wasn't it? Even if it might have doomed her village, she still couldn't bring herself to kill someone who wanted to be her friend.

She shook free old thoughts as Axel got up. "Huh? Oh, sure." It wasn't like cooking was a punishment for her. "I can make that chili stuff I heard about." He did like spicy things, last time she checked.

Axel knew plenty about self-deprecation. Being told you didn't deserve to exist in the first place wasn't exactly the best medicine for someone'e self esteem, after all. It was a sad sort of common ground.

He paused then, scratching his chin.

"Chilly?" What sort of food was that?

The distasteful way he said it made Sheena laugh unexpectedly. "It's made with chili peppers. That's where it gets its name." She wasn't sure how many, though, but it was definitely guaranteed to be hot. She already had a plan to put some beans in it, some vegetables... Pour all of that over a bed of rice, and it would be delicious.

Granted, she didn't know the first thing about Mexican food since Mexico didn't exist on her world, but rice went well with damn near everything. It was her staple when she cooked, except when it came to stuff like fruit salad. Ew.

"Not sure I've ever had one of those," he admitted. He knew what a pepper was, and he was pretty sure some of the food he'd tried in the Land of Dragons had peppers in it, but the word 'chili' had never been dropped.

He waved a hand then.

"I'm sure whatever it is it'll be good if you're cooking it," he said candidly. Axel didn't really give compliments lightly; he meant what he said. Sheena was a good cook. "If you're not up for it, though, we can trade. No tricks." He offered her a thin smile and made a criss-cross motion across the left side of his chest. "Cross my heart."

"They're pretty spicy, but that's what you like, right?"

She wasn't expecting a compliment, though. She looked surprised, and then she pinkened a little and looked away. "T-thanks." Was this what having a big brother was like? She'd begun to wonder. "It's okay, though. I'm always up for cooking unless I'm dead tired."

"Spicy's always good," he said with a nod. Axel wasn't really a picky eater, especially if someone else was doing the work. No one would have called him a gentleman, necessarily, but he did manage to be fairly well-mannered when he thought about it.

If she wanted to cook, he certainly wasn't going to say no, and so he returned to the couch and picked up his book again. Plunking his feet back on the table, he tilted his head back to address her.

"Holler if you need a hand, yah?"

Bad enough she'd cooked with a broken arm. Cooking with an anxious and wounded heart was certainly a greater feat.

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nothing's really making any sense...

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phone taggin' aww ye

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