Archive of Our Own

        "Oi, Sand-boy!"

        Roxas hears the call, but does not acknowledge it. Does not want to acknowledge it. The fact that he can hear it. Can understand it. Knows that it means. (It means him. It means he is still a slave, is still far, far away from home. It means he has been here long enough he can understand the barbarian language they speak in this desolate wasteland, though he refuses to let a single syllable of it pass his lips. It means his new 'master' has found him, and wants him for something.) If he acknowledges it he'll have to do something, and all he wants is to sit here for a while more, exist in only his memories.

        Sora, when they were children. Older. Older still. Riku, Kairi, Tidus, Wakka and Selphie. Hayner-Pence-Olette. Trees, gardens, the simple pleasure of laying out in the sun and not fearing the punishment taken upon your skin. Running water. Sora, dragging him out to dance like wild things in the first rain of the season. Their father. Venison, always so much sweeter when you'd killed it yourself-

        "Hey!" It's right by his ear, but Roxas doesn't jump. Doesn't react at all, for a full five seconds, before he turns his head to look at Axel.

        For all that he resents being owned, Roxas doesn't hate Axel. Axel isn't the one that got him into this situation, isn't the one that welded the collar shut around his neck. Axel has been better to him than he has any reason to be, doesn't treat him much like a slave at all. Not an equal - Axel may be clearly eccentric, but he's not that strange - but more like an employee. A favoured employee, even, at least from the way Roxas remembers such things, but this land does things so strangely he still doesn't understand how it works. Or doesn't work.

        And in any case, there's no real way of knowing if he's favoured or not; he's the only slave Axel keeps. Only company Axel keeps, in some ways; he doesn't seem to have a home of his own, just travels between the houses of acquaintances. Like a nomad, or perhaps a salesman, though if he's in sales he doesn't have anything like a product to sell, at least as far as Roxas can tell. Of course, Roxas has only been with him a couple of months, since Axel bought him out of the hellhole he'd been in with swords and a promise.

        Roxas has no faith in promises, any more, but he feels so much better being armed. And he'll fulfil his side of the bargain, even if Axel doesn't. Honour is one thing they can't take from him.

        "You all right, Sand-boy? Sun hasn't gone to your head again, has it?"

        Roxas glares at him, even though Axel does look sincerely worried. Roxas has seen him put on enough faces that he's not going to take that at face value, either.

        Axel shakes his head a bit, a grin on his face. Like always; it seems to be stuck there. "C'mon, we've gotta pack if we're gonna catch that caravan in the morning. Can't pack if you're all the way out here!"

        Of course you can, Roxas doesn't say, but he stands, and follows Axel back to his - their, Roxas is expected to always be at hand, like the slave they have made him - rooms.

        Axel doesn't actually make him pack, which is why it's so strange he always comes and finds Roxas before he starts, but he does. Roxas sits in a corner, and keeps his eyes on the doors and windows. It's not likely that someone will bother trying to kill an eccentric loner like Axel, but Roxas can always hope.