Chapter Text
Pizza sat cold and forgotten on the counter, cheese long solidified. Sodas were nearby; the lid left off of the one that was Axel's half-empty bottle. Another bottle sat empty on its side. That one was Demyx’s of course. Axel had abandoned his bottle ages ago for the more favored liquor. Demyx had joined him when his bottle was dry, complaining, but nearly vibrating from the sugar.
They put on a movie as they always did on Friday nights. Demyx sprawled out across the couch, sitar in his lap as he drunkenly plucked out tunes. Axel laid on the floor, arms folded behind his head as he stared at the ceiling, singing along the best he could with a grin that wouldn’t go away, even when Demyx complained for the hundredth time that he was singing flat. Axel just flipped the bird and rolled to his side, staring up at the tv, singing as loud and as off-key as he could before dissolving into laughter.
They fell quiet after that, half watching the movie and drinking more. Demyx had put on some old nonsense movie about a psychic trying to save his girlfriend from a supposed serial killer.
“This is so stupid,” Axel snorted a laugh. He rolled onto his back again, grabbing his glass from the nearby coffee table and balanced it on his chest. “Psychic powers are bullshit.”
“You gotta admit it’d be pretty cool.” Demyx had gone back to plucking at his sitar.
“As if someone could see the future. What about free will and all that shit?”
Demyx shrugged, his fingers hesitating over the strings before his face lit up. “Hey, that reminds me. I saw an ad for a psychic hotline earlier today. How about we call and find out just how bullshit it is?”
“Why the hell not? What do we have to lose? Besides our money.” Axel grabbed his glass and pushed himself up, sitting cross-legged against the table.
Demyx searched for numbers to call that didn’t look godawfully expensive. He punched a number in, hit call, put it on speaker, and dropped the phone onto the table.
“Good evening,” the almost mystical voice of a woman answered, with just the right amount of an airy tone. “Thank you for calling. Who am I speaking with?”
They both hesitated for a minute before Axel furiously waved at Demyx, mouthing ‘it’s your phone.’
“Uh, Demyx?”
Axel nearly cracked up at the question in Demyx’s tone. ‘Shouldn’t she already know this?’ he mouthed again.
‘Shut up,’ Demyx mouthed back.
“Yes, Demyx. Let me see…” There was a pause, almost a whisper of a breath. “You wish for a change. There is great potential within you. You can take that anywhere. Your dreams are within reach, you’ve just got to apply yourself.”
Demyx was scrawling notes. Axel rolled his eyes, draining his glass before laying back down on the floor. “Come on now. I could’ve said that much.”
“Things are a little vague, but I believe there is… a person you are interested in. You wish to know if this person likes you?” the psychic continued.
“Yes!” Demyx bit. Axel snorted a laugh. Of course, Demyx would.
“I’m sensing… their name is somewhere at the end of the alphabet.”
“Axel! She’s talking about Zexion. She has to be!”
Axel was wondering just when he’d roll his eyes from his head.
“Zexion. Yes,” The psychic continued. “They’re very dear to you, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Yes, he is!” Demyx flashed Axel a thumbs up.
“Help me out here, it’s vague… but I believe you have a career in the arts?”
“I’m a musician!”
“Fuck sake, Dem…” Axel groaned, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Stop giving everything away.”
“Yes, I see it now. You should spend more time with him. Perhaps invite him over for dinner? Or perhaps play him a song or two. He will surely show his interest in you then.”
“He will? Oh, this is the best. I’ve got a song I wrote for him… should I play that?”
“Not the first time he comes over. But the second.”
Axel zoned out for the rest of the call, getting up to go fill his glass and laugh at how giddy Demyx was. He didn’t realize just how much he’d given away.
By the time Axel returned and sat on the edge of the couch, Demyx had gotten off the call and was laughing.
“Do you think they have a script to follow? Like, that was almost impressive.”
“Here I thought you were falling for that bullshit.”
“Ok, look.” Demyx waved his phone at Axel. “I may be stupid sometimes, but I’m not an idiot.”
They broke into drunken giggles, spending a while trying to get the mystic quality of the woman’s voice into their own and failing spectacularly.
“I think I need to hear that again. Your turn, Ax.”
“Fine, fine. But if they say anything about love, I’m hanging up.” Axel punched in the number from Demyx’s phone into his own and dropped it, on speaker, on the table.
“Hello,” a different voice answered, a guy this time, lacking almost completely in the mystic aspect. The person on the other end sounded almost like a bored college student. “Thank you for calling. Who am I speaking with?”
“Can’t you tell me that?” Axel grinned, swigging his drink.
“I’m sorry, sir. The spirits don’t work that way. You don’t have to tell me your name if you don’t wish.”
“Cool, so whatcha got for me, psychic boy?”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t patronize me, sir. I’m doing my…” the guy trailed off.
Axel and Demyx stared at the phone for a long minute.
“Well, that’s one way to get your money…” Axel muttered, reaching for his phone to disconnect the call. There was a sharp intake of breath from the other end.
“Listen to me carefully,” the guy spoke suddenly, sounding almost pained. “Set an alarm on your watch for 3:37 PM on the twenty-fifth. Of this month.”
There was a pause and the sound of Demyx writing filled the silence.
“Are you still listening?” the guy asked.
“Yes?” Axel raised an eyebrow at Demyx who just shrugged, pencil poised over the paper as they waited.
“Good. When that alarm goes off, stop and turn it off. You have to stop. Completely. I don’t care how long your legs are. That alarm goes off. You stop. Ok?”
How long his legs were? “Ok?” Axel shook his head. This was getting weird.
“I want you to set that alarm to remind you to stand in place for exactly two minutes and fifteen seconds from the moment you open the stopwatch app on your phone. Once that time is up, start walking at your normal pace. Following me so far?”
“I… am? Why am I doing this?”
“Because by the time you reach the corner, there will be an explosion in the abandoned building you passed. It will blow out the windows, sending glass into the street.”
“Are you serious?” both Demyx and Axel chorused.
“Dead serious. Look, guy. Whatever you do, don’t be a hero. Everyone will be fine. There will only be mild injuries if you do as I say. Ok?”
“Sure?”
“Promise me.” The guy on the line sounded almost out of breath now.
“But…”
“Promise me, guy.”
“I promise?” Axel was sitting up now, half leaning over the phone on the table.
“Good. I need to go rest now. Thank you for calling.”
The phone disconnected, and Axel looked up at Demyx. They were both wide-eyed, staring at each other before looking down at the notepad.
“Well.” Demyx slid it across the table to Axel. “That was different. So much for the script theory. What are you doing? Are you actually putting an alarm on your watch?”
“May as well?” Axel typed out the memo, setting it as an alarm and sending it to his watch. “Worst that happens is I feel stupid for…” he squinted at the paper. “Two minutes and fifteen seconds.”
“Fair enough. Now, go grab the bottle. We’ve got two more movies to get through tonight.”
The rest of the month passed by quickly. Axel went about his life, forgetting about the alarm set on his watch.
Until he was walking down the street on the twenty-fifth. He was headed back to work after grabbing food and coffee when his wrist started buzzing. He brought the watch up, staring at the bolded Stop. And so he did, coming to a complete halt and opening the notification. He read the note about getting his phone out and shook his head. Why would he do that? But the memory of the worried voice from the phone had him digging it out, following instructions and watching the seconds tick up on the stopwatch.
And then, two minutes fifteen seconds reached, he took off at his normal stride. He gave a glance to the empty storefront as he passed, eyeing the giant plate glass display windows. His gaze fell to a woman and a small child, walking in the opposite direction and nearly hesitated, wanting to warn them. Instead, he gritted his teeth and kept walking.
“Don’t be a hero, Axel,” he muttered to himself. His feet touched the bright paint indicating the crosswalk on the corner.
An explosion ripped through the air, rattling Axel’s bones. He whirled, catching the fireball. Glass tinkled down in a rain on the sidewalk. A scattering of people stood nearby, some clutching at small wounds.
Axel tried to take a step back and nearly tripped. His coffee went tumbling from his hand, spilling onto the sidewalk, splashing onto the edge of an untied shoelace. He looked from it to the flames licking up the storefront, to the glass on the sidewalk. He blinked.
Would his shoelace have come untied in front of the store? Would he have stopped to tie it? He would have been right there. He could have been hurt… He could have died .
The psychic had said he was dead serious.
By the time he made it back to work and stilled the shaking in his hands enough to pull his phone out, he had a couple of missed messages from Demyx asking how his psychic prediction went. His hands were still shaking bad enough that he couldn’t get a message typed out so he just called.
“Hey, good to see you’re not dead or anything. How'd the psychic boy’s prediction go?”
“The fucking building blew up, Demyx,” he nearly shouted the words, receiving looks from his coworkers. “If I hadn’t stopped… if I didn’t wait. My shoelace came untied Dem. I would have stopped to tie it. Probably right in front of that store… and…”
“You’d probably have been caught in the explosion. But that doesn’t mean it was thanks to the guy…”
“Then how else do you explain it?”
“Well shit. We found the one guy that seems to be a psychic.”
Axel called and called that night until the familiar voice came on the phone.
“Thank you for calling. Who am I speaking with?”
“Hey, uh. It’s me?”
“Hello, me.” The guy sounded amused. “What are you looking for tonight? I can see if the spirits will help.”
“Look, it’s just… I don’t want anything,” Axel paused, taking a long drink of the whiskey in his glass. “I just wanted to say that you were right and that you probably saved my life.”
“I’m usually right,” the guy chuckled. “What did I get right this time?”
“The exploding building? You told me to not be a hero?”
“Oh shit,” the guy’s half mystic voice broke. “So you’re ok?”
“Yeah, not a scratch on me. Thanks.”
“I’m glad I could help. It’s a relief to know you’re alright.”
“Yeah… thanks,” Axel stupidly thanked him again.
They sat in silence for a minute. Axel slid his glass back and forth on the table. “So, I guess I should let you get back to it. Thanks again.”
“Feel free to call anytime.”
Axel gawked at his phone for a long moment before he came to his senses. “How the hell am I supposed to do that when I don’t know who you are?”
But there was no answer. The call had been disconnected long ago.
Axel had just about forgotten about the psychic guy in the month that passed before, on his way home from work, a hand caught his arm, tiny fingers curling above the crook of his elbow.
They pulled Axel to a stop, and he looked around, but the person stood behind him.
“You’re going to a party this weekend,” the voice spoke quietly and quickly. “You shouldn’t go, but I know you will. Leave before 11:47. The cops will show up just before midnight and there will be a drug bust. If you stay you’ll be arrested. Ok?”
“But, I don’t do drugs?” Axel tried to turn, but they stayed behind him.
“Look, I don’t give a shit what you do or don’t do. Just listen to what I'm saying.”
“You’re… that phone psychic, aren’t you?” Axel wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Voices always sounded different over the phone. Especially when they were trying to be mystical.
“Yes. So listen to me, ok. Do you promise me you’ll leave before I said?”
“I promise.”
That weekend, Axel did in fact go to the party. And as he watched from the couch, he couldn’t help but notice the pills that were passed around. How had he not noticed before?
Late that night, the alarm on both his phone and his watch went off at the same time and Axel rose from the couch, snuffing out his cigarette. He found Demyx sitting in a part of a circle on the floor.
“Demyx, listen to me. We have to go.” Axel tugged on Demyx’s arm, trying to yank him away from the game of truth or dare he was engrossed in.
“Is this about your psychic boy? Are you really going to believe him?” Demyx scrambled to his feet, muttering his apologies to the group.
“He was right the last time. Look, if he’s wrong, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll buy the next bottle. Let’s just go.”
“Who am I to turn down free booze.”
They made it back into the city and from the back of the uber, they watched at least four cop cars go screaming by, in the direction they’d come from, lights on, sirens wailing away.
Demyx passed it off as a coincidence, but days later, Axel ran across the article on the internet.
Local drug bust leads to several arrests. And there under the title was a picture of the house in the woods they’d been at that night.
The hand caught his arm weeks later.
“Change your beach plans. Book the hotel five miles to the south end. Sharks. Call when you get home. Try not to forget.”
He was gone before Axel could turn, but he thought he saw a short person with blond hair, weaving away through the crowds. Was that him? He shrugged, heading on to work.
He nearly had forgotten the guy’s words until Demyx asked about the trip once he got home.
“Shit. Change of plans.” Axel dropped onto the couch, pulling up his map and locating the specified hotel.
Demyx watched in confusion as he called and made reservations and then called the first hotel and canceled.
“What the hell, man? We made those almost a year ago.”
“Psychic boy found me today.”
“And told you to change reservations? To where?”
Axel told him the name and Demyx wheezed.
“You got the reservation? How? That hotel books out years in advance!”
“Guess I’ve got a little supernatural power on my side.”
“I keep trying to tell you he’s just been lucky so far.”
“Then how do you explain all of this?”
Demyx didn’t have an answer.
The trip passed uneventfully, but the last day Axel had the urge to check and found a scattering of articles about shark attacks… right in front of the hotel that they were supposed to have stayed at.
He went and nearly slammed his phone down in front of Demyx.
“Look. That could have been us, Dem.”
“Lucky guess?”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“What happened to ‘psychics are bullshit?’”
“I had one save my life.”
It was another few weeks before Axel heard the voice again.
“You there. The tall redheaded guy. Wait. Please.”
Axel froze on the sidewalk and waited. Sure enough, a tiny hand wrapped around his arm. This time, though, it clutched tight.
“What do you have for me this time, psychic boy?”
“You’re going to die,” the guy wheezed out, half gasping for breath. “If you don’t listen to me… you’re going to die. You and maybe your friend.”
“Which one?”
“The dirty blond that plays the sitar.”
“How did you..?”
“Listen to me. Please.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re going out to a bar tomorrow night. It’s his birthday. You’re both going to get drunk and he’s going to want to drive.” The fingers clutched to him tighter. “If you get in that car with him… you will both die. If you get into a cab with him… you will die.”
A forehead pressed into the space between Axel’s shoulder blades. Axel tried to turn, but the guy just turned with him.
“You have to listen to me. He’ll be there with his friend… no, his boyfriend. Leave early. Catch your own cab. He’ll live if you catch a cab by yourself.”
“What?”
“Promise me you won’t get in that car.”
“Why would I get in a car with a drunk guy?”
“Because you’ll be drunk as well, and he’s your best friend. Do you promise?”
“But I…”
“Promise me!” the guy shouted, forehead pressing into Axel’s back. “I don’t want you to die.”
“Ok, ok. I promise. No getting in a car with a drunk driver.” He could feel the warmth of the guy’s breath through his shirt when he sighed in relief.
“Thank you.” And then he was gone again, blond hair bobbing off through the crowds.
“Dem, I’mma head home.”
“But it’s only midnight, Ax.” Demyx had his arm slung around Zexion’s shoulders. “Night’s still young.”
Axel stared down at his phone, at the notification from the alarm he’d set.
Go the fuck home before you die.
“I guess I drank too much. I’m not feeling well?” It was hard to make excuses when drunk. He didn’t know why he needed to leave so badly, but the word ‘die’ staring at him was pretty damn convincing.
“M’kay. Stay safe.”
The next morning he found a slew of messages from Zexion on his phone. It started with:
1:47 AM: We got in an accident on our way home.
1:47 AM: A drunk driver t-boned the passenger side of the cab.
2:15 AM: They took Demyx to the hospital, just to be safe.
3:42 AM: Demyx is fine, just a little banged up. I’m fine, I was on the driver’s side, Demyx was in the middle.
3:45 AM: Demyx wants me to say he’s glad you got your own ride home and that if you’d been in the backseat with us, you probably would have been dead.
Looked like he owed his life to the psychic boy yet again.
Once Demyx was back in the apartment they stayed up late, trying to get ahold of the psychic again. They were just about to give up when on the next call he answered.
“Thank you for calling. Who am I speaking to?”
“It’s me again, I wanted—” Axel started, but the guy interrupted.
“Hello, Red. You have no idea how good it is to hear from you.”
“Red?” Demyx chimed in.
“Yes. Your friend is a redhead. Green eyes. Six foot stupid tall.”
“And me?”
“Blond. Tall. You play the sitar.”
“You told him about me?” Demyx slapped Axel’s arm.
“Red didn’t tell me anything. But it’s good to hear that you’re both still alive.”
Axel clapped a hand over Demyx’s mouth before he could speak again. “Yeah, thanks again. I feel like I need to buy you a drink or six.”
“That you do,” the guy chuckled. “I swear, Red. It’s like your number is up or something. It’s such a hassle to keep you alive. I have to thank you for listening, I suppose.” There was a long pause on the line. “Did you call just to tell me thanks again?”
Demyx yanked Axel’s hand away shouting “We want another prediction.”
“It doesn’t exactly work like that,” the guy grumbled, sounding annoyed.
“What? Do the spirits have to be properly aligned or some bull?”
“Demyx. Be nice. I’m sure he’s trying.” Axel rolled his eyes.
There was another long pause on the line, and they sat there waiting. Demyx was almost on the edge of his seat.
“You two are thinking about… having a party this weekend?”
“Well, yeah?” Demyx rolled his eyes like it was the most obvious thing.
“Don’t. Move it to next Friday.”
“Why?”
“There are some characters that would cause trouble for you two. They can’t come the following Friday.”
“Would you be interested in coming?” Axel spoke without thinking.
Demyx looked at Axel like he'd sprouted a second head.
The guy started laughing. “You don’t even know who I am.”
“Well, you seem to know us, so let’s change that!” Demyx shot a grin at Axel. “Come party with us, psychic boy. When else are we going to meet you?”
“Look, I’d rather not. I’m not one for—oh.”
“What?” Both Demyx and Axel echoed each other, but the guy didn’t speak for another minute.
“We’ll meet when the timing is right,” the guy whispered, and then the line disconnected.
The party was rescheduled and went flawlessly. But as far as Axel knew, everyone they’d originally invited had shown up.
Axel doubted the psychic boy just a little. Maybe Demyx had been right, and he’d just been lucky this far. Then again, they’d called him, forced him into giving a prediction. Except for the first time, the guy had always found him.
Whatever. If the guy had another vision of Axel’s impending doom, then surely he would come to find Axel again.