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Part Twenty-Eight

   "Axel knows you, it's okay," Sam was already halfway down the wire with his speed and eager attitude. Nobody would stop him from seeing his humans, apparently.

   "Well, don't you think he might be uncomfortable?" Elijah pressed on, his eyes avoiding Axel's. "He's never met a human before."

   "He met you online. And I got used to humans pretty quickly, I know he'll be okay. Right, Axel?"

   Axel, for whatever reason, shockingly nodded his head yes to accompany the trembles in his little body.

   Elijah didn't believe it for a second, but figured he wouldn't be able to change Sam's stubborn mind when it came to seeing Leo. So, he let Sam go, and leaned back once again onto his soft bed.

   The first few minutes were incredibly awkward.

   Axel was scared out of his mind, shaking like a little leaf out on the cold wood of the table, and he wasn't able to speak even if he wanted to. The human being right in front of him, looming over everything without even trying, was like a monster to him.

   Yet, Axel couldn't hate him entirely. If this was the Elijah from the texts, he felt almost a little bit safer in his presence, especially as he watched him argue for Axel's comfort. Still, humans were scary, and Axel continued to be afraid at the figure before him.

   He didn't know how Sam could be so oblivious to his obvious state of fear. Either he truly didn't care about him lie Axel thought he did, or he was too ingrained in the other humans to take notice to someone who was supposed to be his brother. Axel didn't know which one was worse, but he did know it hurt him to his core at the thought of being betrayed like that.

   When Elijah started to hear tiny sniffling, he knew he needed to speak up.

   "Hey," Eli turned his head and finally was able to look Axel dead-on, with no consequences following. The little borrower had his head down and used his hands in an attempt to cover up the obvious tears that were falling. "Hey, it's okay. Don't cry."

   Elijah was feeling some sense of Deja Vu, from the first time he met Sam all those days ago.

   "Axel, you don't have to be scared. I won't do anything, okay? Please don't cry..."

   Unable to hold Axel the way he held Sam, Elijah didn't quite know what to do with his hands. Instead, he kept them in his lap and felt twitching fingers every now and then, but generally avoided the itch to scoop Axel up and hold him closer.

   "Look, I'll even turn around. Will that help?" He swung his legs up and positioned himself so that his back was facing the table, and began to talk once more. "See, I'm not even looking. If you wanted to leave, you could go and I wouldn't even know."

   The little rain was beginning to pick up outside, but it wasn't too bad. Just a fair amount to water the plants, and that was all.

   He didn't hear any minuscule footsteps, so he took that as his cue to continue.

   "You know, Sam cried the first time we met, too. He was so scared he started crying, and I had to calm him down and talk with him for a couple hours. Leo and Skip were there too, but they didn't do much. Nobody can really stop me when I talk, i don't know why, maybe because I don't really stop unless someone interrupts. Anyways, I was sitting on the couch in the living room- have you been to the living room yet? I can take you there if you ever wanna go. There's a super comfortable couch- anyways, I was on the couch and held him in my hands and talked with him for a little bit. I basically just told him all about me and Leo and Skip, because I figured he didn't know anything. Turns out, he knew us by heart because we had been texting the whole time! We just didn't know that he knew, which made it really confusing at first...am I rambling?"