Let's check in with some folks we haven't seen in quite a while... and with another flashback, get another little glimpse into the past... :)
P.S. Fellow Jensen/Dean fans - do check out the media box!! Hope you like the gif and soundtrack posted with this scene ;D
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Scene 8: Worth a Damn
A.D. 2015
Some things would never change.
Once the casket was lowered, respects paid and pale flowers laid, the weary world would go on turning just the same. Without a care as to the boy buried too soon, beneath the earth that'd been too cruel to him, in life and death alike. Without even remembering his name.
To be forgotten, dead to all the world... except for Axel Golde. Some things would never change. He'd always known that his sole purpose in this life was to protect his little brother.
And he had always failed.
A.D. 2004
Damn, he loved this car. The biggest, best thing he had ever earned and owned for real. He'd never felt more like a man than when he got behind the wheel. He always liked driving his kid brother to school, feeling like he was doing something right for Ro, for once. And, at the same time—if he might say so himself, catching a glimpse of his own chiseled features in the side view mirror—looking pretty damn cool.
Now, what always ruined things was the look on Ronan's freckled face, most mornings. Never anywhere near happy. But today, even by the standards of a family as fucked as the Goldes, it looked pretty damn sad.
"Hey—hey Ro, what's up?" Axel asked. "What's wrong?"
Ronan pouted at the world past the windshield, where people smiled sometimes. "Mom said I'm too young to ride in the front seat."
"Naw, she's just being overprotective. You're old enough now. As long as your seatbelt's on." He glanced over just to make sure that it was.
Ro pulled a tissue from his pocket, blew his ruddy nose. "Mm-hmm."
Axel didn't know if that was just the usual sniffles—poor guy had the world's weakest immune system—or if he'd been crying. "What's really wrong, kid? Come on; you know you can tell me anything."
"Well," Ro sniffed, "when Mom said that this morning, Dad said..."
At the mention of their father, the car started going a hell of a lot faster. Whoops. Axel forced himself to let up on the pedal, just a bit.
Ronan was used to it, so he had barely noticed. "...he said I'm not worth worrying about, that my life ain't worth a damn anyway, and..."
Fingers clenched into fists around the wheel, dark eyes hardening into steel. Damn, he hated that man. "And he hit her again, didn't he."
"Really hard."
"Damn it. Should've been there."
"You were hitting the snooze button still."
"Exactly. It's my fucking fault."
Ro crumpled his tissue. "He tries not to do it when you're looking. I think you scare him a little bit. Now that you're getting all big."
"Yeah, well these big arms aren't worth shit if I can't protect Mom from that son of a bitch," Axel muttered as they pulled into the parking lot, turning to look at his brother. "What about you? Did he hit you?"
Ro was ripping up the used tissue into a thousand little pieces.
The sight broke Axel's soul into a million. "Did he, Ronan?"
Ro sniffled again, head bobbing in a sort-of-nod. "But not as hard."
"Let me see. Let me see," Axel ordered instantly, reaching to swipe a forelock of frizzy red off of Ro's forehead. Even by Golde standards, it looked bad. "Ugh, shit. Swear I'm gonna kill that bastard someday."
"Huh?"
"Here, uh... you got band-aids in your backpack, right?"
"I think I used them all up last week."
"Fuck."
"Hey there, golden boys," chimed a sugarcoated voice as one of Ronan's classmates leant into the window, dark glossy hair flung over her shoulder, fruity perfume flooding the front seat. "How's it going?"
Axel swiveled his head to see their unexpected guest. Oh shit, it was that super pretty slutty chick who never passed him in the hallway without winking at his dick. He blinked. "Uh, we've had better days."
"Yeah? How can I make your day a little better, big guy?" she purred, leaning in closer—which brought Ro into her line of vision, causing the flirty smirk to fall right off her face upon seeing his scar. "Aw, oh my God! Ronan, what happened? Does he need a band-aid?"
She pulled something pink out of her purse, handed it to Axel.
Ronan frowned. "It's got Disney princesses on it."
Axel chuckled as he affixed it to Ro's forehead. "Take it and say thank you. Your hair covers most of it anyway, kid. No worries," he reassured him, ruffling his curls, then turning and thanking the girl.
"Sure thing, Axe," she murmured, leaning into the driver's seat before leaving, with a whisper for his ears alone. "Anything for you."
Axel shifted uncomfortably as she flounced off to class, fighting the instinct to check out her ass. Cleared his throat and forced a constipated, half-assed smile at his little brother. "Wasn't that sweet? She must like you. Chin up, Ro, your day just may be getting better."
Ronan rolled his eyes as he got out of the car. "Come on, Axel. You know girls only ever treat me nice to get closer to you."
If there was a right thing to say, to that, Axel had no clue what. "Got your inhaler? Epi-pen? Extra lunch money?" he asked instead.
"Yeah, and my pretty princess band-aid," Ronan grumbled.
"Heh. Go get 'em, tiger."
Ro started plodding off toward school. "I'm not getting anything."
"Hey—hey..." Axel spoke in the big-brother voice that had always made it impossible for Ro to walk away. "Things will get better, okay? I'm gonna deal with Dad, somehow, I'm..."
"You say that all the time."
"Yeah, well I mean it now. No more snooze buttons. No more band-aids. Things are gonna get better. Things are gonna change."
Axel bit his lip, after he'd said it. Really, though—would they?
Ro replied to the doubt in his big brother's mind, walking off to face another day. "Forget it, Axel. My life isn't worth a damn anyway."
A.D. 2015
Now Ronan Golde would never face a day on this damned earth again. Axel wasn't sure, given how fucked up this world was, whether that fate was more of a curse or a blessing. But either way, cursed blood was left in his wake. Either way, the bitch would have to pay.
Back in the good old fucking days—good by Golde standards, at least, before Ro had met the dark rose, back when she'd belonged to Axel, days when they'd all pretended that life was half-decent—he and Atria had been dumb enough to let their dark pasts bring them closer. Bonded over it and shit. Back when he hadn't wanted to slit her throat.
At least not as badly as he wanted to now. He'd been too busy fucking it back then. He did miss that, though, if nothing else. No pair of lips had ever felt so perfect, ever looked so pretty, wrapped around his...
Approaching footfalls broke through his thoughts. Some punk had the nerve to show up at the burial site as the service was ending.
Axel did not need to look to know who. "Jett. Don't remember inviting you."
The freckled boy with grey-blue eyes, pale hair partially covered by a creepy hood, stepped up to Axel's side. "Well, Golde, you know how it is—or ought to know, now that you're one of us. A hound makes it his business to show up precisely when he's not invited," he proclaimed, pausing to cast a cold gaze on the grave. "You'd best bear that in mind when you're hunting your prey."
Axel's gaze remained fixed on the casket. "Oh, I won't need reminding."
As the few others present all shuffled away, the funeral director came up to advise that the service was done, and that a backhoe would soon come to fill up the grave. Axel knew this was meant to imply that he might as well leave, if he wished. But he wished no such thing.
Once the director had taken the hint, Jett stood by Axel in silence awhile before speaking. "So, you'll embark tomorrow? To begin this?"
Axel's head rose and fell in a slow, solemn nod.
"You know the endgame?"
"I know it's a game. And I know how it ends."
A smile crept onto Jett's face. "But do you know how to play?"
Axel's gaze was still set on the grave. "Player's my middle name."
Jett chuckled. "The Guild has chosen well in recruiting you, Golde. I would just caution you not to confuse your... urges with your aims."
"And what do you know of my urges, kid?"
"They're plain as day to see. Just—just try to keep them in check. To focus on the task," Jett nodded toward the casket. "For his sake."
Axel turned to set his steely stare on Jett. "Listen, kid. I'm not your bitch. Not taking orders. All of this, everything you would have me do, I'm gonna do for his sake. And my own. Never yours. You got that?"
Jett chuckled again. "Whatever gets you through this, Golde."
"You are one high and mighty little bastard," Axel huffed.
"Yes, that does sound like me. But you know what I'm not? A kid," Jett contested, glaring up at the far taller man beside him. "Next time you call me that, mark my words—I'll show you what a man I can be."
Axel paused for a second, feigning bemusement. "Now, was that you trying to scare me or seduce me? 'Cause sorry, kid, but I don't swing that way."
Jett flinched at the address. Stared at the grave again. "I'll let that pass, because you're being playful. Practicing to play your little game, let's say. Against the bitch who got your poor kid brother killed."
Axel seethed, visibly and audibly, hands rising to the scruff of Jett's shirt. "You don't get to talk about him. You hear me? Not like that. Not over his grave. Over my dead body."
Forced to meet Axel's glare, a sea of darkest green aflame with streaks of gold, Jett simply smirked. "Good, good; that's very good, Golde. Now harness all that rabid rage, and put it toward the game. Toward your aims."
With a snicker, Axel slightly slackened his grip on the collar. "You like giving orders, don't you? Feeling like you're in control, like a real man, like a grownup? You're nothing but a pretentious little prick."
"And you're nothing but an egotistic dick who's going to take orders like a good little bitch," Jett spat, smirk still pasted on his lips. "Whether you call it that or not, you know you're doing what I want."
After a tense silence, Axel let go of the shirt, shook his head and snickered again. "You know, you remind me of someone sometimes."
"Don't say your kid brother. That would make me sick."
"Hell, no," he denied, insulted on Ronan's behalf at the notion. "More like the whore we both want to hunt down and destroy."
The smirk on Jett's lips widened into a leer. "Well. Knowing how you really feel about her, I think I ought to take that as a compliment."
Axel's lip lifted into a sneer. "Whatever gets you through this, kid."
"Excuse me..." a middle-aged woman cut in. Axel recognized her as a second cousin or something. She apologized for being so late to the funeral, for having missed the entire service, blaming bad traffic, effusing her empty condolences.
Axel had little patience for this bullshit.
"Anyway, I'm so sorry to have interrupted you," the old bitch expressed, turning toward Jett. "This must be one of Ronan's friends?"
"Oh, this? This is Jettison Jacobs," Axel tersely introduced.
Jett cringed; it was no secret that he loathed his full first name.
"He has no place here and was just about to leave," Axel added.
The cousin blinked, apologized again, and slipped away.
"Know how much you must hate that given name of yours. 'Jettison'—even your mother couldn't wait to throw you out, huh?" Axel teased.
Grey-blues glowered at him. "Why don't you finish grieving over your unfortunate sap of a brother, then get on with your fucking job."
"And why don't you fuck the fuck off."
Jett smoldered for a moment, wondering whether he should see to some sort of retribution for such blatant disrespect. But he then decided that this self-righteous recruit with his stupidly good-looking face and godforsaken soul wasn't worth it. "With great pleasure," he scoffed.
As Jett proceeded to fuck off, Axel stayed and stared at his lost brother's grave awhile longer, the buried casket still laid bare—despite the funeral director's words, some time ago, the backhoe hadn't yet arrived to fill the space with heaps of earth. Just like the fucking second cousin, it was late. When would any soul in this sorry world treat Ro with so much as a shred of the dignity he deserved?
Axel pulled something from his pocket: an old photo of him, Ronan, and Atria, smiling together. Even after the good old days were over, for a little while after Ro had met her, life had still held a bit of hope.
Now any hope for Ro was gone, and life along with it.
Axel ripped the bitch out of the picture, cast the photo of two brothers onto the casket. Crumpled the image of the dark rose in his fist, with last words as he turned and left the grave behind. "Oh, trust me, kid. The pleasure's gonna be all mine."
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So what'd'ya think? Any feels for poor Ro? :'( What's Axel up to next? Any thoughts about Jett (whom I hope you all recognize from Scene 5.10, that dark scene in London near the end of Book I)? ;)
P.S. Dedication to @KewonaWolf, one of Axel's biggest fans, and silver medalist in two events in the 2014 Fateful Olympics—the fanfiction contest, for her awesome #Axria-based fanfic "Forever" (published on her alternate account, @KewonaWolf13); and the fan art contest, for her amazing drawings of all three of the Fates! :D
Next scene, we'll head back to Rider's camp in 2020 B.C., checking in with the champion and his newlywed bride...
** And if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :) **