Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Controlling the flow of time was, to Axl, not unlike playing a guitar - you had to tune the strings correctly, make sure your fingers were in the right place and apply the correct amount of pressure - it was delicate mental calculation that became muscle memory the more it was done. Identifying a moment in time and pinning it in place was like playing a single note, deceptively simple, but travelling between time and space was more akin to playing a string of chords and required greater concentration.

Sometimes he was working from proverbial sheet notes in that he knew when and where he wanted to go, just needed the focus and timing to do it. But sometimes it was more based on muscle memory, more like trying to recreate the notes of a song he’d heard on the radio by sound alone. Axl couldn’t really articulate it with words but there was a level of instinct to it, subconscious and inherent like flinching.

It was that instinct that led him to appear in what seemed to be a little mountain town on a late summer afternoon. It was the sort of place that oozed rustic charm, with cobbled stone streets and wooden shop signs on hinges and a fountain in the square. The sort of place that left him relying on fashion and regional accents to guess at the current time period. It felt right to be there in that moment though, so he let himself enjoy the warm breeze and clear air as he milled about and observed his surroundings.

The fountain in particular drew his interest, the spray from it a refreshing reprieve from the warm, still air. Axl kicked the back of one of his feet with the other as he sat on the fountain’s edge and watched time pass by, snippets of conversation and pleasant smells drifting over him.

He hadn’t been sitting for long when a woman walking across the square caught his eye, lurching forward as she stumbled on an uneven stone in the pavement. Axl brought time to a stop without a moment’s hesitation, watching with relief as the woman remained frozen mid-fall.

Using his powers to help people was never a point of conflict for Axl. If someone needed help he’d try to help them - that’s all there was to it.

The woman’s bag hung suspended in the air, its contents only just beginning to fly out, and Axl poked them back in before taking the bag’s handles and swiping it. It moved as though there was to gravity, and Axl made sure to arrange it the right way up before he turned to look at its owner.

She looked to be late middle-age, with smile lines on her face and occasional strands of grey in her tawny-brown hair, and the earthy brown dress she was wearing was suspended indefinitely in a rippling wave as it fluttered out behind her. She’d only just tripped when Axl had frozen time, one foot still almost touching the ground.

Axl stood to the woman’s side - appearing right in front of people tended to freak them out, he’d learned - and took her elbow in a loose hold. He stretched out his other arm in front of her as a barrier, an extra precaution, and then flicked time back into motion.

The woman fell against Axl’s arm, twisting slightly, and was able to get her feet back under her with only a minor stumble. “Steady on!” Axl said happily as he released his hold and stepped back to give her some space.

“Wh- how- thank you?” She said as she collected herself, clearly a bit disoriented. She blinked at him as he raised the bag in his hand and held it out to her, as if not quite sure he was real. “I didn’t- weren’t you sitting by the fountain?”

“I’m a fast mover,” Axl said with a grin.

The scrutiny with which the woman looked him up and down was enough to make Axl nervous, and he wiggled the bag by its handles to try to encourage her to take it. She ignored the obvious hint and leaned to the side to look past Axl, as if expecting to see an identical copy of him still sitting on the fountain edge.

“How strange,” she mused, giving Axl another analytical once-over, and Axl tried not to feel like he was somehow being interrogated. There was something calculating about the way she looked at him, her brows drawn together in thought as though Axl were a puzzle.

Finally she took the bag from Axl’s hand, her delicate fingers bumping against his. “Thank you,” she said again, more composed now as she used her free hand to brush idly as the skirt of her dress. “That was very kind of you. I’m Jane, and you are-?”

Axl hadn’t expected her to actually engage him in conversation, but it wasn’t an unwelcome surprise. “Axl,” he said with a nod, “good to meet ya.”

Jane suddenly snorted with laughter before covering her mouth with her hand, expression shocked as though she hadn’t expected it of herself. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh!” She apologised quickly, “it’s just- that’s your name? Axl?”

Axl put on an exaggerated pout, deciding a little fun at the woman’s expense couldn’t hurt. “Is it that weird a name?” He whined, “it’s not a fake one, y‘know! I’m called it!”

Jane apparently was savvy enough to realise he wasn’t truly upset, because she tittered at his reaction before leaning in toward him with a mischievous smile. “Do you have plans, Axl?” She asked slyly, “only I’m liable to trip on these damned cobbles again before I make it to my destination, and I’d hate if the cake I’d packed to enjoy by the lake was ruined.”

Axl wasn’t above taking a bribe to walk with what seemed like a perfectly nice lady on a sunny afternoon. “Can’t have that,” he agreed before extending elbow, bowing slightly to replicate the mannerisms of a fancy chauffeur. “Lead the way ma’am!”

Jane hooked her arm with his and the two of them began to walk, probably looking an unusual pair - Jane with her summer dress and tote bag and Axl with his bandanna and kusarigama. Jane bobbed along like a little boat as she passed over the uneven stones, bumping against Axl’s side with each step as she pulled him along.

Time to slow down and smell the proverbial roses like this was what control of his powers had afforded Axl. He could take the time to befriend a stranger on a sunny afternoon because there was no impending danger of being pulled away again, or pressing need to find food and shelter in case he wouldn’t be leaving for a while. It was a bit like childhood holidays to the seaside; the freedom to allow himself to be carried by his whims.

The edge of the town gave way immediately to lush forest, mottled greens and yellows surrounding them as they trod an old dirt path to the edge of a lake. Jane ignored the little wooden jetty and drew Axl to the shore itself before releasing her hold on him to take a seat on the grassy slope.

“I’m glad you decided to join me,” she said as she rummaged through her bag, “not many people who visit get to appreciate what’s really special about this area.”

Axl assumed that she was referring to the lake as he cast a glance over it. It was nice enough he supposed; the sun cast a bridge of rippling light across the water, drawing the eye to the opposite shore that underlined the rolling hills beyond. “It’s a pretty good view,” he conceded as he dropped heavily to sit beside Jane.

She was peeling back the lid of a container, revealing not the cake that Axl had expected but a stash of little brown pellets. Without a word she took a handful of them and tossed them into the water, and Axl watched with surprise as a group of what looked like lizards swam excitedly to meet them.

“What the hell’re those?” He yelped, leaning forward for a better look. They were chubby looking little creatures with frills and wide heads that gave them the appearance of a goofy sock puppet, and they squirmed and weaved around each other with almost hypnotic fluidity.

“Axolotls!” Jane said. She looked proud, eyes bright and smile wide, and she held out a handful of the pellets to Axl as she added, “would you like to try?”

“That’s why you laughed at my name, in’t it?” Axl grinned as he took the offered pellets and launched them across the water. The axolotls took off in the direction of where they had landed like a volley of torpedoes with wiggling tails.

“I’m sorry,” Jane tittered, not sounding remorseful at all.

Another container retrieved from the bag revealed the cake that Axl had been promised, and he wolfed down a generous portion while Jane sketched in a leather notebook by his side. He couldn’t bring to mind the last time he’d had anything like it; usually if he managed to scrounge together some money for food he’d go for greasy takeout. The cake was imperfect and homemade in a way that made it feel like it tasted better, and it created what seemed like half its weight in soft crumbs that Axl shook off his shirt with a tut.

“It’s funny,” Jane said as she tapped her pencil against the page, “I thought I’d go to the lake to feed the axolotls, and I ended up feeding an Axl too.”

Axl huffed, peering down at the weird little creatures still twisting about in the water. “I’m a lot better looking than them,” he scoffed.

“Let’s hope you stay as eternally youthful as them too then,” Jane laughed.

Axl turned to regard Jane with surprise. “You what?”

“They’re neotenous,” she explained, tossing another handful of the pellets into the lake. “How do I explain it- they’re kind of stuck in their teenage form forever, even as an adult.”

“Like time stops moving for them?” Axl asked, turning back and staring down at one of the wriggling salamanders as it snapped up one of the pellets.

“Sort of, yes!” Jane replied enthusiastically. “They can regrow tissue and even limbs without scarring too, so I guess it really is like they’re sort of frozen in time.”

Something about that made a hollow sadness echo inside Axl’s chest. Perhaps it was empathy, or a kind of jealousy, he wasn’t sure. Axl tried not to ruminate on his own situation too much - especially now that he had resolved to not return to his original timeline - but seeing these pathetic little creatures duck and weave around each other in the water, indifferent to the greater scale of the world around them, somehow made him feel very alone.

“Are you alright?” Jane asked gently, and Axl mentally shook himself.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good-“ he hurried to say, forcing a lopsided smile onto his face. Jane continued to look at him with a sort of pitying confusion so he distracted her by adding, “do they bite?”

“Oh- god, yes,” she laughed, “don’t give them your fingers. They’ll bite anything they think is food and then try to suck it straight into their stomach like a vacuum.”

If Sol was here then he probably would have commented that inhaling food was another thing they had in common, and the thought made Axl chuckle.

Axl let the thought of Sol soothe his dour mood as he sat, watching Jane occasionally peek up at the axolotls as she sketched them. It was peaceful, like a scene from an old fashioned storybook, and Axl felt sleepy as he lay back on the grass to watch clouds float slowly overhead.

He had been practicing his control over time before he came here, strumming the different chords of the timeline just to make sure that he could, and he’d had the thought that he’d like to show Sol how much he’d improved. Sol was his best friend and Axl wasn’t too proud to admit that the thought of him praising Axl for his diligence was an appealing image. It was maybe a bit of a pathetic or childish a desire, but Axl was only human.

Axl let his eyes slip closed as he imagined it; Sol wasn’t an easy man to impress, but Axl was a determined guy. Maybe he could find a way to prove his usefulness to Sol and it would make the big jerk more willing to team up. Axl didn’t exactly have anywhere to be, after all - if anything, convincing Sol that it wouldn’t be annoying to have him around more often might help Axl feel more grounded, as opposed to feeling like a cloud carried by the wind.

Travelling through time could be fun, but it was lonely. Before he hadn’t had any choice in the matter and just had to roll with the punches, but now he’d taken the wheel he had begun to wonder if a more consistent existence would be a source of comfort.

“That’s a carefree smile,” Jane’s voice said, still accompanied by the rustle of a pencil on paper and the gentle splashing of the lake. “I’m glad I didn’t trouble you too much by rerouting your day.”

“Wasn’t doing anythin’ anyway,” Axl yawned.

He never was, really.

…

When the evening began to fade into night Axl transported himself onto one of the rooftops to enjoy the view of the light fading over the rolling hills beneath the town. Even a Londoner like him couldn’t deny that more rural locales afforded a better view of the night sky, unhampered as it was by the excessive light pollution of the inner city, and enjoying the stars seemed like a perfect way to cap off such a pleasant day. At least, until he heard the revving of an engine carried on the wind.

The familiar shape of Sol’s bike could be seen moving along the road on a distant hill, and Axl watched it steadily grow closer with gleeful anticipation. Maybe this was why appearing in this time and place had felt so right, he wondered, or perhaps it was pure coincidence. Time and space was strange like that after all; fate and coincidence were functionally indistinguishable.

Axl waited until Sol had reached the edge of town before he transported himself back to the square, stepping onto the cobbles before hopping up onto the edge of the fountain. Specks of cold water peppered against his face as he waited, listening intently as the distant sound became louder.

Sol would have been a distracting sight even if Axl hadn’t been expecting him; he and his ridiculous bike stood out against the charming aesthetic of the town like a splash of red acrylic across a watercolour painting. He did an almost cartoonish double-take upon seeing Axl, and brought his bike to a rumbling stop at the edge of the square.

“Fancy seein’ you here!” Axl said, hands in his pockets as he hopped down from the fountain and strolled over to Sol’s side.

“It’s my lucky goddamn day,” Sol replied dryly as he looked Axl up and down.

Axl prided himself on his ability to read Sol’s face; it was what seemed to be a rare talent. Most people would see Sol’s usual scowl and just assume he was angry about something, but Axl had learned to be able to read the little details like a cipher. He could tell if Sol was actually angry or just putting on his usual front, and it was an invaluable tool in Axl’s toolbox.

There was something strange about Sol’s expression in that moment - some kind of uncharacteristic hesitance, maybe, or confusion - but Axl wasn’t given time to analyse it properly before Sol had stalked closer and took hold of the hem of Axl’s shirt, pulling it upward without a single word of warning. He stared down at Axl’s now visible chest as Axl let out an undignified squeak and flailed in surprise.

 “What the hell Chief!” He cried, retreating back a step, and Sol let him go. Axl tugged his shirt back down as he asked, “what was that about?!”
 
Sol looked as though he was trying to figure something out, his brow furrowed in concentration, completely oblivious to Axl trying to scrub the mortifying blush from his cheeks with his hands. Sol didn’t usually manhandle Axl like that, especially not suddenly and without reason, but it was difficult to care about why he’d done it when Axl was so overwhelmed with embarrassment.
 
 “If you wanted to see me with my top off you could just ask,” Axl teased, forcibly trying to turn the embarrassment back on Sol. Sol only let out an unimpressed huff before turning away, beginning to walk down one of the town’s narrow streets, and Axl scrambled after him calling, “hey, Chief, wait up!”

To describe the bar they ended up at as close to the square would feel unnecessary, the town being so compact that everything was in fact close to everything else. It was as rustic as everything around it, with old looking brass taps and a wooden bar-top that Axl could feel the notches and scratches in through his palms. The calendar pinned up beside the drink shelves read August 20th, accompanied by a picture of a cartoon axolotl reclining on the beach and sipping a colourful cocktail, and Axl’s eye lingered on it for a moment.

Something about it left Axl a little unsettled, like an itch he couldn’t quite reach to scratch.

“Highest volume whiskey you’ve got-” Sol’s voice said, drawing Axl’s attention back to the present. The bartender was watching Sol attentively as he flicked open his wallet. “And whatever this asshole wants,” he added, nodding toward Axl.

Axl settled on a coconut flavoured rum, and he watched as Sol managed to negotiate the barman with enough money to leave the entire whiskey bottle. It seemed like the sort of place that would allow it; they were out in the middle of god knew where, and there wasn’t a brand logo over the place’s door. The sign had been wooden, even. Who even had wooden signs nowadays?

“You fit in a place like this,” Axl said, doing an undoubtedly poor job of hiding his smirk behind his glass. “It’s like a western. You roll into the saloon and everyone turns to stare at you like, holy shit, check out this guy!”

“That didn’t happen,” Sol grumbled.

“Must be losing your edge.”

“What the hell does that make you then?” Sol said, one eyebrow raised as he looked Axl up and down, “the village idiot?”

The snort of laughter that Axl let out was undignified, but it was worth the embarrassment for the way that it caused the corner of Sol’s mouth to twitch upward. “I’ll be the old prospector that warns you about shit,” Axl offered before putting on an exaggerated voice and crying out, “careful, stranger! There’s bandits in them there hills!”

“Gear,” Sol said flatly as he refilled his already empty glass. It was such a non-sequitur that it knocked Axl off balance. He blinked stupidly at Sol, and Sol waited until he had knocked back a swig of whiskey to add, “not bandits. There’s a gear, in the woods up the mountain.”

Ah, that explained Sol’s presence then. “You came out all this way for a bounty?” Axl asked curiously.

“Money’s money,” Sol shrugged.

It couldn’t have been more perfect an opportunity if Axl had planned it, and he seized it without a second thought. “Been thinking of getting into bounty hunting myself,” he said, putting on a false air of smug confidence, and it was an impossible task to keep his face straight as Sol choked violently on his drink.

“What the fuck,” he spluttered, wiping his mouth roughly with the back of his wrist. “You?”

Such genuine shock wasn’t a common sight on Sol. It sometimes seemed as though Sol had seen everything that the world could throw at a person, and managing to leave him baffled was a talent that Axl was proud of. Still - the unspoken disbelief that Axl could cut it felt like a challenge, and Axl grinned sharply as he warned, “don’t underestimate me Chief.”

“I don’t,” Sol said, brow furrowed and voice flat as though he were stating the obvious. The absolute conviction of it left Axl flustered, and he distracted himself by chugging his glass of rum.

Sol would do that occasionally - say something so reassuring, so gentle, but deliver it in such a brutish tone that its meaning seemed to pass him by completely. He could have joked back, teased Axl or questioned him, but it were as though he considered the mere concept of underestimating Axl to be so idiotic that he couldn’t allow it to go uncommented on.

Maybe Axl could blame his blush on the alcohol.

Sol didn’t even seem aware of Axl’s struggle, instead staring down at the bar-top with the expression of a man trying to do theoretical mathematics on an abacus. “You’d have to actually kill things,” he pointed out as he took Axl’s empty glass, pouring a generous portion of whiskey into it before sliding it back.

“Ah, well, I might need some practice with that part,” Axl said through a nervous laugh, desperately trying to reclaim the reigns of the conversation. For all of his daydreaming Axl hadn’t actually come up with a way to ask Sol to team up with him, and the more they danced around the subject the more the fear of rejection began to nip at his heels.

“Good thing I’ve got a friend in the industry,” he added, giving Sol a wink.

“You want to tag along,” Sol translated with a sigh, shaking his head. “Could’ve just said-“

“No, I want to help,” Axl corrected, speaking loudly to cut off Sol’s grousing.

Sol cast a calculating look over Axl as he sipped his whiskey. “I don’t need help,” he pointed out, though his tone was cautious, as though he believed Axl might be holding more cards than he’d already set down. That was good - it let Axl speak with more confidence than he actually felt, and rely on Sol’s natural curiosity to carry him.

“I’ve been practicin’ Chief,” Axl said proudly, “it’ll knock your socks off!”

Sol let out a thoughtful hum as he drank, and Axl hoped that his excitement wasn’t as easily readable on his face as it felt.

…

They left the little motel room Sol had rented in the late morning, as soon as Sol dragged himself from his bed and out of the door. Axl had already been awake, smoking a cigarette that he’d pinched from Sol on the walkway outside the room to calm his nerves, and Sol plucked it from his fingers to take a drag as he passed by.

“Hey!” Axl pouted.

“Complain when you buy your own,” Sol replied.

Axl hadn’t really taken note of it yesterday, but Sol’s bike currently had the sidecar attached. “Been hanging out with Jackie?” Axl asked conversationally as he hopped into it, curious as to why Sol would bother to use it when travelling alone.

“No,” Sol said, flicking away the stub of the cigarette before ducking to start the engine. “She’s been at the castle.”

“What’s with the sidecar, then?”

“You complaining?” Sol huffed, “you can walk if you want.”

It was a typical Sol avoidance manoeuvre but Axl played along, holding up his hands in surrender as he laughed, “aw come on! Don’t be mean, Chief!”

The drive up the mountain into the woods was surprisingly pleasant, the summer sun bearing down through the trees to cast mottled shadows over the bright greens and browns of the landscape. Axl reclined with his hands behind his head as they went, his ankles crossed and rested up on the top of the sidecar’s chassis.

It brought to mind the image of golden age hollywood actresses, their hair covered by a bandanna to protect it from the wind as they rode in the passenger seat of a convertible, and Axl snorted at the thought of himself and Sol by comparison.

“Ey Chief,” Axl drawled as he watched the lush wilderness pass them by, “you think I could pull off glamorous?”

“No,” Sol replied almost immediately.

“S’pose not,” Axl agreed, nodding as if they were in serious debate. “I’m more of a rugged type, ain’t I?”

They stopped at a point where the old dirt road they’d been following became narrower, abandoning the bike to continue into the trees on foot. The forest floor was an uneven terrain of roots and ferns and Axl hopped from foot to foot as he navigated it, unlike Sol; crunching sounds accompanied him as he simply marched along, crushing any small obstacles underfoot.

Axl had seen a lot of different sights but places like this, untamed nature with no human footprint in sight, were probably some of his least favourite. For one thing it felt impossible to gauge the time period - it’s not like trees only got invented in a specific year - but it was also unnerving, how time seemed to pass so much slower for nature than it did for humanity. A city street would change vastly from year to year but a mountainside would look virtually identical, evolving so gradually as to be unnoticeable. For all he knew this woodland could have existed since before humans could speak, slowly expanding with minute variations that Axl couldn’t perceive.

“You’re quiet for once,” Sol pointed out, catching Axl’s attention as they drew to a stop in the centre of a small clearing. “Having second thoughts?”

“No way!” Axl cried, and he puffed out his chest with faux bravado. “I told ya, ’m at the top of me game, Chief!”

Sol stood with his shoulders loose and his hands in his pockets as he looked Axl up and down, his expression skeptical. “You look like you’re gonna bolt,” he said, but that cautious look was there in his eye again, as though he were piecing together a puzzle.

What Sol probably thought was anxiety was Axl’s barely reigned in enthusiasm, yanking at its leash to get to make his daydreams a reality. Explaining that felt a bit too embarrassing though, so Axl reached out through the intangible fabric of reality and brought time to a stop.

Perhaps he could save face by simply showing Sol his value. They said actions spoke louder than words, after all.

He walked in lazy circles around Sol as he thought, tapping a fingertip to his chin. Using frozen time to impress Sol meant having to consider what Sol would even find impressive. The obvious answer was strength, but Axl wasn’t about to pull some cheap stuff like kicking Sol when he couldn’t defend himself.

Axl’s eye was drawn to the weapon holstered on Sol’s back, and he drew to a stop to consider it. Disarming Sol could work - it seemed like the sort of thing that would either impress him or piss him off, and either would be a win. With impish glee Axl pulled the frankly oversized sword from Sol’s back and hefted it onto his own shoulder, letting the weight of it settle against his neck before he strolled back to his original position.

When time resumed Sol looked Axl up and down before he threw his head back with a barking laugh. His clear surprise and amusement made Axl’s face flush, pride filling up his chest with warmth and delight.

“Ok smartass,” Sol said, cracking his knuckles, “now how are you gonna keep me from getting it back?”

Axl braced himself and let time melt away around him again, sound and light filtering away into the hollow silence and distorted greyscale of frozen time. Sol stood before him as a statue, palm pressed to his knuckle and expression frozen in a playful smirk, and Axl allowed himself a moment to observe him. Sol didn’t smile enough, Axl thought - or maybe it was the rarity of it that caused it to feel like such a victory to make Sol laugh.

He dragged the heavy sword off a little ways into the brush before dropping it, letting it almost disappear amongst the thick foliage. It wasn’t a good hiding place by any means, but that wasn’t the point - Axl’s plan would be funnier if Sol could find it quickly. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling as he scurried back to his original position and kicked time back into movement, watching eagerly for Sol’s reaction.

A small twitch of Sol’s eyebrow was the first sign Axl got that Sol had realised what had changed, before Sol let his hands drop to his sides with a huff of laughter.

“You asshole,” he muttered, “what’d you do with it?”

“Dunno what you’re talkin’ about Chief,” Axl said innocently.

Sol marched by to follow the obvious trail Axl had left by lugging the heavy sword through the grass, and Axl rocked back-and-forth on his heels as he watched. He was getting what he’d wanted - Sol’s attention, his begrudging respect - and it was making Axl feel energetic, as though he were a clockwork toy that had been over-wound.

“Too heavy for you?” Sol smirked over his shoulder when he came to a stop in the bushes, having found what he was looking for.

“Does seem a bit unnecessary,” Axl said with a shrug, “you may as well be swingin’ around a brick wall.”

Axl waited for Sol to reach out before he relaxed his shoulders and let time bleed away into nothing again. Sol was left leaning down over the sword lying amongst the foliage, one hand outstretched, and Axl slapped Sol’s palm for fun before he hefted the sword back onto his shoulder and carried it a little further off into the woods to drop it again.

He leaned against the tree closest to Sol as he restarted time, watching with poorly concealed enjoyment as Sol blinked stupidly down at the ground where his sword had previously been. His eyes flicked up to look at Axl and Axl winked, the force of his grin threatening to split his face in two.

“You think you’re real fuckin’ clever don’t you,” Sol snarled, but the smirk on his face betrayed his tone.

“There’s no shame in givin’ up Chief,” Axl goaded.

Axl could practically see the cogs in Sol’s brain turning as he stood upright and turned to look around. Axl had presented him with a proper conundrum now; how do you take something from someone who can manipulate time? Personally Axl couldn’t see any way Sol could win this one, but Sol was always a wild card - if anyone could find a way through a seemingly impossible problem it was him. The thought made Axl excited, eager to see what Sol might try and if Axl could continue to sidestep him.

Their game continued this way for a while, with Sol trudging through the forest and finding his weapon before Axl would swoop in and snatch it back again. Axl expected that Sol’s temper would make the game short-lived but Sol only seemed to become more determined, watching Axl from the corner of his eye each time he tried to retrieve the sword as though he could react fast enough to deny the inevitable. It felt, strangely and embarrassingly, a little like flirting - Axl was encouraging Sol to chase him, and the surprising thing was how eager Sol seemed to be to do so. There was a thrill to managing to slip between Sol’s fingers, elevated by the zeal with which Sol was adamant to try again.

Axl had lifted the sword from the ground to move it once again when his eye was drawn to a flicker of movement, and he turned to look with a jolt. Nothing should have been able to move right now, not in the washed-out space between seconds - and yet Axl could have sworn he’d seen something swing through the air like a whip between the foliage.

It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and before he knew it he was restarting time’s flow out of instinct alone. Colour bloomed across every surface but whatever had caught Axl’s attention didn’t appear again, leaving him glancing nervously about.

A hand closed over Axl’s own on the hilt of the sword, making him flinch. He’d been so focused on that strange shadow that he’d completely forgotten he and Sol’s game, and the emanating warmth of Sol’s chest against Axl’s back drew his attention to the current moment.

“What’s your plan now?” Sol said as he grinned wolfishly over Axl’s shoulder and Axl turned his face away to hide the traitorous blush blossoming across it. Not that he felt at fault, really - if Sol was going to wrap himself around Axl in what was almost an embrace and smile at him like that then it was his own fault if Axl turned into a damn mess.

The leather of Sol’s glove pressed against back of Axl’s hand, smoother in texture than the calloused fingers cupping Axl’s own. Sol’s thumb rubbed gently against the corner of Axl’s knuckle, creasing the material of Axl’s glove like a wave, and the touch felt weirdly intimate.

“That in’t fair,” Axl tittered, unable to keep himself from staring at their joined hands from the corner of his eye. “I got distracted.”

Sol hummed but said nothing, did nothing, apparently content to give Axl the opportunity to retaliate. Axl found himself loathe to, hooked as he was by the novelty of having Sol’s body bracketing his own without complaint. It was, he realised, his intention all along for Sol to somehow catch him.

Perhaps this whole game had been more like flirting than he’d realised, he thought with exasperation at himself. 

Axl wasn’t above flirting with Sol; if he was honest, it was something that came to him as naturally as breathing. The jokes he shared with Sol always had a teasing edge that bordered on attention-seeking, but Sol was a thick-headed and stubborn type, so he didn’t have to know that. Perhaps it was a little self destructive to shower affection on someone who wouldn’t even notice it, but in a way it was safe, too; Axl had no obligation to acknowledge as long as Sol didn’t.

Time faded to a stop once again and Axl stepped free of Sol’s hold, dragging the unwieldy sword with him. Sol was left standing alone, one hand still raised as he smiled down at the empty air before him, and something about the sight made Axl’s heart twinge. He was tempted to return to where he’d been standing, let reality wait while he basked in the undivided attention of Sol’s frozen gaze. Instead he hefted the blade back onto Sol’s back and restarted the flow of time, watching as the sudden added weight made Sol stumble forward.

“Don’t need a plan Chief,” Axl smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Just go with the flow.”

Sol eyed him curiously for a moment before he replied, “go with the flow, huh? Let’s see how that plays out.”

The two of them continued to walk side by side, and Axl touched his thumb to the point on his hand where Sol had pressed his own.

…

The gear wasn’t the biggest Axl had seen - not even the biggest he’d seen Sol take down - but it was still pretty remarkable, its towering reptilian form oily black and shiny like a polished boot. Its long tail lashed from side to side as it crawled along, slapping hard enough against trees to make them shudder. They first caught sight of it from slightly above, the two of them standing atop a ledge as the gear passed by below.

Axl tutted, his hands in his pockets as he stared down at the gear. “Hope they’re payin’ you a mint for this one,” he said, “it’s massive!”

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Sol smirked before he hopped down from the ledge, and Axl allowed Sol to get a head-start while he tried to get his own giddy anticipation in check. This was his competence test, and it wouldn’t do to mess it up through over-enthusiasm.

Sol ran directly up to the gear and punched it hard on the end of its snout, and Axl let out an ugly bark of laughter. The gear looked almost offended, its eyes narrowed and teeth bared as it reared back from the unexpected smack.

“Are you trying to piss it off?!” Axl called incredulously.

“What,” Sol shouted back, “are you scared?”

 It was obvious baiting, but Axl was happy to bite the hook. He brought time to a stop as he sauntered down the slope to join Sol, tilting his head to take in the hulking figure of the gear as he approached. It had drawn itself up to its full height, its side turned toward Sol as it loomed tall enough to cast a shadow over him.

Axl flicked one of his kamas through the air to hook the chain around one of the gear’s front legs before giving it a hard yank, pulling the gear’s foot out from under it. He did the same to the other leg before standing back to survey his work proudly.

It was good, but he could do better. He strolled around to the gear’s tail and climbed up onto it, taking a moment to marvel at how surprisingly tough and coarse its shiny hide felt before continuing to ascend over its back and neck until he reached its head.

From here Axl could see Sol down below, standing with his sword raised at the ready. Axl looped the chain of his kusarigama around the gear’s muzzle and held on to both kamas to form a sort of makeshift bridle before setting his feet apart for balance and putting time back into motion.

Staying upright as the gear keeled over forward was like riding a very short and profoundly unsafe rollercoaster, and Axl couldn’t restrain his delighted laugh as the beast landed roughly on its chin. He definitely wouldn’t mind doing this more often, he decided - if Sol would have him along for more hunts.

Speaking of Sol, Axl turned to face him and saw that Sol’s posture had relaxed, his sword rested against his shoulder as he watched Axl’s antics. “We’re supposed to kill it you idiot,” he reminded Axl with annoyance.

“Wouldn’t be very sportin’ of me,” Axl drawled, exaggerating his boredom with the idea by rolling his eyes and pouting. He tightened his hold on his kamas as the gear began to climb back to its feet, excited to see if he could manage to stay astride its head when it started to move. “You handle that part, yeah?”

The gear swung its neck upwards in an attempt to dislodge him as it stood, leaving Axl leaning back with his feet braced against its skull as though he were mountain climbing. He flexed his fingers to make sure his hold on the kamas was tight before he gave the gear a rough kick, encouraging it to bring its head back to an upright position.

“Not fallen on your ass yet?” Sol called from where he had begun to circle the gear’s huge body, probably looking for a good weak point to strike at, and the reminder of his presence gave Axl an idea.

“Over ‘ere mate,” he said, tugging hard on the kamas to turn the gear’s head towards Sol. It worked perfectly as a distraction, as the gear immediately let out a deep growl and swung at Sol with its impressive claws.

“Hey!” Sol barked as he blocked the swipe with his sword, “dick! You’re supposed to be helping!”

“Thought you didn’t need help?” Axl laughed even as he pushed a foot down onto one of the gear’s brows to force its eye closed, throwing off its aim for its next swing. “I’m on his team now!”

It felt like an extension of their earlier game but with the stakes turned way, way up. Axl alternated between guiding the gear and hindering it, allowing Sol to strike against its legs but driving him back when he went for its body, and used his control over time to rebalance himself whenever the huge beast tossed its head in an attempt to dislodge him.

It was an interesting challenge, to be simultaneously on the attack and trying to avoid letting the gear hurt Sol. If one of its massive claws looked a little close for comfort Axl would force one of its eyes closed or tug its head to the side to throw it off, and Sol would take a step back to allow Axl time to regain control. 

And sure, maybe it was a bit irresponsible, but the sharp smirk on Sol’s face as he fought told Axl that he wasn’t the only one having fun.

Sol eventually managed to land a particularly rough blow against the gear’s chest, sending it rolling fast enough that Axl was flung from its head. He made the quick decision to pause time as he fell, sending him skidding across the ground but thankfully saving him from the gear potentially landing on him.

He’d been asking for that, he supposed. Still, he could always climb back up.

He huffed and dragged himself back to his feet, stretching his back as he strolled over to pick up his kusarigama from where it had fallen. The gear looked a strange sight, paused with its spine twisted like a cat mid fall, and Axl whistled as he took an appraising look at the criss-crossing arrays of slashes Sol had managed to make on its legs.

A hiss that sounded like water being poured over hot rocks stopped Axl dead in his tracks and sent a jolt of electricity up his spine.

There shouldn’t have been any sound, not here. Everything but Axl was frozen in time, even the hulking body of the gear he’d been riding. He turned quickly, gripping his kamas tight enough that the leather of his gloves creaked, and his vision was filled with the sight of a wide mouth full of sharp teeth advancing toward him at such a breakneck speed that he was restarting time before he could even consider it.

The mouth disappeared but Axl wasn’t given time to question why before he was being roughly shoved aside, just in time to prevent one of the gear’s claws smacking down onto him like a hammer. He was disoriented, head spinning and mind racing, and he tried to gather his thoughts as Sol moved to stand before him. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sol snarled as he kicked at the gear’s face to drive it back.

“There was something there-“ Axl gasped, heart thudding in his chest.

He didn’t have the capability to articulate how much it had scared him to see something move in that place. It was as though Axl had just discovered that someone had been secretly living in the walls of his house, revolting and terrifying in equal measure. The echoing void between moments had always been an isolated place, as still and silent as death - the idea that something was creeping around there made Axl’s breath catch and his skin crawl.

“Axl!” Sol called to him over the sound of his weapon smacking against the gear’s thick hide.

Right, Axl was supposed to be helping. He braced himself and, with bull-headed resolve, strummed the proverbial note once again to make time stop in its tracks.

He was barely given a moment to react before a large shape was pouncing at him from the side, and he threw himself backwards with an undignified yelp. The creature slammed hard onto the ground where Axl had just been, hissing like steam and whipping its long tail.

It looked a lot like an axolotl, the frills on the sides of its flat head flicking and twirling in constant motion. Two rows of minuscule red eyes ran from the blunt point of its snout, down the sides of its neck and body to end just before its hips, and when it blinked each eye closed a second after the one before it to cause a ripple effect along its serpentine body.

Axl backed up a few more steps as the thing prowled in a half circle, turning its head this way and that as though it were sizing Axl up. It opened its wide mouth to reveal multiple rows of jagged teeth and the purple-grey flesh inside of its mouth quivered, creating the weird hissing sound that Axl had heard before.

He had no idea how the thing was able to move outside of time, but he wasn’t going to back down either. Now that he’d gotten a good look at it Axl could see that the thing was nowhere near the size of the gear they’d been fighting - it was big, easily twice as long as Axl was tall if not more so, but the size of it wasn’t as much of a worry as its apparent ability to transcend time.

Axl twirled one of his kamas by the chain as he waited for the creature to go for him again, hoping he could get in a cheap shot. It didn’t take long for the opportunity to present itself; the thing threw itself at him again and he leapt to the side, claws barely grazing his shirt as he buried one of his kamas in the back of its shoulder. The momentum of its pounce pulled the blade through its flesh like scissors through thick fabric, leaving a long split across its back.

The creature hissed and spat, snapping at the chain of the kusarigama as Axl pulled hard to try to dislodge it. A viscous, semi-translucent grey substance was squeezed from the cut on its back as it moved, pouring down in slow rivulets between its eyes and splattering onto the grass. It could have been its blood, but Axl had no way of knowing.

He squared his shoulders and yanked hard on the chain, finally pulling the kama free, and it trailed an arc of the maybe-blood through the air as it returned to him. Within a moment the wound that Axl had created along the creature’s back closed itself up neatly as though it were a zipper, leaving no evidence that it had ever been hurt at all. It was an unnerving sight, and Axl took a few steps back as he re-assessed the situation. Not only did the thing exist in this space between time, but it apparently couldn’t be hurt.

Axl turned and ran.

He could hear the creature pouncing after him as he fled and he made a quick turn, changing course towards the still frozen form of the gear Sol had been fighting. He could use its body as a barrier to give himself a moment to think, he thought desperately, maybe come up with something new. He could feel the vibrations of the creature’s feet and tail thumping against the ground as it turned to follow him, uncomfortably close behind.

With a burst of adrenaline Axl kicked off the ground and dove beneath the gear’s front legs, crawling through the small space beneath it before scrambling out again on the other side. His heart was beating so fast he could feel it in his throat, and he stopped for a moment on his knee to regain his breath.

The gear toppled onto its side from the force of the creature slamming into it, leaving it lying against the dirt with its legs still out like a knocked over toy dinosaur. There was a sickly crunch as the creature pulled its head up into view, a ragged chunk of the flesh from the gear’s throat hanging from its mouth.

There was no blood, Axl realised as he watched the monster choke down the whole lump of meat - the gear didn’t even know this had happened yet, its body hadn’t had any time to respond and it wouldn’t until time started moving again. The thought of using his powers this way - to snuff out a life before it even knew it was in danger - had always felt wrong to Axl, and being confronted by it sent a shiver down his spine. It was cold, cruel, animalistic opportunism.

The creature blinked at Axl from where it still stood with its front claws pinning down the mangled neck of the gear, and a deep, grinding hiss emanated from its wide mouth.

Restarting the flow of time felt like a fear response in that moment, as though Axl were slamming a door closed between himself and something horrifying. Colour and warmth hit him like a punch and he flinched, hands twisting into the grass as he watched the creature blink out of existence.

The gear wasn’t so lucky as him; it writhed on the ground, choking and snarling wetly as it presumably tried to cope with suddenly having its throat bitten out. Axl watched with a sort of horrified fascination as blood welled up in the indents in the wound and poured out like a faucet.

He had never considered before now that opening a deep wound on someone frozen in time would mean they would only start bleeding when time resumed - it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d ever felt inclined to think about - but seeing the maimed flesh of the bite fill up with blood made him want to retch.

Axl’s view of the revolting display was suddenly obscured by Sol coming to stand before him, his back to Axl and his sword held at the ready. “Where is it?” He growled, glancing at Axl over his shoulder.

Axl shook his head, swallowing before he managed to shakily reply, “you can’t see it.”

That seemed to startle Sol more than Axl had expected, because Sol turned to face Axl with a grimace that looked almost fearful. “What the fuck do you mean I can’t see it,” he said, glancing left and right as though the two of them would be pounced on at any moment.

Actually, that was a good point - why hadn’t it attacked them by now? The creature certainly hadn’t hesitated to take a chunk out of the gear without its knowledge, so it was a mystery as to why Axl’s head hadn’t been bitten clean off since he’d side-stepped back into the flow of time. The thought was horrifying, but it did beg the question of what the thing was waiting for.

“Axl,” Sol snapped.

“Sorry-“ Axl said, forcing himself to take a deep breath as he climbed to his feet. For whatever reason he was apparently safe from being mauled, so right now all he could do was grab that opportunity and run with it. “It’s not here,” he began, before scratching his head as he tried to elaborate, “well it is but it isn’t, I guess? It’s between time. When I freeze time it’s there, but it’s not here now I don’t think.”

He began to pace back and forth, pressing his palms to the back of his neck as his mind raced. It would have been a difficult concept to try to communicate even if he hadn’t been freaking out; as far as Axl could tell the absence of time between moments was simultaneously indefinite and nothing, and restarting time should have either made the creature cease to exist or given it an eternity to do whatever it wanted. But neither of those possible outcomes gelled with the fact that the creature continued to exist between pauses - it couldn’t be confined to exist perpetually in a single moment or erased from existence if it was able to hound him each time he froze time.

“Axl.”

Perhaps it perceived time entirely differently, some way that allowed it to continue to exist between the passing of seconds, but that didn’t explain why it hadn’t taken advantage of frozen time to kill Axl or Sol. It could have run away - but no, it had still been staring straight at Axl when he’d started time flowing again. That should have made him easy prey, so why-?

“Axl!” Sol barked, and Axl flinched so hard at the sudden loud sound that he almost stumbled.

“Yeah- sorry, yeah,” he muttered, rubbing a palm across his eyes as he tried to come back to reality.

Sol was watching him with a scowl. “Whatever that thing is,” he said, voice low, “I need to kill it.”

As unsurprising as it should have been, it still managed to make Axl’s heart drop into his stomach. “Chief,” he stressed nervously, “you can’t. It’s not here!”

Sol marched over to the body of the gear and knelt down beside it as Axl continued, “it’s only here when time’s frozen, and that means you’re frozen too!”

“The bite on the neck,” Sol said, gesturing to the mess the creature had left of the gear, “is the same- the bounty description. That thing’s what I’m after.”

Axl shook his head frantically, raising his hands. “Chief, seriously, this is tempting fate! We already took out one gear, ain’t that enough?” If it were up to him they’d be trying to make distance between themselves and whatever this thing was, not planning how to get closer to it. 

“No,” Sol grunted as he returned to his feet. His expression was deadly serious as he turned to Axl and continued, “I need you to either bring that bastard out of wherever it is or take me in there to get it.”

“You’re mental!” Axl yelped, “Chief, I don’t know how to do that! And even if I did manage to keep you moving too, I can’t help you as much in there! Time’s already frozen, and if I restart it-!”

“I don’t need your help!” Sol growled, marching the few steps between the two of them to tower over Axl. “I just need to be able to kill it. You said you wanted to be useful, then be fuckin’ useful.”

It probably shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, maybe. Axl knew that Sol was frustrated and that he was mouthing off without thinking. But the words stung nonetheless, leaving Axl feeling as though his abdomen had been hollowed out and left a gaping cavity, and he stared down at his shoes as he shrank into himself.

Because as thoughtless as it might be it was also true; Sol really didn’t need Axl’s help, and Axl’s offer hadn’t been on the basis of him actually believing that Sol needed assistance. It was a thinly-veiled excuse to spend more time together in the hope that Sol wouldn’t mind the company, which was more than a bit pathetic, but not so pathetic as being called on it.

He’d hoped that Sol would enjoy his company, but he hadn’t accounted for Sol considering his presence nothing more than a potential tactical advantage. And he knew that Sol wasn’t so cold as that, not really - but in this moment Axl questioned whether he did in fact know that, or if it was his own pitiful need for companionship and familiarity that had simply convinced him of it.

The silence between them felt like a chasm, vast and wide despite how close Sol was standing. The temptation Axl felt to slip away through time was held firmly at bay by the threat of there being some unknown entity waiting for him in the space between seconds, and for once he felt trapped in the moment.

…

There was a surprisingly large number of people milling about the fountain as Axl and Sol passed by, chatting and laughing beneath the golden light of the old iron street-lamps, and Axl glanced across them with a growing sense of determination. Sol may have been an asshole, but he’d had a point; if these people were being menaced by a monster that they couldn’t see, couldn’t even hear or anticipate, then Axl had to do something to help. Together he and Sol could almost certainly take the thing down - Axl just needed to figure out how to get Sol into frozen time to do his part.

Sol ordered the two of them bourbons the moment they reached the bar without bothering to ask for Axl’s input, but Axl wasn’t about to risk calling him on it; he was familiar enough with Sol’s range of stunted emotional tells to know that he had been obviously sulking the entire journey back to town. There was a quietness and tension to him that spoke of a deep frustration, though whether that was with Axl or himself (or the both of them) was anyone’s guess.

“Tell me what we’re dealing with,” Sol commanded.

“It can fix itself really fast. I split this thing’s back open and it just closed up like that,” Axl said. clicking his fingers for emphasis.

“So we kill it faster than it can heal up,” Sol said brusquely as he slammed his empty glass on the bar-top.

It was the sort of idea Sol would have, but at least it was an idea at all. “Could work,” Axl conceded slowly, “but what if it doesn’t?”

“If it comes back from what I’m gonna do to it then it’ll be a god damn miracle,” Sol grumbled.

Sol definitely seemed determined to kill the thing, that was for certain. Axl wondered if his attitude to the gear they’d initially fought had been so much less intense because he’d been distracted by Axl’s presence, or if this other creature had offended him by existing on a plane he couldn’t reach.

There was a pen lying on a bar, a cheap looking biro presumably left absent-mindedly by another patron, and it gave Axl an idea. He tugged one of the napkins free from the pile near the taps and began drawing on it, trying to recreate the creature he’d seen to the best of his ability.

“I think it’s like an axolotl,” he explained as he drew, “it looks like one, right, but also- Jane told me they can heal up real good and regrow their legs and stuff.”

“Who the hell is Jane?” Sol grunted.

Axl ignored the question. “These are its eyes I think,” he said, tapping a fingertip against where he’d attempted to draw a line of dots along the creature’s body. Sol leaned slightly toward Axl to look at the drawing over his shoulder, his arm pressed up against Axl’s own.

“You can’t draw for shit,” Sol muttered.

“How d’you know?!” Axl cried out in disbelief, “you didn’t even see the bloody thing! For all you know this could be photo accurate.”

Sol tilted his head slightly to observe the drawing again as he took a drink, and he snorted when Axl added angry eyebrows to its front two eyes for good measure.

The silly drawing felt completely at odds to the real deal that Axl had faced earlier; in that moment he’d been genuinely unnerved by the thing, and the thought of facing it together with Sol might have been exciting if it hadn’t been tainted by the overwhelming anxiety of having to figure out how to get Sol into frozen time in the first place. Axl may have been practicing his own control over his powers, but bringing another living being into that space was something he’d not tried before outside of- well, outside of the case of overwhelming emergency.

Axl wanted to tell Sol that he didn’t know if he could do this- that there were so many ways this could go wrong, that the creature could well have the capability to kill them before Sol would ever even have a chance to see it- but the memory of Sol’s words caused him to hesitate. Complaining wouldn’t do anything at this point; Sol had already made up his mind as soon as he’d seen the gear go down.

The best Axl could do was to try to alleviate the tension. “Oi,” he smiled as he nudged his shoulder against Sol’s. “Wanna see a magic trick?”

There was a momentary flicker - so fast it might have just been Axl’s imagination - as Sol’s eyes glanced down at the drawing on the bar-top. Then he tutted and took the empty glass from Axl’s hand as he said, “You’re already doing one. You’re making my fuckin’ money disappear.”

It felt like an obvious hint that Sol wasn’t going to be receptive to any attempt to smooth over his mood, so Axl resigned himself to lingering silence as another drink was placed in front of him.

The two of them were quiet until they left the bar, stepping out into the night with a dour cloud of unease hanging over them. Axl didn’t want to go straight back to the motel - not when he knew he’d lie awake, running every possible way that he could fuck up through his mind like a highlight reel. “M’gonna have a wander,” he said as he stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, his shoulders hunched defensively. “I’ll see you later Chief.”

“Hey,” Sol grunted, grabbing hold of the collar of Axl’s jacket to prevent him from leaving. Axl turned to look at him and Sol glared as he said, “don’t do any time shit.”

There was something about the request that sat wrong with Axl; he’d been trying to get better at controlling this stuff, and though he knew Sol was just erring on the side of caution it felt as though he was doubting Axl. “I’ll be good,” Axl tutted, admittedly a little childish as he shrugged off Sol’s hand.

“I’m serious,” Sol growled, “we don’t know if that thing followed us here.”

“I know- alright,” Axl said, raising his hands in surrender. “No time shit, I promise.”

He scuffed his shoe against the ground as he wandered away, inexplicably feeling like a scolded child. How he was supposed to figure out how to get Sol into frozen time with him without any practice was beyond him, and it added extra weight to the already substantial amount of pressure he was feeling about tomorrow.

The sounds of people drew Axl through the narrow streets and back to the square, which was still as packed as when he’d passed it earlier, and he watched the crowd from a distance until his eye was drawn to a familiar figure. Jane was standing with another woman by her side, tall and masculine with frown lines and a dusted leather jacket. The stranger caught sight of Axl first and nudged Jane, whose smile grew impossibly wide upon seeing what her friend was pointing at.

“Axl!” She cried as she approached, seeming genuinely delighted to see him. “I’m glad that you’re still in town for the night market!”

That explained all the people, then. “Yeah, me and my mate- we were in the woods going after that gear,” Axl explained. It brought to mind his drawing from the bar, and as he fished into his pocket he added, “that reminds me, hold on- look at this, I drew somethin’.”

Jane was clearly knowledgeable on axolotls, so Axl felt like he’d be missing a trick if he didn’t prod her for information. Maybe she’d reveal something miraculous, or maybe it was a dead end, but either way it didn’t seem like it could hurt.

Axl handed Jane the crumpled up drawing, feeling pleased when her face lit up upon seeing it. “Oh he’s angry,” she laughed, before tapping the line of eyes along the thing’s body and asking, “is this one you saw? What are these other dots?”

“Dunno,” Axl lied. He didn’t want to scare her by admitting the drawing was actually of a potential gear, so he covered his tracks and added, “they looked like more eyes, but I guess they couldn’t be, ey?”

“It could be fluorescent protein,” Jane said thoughtfully, “axolotls used to be used for a lot of laboratory studies, and over time the genetics from those lab specimens were passed on to the wild population. It’s still rare to see one though - you’re very lucky!”

The irony of the statement wasn’t lost on Axl, but he kept any sarcasm from his tone as he cheerfully replied, “I must be!”

“Not so lucky for the little lizards tonight,” the more imposing woman at Jane’s side said slyly, “saw John settin’ up his stall earlier.”

“Oh, right!” Jane said, a finger raised as if she’d just had an idea. “Axl, have you been around the market yet? There’s a food stall you absolutely must try!”

The three of them wandered the market together, Jane and Axl both delighting at the array of delicious smelling foods and quirky trinkets on display. It was the kind of selection would could only find in a community market; stalls selling spiced sausages and home-made coffee grounds sitting beside ones selling carved wooden animals and knitted blankets. 

The more reserved woman eventually introduced herself as Cassie. “My partner in crime,” Jane said proudly, and Cassie was quick to dryly add, “yer patsy, more like.” The good humour between the two women was infectious, and it mixed with the lingering alcohol in Axl’s stomach to leave him warm and content. It was a fun distraction, which was something Axl sorely needed right now, and he pushed his anxiety about tomorrow to the back of his mind to let himself enjoy it.

After a while Jane spotted a stall selling pet supplies and hurried off to buy more axolotl snacks, leaving Axl and Cassie to mill about together as they waited for her. “You smoke?” Cassie asked, producing a pack of cigarettes from her inner jacket pocket and tilting the open top toward Axl. “She’ll be a bit.”

Axl took one of the cigarettes with a grateful nod and caught the lighter that Cassie underhand tossed to him after lighting her own. The bitter, slightly stale taste as he inhaled was comfortingly familiar, like slipping into a battered old pair of old shoes.

“After the bounty huh,” Cassie said, her tone casual even as she eyed Axl up-and-down with what seemed like skepticism. “Wouldn’t have taken you for the type.”

Axl supposed that was fair - compared to a lot of the people he’d met in this timeline, he was downright unassuming. Cassie herself looked more intimidating than Axl did, towering slightly above him with her strong shoulders and calculating demeanour. Standing next to Sol he probably looked even more ridiculous, like a terrier trotting along beside a pit bull. 

Still, they did say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Axl held up Cassie’s lighter, tossing it into the air before catching it in his closed fist. He made sure that her eyes were drawn to the movement before halting the flow of time, the warm glow of the night market around them melting away to nothing but stark grey shadows.

Carefully, Axl leaned forward and folded forward the lapel of Cassie’s jacket to slip the lighter back into her inner pocket. Then he raised his now-empty fist to where it had been, schooled his expression and kicked time back into motion.

Cassie was still staring at his hand, and her eyebrows rose when he spread his fingers to reveal his empty palm.

“Tadaa,” Axl said with a playful wink.

“You best not have lost that,” Cassie huffed, “that’s a good lighter.”

“I’m always losing stuff,” Axl shrugged, so pleased with himself that it was a challenge to keep himself from grinning. “Try checking your pockets.”

Axl turned away to hide his smile and take a drag of his cigarette as he heard Cassie rustle in her jacket. Though he couldn’t hold back the short bark of laughter when he heard her grumble, “well hot damn.”

The two of them stood in silence for a while after that, Cassie turning the lighter over in her hand as if checking for some kind of imperfection that would reveal the trick. Axl sort of wished he still had it to give him something to fidget with - messing with Cassie had given him a burst of energy, and he settled for flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette and fiddling with the corner of his jacket.

It was moments like this, he thought, that reminded him why he’d resolved not to undo the current timeline for his own benefit. The small things, like entertaining a stranger with a stupid little magic trick while they waited for her friend to buy food that she fed to salamanders. Things like playing silly games with Sol and the way Sol’s hand had felt wrapped around his own, warm and heavy.

Oh shit, Sol - Axl had completely forgotten his promise to Sol. He almost choked on the mouthful of smoke he’d just inhaled, coughing harshly.

“You alright?” Cassie said, her voice faint as though she were miles away. Remorse was slamming into Axl with the force of a speeding truck as he thought about the way that monster had ripped out the throat of the gear, the way blood had poured thick and bright onto the grass.

He could have brought that thing from the forest here; he could have gotten any one of these people killed before they’d even know it was happening. He could clearly picture the creature charging through the dimly lit square, enclosing its jaws around oblivious people just as the axolotls in the lake had snapped at the food pellets. Axl wouldn’t have the time to save all of them - there were too many bodies, too spread around to protect all at once.

“Axl,” a voice said sharply, accompanied by a strong grip on Axl’s shoulder, and for a moment Axl thought it was Sol. He reared back in alarm, confused and afraid, his breath caught in his chest-

Cassie was watching him, one hand still raised and a concerned furrow to her brow. The sight of her brought Axl slamming back to reality, and he blinked stupidly at her as the sudden panic and fear began to recede from an overwhelming torrent to a steady trickle. His hands were shaking, he realised, and he scrubbed them against his face in an attempt to shake off the anxiety still bearing down on him.

“You alright?” Cassie asked again, her voice low and quiet.

“Yeah- sorry, yeah,” Axl stumbled over the words, only now becoming aware of his short of breath he was. The look Cassie gave him was one of blatant skepticism, and she gestured for him to follow before leading him a little ways away from the stalls and to a short stone wall.

“Siddown,” she said shortly, and Axl felt wobbly as he lowered himself to sit. The rock wall was rough beneath his palms and he rubbed his hands against it, focusing on the way the uneven texture bit into his skin like sandpaper.

“Sorry,” he repeated, his voice little more than a croak. He suddenly felt very tired, as though he’d come to a stop after sprinting for a long time. Morosely he added, “I think I dropped my cig.”

Cassie laughed, shaking her head. “That’s what yer worried about?” She asked with a tone of disbelief, “yer an oddball, that’s fer sure. Just sit yer ass down ‘til you get yer head on straight.”

Axl did just that, watching Cassie march off into the crowd as he focused on taking steady breaths. The night air was pleasantly cool against his too-warm face, the sounds of people talking and moving around the market a comforting background hum. The street lamps that had been nice before felt too bright now, and Axl closed his eyes to try to ward off an oncoming sting in his temple.

For a moment he’d been consumed by such despair and regret that it had felt earth-shattering. If there was one thing Axl couldn’t stomach it was the idea of innocent people being hurt - especially through his own fault. Back in London he’d put all of his energy and effort into making sure nobody was too badly hurt, even if it meant taking a few hits himself, and if anything about him was to remain constant throughout time and space he’d want it to be that. He may have made his peace with never seeing Megumi again, but he still wanted to be someone she would have been proud of; that was his way of keeping her present in his heart.

The sound of approaching footsteps followed by a gentle nudge to his shoulder drew Axl from his thoughts, and he opened his eyes to see Cassie holding out a canned drink to him in her large hand. Axl took it and pressed it to his cheek, the cold metal like ice against his flushed skin.

“Drink that and you win another smoke,” Cassie said, sitting down heavily beside him. Axl chuckled as he cracked open the can before taking a generous swig, surprised to find how much the chilled soda soothed him. Cassie handed out new cigarettes and the two of them sat side by side, smoking while Axl sipped occasionally from his drink.

It wasn’t entirely unlike the way he and Sol would sit together sometimes, Axl thought, but without Sol’s presence the mood felt vastly different. Cassie seemed like a good sort but she was relatively a stranger; Axl was enjoying her company outside of his sudden freak out, but it didn’t compare to the safety and contentment of being with someone he knew as well as Sol. Axl felt as thin and flimsy as paper after his surge of fear, and Sol’s presence would have been a reassuringly sturdy rock to lean on. Still though, it was nice, and the peace acted as a blanket to smother his lingering anxiety.

“Thanks,” Axl said, calm enough now to feel a little embarrassed. He scratched the side of his neck and added, “didn’t mean to get- well, y’know.”

“Forget it,” Cassie said casually, “you feelin’ better?”

“I promised my friend that I wouldn’t do, uh- the magic trick stuff,” Axl explained clumsily, trying to leave out as much detail as possible. He didn’t really want to have to cop to potentially bringing an invisible, murderous monster into the midst of her town. “I forgot though.”

And he’d wanted to be impressive, he thought but didn’t say aloud. He’d wanted to look cool and competent, as though he hadn’t come plodding out of the woods earlier like a scolded puppy.

Cassie raised an eyebrow. “S’it that big a deal?” She asked.

Axl’s stomach threatened to turn at the thought of how big of a deal it could have been. His expression must have been clear because Cassie nodded and with an air of determination asked, “y’wanna talk about it?”

He really did, unfortunately. He would have liked to have talked to Sol, tell him how afraid he was of fucking up, but their conversation in the woods had left a barrier of frustration between them that Axl would be an idiot to try to cross so quickly. Even prodding at it in the bar had done little to disperse it, which only served to make Axl feel more like he needed to do more - be more.

“I guess I’m worried that I’m not- enough, y’know?” Axl sighed, flicking the pull tab of his drink can idly just to give himself something to focus on that wasn’t his own turbulent emotional state. “I’m trying, but I dunno if it’s good enough.”

It was an oversimplification, but Axl wouldn’t know where to begin with the full explanation. How to say that he was trying to live up to the admiration of someone who was just a memory, or that he was doing the emotional equivalent of petting an angry dog and hoping it liked him enough not to bite. How could he ever articulate that he was afraid that he’d only ever be a ghost to the people he cared about, disappearing into nothing one day to never be reunited with them? That he had found someone with whom he felt safe and understood, but he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t find himself alone again?

It had already happened once; he’d had to sew his heart back together with time and acceptance that had teetered on the brink of turning bitter. But the organ was compromised by that mended tear now, easier to pull apart, and if it happened again he didn’t know if there’d be enough of it left to put it back together a second time.

Cassie hummed thoughtfully by his side. “D’you want my advice?” She said casually, “or d’you just wanna sit s’more? I got nowhere else to be either way.”

Axl had spent enough time with his own thoughts. “Go ahead,” he said tiredly, waving a hand through the air in a lazy arc.

“You oughta tell people when you love them,” Cassie said, “and I don’t mean jus’ yer sweetheart. Yer friends, yer family, all of em.”

Axl had expected the common platitudes, like ‘don’t try to live up to others’ expectations’ or ‘you’re already good enough’. What Cassie said was enough of a curve ball to surprise him, and he tilted his head to watch her as she continued.

“People don’t assume that shit,” she said almost confrontationally, wagging a finger in Axl’s direction. The smoke from her cigarette followed the movement of her hand, creating a little twirl in the air. “And when you ain’t there, for whatever reason- when you can’t reach ‘em, you’ll want ‘em to be damn sure that they’re loved, more than anythin’ else.”

Axl rested his chin on his palm as he mulled over Cassie’s advice. He thought about how he had been snatched away from Megumi, and emotion threatened to choke him at the thought of her spending the rest of her days unsure of how much he’d loved her. He thought about the friends he’d made since then, such a strange variety of people, and he realised there wasn’t a single one he wouldn’t want reassured by the knowledge that he cared for them.

He thought about Sol, a man who seemed to believe that he was destined to spend eternity wandering the earth alone with his regrets. Axl had no idea if Sol knew how important he was to Axl - as a constant point that he could return to throughout time, as someone who could understand the existential hopelessness of living in a world he didn’t recognise, as a friend - but he hoped so. He really, really hoped so.

Perhaps there was something to be said for not trying to chase people’s expectations, and instead making sure they knew they were loved.

Axl’s eyes were wet, and he chuckled at the ridiculousness of it as he swiped his wrist across them. “How’d you learn that?” He asked, taking a shaky drag of his cigarette.

“Losin’ people,” Cassie said casually, as if it wasn’t a big deal - as if she’d experienced it enough for it not to be. Axl could relate to that, in a way.

When Jane found them she was grasping three wooden skewers, each holding some unidentified foodstuff. “Sorry for the wait!” She piped up cheerfully as she got close, “Cassie said you weren’t feeling well so I thought I’d go grab the food myself. Here, try it!”

Jane thrust one of the skewers toward Axl and he took it, turning it in his hand. The meat on the stick had been lightly battered, the thin breading concealing whatever colour the meat inside might be. “What is it?” He asked, though he was already practically salivating at the smell alone.

“Axolotl,” Jane grinned as Cassie took one of the other two skewers from her. She sat down politely by Axl’s side, her and Cassie bracketing him like a pair of odd bookends.

Axl blinked, surprised. He hadn’t thought they’d looked like the kind of animal that could be eaten, but he supposed that if humanity was good for anything it was figuring out how to eat things. With a little trepidation he took a bite and was shocked to discover that it tasted not unlike the sort of white fish that would have been found in a chippy back home, the breading adding to the familiarity of the texture.

“It’s good,” he marvelled through a mouthful.

Jane laughed, saying something in her usual uplifted tone, but Axl completely missed whatever it was. The tender salamander meat was something old, yet something new; a flavour from his past, but sourced from an animal he’d never even seen with his own two eyes until recently. It was as though a bit of familiar comfort had bled through time and space like ink through paper to meet him.

If he were to squint until his eyes were almost closed, perhaps he could fool himself into thinking he was in Camden. The bodies either side of him could be old friends, the three of them kicking each other’s ankles with the toes of their shoes and stealing bits of each other’s food. They’d spend the evening knocking about, watching tourists get fleeced at the market or ducking into a club or two, and stagger home in the early hours howling and singing like alley cats.

Axl was crying before he could stop it, choking on great hiccuping sobs that made his chest convulse. It was all just a bit too raw and painful to bear; he’d already been emotionally wrung out, and the reminder of things he’d never experience again had tipped him over the edge. Axl’s vision blurred completely from the amount of tears pouring out of him, even as he rubbed his forearm against his face in a futile attempt to clear it.

A hand stroked gently from side to side across his shoulder blades as Axl let himself lean forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He must have been a pathetic sight, slumped and leaking tears like a faucet, but he couldn’t bring himself to care when the release of pressure felt like such a relief.

“It’ll be alright dear,” Jane was saying, her tone soft and motherly. “You’ll be alright.”

Did Axl’s friends know how much that time spent together had meant to him? Had he ever bothered to express that to them before it had been too late? It wasn’t as if he had known there’d be a hard limit to the time he had to put his affairs in order. Did nights out feel the same without him, virtually indistinguishable without his voice amongst the crowd, or did his sudden disappearance leave a shadow hanging over the people he’d cared for?

When it came time to part ways Jane took Axl’s hands in her own and rubbed the pad of her thumb across his knuckles. “If you ever need anything you let us know,” she said, looking up at Axl with the sort of aggressive kindness that he’d have to be an idiot to rebuke. “You hear? On the south end of town, the ranch- that’s us. You can’t miss it because I painted the door purple.”

Axl huffed out a tired little laugh at that. “That’s a smart trick,” he said, and Jane’s fingers squeezed his.

…

It was Axl’s turn to be the second one awake this time, and he found Sol on the walkway smoking - though the number of discarded cigarette butts at Sol’s feet was a giveaway that he’d been up for a while. Axl reached to take Sol’s cigarette, mirroring the way Sol had stolen his, before he stopped himself.

He thought of last night, how tense the air had been between the two of them when they had parted ways. Sol had already been in bed when Axl had returned to the motel, and Axl hadn’t had any desire to disturb him. Instead he’d fallen into his own bed, his heart still aching like a tooth with a cavity.

Sol turned and handed his half-smoked cigarette to Axl, and Axl took it with a grateful mumble.

The drive into the woods felt similarly like an echo of yesterday, with Axl’s enthusiasm swapped out for nauseous apprehension. The trees seemed to loom taller than before, the shadows between them darker, and it made Axl feel boxed in and jumpy as they drew to a stop.

“Best chance we’ve got is probably me keeping hold of whoever I’m tryin’ to take with me,” he explained as he fidgeted with the strap of one of his gloves. “And I don’t really wanna try holdin’ on to that…”

Sol was apparently ahead of him because he took hold of Axl’s forearm mid-sentence, causing Axl to trail off as he stared down at the point of contact. Sol’s hand was large enough to encircle Axl’s wrist, the rough pad of his thumb pressing an indent into Axl’s skin.

“Now what,” Sol said.

That, unfortunately, was what Axl had to figure out; this entire venture rested on his shoulders now. With trepidation he stopped the flow of time, watching as Sol became an unblinking statue by his side.

For a few moments everything stood still, preserved indefinitely in the pale light of frozen time, and Axl was as motionless as the world around him as he waited. He hoped that nothing would happen - that the day before would prove itself a one-off anomaly that he could cast aside like a memory of a bad dream.

The creature emerged from the brush as quietly as a ghost, crawling slowly along with its belly to the earth. It crept toward Axl as though it believed he was asleep, and the sight of it moving so precisely sent a shiver down Axl’s spine. He’d only seen it on the all out attack before - the thought of it having the capacity to sneak up on him was entirely unwelcome.

He tried to take a few steps back, make some space between himself and the thing, but he was held in place by Sol’s frozen grip. Trying to pull his arm free did little to dislodge him, and the sight of the creature settling back on its haunches in preparation to leap at him made panic constrict his lungs.

He couldn’t move. He was handcuffed to a dead weight and face-to-face with a threat and he couldn’t move.

The creature pounced and Axl did the only thing he could think to do in that moment, which was to snap time back into motion. He closed his eyes tight, bracing himself for the impact, but there was nothing but the sound of Sol shifting by his side.

Axl tugged against Sol’s grip again and this time Sol let him go, watching with a furrowed brow as Axl recoiled by a few steps and rubbed his wrist with his other hand. That had been too close - way too close.

“What’s wrong?” Sol asked.

“I couldn’t- it’s here,” Axl rushed to say, glancing about frantically. The wide shark-like mouth of the creature had been the last thing he’d seen before closing his eyes, all wet grey flesh and jagged teeth, and he felt as though the image had burned itself onto his mind like an old television screen.

“Concentrate,” Sol urged as he reached for Axl again, and Axl dodged the hand as though it might burn him. “You need to get me in there!”

“I know!” Axl cried, “just give me a fuckin’ second!”

He didn’t know if he had a second to spare, not really. He still had no idea if the creature couldn’t attack them during the normal flow of time or if it was waiting for something, and the ambiguity of it made Axl feel like he was on a knife edge. With aggressive determination he took hold of Sol’s hand and stopped time again, barely given a moment to look up at Sol’s frozen face before a rough blow from behind sent him stumbling.

The thing on his back was heavy, and Axl used the momentum of his fall to roll over and slam it to the ground beneath him. The hiss it let out was borderline deafening this close up, its breath clammy against Axl’s shoulder, and it pulled at his jacket with its claws as he struggled free.

Pausing time had always afforded Axl time to think if nothing else. The space between seconds was serene, sometimes somber and always silent. But this was chaotic; Axl felt dizzy as he tried once again to keep some distance between the two of them, his head spinning from the short wrestle he’d just escaped. The creature followed him step-for-step, focused like a cat stalking a mouse, and its tail slapped against Sol’s hip as it passed by his petrified body.

Growing up, Axl’s grandmother had owned a cat; a grotty old thing, thick and fat, that would drool when it slept curled up on the backrest of her settee. Once Axl had seen it in the garden, sitting on the grass and rolling about as it tossed a mouse into the air and caught it again. He could remember the way the mouse’s tail had formed an arc through the air, again and again, until the cat had gotten its fill. It had disappeared through the garden hedge, that same pink tail hanging from the side of its mouth as it went.

Axl thought back to that mouse as the creature continued to prowl after him, not allowing him to make any space between them. At the time he’d wondered why the mouse didn’t give in; it should have felt hopeless, to be pushed into a corner by something so much more threatening than oneself. But in this moment Axl could feel that same sort of desperate resolve he’d felt before, whenever he was faced with odds that were out of his favour; bull-headed determination to survive that felt so deeply rooted as to be instinctual.

Without looking away from the creature Axl reached to pull his kusarigama from his belt, grimly deciding that if the thing wasn’t going to give him an inch then he’d have to make it. The creature didn’t seem happy at the sight of the blades, turning itself to begin to circle Axl as it hissed, and the show of obvious displeasure made Axl laugh giddily.

“I don’t like you much either mate!” He called as he curved the chain in a short swing toward the creature’s face, causing it to stumble back in surprise. It was the first bit of leeway Axl had managed to get and he took advantage of it to step back further, widening the gap between the two of them.

The thing’s eyes blinked rapidly in cycling waves and it hissed, movements more slow and cautious now as it prowled to the side. Axl took another swing and this time the creature opened its mouth, jaws snapping closed around the kama like a fish on a hook. It didn’t occur to Axl to do anything other than yank forcefully on the chain, try to pull it back into his control, and it was only when the creature did the same in turn and sent Axl flailing that he thought to let go.

He hit the dirt hard with his shoulder, vision still spinning even as he kicked at the shark-like mouth descending upon him. His heel snagged on the loose flesh of the creature’s wide upper lip and he brought his other leg in sharply from the side, striking the thing hard enough against one of its eyes that it flinched back. Struggling to push the monstrous thing off him without a weapon felt frantic, animalistic and desperate, and his feet slipped unsteadily on the grass as he scrambled out from beneath it.

Through the trees he could see the lake, closer now and with its surface frozen still akin to a sheet of solid ice. Even in the muted colour of frozen time the sunlight reflected off it like a mirror, and Axl ran toward it for lack of a better idea - if nothing else at least it would provide him a more open area to try to avoid the creature. The sound of it bounding after him sent tingles on panicked energy up his spine and drove him to move, think less and act faster.

The shore of the lake afforded him a wider area of flat ground, and he took advantage of it to dive to the side and allow the creature to pounce past him. It landed roughly at the water’s edge, claws splayed out and belly low to the earth as it whipped its head around to follow him.

In a moment of desperation Axl snatched a rock from the side of the lake - small enough to fit in his palm, half-worn smooth by the water - and launched it at the creature, waiting until it bounced off the thing’s stunned face before setting time back into motion. He hoped that the minute distraction might do something, anything, because the fear that every stop or restart of time might be his last mistake was sending him into almost blinding panic.

As usual the creature disappeared, leaving only the gentle motion of the water lapping at the lake’s shore in its wake. There was an imprint left in the thick mud - a footprint with four toes jutting out from a round palm, where the creature’s front foot had been planted moments ago - and Axl cautiously stepped closer to stare down at it. The way that the lake water poured in to fill it reminded him of the gear, choking and flailing as the hole in its neck filled with blood.

“Axl!” Sol called sharply as he approached, and only then did Axl realise how much distance he’d put between the two of them. “Stop fucking moving!”

Easier said than done, Axl thought, though he didn’t get chance to voice his opinion before Sol had snatched hold of his jacket to drag him closer. It was dizzying as all hell and left Axl stumbling.

“You need to focus!” Sol growled.

“I’m trying!” Axl snapped as he took hold of Sol’s hands in an attempt to pull him off. Sol clung determinedly to Axl’s jacket, dragging him aside to place himself between Axl and the shore of the lake. The disorientation of being shoved around added to Axl’s already frazzled composure and he grit his teeth as he pushed Sol away, staggering back a few steps. “Just- give me a fuckin’ chance, alright?!”

He didn’t wait for a response before pausing time again. He turned frantically this way and that, expecting to be hounded immediately, but there was nothing - the creature stood a distance away, unnaturally still as it watched him. Alarm bells rang in Axl’s head; this was different, something somehow had changed, but he didn’t know how to account for it.

Slowly, the creature lowered itself back onto its haunches. It was the same way it had prepared to pounce at Axl before, catlike in how it lowered its head to the ground and arched its back, but the angle was off-

It wasn’t aiming for him, Axl realised in what felt like slow motion as he watched the creature push itself off the ground into an arching leap. It was going for Sol.

It didn’t take even a second of thought before Axl was tackling Sol hard against his back, hoping to dislodge him enough to knock him out of the creature’s path. Which, while it did achieve that goal, also left Axl in the perfect position to be snatched up by wide jaws like a dog’s chew toy.

The multiple rows of jagged teeth felt like barbed wire as they ripped into the flesh of Axl’s side, not just stabbing but pulling harshly as the monster slammed Axl’s body against the water of the lake. The sudden pain and cold swirled together into a disorienting kaleidoscope and Axl only realised he’d passed out for a moment when he opened his eyes, choking harshly on a mouthful of water.

It was almost impossible to parse what was happening to him in that moment. All of it was so much at once - the cold icy pressure of the water, the convulsing of his chest, the burning and tearing pain in his side, the disorienting nausea of being pulled around by the creature. Axl could feel his consciousness desperately tugging at the thread of time but had no idea what to do with it - he could barely tell up from down, let alone concentrate well enough to tell one moment from the next.

Then the world spun again and the water was gone, replaced by the impact of hitting a surface so hard that it would have stolen away his breath if he’d have been able to breathe in the first place. He choked on the fluid still in his throat, coughing and spasming as the tight pressure on his side was ripped away and left burning streaks of pain like tears in fabric.

Axl could do nothing but lay useless on the ground, frantically trying to will air into his lungs. His body felt like it had been reduced to nothing but a buzzing mass of pain, and the leaves of the trees above him blurred into a smear of colour.

Eventually the familiar shape of Sol looked in his vision, out of focus like a reflection in turbulent water. “Axl, breathe,” Sol commanded, and Axl deliriously found it funny that Sol thought it was that easy. He tried to laugh and one half of his chest rebelled, squeezing in against his attempt to inflate his lungs and making him choke. Coughing made the pressure even worse, as though someone with iron-tipped boots was stomping down hard on Axl’s body, and the next gasping breath he took burned as it hit the back of his throat.

“The town,” Sol barked, though Axl had to strain to hear him past the buzzing in his ears. “Can you get us back there? Focus on the bar or something.”

Focusing wasn’t an easy task when Axl felt like he was having the oxygen squeezed out of him like toothpaste from a tube, but Sol sounded so frantic that Axl pushed himself to do so just as a favour to him. He tried to think back to being at the bar with Sol but his memories jumbled together, confusing and difficult to grasp when the taste of blood in his mouth and the ache in his chest kept trying to drag him back to the present.

The bar. He and Sol had been to lots of bars - which one was it again?

Sol’s voice said something, his tone angry and hard, but Axl couldn’t quite make it out. Axl had seen Sol angry at a bar plenty of times; he’d hunch over his glass like a great sulking bear, and Axl would gently poke and prod at him with words to try to draw him out of his sour mood. Sometimes Axl would manage the impossible and surprise a laugh out of him, softening his hard edges and chasing away the cloud hovering over him.

The image of Sol laughing over a drink snagged in Axl’s mind like cloth on a hook. He could feel the fibres of time between his fingers and he used the last of his energy to yank at them with as much force as he could. There was a nauseating moment of motion, and then-

The force of hitting a large object before rolling to the ground made Axl retch. He was on his side now, stomach turned toward the ground, and he attempted to curl in on himself as he drew in short, desperate gasps. There was so much noise.

Hands pulled at him, and Axl felt so weak that he thought they might tear his body apart. Instead they held him together, compressing him into a single, dense object. Everything around him was a muddy collage of colours, completely nonsensical, so he closed his eyes to try to save himself from the headache of trying to decipher it.

He faded in and out for a while after that, the pain washing over him finally beginning to abate as it was replaced by icy numbness. It felt a little like he was floating in cold water in the dark, occasionally jolted by a flash of sensation or sound that lingered for only a moment before it was gone again.

Maybe this was what dying felt like; a bewildering rollercoaster of sensations while the brain slowly shut down. The thought was enough of a fright to send a jolt of energy through Axl. He couldn’t die yet, he didn’t want to. He refused to - he needed to see the people he cared about at least one more time, make sure that they knew that they were loved.

When Axl was finally able to gather his thoughts into something even half coherent he found himself lying on his back, the ground beneath him soft and yielding. All of his limbs felt like lead and his mouth was dry and tasted of blood, and he wheezed as he drew in a shaky breath. There was something pressed against his side that was burning, unbearably hot, but his flimsy attempt to roll away from it was stopped by something holding his shoulder in place.

“ - still you idiot,” a familiar voice said. 

Axl forced his eyes open, blinking determinedly through the exhaustion and weakness trying to drag him back into the dark. Sol was still above him somehow, as if neither of them had moved an inch in what had felt like a millennia of distorted awareness.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Sol grumbled, his expression a perfect picture of anger and confusion.

It was a weird question, but Axl was confused too, so he couldn’t really fault it. The only thing he was certain of was that he’d been terribly, hopelessly afraid that he was about to die without being able to pass along a message, one that felt important enough that it had him clinging to consciousness by the skin of his teeth.

“Sol,” he rasped. His chest hitched from the effort of speaking.

“Shut up,” Sol reprimanded sharply. “Concentrate on breathing, you asshole.”

No, no- Axl needed to say it now, in case he wasn’t given another chance. “Freddie-“ he tried to say, choking on the word, and with herculean effort he raised a hand enough to hook his fingers against Sol’s sleeve.

“What?” Sol said, catching Axl’s wrist and tugging it back down. His fingers left a smear of red on Axl’s skin, and Axl focused on it as he raised his hand again to tug at Sol’s collar. The leather was so warm against Axl’s cold fingers that it made his skin tingle.

He needed to concentrate - it was important.

“Fucking- what?” Sol snapped, his gaze finally meeting Axl’s own. 

“I love you,” Axl sighed. Sol stared down at him with such a look of bewildered surprise that Axl couldn’t help but laugh as he finally relaxed, despite not really having the breath to spare for it. He was so relieved to have been able to say it that it left him lightheaded, and he didn’t bother to fight the grin on his face as exhaustion consumed him.

…

Consciousness came to Axl as slowly as water filling a bucket, drop by drop. He could feel himself shaking before he became aware of how cold he was, each shudder sending a stab of pain through his body that left his fingers tingling. He didn’t know where he was, how he’d gotten there or why he felt so god awful, but he knew that something was wrong.

With great difficulty he struggled upright, pushing down his shirt from where he must have rolled it up in his sleep. The fabric was cold and damp, and touching it sent such a vicious shiver through him that his breath caught in his already tender-feeling chest.

The calendar on the bedside table read August 11th in bold black lettering, and Axl stared at it for a good long minute as he tried to piece together why it felt wrong. He could see the date August 20th in his mind, on a little paper calendar pinned to the wall, and the picture above it was- what was it- some kind of lizard, with frills on its head and a cheeky smile as it sat in a deck chair drinking a cocktail. He turned the image this way and that in his mind, trying to make sense of it.

Why did it seem so important? There were memories bleeding in at the edges of Axl’s fuzzy consciousness but he couldn’t seem to focus on them. Instead he was stuck the image of that calendar, taunting him like a riddle as he drew short, pained breaths.

The sassy little cartoon lizard in his mind’s eye flashed him a jagged row of crudely drawn teeth and winked at him, and a row of red eyes down the side of its body winked too.

“Oh fuck!” Axl gasped, standing so quickly that he had to grab the bedside table to keep himself from toppling over. His body ached terribly but he couldn’t surrender to it, shouldn’t be here - wherever the hell here was. He needed to get back to Sol.

As if responding to Axl’s sudden clarity the door the room opened, revealing the very man Axl had just remembered the existence of. Except it wasn’t - this was August 11th Sol, not August 20th Sol. This wasn’t the one Axl had left with the company of a murderous lizard.

“Sit down,” this Sol growled, marching closer. “You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

“I can’t!” Axl said desperately as he backed away, his voice choked. “I left you there!”

Sol looked surprised for a moment, before his expression darkened. “I was there?” He grumbled, looking Axl up and down. “What the fuck was I doing?”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Axl said, deliriously thinking that there was something funny about defending a man from another version of himself. Sol looked unconvinced and Axl didn’t like the unhappy twist to his mouth, so he hastened to add, “it wasn’t! You couldn’t see it.”

“Couldn’t see what?” Sol snapped, trying again to take a step closer, and Axl backed up again to keep the distance between them. “Axl, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Axl didn’t have time for this. He’d left Sol trapped- he needed to fix it. He had no idea if the creature they’d been fighting was dead and while he knew Sol could more than handle himself, he also knew that even Sol would be outclassed if his opponent had powers like Axl’s own. 

Axl was already catching the thread of time with his consciousness, running his thumb along its surface to try to find the right note. “Axl!” Sol barked as he reached out for him, “don’t you fucking dare-!”

The light filtered into muted grey, and Axl was gone.