AN: Oneshot. Not being continued. Consider this my penance for ever writing 'Define Punishment'.


Sex with the Somebody was nothing like anything with Roxas had ever been. Axel still wasn't quite sure how it had happened, the fight-that-hadn't-quite-been in the alley of Twilight Town, pushing the savior up against the sun-baked bricks. Sora HAD been fighting. Sora didn't remember any of this, Sora thought he was fighting for his life until Axel kissed him, passionately, and then Sora stopped fighting abruptly as his body took over. The body remembered, the body that had been locked in its white-petaled shell while everything that mattered had happened. Sora remembered, or at least paused to listen to the part of him that did. Roxas. The part that Axel would have loved if he'd had a heart, might have loved anyway.

Kissing Sora was a lot like kissing Roxas. It had the same ferocity, the same no-holds-barred refusal to spare the other. It was a kiss like a mouthful of razors and their teeth kept clicking, but that was okay because that had always happened with Roxas. The difference was in the breaths Sora stole. Roxas had never needed to breathe.

It was Axel's fault that they wound up in the hiding place, the secret place, whatever the fuck three fictional kids had called the corner where three buildings met and were accidentally roofed. He was the one to push Sora down on the couch, to take his lack of resistance for the consent that it was, and to follow after without bothering to separate their faces. He had moved down to the kid's neck, so soft and pale and familiar. Vulnerable, or at least pretending to be. With Roxas that had always been pretense. You couldn't kill something that didn't bleed by cutting its throat, after all. Sora was human now, but also more and also less. It was impossible to know if that vulnerability was still real, or just an impression garnered from seeing too many years of the the Heartless breaking their ruined toys.

Sora wasn't fighting back, hadn't since the first connection of their lips, and Axel wasn't sure if he should really be surprised or not. Part of him-- the part that still insisted that this was Roxas, with new bonus content-- thought not. His best friend was still in there, painfully evident in the way Sora's hands had curled around his shoulders, nails just long enough to bite into the substance of him. Axel was pretty sure that when he'd been human he'd needed to take his clothes off to feel like this, like Roxas(Sora) was biting into his skin, into himself, but that was back in the days when clothes had been a separate thing that you bought and sold and took off, instead of something that flowed around you from the moment of creation and healed itself when it got torn. Sora felt real, more real than Roxas ever had, and that was what mattered.

Sora was wearing clothes, though. The new set, fairy made, and while they were trying to take themselves off in response to his obvious desire, they hadn't quite managed it yet. Axel helped the kid peel off his shirt, admiring the landscape underneath. Tan and muscled, tough where Roxas had always been a little scrawny, a little insubstantial. Bringing up his hands it felt too real, too solid, too flesh-slicked-with-sweat because even though Axel couldn't feel it, it was a warm day in Twilight Town. He and Roxas had never cared. Sun, rain, once on the brim of an active volcano. When you couldn't really die you didn't worry about the possibility, especially when you both knew that you were dead in fact already. Making it visible wouldn't change a thing. Sora was moaning, utterly responsive, and that was the real difference between the two. Having Roxas under his power had been captivating, almost the ultimate rush of domination, he'd thought once. Sora was better. There had never been anything like this, this keen awareness that Axel was a Nobody, Sora was Somebody, but that in this moment Sora was the one who needed Axel to be real. That awareness made it all sharper, made AXEL sharper, and he'd never been blunt and gentle to begin with. This time he bit, and rubbed, and sucked. Sora wasn't fighting but that wouldn't have made any difference at all, because Axle had needed this since that night in the rain where he hadn't been able to feel the cold he was sure had been there, when his best friend had walked out without ever saying he cared in so many words.

Sora's pants were easier to get off than Axle expected, looking at all those buckles and straps, and they slid down easily under the onslaught of his hands. Sora moaned, upset at the loss of attention while Axle fiddled briefly with the button, but doubled the sound again when that wicked mouth returned to his chest. It had changed trajectory, no longer making mindless circles but kissing its way down. Axel wanted to stop, or pause, or just do something to savor this moment of being the one, for once, who was real. With Roxas it had always been sort of equal, but this was the shadow consuming the light, the child standing on the beach while the sea came in, and for once, the waves were relenting. Here was another difference between this colorful kid and Roxas. With Roxas they had been the same, both of them riding the sharp indescribable madness of pleasure to the highest point, then falling off. This was different. Sora was there, clearly trapped in that same sensational insanity, but Axel was oddly cold, oddly still, oddly sane. Sora wouldn't last much longer, that much was obvious to anyone who'd known his Nobody. The responses were the same, the same thready gasps in a voice just a hair higher pitched, the same slow bucking motion that meant he was riding the edge, all the way down. When it ended it was exactly how Roxas always had, seizing as though caught in the force of something relentlessly powerful. It was too soon, leaving Axel aware of the ache still present in his body, but also of the satisfaction in his mind. This was power. This was a Nobody being more real than Somebody, and in that moment Axel couldn't decide if what he was feeling was love or triumph or contempt. Sora was still utterly out of it, breathing hard, blue eyes glassy but still watching Axel. The Nobody fled.