RP-based. Basically, there was an event where everyone turned on their friends. Hypothetically, Roxas was going to die. This is how Axel would have reacted if he did. P.S. They're engaged, to clear up any confusion.


He feels like absolute shit. There's really no other way to describe it. He knows in his heart that it isn't his fault, and he knows that the others know the same thing, but it doesn't change what happened, and it hurts; weighing on him so heavily that his back bows as his head hangs, sitting on the edge of the bed and grasping the sheets with all his might, white-knuckled and broken.

There's a knock on the door, soft and shaky with a touch of regality; left-over composure. He expects someone's come to yell at him, and he's ready to apologize, or someone's come to fight him, and he's ready for that too, but hearing the words, hard and solid and real, "Roxas is dead," is something he's never been prepared for.

Once the door is closed again, he reaches blindly for the dresser, for the ring he took off yesterday, effectively ending their engagement. He'd been so stupid, so selfish, like always. And now. He brings the cold silver to his lips, kisses it, and falls to his knees.

He can barely speak for the tears coursing down his face, but all the words are the same; "what have I done, couldn't save him, let him die, he was never supposed to know that pain, he was never supposed to be ruined that way, couldn't save him, couldn't save him, Roxas Roxas Roxas--" and before he knows it he's being ripped apart from the inside as an inhuman howl runs through him; keening his grief, and he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to say. He knows in his heart that Roxas will come back, but it doesn't change what's happened, and it's killing him, in ways he hasn't felt since the other left the Organization. He let him go then, because he was moving on to something better. He suffered, but he found his Other and his heart and he was okay, and Axel had risked everything, everything, for another chance to see him. And once he had, there had been nothing left. And he had died.

There was nothing for Roxas this time. There was only the fear and the coldness and the darkness of death. He'd tried so goddamned hard to keep him from knowing it. He'd been unable to keep him from getting hurt before, and every injury Roxas suffered was a fresh cut on his new heart, made so much deeper by the fact it existed now to be wounded. He'd offered—promised—his protection to him, but in the end it meant nothing. All his efforts meant nothing. And now Roxas was dead for his inability to provide any sort of solace at all. He felt absolutely worthless, and in his heart it was the only truth he now knew.

"If I can't protect him, then what am I worth? What am I doing?" He could feel it, deep within himself: the fire starting slowly but surely. Its warmth was his only comfort, spreading through himself, consuming, caressing. If he let it continue, in a while they would find him only ash.

He found no reason to stop it.