Roxas didn't know what the hell he was getting into, that one day, that one time, that one place. He honestly thought he was just being his usual dorky self, the side that came out when no one was looking, or when someone cool enough reduced him to tatters. But seeing him and seeing him up close...they're two very different things, and sometimes he wonders why he never tried talking to him before.

He'd been convinced for months now that he couldnt love someone. That he was incapable of feeling that crushing, beautiful, painful, wonderful thing that everyone else called pathetic. But it wasn't pathetic, or maybe he just was, a little kid lost in the labyrinth that was the redhead and...well. Obsession and love are close, but even though the line is blurred, Roxas can still kind of see it.

He's brooding and negative and sappy and hopelessly romantic, and he writes more than he eats and broods even more than that, so no wonder Axel never gave him a second glance. Demyx is upbeat and funny and just as lazy and strange but...there is no denying fact, as Roxas knows all too well. It wasn't a matter of love for the heartless, it was a matter of timing, and Dem's timing was four more better than his.

When he goes to the ocean and sees depths upon depths of blue, he hates it, because that's ihis/i favorite color and...well. Demyx was always the blue one.

Sea salt ice cream makes him want to die. It's blue as well, but it's more of the fact that even though he and Axel shared stick after stick after stick of the stuff, he still crawls into bed as lonely as he was before, the most previous sunset burned into his lids, especially the red part, because red travels the farthest. Roxas thinks it's more because red is just the best.

He's hardly ever assigned missions with him because with Axel, he makes a terrible partner. He can fight better than anyone except him, but alongside the redhead, he can't help but stare and wonder if that lanky lengthy langorious body can do other things as well as he fights. So maybe he gets bit or scratched a few times by some Heartless, but it's okay if Roxas is allowed a few moments' daydream.

He's sick. In the mind. In his nonexistent heart. He's a whore. He's confused. He's fucked up. He's abused and he lies and he cheats and-he doesn't give a good god damn about any of it, because all that matters in the present is that Axel exists, and that's redemption enough for him.

Running away never solved anyone's problems, but if it gets Roxas away from his face, so happy without him, then so be it. Let him be a coward, he'd shout it from the clocktower if asked. And he almost gets away, almost lets him go, almost gets over it all, and then...there's a familiar voice yelling wait and his feet just won't fucking listen anymore. They want this more than his mind does, and deep inside of him his stomach coils and roils and it's sour God's Breath in the very core of his being and he can feel something thudding tightly against his ribs and he hurts and-he sees green eyes and everything stops, freezes, disappears, and he needs nothing else now. Nothing. Just this moment.

Roxas' memory is shit. It always had been. But for some reason, amidst the holes and gaps and time skips, he remembers the way his hands felt in his hair, the way he laughed, the way he hugged him and-it kills him to remember, but he knows that he'd kill himself if he forgot.

Superior gave him a diary, and the things are useless and girly but...he can't stop writing poems about him. On a whim, he lets Axel see, and, upon witnessing his reaction, dies inside, because the redhead is too blinded by another to realize that it's all for him.

Sleep is always filled with fitful daydreams for Roxas. No one acts as such in real life, and since he's only made of darkness and hate and memories from someone else, he thinks he'll just stay in bed and live in a never ending dream until Saix comes in to kick his ass.

It's beautiful and heart stopping and magical and emotional and everything he'd dreamed it to be. The first time Axel kissed him, it was glorious, and it made his eyes cross and his stomach flip and he swore he'd never been happier. It was so amazing, like a dream Except...that's all it is. Just a dream.

Roxas wakes up two minutes later crying like the dickens and his chest hurts like someone punched him very very hard. Since he has only himself to console himself, it takes him four more hours to fall back asleep.

Standing in the dark in the middle of their quiet quaint town, rain washing with peaceful tears, and a hole carved into where he supposed his heart should be, Roxas looks up into the dark sky, raindrops seemingly appearing like little streetlamp pinpricks out of nowhere in the inky blackness, and is struck by a feeling of hopelessness. He's known he can feel for a while now, or else looking at Axel wouldn't make him want to sob uncontrollably while laughing like a loon.

It's a long time later and he supposed that finally, his timing is correct. Looking out through someone else's eyes, he knows that Axel sees him in there. He can feel the heat from the surrounding fires, and in this moment it's just his body of the moment, hi faint and living memory, and this dying, beautiful creature. Roxas leans over in Sora's body, placing a kiss on his lips, and hopes to god or allah or whatever existed out there for him that, like a phoenix, something beautiful would come of this death.

It's years and years and finally, Roxas realized that perfection peaks, and then disappears forever.

It's eight years after, exactly, and without hesitation, Roxas in Sora's body downs enough poison to kill him five times over. As he convulses on the carpet, he makes extra careful sure to knock over the kerosene lantern on the nightstand.

He goes to sleep in a bed of flames, surrounded by the one he loved, but never had.