A Razor to midnight

Axel lay there in bed. Listening to his parents fight. Pretty soon they would come into his room, his dad beating him, and his mom telling him how much of a disappointment he was.

Later, after his parents had either passed out drunk or left to get more alcohol, his older brother, Reno, would come home with a new girlfriend for the week and kick Axel out of the room they shared.

So then Axel would grab his razor and leave. He'd go up to the most calming place he knew, an old abandoned clock tower, and slice away all the things that were fucked up in his life.

He'd tried to stop cutting but, it's so fucking hard! He found that cutting was his one and only vice. He'd tried writing it out, which only made him angry, then he tried talking it out but, with no one to listen, he just ended up talking to himself, which he already does, so that obviously wasn't going to work.

So there he was, waiting for the inevitable. He could already here the anger raising in both of their voices the tension in the house increasing. He figured this night wouldn't be any different than the one before, so doing the most logical thing, Axel started to hide all items that could be used as a make shift weapon.

His dad tended to get a bit out of hand when it came to the beatings. One time he had thrown a math textbook at Axel's head, inflicting a concussion and almost putting him into a coma.

But, tonight was different.

Instead of hearing the usual foot steps down the hallway, there was a loud high pitched scream. It sounded like Axel's little sister, Xion, who was only 9 at the time while he was 15 and Reno 17.

Throwing his door open, Axel raced down the long hallway in the direction of her terror. What the cause was had him skidding to a stop and freezing every muscle in his body. Time froze to a still.

His breathing slowly increased as his own scream worked its way up his throat although, no sound came out. Xion was lying on the ground, blood oozing from her stomach, with their dad hovering over her with a broken beer bottle and mom cowering in a corner.

"That'll teach you to mind your mouth girl!" the man sneered. Axel, writhing in hatred, went into offense. Grabbing a lamp, the fiery red head slowly walked towards that man that proclaimed to be his 'father', successfully gaining his attention.

Axel then threw the lamp as hard as he possibly could, while dodging his dads' feeble attempts to impale him. It was an easy fight really, with his dad drunk and all. At least that was until his mom finally realized what was happening.

She threw out her own scream, tackling Axel to the ground just as he was about to rip the bottle out of his dads hand. She was crying, "Axel! How could you! I can't- I- Why would you hurt little Xion like that?"

"Wah? I would nev-"'Dad' had punched Axel right in the mouth, causing the younger to spit out blood, choking on his words. "You were never a true son of mine. Why couldn't you have been more like your brother Reno, huh? Honey, call the police for attempted murder."

Axel couldn't believe what was happening before his eyes. Sniffling, his mom said, "Where did we go wrong?" reaching for the phone, she began to dial. All of a sudden, the door was being kicked open with brutal force.

Reno walked in, instantly dropping his school bag (Reno's in Night College) and freezing at the scene before him. Xion unconscious and bleeding, Axel being held down by their father threatening to stab him with a broken beer bottle, and mom on the phone with someone, crying uncontrollably. Reno had a strong feeling it was the cops.

"What the FUCK is going on here?" "Reno, be a good boy and go to your room. Im sure you have lots of homework. Me and Axel here are just having a family discussion." Running over to Xion to pick her up, Reno said "Fuck that! Xion needs help! Mom call an ambulance."

Rolling his eyes Axel said "Oh geez, thanks for your sympathy..." "SHUT UP!" Another punch to the face. Reno sighed, gently lying Xion down on the couch, Reno walked up to his dad and knocked his ass out with his night stick he carried everywhere with him. (Living in the city, you never know who you're going to run into.)

Leaving mom staring in disbelief at her supposed 'perfect' son, Reno took the phone from her and started explaining the situation to the person on the other end. Axel got up, with some help from Reno, and sat down on the couch putting Xion's head in his lap.

After that everything was just sort of in a giant blur. He remembered the police coming and asking him questions and paramedics looking him over. He only came out of his trance when they asked for him to remove his shirt so they could look for anything wrong.

Axel refused, gaining some irritated looks from the adults around him. All except one. He had blond hair spiking off in multiple directions and bright blue eyes, and was a little taller than himself.

Walking up to Axel, the man said "I'm Cloud Strife but, you can call me cloud. I understand that you probably have some secret, everyone does, but the only way we can help you get better is if you let us in first."

Axel looked weary at first but, after a few moments he nodded, slowly taking off his shirt. There were a few gasps coming from the people around him. He wasn't surprised. He had multiple bruises and cuts and scars from both he and his father.

But, his worst scars were the ones he had self-inflicted, running up and down both of his arms in many different patterns. Some were from almost 2 months ago; others as resent as this morning.

Sighing, Cloud nodded and wrote something on his clip board, with a sad faraway look in his eyes, he said "As I feared.. How long have you been hurting yourself?" Axel flinched at how calmly the man said it. As if he had to deal with this on a daily bases, which for all Axel knew could be the case.

Looking down at his feet, he said, "about 2 years..." "and how long have you been abused?" This time Axel looked the blond man straight in the face. "11 fucking years! Got it memorized?" Clouds eyes got as big as saucers "since you were 4!"

Reno walked up behind Axel and put a caring hand on his shoulder. "You better believe it, yo. I was 6 at the time. Dad never really touched me. Not until he started drinkin' at least…. Axel always got the worst of it." "What about your sister, Xion?" Axel looked down again. "I never knew…." He now looked up with true, honest eyes "I promised her that I wouldn't ever let that bastard touch her!"

Reno squeezed the other red heads shoulder." Calm down Ax. It wasn't your fault." Shoving Reno out of the way Axel mumbled a 'I gotta go' and took off in the direction of his clock tower. Sighing, Reno said, "Just let him be…."

Sitting up on the clock tower, looking over the town at about 2 in the morning was a beautiful thing. Until he noticed the flashing lights near his house. It was as if the lights were stabbing through his being each time they flashed.

Reminding him of every single painful memory from his childhood, all the friends he never had, people laughing at him for being different, and most of all, all the scars he had obtained both mentally and physically and the excruciating pain that undoubtedly followed close behind.

Pulling out the razor he had hidden behind some bricks in case of an emergency, Axel slowly let out everything that had ever gone wrong in his life with one razor, one night, and one life.

Well, hope ya liked it! This was my first fic so BE NICE! Althoough Constructive critisism would be nice... ANYWHOSERS, Plez leave a reveiw! Dem will give you give u cookies if you do! Luv ya! Be:3