Author's Note: I don't have much to say about this… hmmm, let's see, this is just the introduction sort of thing so the first chapter will be posted soon, sometime this week or weekend or something amazing like that. Reviews are love.
...
Axel remembered watching them. He remembered watching them as they killed the last of his friends. Or not really his friends, they had really only had one thing in common.
Axel floated above them, or not really floated, hovered maybe. Except it was hard to tell without a body. He watched and silently lamented the lost of an acquaintance. A business partner if you will. But of course he wanted them to win. He had killed himself for them after all.
And was he dead? It would make sense from the way he was hovering over them, watching as Riku came to rescue them. Axel was jealous, unbelievably mind numbingly jealous and if his mind was numb then he must have a mind and if he had a mind he must have been alive. But all of that didn't really matter as he watched them hug Riku. Or rather him. He didn't mind that Sora took Riku by the hand and helped him up hooking a hand through Riku's pants and groping his ass. But what did matter was that Roxas was inside Sora and hooking a hand through Riku's pants and groping his ass.
He probably should have been as possessive over Sora as he was over Roxas because they were the same person. But they weren't, not really. They were two separate entities that originated from the same place, like identical twins or something. Except they weren't identical. Roxas was different. Really different. Different from everyone.
If only Roxas knew that.
Axel wasn't hovering anymore, he was walking behind them, he sat down when they sat down and he watched. He watched as they placed their hand in Riku's and Riku looked up at them forlorn. Axel watched as Riku tried to pull away from them and they turned to yell at him. Riku looked abashed. Axel got a sick kind of satisfaction from it. Then they grabbed Riku's hands as Riku tired to look away. They yelled at Riku tears forming in their eyes and Riku yelled at them. Axel got pissed, he wanted to reach out and cuff Riku. Smack him until he apologized. Then Riku was crying. Axel was okay with Riku crying. Riku he could handle. But then they were holding him, coddling the fucker. And Riku was sobbing into their chest, bringing up great heaving rattling sobs that in turn shook their body. And Axel sulked. He sat and glared.
They leaned in, and they kissed Riku.
And then Riku kissed back.
They sunk into the kiss and suddenly it was no longer they. Sora was no longer shining with the inner brightness that was Roxas; it was replaced, pushed out by a more dominant light.
It was just like him to have a goddamn sixth sense about Roxas.
Axel let out a breath of relief he didn't know he had been holding. A breath that he felt a bit guilty about. Now Roxas was dead too.
Roxas wouldn't be kissing Riku, Roxas would be eating sea salt ice cream with Axel and drooping his blonde head against Axel's collarbone after a battle.
That was how it should be.
Axel was a little bit pissed too.
He had just died for the twerp and he would just disappear like that.
He'd have to remember to give him hell when he got to wherever they were going.
But then Axel was flying backwards, he felt his body again, knew it was encasing the thing that had previously been floating around. For lack of a better word his soul.
He was barreling backwards, headfirst, wind shooting his hair into his face, forcing his eyes shut from sheer the velocity.
And he slept.
Roxas fought side by side with Axel.
Like they always had.
Roxas had never really wanted to fight with anyone else, not really. And he had blown it all. Maybe it was the way he had known it was all inevitable, it all had to end. He couldn't fight forever, the Organization had to die out. Maybe not in the way it did, but it had to. It was a stupid plan anyway. It was a plan that none of them really understood. Even Xemnas was bluffing his way through it. Nothing gold can stay and all that.
But still, if Roxas hadn't left, if he hadn't been so fucking stupid maybe he wouldn't be dying.
He could tell, he hadn't meshed with Sora, it didn't work that way.
Nothing ever worked that way.
Roxas was jaded, and he wasn't afraid to admit it.
And then that ass went and sacrificed himself. And he had to go and say all of those unbelievably gay things. He had to go and make Roxas' damn eyes water. Axel would have made fun of him for that. And that only enforced the need to break into sobs.
But his body wouldn't let him. It wasn't really his body anyway. He was just sharing it.
No, not even sharing it. Leeching off of it, like some blood thirsty parasite, but getting no nourishment.
Roxas felt little pieces of him shrink away. Little memories would disappear; there were blanks he couldn't fill. Just like in the simulated Twilight Town. He had done everything he could to regain his memories and now he was losing them again. Even the ones about Axel, especially the ones about Axel.
He didn't want to lose Axel. Not again.
When Roxas had set out in search of Sora he had never wanted this. He never really knew what he had wanted from Sora, all of the reasons he could think of now where stupid. Retarded even.
He tried not to think about it.
Roxas wondered why he could still think. Or rather, why he could think and not have Sora hear him. He wanted to be heard, to say "by the way Sora, I'm here angsting over my best friend that just sacrificed himself for you". He really shouldn't want Sora to hear him, because if Sora heard him then he would feel bad. And there really was no reason to make Sora feel bad.
It wasn't Sora's fault Roxas had screwed up everything.
Roxas missed Axel.
He didn't even notice as Xemnas was killed. He watched but it didn't register. Roxas had known he wouldn't survive anyway. He was too scared of dying, he was a coward, in an almost lovable way, and he angsted more then Roxas.
So Xemnas was dead.
And so was Axel.
Roxas retreated in Sora's mind, curling up in the smallest corner.
He was cold, empty, dark. He didn't feel like he had a heart.
It sucked.
Sora was gripping Riku's hand, tightly, and Roxas was subjected to Sora's thoughts. The longing he felt for Riku. It hurt Roxas when Riku pulled his hand away. It hurt Roxas because it hurt Sora. And then Sora grabbed Riku and held him there, yelling at him all the emotions Roxas now felt vicariously. Sora was crying, tears rolling down his face as he gripped down too hard on Riku's hands. Begging him to understand.
And then Riku broke down.
And he choked out words that hurt to say and Roxas felt himself grow smaller and smaller inside Sora. Suffocated by Sora's feelings, burrowing down in his throat and filling up his ears and nostrils, it cut off all breath. Although the breath must have been figurative because Roxas didn't breathe now himself, he took breaths through Sora. Sora leaned forward and touched lips with Riku and Roxas felt it on his lips, he felt it through the choking. It burned on his skin, white hot, like light. But it burned like darkness, gnawing away at what was left of Roxas. Eating his soul, burning dots in it like it was a reel from an old movie, it ached.
And he disappeared.
It was instantaneous. One moment he was in Sora, the next he was not. He could no longer think, it was all abyss, it wiped everything from his mind. It implanted new things. It was Diz all over again. Even though Roxas was not conscious he fought back his mind stealthily locking away bits and pieces he didn't want to forget.
Which was practically everything.
Which was Axel.
His body came back, and he started back into consciousness. But he was a new Roxas.
Roxas number three, or maybe four.
Roxas didn't know.
He didn't know anything about his past life.
And he slept.
...
Axel woke up in the slow blinking way he always did. His eyes slowly opened and blinked once, and then twice before it registered he was awake. He lay there for a moment then rolled over and sat up searching for the time. He blinked at the clock beside the bed he was laying in which slowly clicked to eight fifteen before blaring some generic pop station.
He rolled out of bed to make himself some tea.
Just like he always did.
It didn't matter that he had no clue whose house he was in. Nothing would disrupt Axel's routine. He bustled around the kitchen shimmying to the music emitting from the bedroom. He finally found the kettle and teabags and hummed to himself as he pulled some eggs from the fridge in the corner cracking them into a greased frying pan. He didn't bother to cook them all the way seeing as he was oddly hungry. The kettle whistled and he made himself some tea and sat down at the table in the corner. He ate his eggs and drank his tea and then sat back in his chair picking his teeth.
"Holy flying fuck on a pogo stick." He said.