A/N:
Don't eat my innards for writing this instead of updating TIMEBOMB. I haven't forgotten about my baby- no worries.
Lost boy cannot feel
Though you try and you try and you try;
You cannot feel.
It's five o'clock, I find your house
The bus was long, the sun is up.
Your place is wrecked, it's smell is stale,
I walk through trash, you're up the stairs
You're on the roof
You said you'd be
Crawl through the window,
You smile at me.
It's safe to stay here, it's safe to say,
Relax, slow down, take a breath and breathe.
-Big D and the Kids Table – Safe Haven-
The night is cold and wet, the sheets of silver rain blanketing him as he sits; crouches above the blackened roof shingles, only halfway underneath the dip of the roof above his perch that could be protecting him from the rain. He couldn't be bothered to lean back that extra three feet to be covered, despite how the rain sizzles and evaporates when it makes contact with his too-warm skin. Black hood is up, hiding his atrociously bright hair, making everything but his pale face and his too bright eyes blend into the darkened city that's spread out below him.
With the rain as loud and heavy as it is, he doesn't hear Roxas until the younger Nobody's right next to him – like he'd appeared out of thin air, or possibly just melted out of the black black wall beside him. With his hood up, Axel can only see half of the younger boy's face; the rest of it is covered in shadows, and there's something about the orange shine in his eyes (light from KINGDOM HEARTS reflected off of the rain grouped on the floor under his boots, no doubt) reminds him of the Heartless.
They don't speak; possibly because their words will be drowned out by the storm, but probably just because there isn't anything to say other than 'so – was the sex as good for you as it was for me?', which Axel doesn't personally consider very suiting for the moment.
His head falls forward again, angular chin pointed back towards the paved ground a story or two below them, green green eyes trying not to focus on all the fucking water surrounding him. While he's caught considering how out of his element he is, Roxas swoops down to sit beside him, his keyblades jingling before they're banished from his gloved hands.
A little part of him is surprised that Roxas showed up, in this particular place, because he sure as hell hadn't been expecting him. Not after that awkward 'morning' (fake fake fake in a land of eternal night) afterwards, when Roxas wasn't so drunk and when he wasn't so high, and was actually stopping to consider the consequences of his actions.
"I thought you hated the water."
Roxas' voice, too steady and monotonous for a boy his age, breaks through the rhythmatic drumming of the rain.
Axel looks back to him, lifting his head, and opens his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted as a drop of water dive-bombs the point of his nose. It sizzles at the contact, and Axel's too used to the slight burn to really react. Anti-freeze green eyes hone back onto the boy looking at him skeptically with those orange reflected eyes. "I decided today would be a good day for building up my resistance towards it. I've got this itching feeling that Nine's going to snap under the verbal sexual harassment from Two and end up flooding the Castle sometime soon."
Roxas lifts a hand to throw back his hood, casting the gleam off of his eyes and assuring Axel that they are, in fact, baby blue and not some knock-off shade of Saïx's. "And you wanted to be prepared for that?" He assumes, fixing Axel with that skeptical look he's oh-so good at giving.
The pyromaniac flashes a grin that's too charismatic for a being without a heart, and casts his gaze onto the empty city once more. "I'm telling you, Rox. One day, the entire place is going to be like some fucked up version of Atlantica."
Beside him, Roxas just laughs, too used to this sort of conversation. The two ebb into silence because neither of them have anything real to say, and Roxas has never been the type to just babble purely to fill silence.
It's not awkward- it can't be awkward, not in this place, where they've retreated so many times. After being cooped up in a Castle all day with eleven other insane co-workers, it's amazing how relaxing it is just to hide out on a roof all night long.
The silence stretches, absorbing the rain that doesn't look as if it's planning on dying down anytime soon (much to Axel's distaste) and the Nobodies lift their gazes in unison to that great Heart in the sky.
"Do you think," Roxas interrupts the silence once more, "that we'll ever get our hearts?"
Next to him, Axel is unresponsive. Unsure of what to tell him, because they've already had this conversation before and before and before and it always turned out the same exact way. He's a little lost on what words to pick out to spell out the exact same thing this time.
In the end, he goes for sheer bluntness, replying with his own personal opinion and not what Xemnas preaches, because he already lies so much to Roxas that it can't be fair to the Nobody. "No."
That silence reaches up again and swallows them whole again, and Axel bites hard down onto his lower lip to avoid ruining the moment.
If he had a heart, the term he'd use for the ache in his chest right now would be longing. He wish wish wishes he has the same courage Roxas has, to ask the questions to get him answers he yearns to know.
If he did, Axel would be parting his lips right now, those ungodly green eyes focused on the blonde-haired center of his non-life, and he'd ask 'If we get our hearts back, would you love me with yours?'
He thinks back on the night before, to the way Roxas' hips fit perfectly into the heart of his palms; to the way Roxas looked at him, really looked at him, despite that drunken glazed-over tone his eyes had taken. And when it was all done and over with, when they could have just played off on that I was so fucked up line, Roxas had rolled right into his arms, sweaty and reeking of vodka, but had willingly moved into his grasp.
In his mind, his little impossible scenario continues to play out; Roxas would reply with honesty because Roxas never lied. With that blunt monotone voice of his Roxas would say, 'No.'
So Axel doesn't ask.
A/N:
I'm really good at making up words (ie; 'rhymatic').
I miss writing oneshots.