Based off of my own experience, because damn,those Hover Ghosts are a pain in the ass. -.-'
...Ahem, excuse my Romano-ian, it comes out when I'm frustrated. XD
Oooh, I hopped over to Mission Mode for a few minutes to see what it was like, and I played as Demyx... He's not losing his status as my favorite Nobody any time soon. XD Even though his attack power positively SUCKS, it was pretty cool to fight as someone whose weapon is an instrument XD The Limit Break was AWESOME, even though I completely failed at using it to attack XD
...I lied. Zexion took that spot and ran with it. Not only is in incredibly physically attractive(LOOK AT HIM. LOOK. AT. HIM.) He is also frickin' awesome. c: If you don't tell him to use magic, he freaking bludgeons stuff with the Lexicon. XD And his Limit Break is even awesomer than Demyx's, even though you can do even less to control it XD "You brought it upon yourself!" And BOOM, rain of dark shadow blobs that wreak havoc upon the Heartless they hit.
...Yeah, I'm a writer. Definitely. XD
I don't even ._. It fiiiiits, okay? It does XD
...Even though I haven't gone to Halloweentown with Axel...(yet XD) *kicks that detail aside and whistles innocently* Oh, and Axel said they're best friends? *covers that detail with makeup and whistles some more*
Xion doesn't mind, really. And I freaking love her XD that's why I hate Saïx. "Is it broken again?"
...*kills Saïx*
*brutally*
Roxas climbed through the doorway, feeling more than just a little creeped out by the location.
'Who puts a door in a coffin, anyway?'
He came out in another small clearing, spotting the next doorway and heading towards it.
Roxas wasn't even halfway there when a crowd of Heartless, more than he'd ever seen gathered before, materialized in the center of the clearing.
"A-" he started to call out, a faint memory of something he thought was fear rising in his throat as he realized that Axel wasn't with him. 'How am I going to defeat all of these...?'
He gritted his teeth, standing his ground and conjuring his Keyblade. The familiar weight settled in his hands and he pulled himself up to his full height, refusing to give in to the remembered feeling. Roxas brandished the Keyblade, leaping straight into the fray and attacking full-force.
It was almost like a deadly dance, the magical blade slashing through the specters all around him as he stabbed and swung and blocked as if he'd been doing it for his entire life. 'Maybe I have been...' he thought, lowering the blade as the Heartless gathered and reoriented themselves. The swarm descended again, and a sudden burst of adrenaline gave him power. Roxas moved even faster than before, light arcing from the blade of his weapon and extending it. The light strengthened the Keyblade as well, the weapon dealing nearly twice as much damage as it had before.
As Roxas slowly went through his meager supply of potions, he noted with dismay that the group of Heartless didn't seem to be any smaller than it had in the beginning. The Heartless were disappearing and reappearing around him, and it seemed impossible to count how many he was really up against.
Not that he had time to count.
He fought his way through the mob again, not sure anymore if he was really killing any of them or just weakening them. But as he turned to attack them once again, he passed off a sound from behind him as paranoia.
He thought that he'd heard a Heartless teleport behind him...
Roxas froze for a split second, feeling ghostly hands slip under his arms and lift him from the ground. He struggled frantically, trying to loose the grip the Heartless had on him.
He knew that every second it held on, it sapped more of his energy, not stopping until he was unconscious or even dead.
All of the color drained from Roxas's face as the ghost Heartless stole his energy, finally releasing him just before he blacked out.
"Axel... He...l...p... m...e..."
Axel finished off the last of the ice Heartless, suddenly feeling that something was wrong... Very wrong.
"Roxas?" he called out, soon realizing that the younger Nobody had gone on ahead. 'Don't tell me...'
Axel rushed through the next few doorways, dispatching the few Heartless that popped up with ease. The terrible feeling only grew as he went further, until finally he was forced to stop when he came across a clearing filled with ghost Heartless. They were clustered around something- no, it looked like a someone, dressed all in black, that had collapsed on the ground near the center. Normally, he would've gone past them while they were distracted, but...
"Roxas...?"
The slight sound pulled the specters' attention away from the blonde's limp form, and they swarmed towards Axel.
He bared his teeth, brandishing his chakrams.
"Bring it!"
Axel stood panting in the middle of the clearing, the last remnants of the Heartless disappearing around him. His chakrams as well disappeared in a flash of light, and he was left empty-handed, not remembering anything but a red-tinged blur from the past minutes.
"What... Was that...?" He collapsed to his knees, holding his head. That... Feeling... It had felt like real anger, not just a memory from when he could truly feel, but pure, brutal, completely real anger.
Axel's eyes flashed wide open. "No..!" he staggered to his feet, rushing over to where Roxas's unconscious figure lay. He picked up the smaller boy easily, much like he'd done with Xion just a few days ago.
There was something in the back of his mind nagging him to finish his mission, but he ignored it as he formed a portal with a quick flick of his wrist. As he walked through, he looked down at Roxas, seeing that his chest was weakly rising and falling with his breath.
'Maybe he's got a chance...'
Axel knew that Roxas was well-liked around the Organization, though he still wasn't sure how Saïx felt about the not-quite-newest Nobody.
At any rate, the Nobodies would be- dare he say it- happy to help the second-newest member recover.
Axel just wasn't sure if he could live if the tiny- when did he get so small- Nobody didn't make it.
Pacing. Always pacing.
Axel spent every free moment in Roxas's room, watching, waiting for him to wake up. Xion was there sometimes, at the end of her missions. She would come in and talk to Roxas for a while, tell Axel he needed to get out of the room for once, and leave.
He thought that she was the cause of the slowly growing pile of seashells beside Roxas's pillow.
Roxas would shift once in a while, and Axel would rush to the bed, only to have his hopes shattered when Roxas fell motionless once more, his eyelids tightly closed.
It was odd, Axel thought. While Roxas's breathing had evened out and strengthened, he didn't seem like he was able to wake up.
When he grew tired of pacing, he sat on the floor and leaned against the nightstand and talked, bringing up anything and everything in these one-sided conversations. He talked about the missions, the other Nobodies, told him things that they wanted Roxas to know.
"Demyx says that you need to wake up, because he's tired of shouldering your workload as well as his." Axel laughed humorlessly. "'Course, you're the only one who'll let him get away with not doing anything. He likes you, even if that makes it seem like he doesn't."
"Xion's been leaving you seashells. Is that some secret you never let me in on, giving each other seashells when you're unconscious?"
"Xigbar says, 'Get moving, tiger. Can't be easy to go on missions like that.' He doesn't mean any harm, he just thinks you're one of the best at completing missions."
"Saïx tells me I have to 'forget whatever feelings I have for you and focus on my missions.'" Axel snorted. "Has he forgotten? We don't have feelings. He's always trying to tell us that. What's so different about this?"
Days passed.
Weeks.
A month.
"What's wrong with me?" Axel stood for once, looking down at Roxas. "I feel empty... Well, emptier than normal." He pressed a hand to his chest, still wondering at the odd feeling.
Everyone in the Organization was beginning to worry about the fire-wielder. He'd been losing sleep and paid less attention to the others, doing as little as possible on his assigned missions.
Axel seemed to have stopped caring for himself.
He'd lost weight.
He'd stopped spiking his hair; now it hung limply around his shoulders.
Even without the other factors, that would have told the others that something was wrong.
He was permanently preoccupied, only truly aware of his surroundings when he was on missions-in danger- and when he was with Roxas.
He left the room later and later each night, his expression unusually grim.
Axel thought that he was being driven insane.
He gave up on pacing, and then on talking, sitting, weighed down by the heavy silence, beside Roxas's bed.
"...Roxas, I think I know what the 'empty' is."
Silence.
"I think... I miss you. It's not really 'you' when you're laying passed out on a bed, y'know?"
He glanced up at the motionless blonde, expecting no change and seeing exactly that.
"Of course, you probably can't hear me..."
A moan.
Axel shot to his feet, staring down at Roxas with a look of excited surprise splashed across his features.
A glint of blue shone from behind a curtain of dirty-blonde locks.
"...You look like you fell off the clock tower."
Roxas's eyes blinked open and stayed open as he stared at the flame-haired Nobody. He pushed himself on his hands so he wouldn't feel so small, wincing as his muscles screamed in protest.
"How long...?"
"A month and a half." Axel answered his unfinished question. "What did you do to get knocked out for a month and a half?!"
"It was the ghost Heartless, I think..." Roxas answered, thrown off by the undoubtedly true information Axel had just given him. "It grabbed me and drained my energy..."
"That shouldn't have knocked you out for so long... Though I did see them gathered around you. Maybe they kept on even after you passed out?"
Roxas shuddered. "If you hadn't been with me, then... I would've died?"
Axel nodded grimly. "Now that you mention it... That's probably what would've happened." 'And I would've broken, because I would've been the one to go looking...'
Roxas rocked forward on his knees. "Well then... Thank you." he loosely wrapped his arms around Axel's neck, resting his forehead against his chest. "For saving my life."
Axel chuckled, ruffling his hair. "No problem, kiddo."
Roxas groaned, recoiling and hitting his arm, hard. "What, are you going to start calling me 'tiger' too?"
"No." Axel looked so solemn that for a moment Roxas wondered if he said something wrong. "'Cause then I'd be a clone of Xigbar, and we can't have that!" the solemn air broke and he grinned, running a hand through his hair.
"You're an idiot..." Roxas muttered, but he was smiling.
"Ya know ya love me," Axel teased, smirking.
Roxas sat back, resting his chin on his knees. "What is 'love', anyway?"
"Hmm... When you love someone, you want to hug them and kiss them and hold them, be with them for the rest of your life... Just being near them is enough, but it hurts if they love someone else..."
"But what does it feel like?"
Axel hmm-ed in response. "I can't say for myself, really, but I've heard that it feels warm, that you feel safer, secure, when you're near that special person... Or like you want to protect them from anything and everything bad that could ever happen to them." 'Can you tell that's how I feel about you?'
Roxas started to speak, but what cut off by the loudest grumble they'd ever heard coming from someone's stomach. His cheeks tinted pink as Axel leaned down and pretended to listen to his stomach.
"It's saying, 'get me some food, dammit! I'm hungry!'" he did his best impression of a cranky voice, smirking.
"S-shut up! You're not the one who hasn't eaten for six weeks!" Roxas crossed his arms across his chest, doing his best to scowl at Axel. 'But... I do feel.. Safer with him, like he'll never do anything to hurt me, or let anything hurt me...'
Axel laughed. "Of course. Come on, let's get you something to eat." he held out his hand to help Roxas stand, but he ignored it, wanting to stand on his own feet.
Roxas hopped off the bed, standing still for a moment before he started towards the door. He hadn't taken two steps, though, before his legs, weak with disuse, failed him and he tripped.
Axel was there in a heartbeat, catching him and picking him up in almost one motion.
"H-hey! Put me down! I can walk!" Roxas spluttered, his face the exact color of Axel's hair.
"Says the person that just tripped over their own feet. And I'm not the one who's been passed out for six weeks, my legs still work." Axel marched out of Roxas's room, carrying him like a child.
"I'm not a little kid! Put me down!"
No matter how much thought he spent on it, Axel couldn't explain what possessed him to whisper in Roxas's ear:
"If I put you down, you could fall again and hurt yourself, and it wouldn't be very good of me to let you do that, right?"
The blush that had long since faded from Roxas's face flared again, red enough to make any self-respecting tomato jealous.
"Sh-shut up..." he stuttered, ducking his head to hide behind his long bangs.
Needless to say, the rest of the walk was silent and more than a little awkward.
Finally they reached the kitchen and Axel sat Roxas down in a chair, wheeling around to lean against the counter. "What do you desire, 'Lord Roxas'?" He gestured around at the kitchen, a smirk twisting his lips upward.
Roxas rolled his eyes, dutifully ignoring the nickname. "Cereal. Anything else right now would probably make me sick."
Axel fished around in the cabinet and tossed him a box. "This is either the last of it or someone's hoarding cereal."
There was silence for a moment as Axel wandered around the room, getting an apple from the refrigerator and a knife from the drawer directly behind Roxas.
"...Can I have a bowl?"
"What happened, Mr. I-can-walk?" Axel quirked an eyebrow at the look Roxas gave him.
"What happened, Mr. If-I-put-you-down-you-could-fall-and-hurt-yourself ?" Roxas mimicked, giving him the most innocent look possible.
"Y'know, I always say that it's not a good idea to antagonize the one with a-"
Roxas hit him in the forehead with his spoon.
Axel picked it up off the table. "..Or projectile weapons. Your spoon privileges have been revoked."
Roxas wrinkled his nose, getting another spoon from the drawer behind him.
"You wound me!" Axel pretended to fall out of his chair, clutching his chest.
"Bowl. Now." Roxas pointed the replacement spoon at him, a perfect deadpan expression painted over his face.
Axel complied, not needing another lump on his forehead. Bowl in hand, he walked over to the blonde Nobody, turning it upside down and putting it on his head like a hat.
Roxas sighed, removing the bowl from his head and running a hand through his hair to un-flatten it.
"So you do do that on purpose!" Axel shouted triumphantly. He grinned, leaning his chair back on two legs.*
Roxas raised his eyebrows, a spoonful of cereal already in his mouth.
"...why do you do that?"
"Do what?" Roxas answered the question with a question, distractedly eating another spoonful of cereal. It was a miracle he hadn't wolfed it down the second he got it. There was something telling him to keep his composure, to not mess up...
"Everything." The chair hit the floor with a bang and Axel buried his face in his arms, his voice muffled but still understandable. "You're just making me want you more... Which shouldn't be happening because we don't have feelings!" he tilted his head up, acid-green eyes sparking. "What I mean to say is... I think... I've fallen in love with you."
Roxas dropped his spoon, sapphire-blue eyes wide with surprise. His nonexistent heart beat faster, a record third blush rising on his cheeks. "Wh-what?"
"I think I love you." Axel repeated, a look of certainty set on his face.
Roxas took a deep breath, his not-quite-full stomach fluttering. There was something telling him that this was right, this was good, to say that he felt the same.
"..Really?" his voice came out sounding tiny, hopeful, like a child who'd been told that they could have more of something they wanted.
"Yes." Axel grinned, standing and leaning against the table.
"You're sure?" Roxas didn't know why he felt so nervous, why he felt like this might change everything...
"Positive. Got it memorized?" Axel's smile was sincere, showing a side of him that Roxas had never seen before.
"Yeah." Roxas relaxed a bit, finally able to smile back. "I think... I might love you too."
"It's weird, though... We aren't supposed to feel anything." Axel thought out loud, a sort of awed expression on his face.
"...Does it matter?" Roxas asked, blinking in confusion.
"Nah." Axel walked over to him, stopping just behind his chair. "...We'll have to hide, y'know."
Roxas nodded in agreement. "I don't think Saïx would appreciate us showing feelings."
Axel rested his elbows on the back of Roxas's chair, leaning over the blonde's head. "Roxy, look up..."
"Don't call me th-at!" Roxas's voice jumped an octave in surprise as Axel planted a kiss on the tip of his nose.
"What was that for?!" he spluttered. It didn't seem like his face was going to stop being red any time soon.
Axel laughed, a loud, full laugh. "Well, we're 'together' now, right? It's what we're supposed to do!"
"You could've told me that..." Roxas looked back down, thinking, 'Is this what love feels like?' He decided that he liked the warm, tingly feeling that had confused him for so long.
Roxas stood, using the chair to keep his balance, knowing that this was right. He stretched up to stand on his toes and pressed his lips to Axel's in a light, hesitant kiss.
It was short and sweet**, lasting for only a moment before he backed away, looking everywhere but Axel's face.
Axel smiled. "No need to be nervous." He kissed Roxas's forehead, nose, and mouth, lingering for only a second before he straightened up. "We should probably go find Xion, before she freaks out because you're not in your bed."
Roxas nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."
They walked out of the kitchen together, both thinking, 'Girls are so complicated... I like guys so much more.'
Bonus:
Xion muffled a giggle with her sleeve as she watched the pair walk down the hall, away from her. She'd followed them after she saw Axel carrying a very awake and loudly protesting Roxas out of his room. Xion thought that it was rather cute, actually; she doubted that they even realized that they were holding hands. And besides that, it was quite a shock that no one had caught them other than her- they'd forgotten to close the kitchen door.
In fact, while they were there, Zexion had walked past with his nose in a book, Demyx had wandered by absentmindedly humming to himself, and five minutes later, he had chased Zexion past, the latter shouting that Demyx was an idiot to even think that it was a good idea to sing love songs in his presence.
Xion nearly smothered herself trying to muffle her laughing fit.
After that, she would see Axel and Roxas acting more... Intimate. They changes were small: they sat closer together on the clock tower, their free hands folded together. She'd look away for a moment, hear a whisper, and turn back to see a red-faced Roxas hit a snickering Axel in the arm.(Once it was so bad that Roxas hit him somewhere else and pretended not to notice that he was cringing in pain. Xion wondered just how perverted the redhead got.)
Sometimes she would get up and say she was going back to the castle, but linger a little longer than needed and catch them sharing a goodnight kiss before RTC'ing.
She had to admit, they were adorable.
Though they weren't so cute later on when they started keeping her awake. She did, after all, have the room next to Roxas.
...But the only reason it annoyed her was because she had no way to see what they were doing.
~End~
*He had a bet with Demyx. XD
**Like Roxas. Except maybe the 'sweet' part. XD
YES. Xion is a yaoi fan XD I can SEE it happening, can't you? XD
This is the longest thing I've written in a while. XD Not quite my longest oneshot, but close :3