Lullabies, a kingdom hearts fanfic

Rated T for mild language, implied sex, and Roxas's stupidity. The song this is based on is "Lullabies" by All Time Low. Kingdom Hearts is (c) Disney and Square Enix.

Author's Note: Today is my birthday, so I thought I should share the love with everyone. I wrote you all a little story as a thank you to everyone who has read and will read any of my writing. Without you, my stories would just be another mass of words and sentences and paragraphs sitting on my computer.

~::~

Make it a sweet, sweet goodbye.

It could be for the last time and it's not right.

Fate can be a cruel mistress sometimes, giving and taking away just when you least expect it. Roxas never expected that he would have to move. Axel never expected that he would have to say goodbye.

It was a grey Tuesday morning when Roxas's parents broke the news. The blonde boy screamed and cursed for five minutes before he retreated to his room and sobbed into his pillow until he fell asleep.

Axel thought the world was going to come crashing down around his ears when Roxas called him at three a.m. Wednesday morning to tell him the bad news. The twenty-one-year-old cursed at no one in particular and threw the bottle of beer he was drinking at the wall opposite him. He was out the front door before the beer trickling down the wall even touched the floor.

"Don't let yourself get in over your head," he said.

Alone and far from home we'll find you.

Roxas panicked when he heard the glass shatter and the door slam on Axel's end of the line. Knowing where the redhead would go if he was trying to clear his head, the blonde boy climbed out of his window and reached the ground by way of the garden trellis nearby, the same way he often escaped to meet Axel by cover of darkness. He was only seventeen, after all.

He found Axel in the middle of the park they met in three years before, standing by the little wooden gazebo by the edge of the small lake at the park's center. The full moon illuminated the scene, giving it an eerie silver glow.

"Axel," Roxas choked on the words he was trying to say. Instead, he ran forwards and hugged the redhead from behind.

Startled, Axel swayed from the impact. By the strain in his voice when he spoke, Roxas could tell he was crying. "Hey, Rox. Your parents are fucking insane."

"I know," Roxas mumbled into the thin fabric of Axel's t-shirt. Even at night, the stifling summer heat caused sweat to soak through it.

Dead - like a candle you burned out,

Spill the wax over the spaces left in place of angry words.

Scream - to be heard, like you needed any more attention.

Throw the bottle, break the door, and disappear.

"What are we gonna do?" Axel pried Roxas's arms off his waist and turned to face the younger boy.

Roxas looked down at his feet. "I dunno. I don't wanna leave."

"I don't want you to leave either," Axel smiled. "Who else will I sneak out with?"

Roxas managed to smile back. Axel and their escapades together were his best-kept secrets. Still smiling, the blonde boy stood on his tiptoes and kissed Axel on the lips.

One kiss led to another. Kissing led to making-out, making-out led to the removal of clothes, and that led to even more. An hour later the two of them were lying on the floor of the gazebo, half-clothed and covered in sweat.

Roxas curled up next to Axel, yawning. "I want this to last forever."

Axel hummed their favorite song in the blonde's ear as he drifted to sleep. Axel himself felt drowsy in the summer night's warm embrace. He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

Sing me to sleep. I'll see you in my dreams,

Waiting to say, "I miss you, I'm so sorry."

Time passes too fast for humanity's liking. You blink, you miss something. Closing your eyes for even a brief instant lets another fleeting moment escape. Axel felt as if his last few days with Roxas passed in a heartbeat, precious, wasted seconds mingling with the tears the two of them shed as Roxas boarded the plane that would take him far, far away from the redhead.

Roxas was miserable. He and Axel once promised each other they would find a way to make things work out once Roxas turned eighteen. Now the blonde boy would be a thousand miles away with no real way to get back home.

Axel fell into a state of perpetual depression without his moody little blonde to talk to. They could still talk on the phone, but it was just never enough for either of them. Life moved on as molasses does, slow and thick and stifling. Even the heat of summer couldn't burn away the sorrow lingering in Axel's heart.

The two boys suffered in silence. Axel worked his two part-time jobs, trying to save up enough money to go to college while still paying his rent, bills, and food costs. Roxas persevered through his last year of high school, avoiding the other students as if they carried the plague.

Forever's never seemed so long as when you're not around.

It's like a piece of me is missing.

I could have learned so much from you,

But what's left now?

Axel's life was in total disarray by the end of that year. He was so unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes that one of his employers fired him and the other cut his hours from an already low five a day to three. Two months later, he was evicted from his small home and forced to wander the streets, begging friends to let him sleep on their couch for a night or two.

Roxas graduated with honors, his well-off parents lavishing him with gifts that he knew he would never need or use again once he opened them. Three different colleges sent him letters, vying for his attentions and his money. Still, he couldn't have cared less.

The two just wanted to see each other one more time, even if it meant they never could again.

Three days after his graduation, Roxas made a decision: he was going to see Axel one way or another, even if he was forced to hitchhike his way home. Without so much as a word to his parents, he snuck out in the middle of the night, just like old times, armed with only a backpack with a few essential items in it and a couple hundred dollars in cash.

Several days of riding in buses and kind stranger's cars, Roxas arrived home. He went to Axel's house first, but when he rang the doorbell, a strange man and woman answered. Tears welling up in his eyes, the blonde boy ran and ran until he reached the park, where he collapsed in the spot where he and Axel said goodbye so many months before.

Don't you realize you brought this family a world of pain?

Can't you see there could have been a happy ending we let go?

Sing me to sleep. I'll see you in my dreams,

Waiting to say, "I'll miss you, I'm so sorry."

When Axel got a call from one of his friends saying that Roxas was sitting in the middle of the park crying his eyes out, the redhead's heart almost failed him. He dropped the box of Chinese take-out he was eating and dashed out the door of one of his other friend's house and sped towards the park.

Roxas was still where his friend said he was, standing where he once did. "Roxas," he breathed, caressing the name with his tongue, a prayer uttered to whoever would listen. The blonde boy turned, and his eyes widened when he saw Axel. The redhead's breath came in ragged gasps as he stood there staring into the cerulean eyes he loved so much.

"You're here!" Roxas collided with Axel and knocked him to the ground, thin arms wrapping around his waist as if they would never let go again. Both of them were crying, laughing, unable to think anything other than I love you.

Once Axel and Roxas righted themselves, the redhead began interrogating the younger boy. "How the shit did you get here? You live on the other side of the continent. Are you tired? Hungry? Do your parents know you're here?"

Roxas grinned and punched his shoulder. "I hitchhiked, rode buses, and shit, that's how. Yes, yes… No, they don't. Please don't tell them. I'm eighteen now, anyways. I can do whatever I want to."

Axel ran a hand through his hair. "You're a dumbass, but I love you anyways."

Roxas grinned as the redhead transferred his hand to the blonde boy's head. "I know."

Sing me to sleep.

If Time and Fate got their way, nothing would ever go as people planned. Marriages would crumble, businesses would fail, and the world would come screeching to a halt, choked by its own polluted air. Happiness would be a thing of fairytales and dreams, no longer tangible to common people. Only those with money and fame could ever even glimpse the life they could have if they were happy.

Axel was a twenty-one-year-old with no home, no job, and almost no money to his name. Roxas was fresh out of high school and too naïve to navigate his way through life without help. But still, they would make it together through anything the world could throw at them, be it hell or high water. With each other, they could do anything they dreamed.

Axel crooned a lullaby to his moody little blonde, and they danced the night away, not worried about whatever tomorrow would bring. What does it matter if you have happiness?

Sing me to sleep. (You've taken so much with you,)

I'll see you in my dreams, (but left the worst with me.)

Waiting to say, "I miss you, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"