A friend of mine showed me this song- "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab For Cutie. When I heard it, my mind immediately went to my favorite KH pairing, and as so, I had to write this.

Happy Akuroku Day, and I apologize for the strangeness of the transitioning, but it was the only way that it felt right. Actually, it all feels strange, from the wannabe fluff to the religious qualities to the very possible OOCness (they're so… soft. they're badass in the game, they're not supposed to be soft, damn it!), but I really put quite a bit of effort into this. I hope you enjoy it.

Roxas knew it was wrong, loving Axel.

He was raised knowing that, knowing that for him, loving another man was a sin. Loving anyone other than a woman in such a way was a sin. He knew it as he held his redheaded boyfriend's hands and smiled up at him, he knew it as he kissed him on the lips, reveling in the way that they felt so perfect against his own. He knew it even as they were in bed together, little gasps permeating the air and sweaty bodies moving in tandem. He knew it, and yet, he couldn't bring himself to break away from the one thing that made him the happiest.

Once, he had tried to, telling Axel that it wasn't right, and it wasn't worth Axel damning his soul to stay with someone like him. Axel had just given him a look, sharp green eyes showing their clear disapproval of the idea.

(Secretly, he was a bit jealous of Axel, the way the man could just exist and not care about the possible repercussions. As an Atheist, he didn't try to dissuade Roxas from his beliefs, and in return, Roxas didn't try to convince him of his own. Roxas had never thought that he could love someone who didn't believe in God- but then, he never thought he could love a man either, and yet, here he was.)

As Roxas fidgeted impatiently, waiting for his best friend and lover to answer him, he shook his head, frowning slightly at the blond. He had told him, in that wonderful matter-of-fact way that he always had, that if Roxas was going to stop the relationship to save someone's soul, it better be his own, because Axel was already damned, and living without Roxas wasn't worth an afterlife where he could be forgiven by a god he didn't believe in.

After that, Roxas had shook his head, grabbing his boyfriend's hands and kissing him, trying to pour the all feelings into one touch. He never tried to leave again, and he knew Axel would never try to leave him. If he was going to sin, then he was glad that it was with Axel, because Axel was the one person he would ever damn his soul for.

"Hey, Ax."

Roxas knew that he probably shouldn't have disturbed the comfortable silence, but he couldn't help it. The redhead turned to him, his inquisition clear in peridot eyes as he raised his eyebrow. A hand played at the still slightly damp grass underneath them, and Roxas resisted the urge to hold it with his own.

"What if Father Paul and the nuns were right? What if there's no place in Heaven or Hell for us? What happens then?" If there was a note of helplessness in those words, it certainly wasn't intended; all that showed on Roxas's face was thoughtfulness, maybe a hint of curiosity.

Axel's lip quirked up slightly as he stood up, dusting the loose grass off his pants. "What would they do, illuminate a convenient little 'no' on their vacancy sign? 'Sorry, your salvation's in another castle'?" Roxas frowned up at him, and he laughed at the blond in return, holding out his hand to help pull him up. "Whatever happens, we'll have each other. That's all that matters. Heaven or no, I'll follow you. Sound good?"

Sapphire blue eyes glanced to the ground as Roxas mulled it over, and finally, he nodded, a slight grin on his lips. "Yeah," he said, grasping Axel's hand, "Sounds good."

Roxas remembered his school quite well, even a year after he left it. He remembered kissing Axel in front of the school gate during his lunch period, a smile drifting onto both of their faces, before Roxas was pulled away by one of the nuns there. She had hit him across the knuckles, so hard that he had almost started crying, before scolding him.

"The devil's gotten quite a hold on you, Roxas. What could have tainted you so much that you would turn to acts like that?" He remembered her asking, her grasp on both the ruler and his wrist unrelenting. He had tried to pull it back, but she didn't let go.

"Acts of what?" He snarled back, his tone full of more bite than he had been expecting as he finally managed to wrench his hand back. "Acts of love? Because I don't ever remember God shunning that! All you people do is preach- preach hatred and fear! Is that really what you want us to learn? To fear everything?"

His impudence earned him another solid strike of the ruler, and that time he almost cried out. "Roxas, you really have learned nothing in your stay here, have you?" Despite his expectations, her voice was calm and soothing, like she was pacifying a child. "My son, fear is the heart of love. You can't have one without the other."

Roxas fell silent at her words, and she tutted once before sending him back to class. Through the rest of the day, he was complacent and quiet, not causing any more problems, and at the end of the day, he met Axel at the school gates. The redhead had cried out in anger when he saw the mottled black and purple marks on Roxas's knuckles, but when Roxas gave him a soft smile and shook his head, he fell silent.

"Come on, Axel. Let's go."

He had settled down behind Axel on the oh-so rebellious motorcycle that the nuns had mocked day in and day out, and they left, not even giving the school one last goodbye.

They never went back.

"Why don't you believe in God?"

Axel raised an eyebrow at the blond, toying with the cheap chinese food on his plate with his chopsticks. "Why do you?" He replied with another question, taking a bite of the sweet and sour chicken. The blond mulled over that, taking a bite of his lo mein as he figured out the best way to answer.

"Well, the world is just too…" he waved a hand, unable to find an acceptable word for it. "It's so complex and beautiful, that it couldn't have just been made by something as simple as two atoms colliding. You know?" He stabbed at a piece of chicken. "You know I'm not trying to convert you or anything. I just realized that I never asked you, and I wanted to know."

Axel frowned momentarily; Roxas could see it even after his lips straightened out, in the tension in his hand as he maneuvered the chopsticks expertly, trying to hide it. "I don't believe in him because too much of the bad happens to good people. I refuse to believe in a god that is unjust and believes that something like love is a crime."

He paused, taking a bite of chicken. "I don't believe in Him because if He existed, you wouldn't be dying."

The fork that had been on course to the lo mein missed entirely and hit the side of the plate, not expecting those words. Blue eyes glanced up to the still casual redhead, drinking in the way he almost managed to hide the emotions behind the mask, and his expression softened as Axel went on, "I know that you don't think that God is to be blamed for it, that it is either repentance for your sins or just because it's the path you need to take. My god would never take someone like you out of this world."

Roxas opened his mouth, closed it. He moved his free hand over Axel's and gave it a squeeze, reassured when Axel laced their fingers together and squeezed back.

The rest of the meal was spent in comfortable silence, neither of them needing to say anything more.

It took them three full years to make their way all around the world. That was what Roxas had wanted, knowing that his time was limited. They knew it could have taken less, but they didn't want it to- didn't want their time together to end, wanted to use every last second Roxas had. They saw everything they could- from the beautiful country of France, exploring the streets, having mini adventures in the Louvre, to Bangkok, marveling at the ancient temples and eating the divine food, to Calgary, where they saw whatever they wanted, did whatever they did. They saw everything, experienced everything they could ever want to.

They were at their last destination- and their first. It was only appropriate, Roxas decided, to end their journey where they started it, in the gloriously damaged Manhattan.

For the first time in three years, Roxas settled down into the brown couch that was almost more familiar to him than his own reflection in the mirror. He smiled as Axel sunk down next to him, though he tried his best to bid the look away when Axel immediately propped his feet up on the glass table in front of them. "Axel…"

Axel tossed him an easy grin as he bent to untie the laces on his converse, thin, spidery fingers giving the impression of dancing as they deftly untied the knots binding the shoes. Not that there was much of them left; the journeys they took had worn the shoes down to almost nothing, the soles beaten up too much to be repaired. Roxas sighed, immediately giving up on the idea of getting him to remove his feet, and instead settling with relaxing deeper into the couch. The shoes were soon thrown aside, and Axel sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"So… this is it."

The blond nodded, closing his eyes for a few seconds before forcing them back open. "It is for me. You don't have to do this, you know. Just because I'm dying-"

"I'm not leaving you, you know that." Roxas glanced over at the determination in his tone, tired eyes taking in the still strong, still alive form next to him. He had so much that he could live for, not even into his thirties. So much time left, and yet….

"We could continue trying, see if I get better-"

"Roxas." The blond stopped talking as Axel took his hand, thumb rubbing soothing circles on the skin that were a contrast from the solid tone Axel was using right now. "I've told you. If you're gone, I don't have anything else to live for, and you don't want to spend the last few months of your life in constant pain. I don't want you to spend the last months of your life in pain."

Roxas shook his head, then leaned up, pulling the redhead into a kiss. It felt exactly as it did years before, when they had first began dating, when Roxas hadn't known that he was going to die. It still tasted like cinnamon and freedom, still sparked with the same electricity. Whenever he kissed Axel, Roxas felt truly alive again, even if he knew it wasn't meant to be.

Eventually he withdrew, loosening the fingers that had instinctively wound themselves in the red threads as he nodded. "I can't talk you out of this."

Axel shook his head. "Nope. If you're doing this, then I am too. I told you, I'd follow you anywhere, and that includes into the dark."

For a few seconds, Roxas was silent. Finally, he gave his best friend and love a smile. "I love you."

Axel grinned, giving him a playful shove before grabbing the backpack he had put down before. "You sap," he said fondly, as if he hadn't just been just as 'sappy' as Roxas was. "We'll do this together." Taking the small bottle from the pouch, he found the two cups they had bought, just for this, and poured an equal amount into both of them. He handed one to Roxas, took the other, and Roxas grasped his free hand, unwilling to let go. They shared one last kiss

and drank.

It was… dark. No, black was a better word for it, Roxas mused, inky, shadowy black, darker than anything else that he'd ever seen before. He almost considered being afraid of the crippling helplessness he could feel being in here, but quickly changed his mind. In death, there was nothing that he could fear, not even darkness so heavy that it cloaked everything.

Almost nothing that he could fear.

Axel…?

Silence. It took Roxas a second to realize that he had only thought the name, and when he did, he nearly laughed. Should he be more afraid? Here he was, dead and alone, but he felt decidedly… calm. Peaceful. He couldn't be hurt here, and he knew that, just as surely as he knew that Axel was here with him.

"Roxas?"

The blond smiled, his thoughts confirmed. His name sounded distant, but there was no mistaking the comforting tenor of the man he had spent the last several years of his life with. Slowly he turned, trying to identify where his companion was coming from. "I'm over here, Ax," He called back, letting his voice carry through the air.

A few minutes passed, Roxas calling out again and again as Axel did the same, letting their voices lead them to each other. Finally, Roxas could see red hair, followed by the familiar lanky body, and green eyes, widened slightly in relief. Axel grinned and ran the rest of the way, enveloping the blond in a hug the second that he reached him. Roxas hugged back just as tightly, breathing in the musky scent he was so used to.

"You're really here," Axel murmured, threading a hand through his hair, "I was worried, when I didn't see you by me. But, it's really you, right?"

Roxas nodded, nuzzling deeper into Axel's embrace. "It's me. Do you know… where this is?"

The lanky body withdrew, and Roxas immediately missed the warmth it had provided. Should he even be able to feel things like heat when he was dead? Did that even matter now? "I don't know- it doesn't seem like the Christian concept of Hell or Heaven, and it definitely doesn't seem anything like what I imagined death to be like."

Roxas glanced around, then smiled. "In that case…"

He intertwined his fingers with Axel's, giving the hand a soft squeeze.

"Come on, Ax. We've got a new world to discover."