~O~

"Hey Axel," Roxas whispered as he sat in the grass, the sun beaming down on his pale features. "I know it's been a while, I'm sorry. Things have been kind of hectic, and I started my new job. I'm a tech analyst at a big time company. You would be proud of me." He picked at the grass next to him, uprooting the blades and tossing them away before taking another handful.

"I had a dream about you last night. About the day we met. It was nice. Kairi sends her love and she is sorry that she couldn't come and visit; she had to work a double today. She has been working really hard to try and keep the family together, but your father…well…the sooner she gets out of there the better."

Roxas placed his hand against the black stone. "I miss you, Axel…"

A single tear ran hot down Roxas' cheek and a broken sob tore through the silence of the cemetery. He placed his head against the tomb stone and wept. Axel hadn't really been a close friend for years. He was just the guy in his group of friends that was better friends with everyone else. And then one night, Axel had asked him out. And for some strange reason he had said yes. They dated for a year before Roxas started to realize that Axel's life was not as easy going as he let everyone believe. His father was a drunk and abused him and his sister while their mother looked the other way because their father was into money.

It also became apparent that the erratic behavior that everyone just took for quirkiness was actually a more serious mental disorder that Axel was barely being treated for. He also suffered from very serious depression. He had pills, but he didn't always take them. And when he didn't, things tended to get bad. The scarred skin of his left arm was a testament to that. Axel had attempted three suicides before the age of 15. After the third one a social worker had told his parents that if he didn't get any better the state was going to be taking him and his sister away. So he had been sent to mandatory therapy, where he was consoled and given a prescription for something they said would help.

But the pills had only made Axel feel trapped in his own body so he stopped taking them. A week later came suicide attempt number four. His parents didn't take him to the hospital that time, fearing state involvement. They found a private doctor to come and stitch Axel up. He soon became a prominent figure in Axel's life, saving him from suicide attempts five and six. He managed to get Axel on his meds and in relatively good condition by the time Roxas had met him in junior year. Then at the beginning of senior year, he had died. Axel's parents didn't bother to try and replace him, so again Axel went off his meds. Usually Roxas could manage to talk Axel down then get him to take his meds. But once Axel had been too far gone and slashed his neck open. Roxas would never forget that day, sitting on the kitchen floor at Axel's house holding a dish towel to the other boy's throat while his blood gushed out. Roxas had never been so scared in all his life.

He remembered standing there with Axel's blood staining his hands as he watched the paramedics get him on the gurney and rush him away. He didn't remember how he had gotten home; just that the next thing he knew he was standing in his shower fully clothed trying to scrub the blood out of his jeans. That was how his brother found him, hysterical about the blood he said he could still see. Cloud had pulled the younger boy into his arms and held him while he fell apart. Axel had called him the next day to apologize. He hadn't hit anything important and was being move to psych for a mandatory 3 day watch. Roxas had been relieved that Axel was going to be alright but he after that it seemed like he had always been waiting for the next time Axel went off his meds. Waiting for the moment when he wasn't there and Axel actually succeeded in his attempts.

Axel and Roxas were together for the next three years before that dreaded day came. Roxas had to work a long shift at the campus book story, and when he got home he found Axel laying in a pool of his own blood on the living room floor. He had severed his femoral artery and had been dead long before Roxas had returned to the apartment. The fear and panic that had consumed Roxas upon finding Axel were unexplainable. There were just flashes of memory now, kind of like the first time. There was blood, so much blood. Roxas remembered the feeling of the coolness as it soaked into his pants as he knelt and pressed his hands against the wounds on Axel's thigh. Axel's body had already begun to cool and that caused its own kind of panic. He remembered he had gripped his hair and screamed, scrambling for his cell to call calling 911. He remembered pulling Axel against him and pleading with God not to take him. That he would do anything anything if he would just let him live. Remembered once again watching frozen as the EMTs took Axel away. But this time they were not working to save his life. This time, Axel was dead.

Roxas gripped the sides of the black tombstone and gasped for breath, choking on the screams that were clawing in his throat.

Axel's parents had given Roxas the money to pay for the funeral and a decent headstone, his mother telling him that she was glad that the little bastard was finally dead and not a burden anymore. Roxas had never wanted to hit a woman like he had in that moment. What kind of mother could talk like that about her own child? Her dead child? So Roxas planned Axel funeral. It was a heart wrenching experience. He had to decide if he was to be buried or cremated. What kind of headstone, what color, what would it say, what cemetery. It was something that no one should have to decide about the person they love most in this world.

"I know," Roxas choked. "I know you would want me to find someone. Be happy again…But I can't…You were the love of my life…I don't think I will ever love again."

Roxas fell silent and just clung to the cold, hard, stone. It was a long time before he felt together enough to pull back. Wiping at his eyes he sat back on his heels and placed one hand over the words;

Axel Lea

1988-2012

Beloved friend, loving boyfriend.

Gone but never forgotten.

~O~

Rox3l: So this is something that I did for Suicide Prevention Day. I just want to say that suicide is never the answer. It may stop the pain that you have been going through, but just know that if you did commit suicide there is someone out there whose life would never be the same. Someone who you would make suffer the way Roxas did in this. If you are contemplating suicide please reach out to someone, there is always other options and people willing to help you.