Bulletproof Heart

Pairing: Axel/Roxas

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the idea

He was perfect. The perfect child. The perfect boyfriend. The perfect student.

Everything everybody wanted him to be.

Everything he had to be .

His parents were pleased at how low maintenance he was. He could look after himself, leaving them free to chase their jobs. To work and when, if sparingly, they returned home, they had the stereotype perfect son to return home to.

At least, that was how it looked from the outside. He couldn't help but pity how every person who looked at him was fooled by his wide innocent eyes, shining golden hair and the charming smile on his face. A hollow point smile. A smile born from the same lies that he lived by.

If anyone thought to look past the superficial they would be shocked to discover what he really was. Between the time people saw him at the end of one day and before they saw him on the next did no one stop to consider that he wasn't what he seemed but that in fact Roxas Strife was not the boy he seemed to be? That he was not the mask he despised?

Was it his destiny to live a double life? To be the perfect on one hand and to be the rebel on the other. To keep his real feelings a secret until he died lonely and regretful with a perfect wife and his two point five children at the deathbed holding on to the idea of him.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

At school Namine and Ollette and all the others he surrounded himself with continued to preach the ideas that he had given himself to for the last 17 years. Ideas that he wanted nothing more destroy. On the inside he was screaming that he just didn't care about being perfect. How could they not see how much more there was to life than being perfect.

Namine's ideals grounded him. They kept him from showing his true self. The pain from the constant imprisonment of his true self was eating away at him, leaving him hollow. A rotten core surrounded by a projection. A projection of perfection.

At night he found his escape.

Axel.

A man with a soul so free of morals it was dangerous just being close to him.

Roxas loved it.

With Axel he didn't have to be the perfect person he could cast off his second skin and be free.

Drinking, smoking, breaking as many rules along the way as humanly possible. Driving far out into the desert and letting everything he held in check be unleashed in an all powerful night of teenage rebellion.

Whether it be having speed races in their cars. Roxas' latest edition BMW paid for by the parents against Axel's beaten up old mustang that could potentially deafen small children when he revved his engine, grinning manically at Roxas from his drivers seat moments before they left everything in the dust.

There was no denying that Axel was attractive. Everything he stood for called to Roxas. With Axel there were no rules. Anything he wanted to try Axel would make it happen.

Roxas would never forget the first time he met Axel. Walking home from school one day for the simple reason that he just didn't feel like driving. As he did so he spotted a man sprinting towards him with blood red hair and furious, mischievous, cobalt eyes. As the man spotted Roxas he altered course and headed straight towards him. The man crashed into him and shoved him into the nearest alleyway. A hand over his mouth and a body covering his from escaping. Acid green eyes burned into his soul and saw him for what he truly was. A paralysing action Roxas had never been on the receiving end of. He was surprised to find how much it hurt. To have a stranger know you without so much as knowing your name. The stranger grinned at him. His smile filled with the kind of recklessness Roxas longed for.

Pounding footsteps tore the strangers eyes away from his and to the mouth of the alleyway. As they came closer the wildness in the man's eyes grew. Without warning the stranger shoved his mouth onto Roxas'. Roxas fought back and managed to get the man's mouth off of his. The wildness in the man's eyes had been replaced by desperation and pleading.

It was enough. To see this man whom he had never met and probably never would know so desperate to be free from the people who sought to confine him, to rein in his spirit and tie him to conformity was enough for Roxas to tangle his fingers in silky fire and crush their mouths together. After all nobody was there to see his mask break except him and the man to whom he was currently connected.

As soon as the running footsteps had passed Roxas shoved the man off of him and left. Nobody any the wiser of his betrayal.

The man did not leave him alone. Haunting his thoughts late at night when he should be doing something, following one of the rules of perfection. The thoughts only grew in volume and insistence. The endless thoughts finally lead him onto the road driving aimlessly. Some may say it was chance, some may say luck and some fate. It doesn't matter how it was described it happened nonetheless. A horrendous roaring filled the otherwise silent night air. The sound drew Roxas' attention. His eyes met the strangers. Blue met green. Roxas saw Axel. The fleeting sight drew a smirk to the man's lips as he drove past Roxas. Upon seeing the man who had been plaguing his every waking moment Roxas sharply pulled an illegal u turn and sped up to the mustang roaring its anger at the world. The cars drove side by side far past the outskirts of town to the desert. Almost simultaneously the cars stopped in the middle of the road. The drivers rose from their cars. Roxas stormed over to Axel and before the man could react, punched him square in the jaw. He stood shaking with fury while Axel wiped the blood from his lip and spat into the dirt. His eyes seemed to radiate fury and masochistic pleasure as he leapt at Roxas.

Dirt, snarls and fists were flying. Blood painted the desert floor as fury was vented through each other at the world. Through a well placed punch or a jab that was more frustration than anger.

Finally, the exhausted, dirty and bleeding the men broke apart. Glaring into each others eyes, wincing when a wound throbbed or a subtle tightening of the jaw in an attempt not to show pain.

Roxas shoved his hand at the man, ignoring the stab of pain that came from the general area of his body.

"Roxas" Axel quirked his eyebrow and grabbed Roxas' hand

"Axel"

Roxas snorted a 'Hmm', strode over to his car, got in, started the engine and sped away, pointedly ignoring Axel's furious eyes in his rear view mirror.

The meetings followed more or less the same pattern. Roxas would continue to be the perfect person he was on the outside until the ache for freedom grew to much to handle at which time he threw himself into his car and drove until he found Axel. When they saw each other the cars drew along side by side and headed out into the desert where frustrations were released in danger, violence or a period of ranting where Roxas would scream the truth at the sky while Axel would sit on the hood of his car and listen in silence.

Each time Roxas left. No words were spoken. He simply got into his car and went back to his perfect life.

As dawn bled back into the sky, Roxas sat in his car and let his mask cover him again. Pulling on his perfection that carried an Herculean weight with it.

His friends had no inkling of what he was up to. He still conformed to the ideal whilst he was with them. All they saw was the mask. All they believed was the mask he put on for them.

Namine grounding him more and more to his perfection, constantly reminding him of what he was supposed to be happy with.

But when he saw Axel smirking a challenge at him from the drivers seat of his beaten up old mustang that continued to roar its anger at all and sundry, Roxas remembered that gravity didn't mean that much to him when Axel was involved.