A/N: A second attempt at an insane!Roxas fic. This time, Axel is sensible and tries to reason with the one he loves. And it's AU, in which they're both humans/their own people (Somebodies).

Warnings: blood mention, suicide attempt, and twisted logic… paired with AkuRoku love! Yay! :'D

Swirling madness coats my mind and whispers sweet nothings into my ear. I can feel it all around me: the bracing cold wind of the city air, the tension and fear sweeping across the late-night streets, and the sickening sense of stress and rough, dirty sex. That's how the city thrives: it feeds off of the misery and torturous pleasure of others. It takes pure things and corrupts it.

The way that it corrupted me long ago.

You know, I wasn't always this way. Once upon a time, I was quiet and shy and submissively followed in the footsteps of my twin brother, Sora. But at around age fifteen, I thought to myself: no more.

No longer would I tag along as his shadow, no longer would I lag behind as the weak link. I wanted to rebel, and so I did. I started wearing black clothing more often; I started talking in lower, harsher tones; and I started cursing. I took the low road and preferred it to Sora's high one. I broke the walls I trapped myself inside of and let loose. By my sixteenth year, I was known as the dark brother, and Sora was known as the light. Somehow, this felt familiar to me, and I welcomed it.

Yes, I was darkness. Yes, I was ruthless to the core. Yes, yes, yes. It felt exhilarating to be different. I laughed at the world, all the while planning stunts I could perform to further break away.

Kairi said that I was simply in my rebellious phase, and that I would grow out of it. Her mousy younger sister, Namine, became afraid of me even though she used to be so nice to me, and acted like she had a crush on me. But once I changed, she distanced herself. But I didn't care.

Slowly, the mannerisms of the cruel world settled into my bones. I wasn't bothered by it. Instead, I breathed it in and let it fester in the pit of my stomach like a squirming cluster of maggots. It ate away at me, but it tickled, so I didn't complain. I was born anew into darkness, and found that loved it. I loved it's bitter taste and crawling goosebumps. I loved it's sinister grin and blazing eyes.

But most of all, I loved that my new identity brought Axel to me.

It was a dim summer day, threatening glorious thunderstorms, in which I stumbled across the redhead. He had tattoos of black triangles, so much like upside-down clown tears, printed below his eyes. His irises were an emerald so intense I could have easily mistaken them for real gems. And his hair was like the fire that scorched my cheeks as soon as he came over to me and smiled a devious smile. But better yet, his hair was the rich crimson color of blood.

I think I fell for him instantly.

Over the years – since I'm currently nineteen, and he twenty-two – my love for him never waned. It felt natural, and impossible to escape. But our relationship wasn't meant to last. I knew it, but I ignored the knowledge. I pretended that Axel would never leave me, no matter what. I pretended that he and I would live together forever, not a single force daring to come between us.

But I was wrong. Horribly wrong.

Axel was the only one who ever dared to get close to me. Me, who was the most dangerous person at my high school. Me, who was spraying graffiti under the overpass in the city park on the summer day that I met Axel. Me, who liked to draw images of monsters of demonic proportions on everything I saw, blood dripping languidly form their claws and teeth and pointed tails.

I like blood. I was always fascinated by it, even as a quiet child. My father was a doctor, and had a lot of books about blood. I would look at his books and admire the disk-shaped red blood cells and the boomerang-shaped red blood cells of sickle-cell disease, and the light blue white blood cells that reminded me so much of dandelions about to release their seeds. I liked the way plasma looked when my dad would hook up an IV drip of it into someone's arm. I noticed the way the needle went inside, and learned how to get it to prick a vein just right.

Standing here now, high above the city on the roof of a skyscraper, I imagine that the city is one giant vein branching out from the artery of the highways, and connected to the heart of the city. I imagine that all the cars are blood cells, and all the people inside them are the nutrients that the vessels carry. I grin to myself. What if someone were to drop a fireball on them all? Imagine the break in the vein that would be caused, and all the cells that would spill from it.

All the bodies would be strewn across the street, going down in flames without a shred of thought in their heads. It would be… quite the sight to see. It would be… like a movie, only better, because it's real.

I like movies. Axel and I loved watching them together, jumping at the explosions and cuddling during the love scenes. We watched all kinds of movies; we went with whatever suited our moods. But I always asked for thrillers. I wanted to see gushing blood and deep drama and intense fighting scenes. I wanted to see something that might not have a positive ending. But Axel loved comedies, and adventure films.

In the end, we just watched both. It didn't bother us any.

But then again, nothing ever bothers me. Not even the air on my face as I gradually inch closer to the edge of the rooftop, my fingers going numb with the cold. Pollution from car exhaust and factory smoke reaches my nose, and vaguely I smell cigarettes.

Axel liked cigarettes. He said it was like fire on his tongue, and he loved fire. But when he left, he quit smoking them.

I still don't know why he left me. What have I ever done? Was I too bitter about life? Did I drag him down? If I did, then I'm sorry for it. I love Axel, and want him happy. But I want him to be happy with me.

Why couldn't he have come back? Why did he have to leave me? I love him. I love him so much that it hurts. He loves me, too, doesn't he? He said that he did when we had sex. He said it over and over, his voice husky and rumbling. When we were done, he promised me that we would run away to Massachusetts, where we can get married.

But he left.

I'm stranded here in New York, and he's gone. Where did he go? I want him back.

Maybe I should have been the one to leave. Something tells me that I was before. Well, who's missing who now, Axel? Maybe no one would miss me, but I miss you. How fucked up is that?

"I should jump," I murmur to myself as I crouch down in front of the ledge and dangle my arm over the side. "Nothing's the same without Axel."

He accepted my darkness. He didn't mind that I was imperfect and on the brink of being a criminal. He was all right with my blood fetish, and said that it didn't make me any worse of a person. He told me a lot of things, and I believed every one of them. I believed it, because I was naïve. Because I was in love. Because Axel turned into my weakness.

I'm weak because of him. I'm hard and distant yet brittle, and it's all because of him.

"Damn you, Axel!" I yell into the sky as I leap to my feet. "I don't want to love you anymore! I don't want to go down in flames!"

I don't want to be like the cars below if a bomb were to drop on them. I don't want to be engulfed by fire and burnt to a crisp. But already my blood is boiling, leaving me breathless with heated fury and passionate love.

I love him too much. And it's making me fall off the edge.

Literally.

I crawl into the skyscraper's ledge and peer down one last time. It's shimmering with headlights and taillights and streetlights, and there are dozens of people the size of overgrown ants scurrying about in a reckless fashion, as if the ants had been attacked by grasshoppers. Reminds me of that Disney movie that I used to watch as a kid, something about the life of bugs. I used to laugh at it, because I thought that the grasshoppers had the right idea: take control of others and make them do your will. It's a comfortable way of living if you ask me. And very realistic, especially if you look at the lives led here in the city.

I lean forward and hazily hear sounds behind me. But I pay no attention to them; it's probably birds or bats, nothing important.

I feel my blood rush in ears, howling like the wind. It sounds so nice. I wonder… if I were to slit my wrists before I fell, would the blood become spherical and fall with me? Would I pass out or bleed to death before I hit the ground? How would it splatter? How would my body appear as I laid there on the pavement?

It's a curious thought. Too bad I won't know the answers.

"Bye-byeee, Dizzy City~" I sing cheerfully to myself as I close my eyes. "I'll never see you agaaain~" I'm quoting a song Axel and I made together about New York when I was seventeen; we were talking of marriage and leaving (although not in that order).

I relinquish my hold on the ledge and temporarily feel the overwhelming flood of air in my golden hair.

But all too soon, a forceful tug pulls me back. "Roxas! Don't!" a voice screams. My eyes spring open and stare blankly as a figure embraces me. My heels tap the ledge as the figure lifts me off and beings me to safer grounds. My shoes scuff the cement rooftop. I don't want to struggle, so I hang limp. Whoever this person is, they know me, and that's enough for me to hear them out, at least for a little while.

"Why not?" I retort into a warm chest. It's flat, so it must be male. Maybe it's my twin. I couldn't tell whose voice it was that called my name a moment ago, but for all I know, it could have been Sora's. It would be nice if the chocolate-haired boy had decided to accept me the way that I am. Thus far, he's turned the other cheek to my stubborn, rebellious attitude.

"…I don't have a reason," the voice replies. I listen to the heartbeat instead of the actual voice. The rapid beating is much more soothing. I can picture the path now: in from the pulmonary arteries, into the right atrium, through a valve, into the right ventricle, into the pulmonary veins to enter the lungs to collect oxygen, into the left atrium, through another valve, into the left ventricle, into the aorta, and then to the rest of the body. All within one lub-dub heartbeat.

"If you don't, then let me go and I'll jump. It's nothing for me to end my life, and it's my choice," I tell the person holding me. I start to laugh, my cackles high and hysteric. "Or, better yet, you could throw me! You're strong enough to pull me down and carry me to the center of the roof, so you must be strong enough to throw me off, right? So do it! It would save me a lot of time and energy." I laugh again. "Although I can't say that you won't be charged for murder if someone finds out that you threw me."

The figure forces me off of their chest and looks me in the eye. It's here that I stutter, here that I drop my laughter midway and fall flat of emotion. A good head above me in height stands Axel, his face broken and his eyes shiny with tears. "Roxas… why are you being this way?"

The gentle tone used on my name, the brokenhearted question… it's too much for me to bear. I break down crying, my sobs racking my ribs with a fierce ache. "You left me!" I wail, my logic wearing thin. "I woke up one morning, and 'poof', you were gone! What was I supposed to do? I waited… I waited eighteen months, and called and called… but you never came back. Why not? Why did you leave me, Axel? I hated it! I hate that it hurts me so much, and just wanted it to end. So here I am. But why are you here? Huh? Why?"

Axel smoothes my hair and then proceeds to kiss my salty tears. "I'm sorry, Roxas."

"No!" I scream as I push him away and wipe both his kisses and my tears from my face. "That's not going to cut it, Axel! A year and a half is a long, long time… too long to be gone without a word of explanation or a single call returned," I squeak out through raspy sobs. "You… you said that you loved me. So why…? I need to know," I say finally, my anger dissipating. I can't stay mad at him. I want to, but I love him too much. Why do I love that hurts me? I love blood, but I have to hurt myself in order to see or taste it. I love my brother Sora, but he's so disappointed in me that he doesn't talk to me much any more. And… I love Axel, yet he left me.

"I… I got a call saying that my mother was dying," Axel whispers ashamedly. With shaking hands, he walks towards me and explains himself to me, at last. "So I rushed to see her. She didn't die until four months later. After that, I got drunk… for a week straight. I went into the hospital for a while, and then rehabilitation for an even longer while. By the time I got out, I needed money so that I could pay for our marriage, as small as it was going to be. But I wanted to surprise you, so I didn't say a thing. I couldn't anyway, since I was too struck with grief at first to answer, and then later had to give up my cell phone deal in order to pay for things." He's in front of me now. "But none of this is an excuse, is it? I've been nothing but a brutal bastard, and I deserve your hatred. But you don't deserve to die because of me, Rox. Please… don't do it. I love you."

Involuntarily, my fingers clamp to my scalp and my nails begin scratching hard, as if I'm scrubbing at lice eggs. I rake them through my hair, icy pain shooting across my brain and melting into heat-radiating pain as I drop my hands. "I don't know. I don't know." I say repeatedly. "I don't know what to do. Should I listen to you? Should I care what you think? Should I believe that you love me? If you loved me, you would have found a way to contact me. You would have told me about your mother before you left, and promised me that you would have been back. You would have done a lot of things, if you truly loved me," I mutter in a frosty tone. I want my anger and pain and sickly state of mind to leak out into my words for him to hear, for him to feel. I want Axel to know how badly he damaged me. How far he and this city have corrupted me. I want him to know how far down the flames have reduced me.

"Roxas…" he ushers desperately, "Please. Don't do this. Don't…"

"Don't do what?" I spit back. "Don't jump? Don't let you hear what you've done to me? Don't what?"

"Just… just let me be with you. Don't leave this world, or me. Come back, Roxas."

Come back, he says. Come back to what? Back to what we had? – How can we return to normal after eighteen months of absence and worry and heartache?

"I'm not crazy for doing this," I tell him defiantly as I back up against the edge. "I'm completely sane. You're the crazy one here, Axel. You're crazy for thinking that I would simply take all of your excuses and return to you. You're also crazy for thinking that I hate you. I don't hate you… I can't. I love you too much. But since I love you, I've been torn to pieces. So I'm going to end it. And you can't stop me."

He sucks in dry air and dabs his eyes. Looking down, he says, "Alright. If that's how you feel, then I won't argue with you. But let me ask you one thing."

"And what's that?" I say with an upwards tilt of my chin.

"…Will you let me jump with you? If you die, then you're killing me as well. So we might as well die together. Because there's no way in hell I'm letting you go without me; not this time. I'm not afraid of death, Roxas. I'm only afraid of living without you."

I swallow the sour taste of approaching tears. "Then you should have never left me in the first place."

"You're right," he says softly. "I shouldn't have. And I will forever regret doing so."

He offers his hand to me.

I look at it, so big and strong. Calloused from his work on building houses in construction. I can see the bloody, split ends of his fingers from the eczema he developed from said work (specifically the cement basements he often helps construct).

"Now then, are we going to fall, or walk away?" Axel asks me.

I look between his hand and the cityscape behind me. What should I choose? Life or death with Axel?

In my heart, I know that life would last longer.

I take his hand and walk away from the edge, headed for the door leading to the staircase inside. "This doesn't mean anything," I lie to him.

He smiles warmly, as if he'd just won the lottery. "I know it doesn't," he replies as he laces his fingers in between mine.

I know that I've really sunk to the bottom this time. I know that I've really fucked with fate, but I guess I can live with it. Since I am choosing to remain alive. For now. But if he leaves again… there will be no turning back.