Author's Note: Another one written for my Twilight Town post at KH Request (on LJ), for midnight-birth with the prompt: Her soul was his for the taking if he wanted it, and he wouldn't even have to ask; also, mention of fire. I was secretly hoping someone would request this pairing (and it wasn't such a vain hope, considering all the other crackery that resulted from that board. Larxene/Accessory Shop Girl, anyone?) Dealin' in some bastard!Axel this time around. (Probably inspired by Digimon Empress Yaten's haunting Axel/Jasmine drabbles.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

Hard Candy

The flames lick higher in his hand. It's the closest thing to a heartbeat he has, and it's how she finds him.

Olette steps out of the darkness into the wavy oval of light. It runs under her feet and bends where the brick begins, crawling upward just past his head. Axel leans off the wall and smiles; canines show, sparkling like stars in the firelight.

She's come a long way. He can smell the subtle sweat stuck to her skin. From here, the clock tower is a spindly finger reaching toward the sky, sickly pale in the night. The face is lit, but time is imperceptible from their little alley. It wouldn't matter anyway. He has a way of making her forget when she's supposed to be.

"You said you'd help us." Olette's voice is frail, like a sparrowsong carried miles from the nest to tickle his ears. To entertain. "You said you'd help fight off those things. But stuff keeps getting taken and…" He raises his eyebrows. The fact that he's acknowledging what she's saying makes her go from orange to pink before the fire. Her face hardens, her eyes blaze momentarily with anger. "And people have started disappearing!"

"I will help you," he tells her. Words roll off his tongue, sweet and smooth like candy. "But you can't get something for nothing."

"Don't you care?"

"It's a bit of a struggle," he remarks tiredly. "Emotions like that don't come easy when you haven't got a heart, remember."

"But you can be selfish?" Her eyes water. Water. Axel's muscles tense, the fire in his hand frenzying for a moment then falling back under his control. "You can feel greedy?"

"Something to do with the brain," he says flippantly. "I'm not the scientist. Don't ask me how I work."

"But you-"

"Do you want help or not?" He steps forward, drawing the center of the circle closer to her; firelight slides from the brick down to the cement, framing them both. He can't cast a threatening shadow over her, but painting her in heat is so much better. "I'm not here for semantics, you know."

She glares up at him, then at the wall, then at her wringing hands. When she looks at him again, she's blinked the tears back and she's wearing a beautifully submissive mask. "Yes. I want help. But you have to promise."

"I promise."

"You have to keep your promise."

Axel bites back a frown. "I will."

"Even if you don't feel guilt."

Blond hair and blue eyes flash through his mind and he says, voice stone cold, "I do."

Olette swallows. "Good."

There's the anger he's not supposed to have but does. The deal's done; he closes his hand on the fire and the whole alley folds into darkness. The moon, dim between gauzy clouds, outlines them in grey: a girl pressed to a wall, and a man, fingers hooked into her shoulders, teeth coaxing silky blood from her lips.