"Roxas?"
Axel blinked softly, slowly. He spat into the toilet and pinched the bloody vomit from the corners of his mouth. Axel couldn't help but feel knocked up.
"Yeah?"
Roxas sounded calm and collected, everything that Axel wasn't feeling. And he was feeling like every hangover he's ever suffered came to haunt the life out of him.
Another wave of vertigo overcame Axel and he swallowed another bitter lump of bile. "Are you trying to tell me that Lycanthropy is an STD?"
"All evidence leads to the contrary."
Roxas laughed, intending to be reassuring as he sat cross legged beside his morning sick ridden boyfriend. He forked his warm slender fingers through Axel's messy red locks and Axel couldn't understand how the hell he could be laughing at a sorely fucked up time like this. Now was not the time for comic relief. That was for micromanaged Hollywood movies and monochromatic re-runs of The Munsters. Life doesn't come with a slapstick sense of humor built into the notch of its belt.
Not especially when Roxas was a Night Child. A ground beef craving howler. The kind that has the occasional urge to lift a leg at a fire hydrant. Eddie Munster to put it bluntly. That kind of Night Child. Obviously.
Axel was very aware of Roxas' wolfish condition. But at first he wasn't. Axel thought Roxas was simply a drop dead gorgeous blond boy that he had to become best friends with. Their friendship skyrocketed within a year alone. Holding hands turned into nuzzling, and nuzzling became kissing. Naturally, rutting followed the kissing. And before Axel knew it, his yellow haired beau would transform into a half man–half wolf creature once a month on every full moon. It was funny at first because Axel didn't believe him. Not until he witnessed Roxas splay down on all fours and stretch and contort into the anthropomorphic werewolf he knows and loves so well now.
But now, well, only Axel was to blame for his current situation. "Let's not risk it" Roxas would always say muffled against Axel's lips. And they would never risk making love without using protection. "Safety first" Roxas would always say, regardless if his hands were busied in Axel's pants or not. "Just this once" Axel had hotly demanded the night prior to the one where he heaved up his insides out the morning after. And it took just once for the wolf in Roxas to take Axel immediately.
"Well, it looks like I'm not going to be the only puppy in the apartment anymore." Roxas scratched behind Axel's ears. It was an affectionate and familiar gesture Axel would do to Roxas' slightly pointed ears whenever he felt like it. He elbowed Axel's arm and perked his brows. "Do you think we'll get in trouble? I mean, the complex doesn't allow animals after all."
With that note, Axel put his head to good use and retched out what was left in his stomach.
xXx
"Three days, eleven hours, forty two minutes, and twenty five seconds." Axel blanched seriously.
Roxas looked around the cafe that they were sitting in, praying to any and every deity that nobody else but them were the wiser to the sheer nonsense Axel had just spewed.
"What?" Roxas asked awkwardly, sipping at his tea.
"Three days, eleven hours, forty two minutes, and ten seconds." Axel repeated lifelessly, ignoring the blueberry scone that slipped from his white bony fingers and proceeded to drown helplessly in his cold cup of coffee. "That's when the next full moon comes. I have to be ready. I have to be."
"Would you cut it out Axel, you're freaking me out. Jesus, you sound like Frank the freaking Bunny." Roxas watched the mopey skinny redhead sitting in front of him meticulously. Everything about Axel screamed mental patient. He looked sincerely hopeless and scared. Roxas sighed and took one of Axel's shaking hands into his own, curling his fingers into the heat of Axel's sweaty palm. "Listen, you need to calm down. You're blowing it way out of proportion."
"I will blow it anyway I want to." Axel insisted loudly.
Wincing, Roxas shrunk into his seat submissively. He avoided the stares procreating amongst them and lowered his voice to a hushed hiss. "Look, all I'm trying to say is that Lycanthropy is not as bad as you're making it out to be. You just have to trust me on this. Believe me, the moment you feel the moonlight on your pelt you'll forget every negative thought that you have now. But for the mean time, you need to take a chill pill."
Axel's thin red brows furrowed angrily. He leaned back into his seat, looked away and folded his arms. "If you've got some kind of magic chill pill hidden somewhere that reverses the affects and stops me from becoming an overgrown Husky then by all means, hand it over."
An electric hot wave of resentment overcame Roxas. Is this what Axel really thought of him? An overgrown beast untamed and uncontrollable? Roxas was house trained, sure. But he was a creature of much higher stature, much more respectable than a measly pet. He's kept his whole life clean of human blood and he's been honest with his lover from the start. This kind of reaction was not the kind Roxas was expecting. Certainly no grateful happily ever after. At least not yet.
Roxas watched his boyfriend sulk and brood with disdain coursing through his veins. He took a breath and reasoned that rationalization was better than losing his cool.
"Let me make this crystal clear to you Axel." Roxas cracked out the crick in his neck and passed his hand through his bristling blond hair. "This isn't going away. You can't abort it and there's no denying that this wasn't at least a little bit of your fault. Because it is mostly your fault. But I digress. If you really need to put this aside for a little while longer, to clear your head or whatever it is that you want, then I can get you something that will still the change for at least until the next full moon. Because believe it or not, you will change way before the moon even comes to fruition. It happens to all the new pups."
"What?" Axel's eyes were wide, nearly black from dilation and Roxas could tell that the change would take him soon. Maybe even by the night. Axel forced a laugh and shook his head. He spoke with strain in his throat. "You mean I have less than three days now?"
"Yup."
The coming and going of people inside the cafe was bland and surreal. Axel's coffee looked delicious but in reality it tasted like dog shit. He should have been craving the blueberry scone that was lost to apathy and bad coffee but instead he was jonsing for raw ground beef and Roxas bare naked on all fours across a forest floor.
Thinking lucidly about such carnal misdemeanors sent a chill down Axel's spine and when what felt like a belch came crawling up his esophagus, a beastly snarl came out instead. He cleared his throat and hoped that Roxas didn't hear. But he knew that Roxas did. Axel's hearing alone became more acute by the second, and he wasn't even fully wolf yet.
"Please tell me that you can get a hold of this magic pill of yours sometime soon." Axel admittedly needed help. "Preferably today."
"Yup," Roxas chewed his lower lip. "Well it's not a pill, it's actually wolfsbane. Oh don't look at me like that, it's not very poisonous to our kind. Not in small doses. It slows the change for as long as our body can handle. At least until a full moon. It will be painful to stop the transition like this... but if this is what you want, if you think this will help, then I'll get you some. It'll buy you three days time."
The grievance and anger in Axel slowly died out. He would become a werewolf. Much like his Roxas. Maybe he really was being melodramatic over nothing. Better to be an alpha dog than a simple bitch. Right?
"Sorry for snapping babe."
Roxas shot Axel a look of absolute repulsion. "Don't you 'babe' me after comparing our kind to Huskies. Not that that's a bad thing. They are kind of cute..."
There was still plenty of fear and apprehension left in Axel, plenty enough of it to kill a small mammal. But he admired his boyfriend far too much to let something as measly as Lycanthropy get to him. God forbid that should give him a bad day. Roxas had to live with this his whole life and Axel was about to become a part of his lifestyle. He swore at himself for ever thinking otherwise.
"I love you Roxas." Axel cooed.
Roxas seethed. "Suck it."
"Don't tempt me."
xXx
So it turns out that Roxas has connections to underground black market pushers. And Axel was in luck today. Roxas wasn't very popular in the human world. He shied at the back of class rooms, ever since kindergarten and going strong all through college. But in his wolf world, it was the polar opposite. And Axel was unbelievably lucky to have a popular wolf for a boyfriend.
It was only four in the afternoon but Bar Bane was open to the skinwalkers at all hours of the day. It was a seedy little place. Nothing out of the ordinary, save for Industrial Fridays. The place would go black and green, or black and red, depending on the mood of the moon. But for now, with it lacking loud music and lighted just enough to see a face across the room, it was anybody's guess this hole in the wall club called Bar Bane was the hottest werewolf meet and greet in town.
Roxas entered the place nonchalantly. Not one person gave him a second glance, but Axel however, was a bloody rare steak to the wolves. All eyes were on him and Axel's fingers found their way intertwining with Roxas' fingers. Most of the onlookers hung their heads and averted their eyes at this, but one bartender in particular refused to play submissive. Luck has it that Roxas happened to stride up to that one particularly aggressive looking barmaid.
"You're looking good Astrid," Roxas said, smiling at the one eyed woman behind the bar. "Is Saix in?"
The woman tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her long ear and she continued to eye Axel down while answering the blond. "What's it to you pup? I've been slaying at this job for far too long. But for the last three days, it's been slow. Painfully slow. You haven't showed your muzzle in months and when you do..." Astrid folded her arms and leaned against the bar. "You want to know if Saix is in. The least you could fucking do is buy a damn drink."
Something in Axel snapped possessively. "In that case make two of the most complicated drinks you know, your highness."
Axel could hear Roxas groan when Astrid's nose scrunched distastefully.
"Nobody asked you to speak, you stupid meat-boy."
"Astrid" Roxas barked. "Saix."
She turned up her scrunched nose and put her idle hands to work with washing glasses. "He's in the back room the last time I checked." Astrid told Roxas kindly and went about her business as they made their way across the room to a door that Axel presumed would lead to the back room.
"He'll make a fine wolf Roxas," Astrid laughed wickedly, still plenty in earshot. "But for now keep your bitch boyfriend tight on a leash. If not, he'll be roadkill the minute you throw him a bone."
Roxas twisted the gold knob that jittered against the black door, bumping hips with Axel reassuringly. "Don't waste your breath on her. She likes to pretend she's Queen Bitch around here."
Before Axel could respond, the door was open and a thick cloud of smoke billowed out of the dark room. Roxas took Axel by the hand and led him into the darkness. An electric noise coursed through the speakers of the room and once they shut the door behind them, a few lamp lights flickered on. Roxas continued to pull his beau into the smoky black space and as Axel's eyes adjusted, he wasn't sure what to feel about the people sprawled buzzed and dopey along the furnished red couches that hugged three of the walls. Most of the people were stuck in between human and wolf, lolling and smoking and higher than Axel could possibly imagine.
"What is this?" Axel's brows drew up in question and curiosity.
Roxas only smiled and pulled him to the farthest end of the room. "They don't call it Bar Bane for nothing."
Bane, Axel thought to himself stupidly. Wolfsbane. Here he would get his fix and the change would stop for at least three days, or so Roxas said.
"What do you need kid?" asked the man sitting quietly at the dimly lit desk resting at the far end of the room. The man's stringy blue hair was tied back to keep from catching in his work. He was busy with a chemistry set, pouring liquids into test tubes while other tubes and glasses burned and turned at the expense of science.
"This is my boyfriend Axel." Roxas motioned to the very unnerved redhead beside him. "He's the one I told you about. He-"
"Yeah, yeah, he's becoming a Night Child and he wants to stop the change until the next moon becomes its fattest. I think everybody and their mothers know that by now. Now, what do you need kid?" Saix asked again, glancing up from his work and his feral yellow eyes glinted bestially, they accented the X mark between his eyes.
"I need some wolfsbane if it wasn't obvious enough."
"Well then Axel." Saix opened a drawer and plucked out a black vellum case. He set it on the free space left on his cluttered desk and opened it. There were vials containing a deep lush royal purple liquid, name brand cigarettes, and little bags stuffed with purple powder. All neatly tucked on black velvet. Saix grinned at Axel like a car salesman. "Pick your poison. You can snort it. You can shoot it. You can smoke it. You can drink it. Hell, you can stuff it up your ass for all I care. The effects are all the same no matter how you ingest it."
Roxas cleared his throat.
Saix stiffened at this and clinked his nails against the vials. "Alright the vials work the fastest since you would be ingesting it straight through the bloodstream, but I don't have much left on me and I can't expect you to suck me dry of those today. I can give you three of those, provided with clean needles, and I'll leave the rest for you to pick to your heart's content."
Roxas gave Axel an encouraging look. "Nothing bad will happen, I promise" was swimming in Roxas' crystal blue eyes. He didn't have to say a word, his demeanor alone was promising enough. And that was just enough for Axel.
Axel was surprised to learn that neither of them needed to spend a penny. Roxas was that popular and well looked upon. So as they settled themselves as comfortably as they could on an unoccupied scarlet couch, Axel was also surprised to learn that when he smoked his poison away, it tasted like nothing other than a normal store bought cigarette.
"You said that stopping the change by force will be painful." Axel dragged deeply and exhaled smoke through his nostrils. "I don't feel much of anything."
More hard electric music insisted on pouring from the speakers and the room only seemed darker, smokier. Roxas tilted his head and smiled sadly as he watched his boyfriend puff away at his first anti-werewolf fix of the day. Before Roxas said anything, he made sure Axel was comfortable at best.
"The fuller the moon is, the more painful it gets. It may not seem like much now. But don't say I didn't warn you later."
"Isn't wolfsbane poisonous?" the words slipped from Axel's lips messily. His vision wiggled and the hard electric noise got harder and louder and slower. Before he knew it, his head was spinning and his body was elsewhere. "I mean, not a "pick your poison" poison. An "I'm gonna die" poison. Hm, I should've thought this through a little more before smoking this shit. Am I talking too much? It feels like I'm talking too much. I sound weird. You sound weird too. Is this normal?"
"Yeah" Roxas says and the word was long and it flexed out. Stretched into one ear and out the other. "Yeeeeaaaaaah."
Axel put the white stick to his lips, because that's what his purpose was, and suddenly Roxas pulls his hand away. Axel looks down and the cigarette has been smoked down to the filter. Trip. He feels anxiety creep up his middle and strangle his heart and try to creep out of his throat. That feeling of a growl snarling up his throat dissipated. He wasn't animal. He was human. Complete homo sapian. For now.
The next thing Axel knows is that his head is resting on Roxas' lap. He doesn't know how he got there but suddenly all he can think about is how black the ceiling is and how red the couch is. Little red might not live to see another regular day at Granny's house. The little red rider was all but a dopey mess cradled into Roxas' warmth and Axel wanted to be with him forever but forever was a long time. Living it as a creature would be one terrifying adventure.
"I love you Axel."
An adventure all the same.
...x...
A/N: I'm trying something out. Using something old and something new. My love for werewolves is old and my love for AkuRoku is fairly new... okay four years old or so but that's beside the point. And the point is that when I put the two together, I absolutely jizzed over the outcome. This idea of Roxas and Axel as werewolves has haunted me for a very long time. I can only hope that this idea will ensnare you the way it did to me.
I don't own Axel or Roxas. Also, I don't own the lovely character Astrid. She is from Blood and Chocolate. Nnnngh I adore her! ...second best to Vivian of course. I just had to put her in there. I doubt this will be a crossover, but hey you never know :D Enjoy for now.