Notes: So, this is a oneshot from Roxas' POV in the basement of the Mansion, if you hadn't guessed that. And if you like it at all, the companion piece ("Evanescent," from Axel's POV) will be out within the next few days, maybe sooner.
Also note that the title refers to both meanings of the word; "wanting something desperately" and "finding something wanting."
Warnings: Mentions of slash, but nothing graphic. And a rather filthy swear word. Roxas, how could you?
Disclaimer: Kindom Hearts and everything associated with it are, unfortunately, Disney and Square Enix's. –cries—I want my Axel…
Wanting
Roxas squeezes his eyes shut before slowly allowing Oathkeeper and Oblivion to materialize into his hands. Axel's chakrams are spinning and the flames are growing higher, and Roxas can barely think for the iinflux of memories making him dizzy.
Part of him knows that were they Somebodies, were they real, he would run up to Axel and kiss him, and Axel would hold him and everything would be alright. And they'd live happily-fucking-ever-after.
But they're not Somebodies.
And it's not duty that makes him leap forward with a war cry instead a whispered endearment on his lips. It's not duty to the Organization he abandoned, it's not duty to Sora (whose presence he can feel in the back of his mind, a throbbing ball of light just down the hall), it's not duty to himself, and it's not even duty to Axel.
It's love.
He fights because he loves him. Because he knows that if Axel returns unmarred, fresh, Xemnas and the others will know, and they will kill him for his betrayal. And even as he winces, his heart aching as Oblivion slices into the redhead's arm, he is relieved, because seeing Axel like this is so much bettter than seeing him as a Dusk, or seeing him dissolve into Nothing…
So it is for Axel he fights. He fights for soft red hair and small green tatoos and sea-salt ice cream on clock towers and a warm body covering his cold one in the dark of night and kisses and love, because they do feel, no matter what the Superior says.
He knows he feels, because he knows that this is heartbreak.
And as they finish, as Axel limps back towards a portal, Roxas wants nothing more than to follow him. He wants nothing more than to kiss away the damage he's done, to apologize until his face is blue, to feel Axel's arms around him, to make the pain in his lover's eyes go away…
To take away the guilt of ever forgetting the one person who means the most to him.
But he can't. He can only watch brokenly as Axel chuckles, because if he goes with the redhead now, the entire battle, the agony he felt at every wound he gave, the numbness at every wound he got, would be for naught. If he goes with him now, he knows somehow that Axel will leave the Organization. And if Axel leaves them, they will find him and do things worse to him than killing.
So he stares numbly as Axel turns back to him. "Let's meet again in the next life," he says, and Roxas can feel the tears he shouldn't be able to cry gathering in his eyes and the heart he's not supposed to have aching in complete and utter despair.
"I'll be waiting," he says hoarsly, with a forced smile and nod. He can't show Axel how much this hurts him, how much he wishes…
"Silly," the other says with a smirk. "Just because you have a next life…"
And then he's gone, and it takes Roxas a long moment of struggling with his emotions to step away and continue to where his Other is waiting.
