A/N: I wrote this one a little while back. Includes a depressed Roxas. Not shonen-ai, sorry to disappoint.
He Must Be Emo (Axel's POV)
Everything had been great. We'd been the best of friends, practically brothers – we'd been so close. I couldn't have asked for much more.
But in a day, everything crashes down quicker than Vexen thinking up a new experiment. The change in him was so quick, I barely had a chance to blink.
Just yesterday he was a happy boy – the one I knew. Then he comes back from today's mission and he's changed…for the worse. I don't know what it is. I don't know how to help him.
He describes it as "emoism." It's like depression. Slowly it's destroying him and tearing at me.
Everything has gone from one extreme to the other.
I know that he used to have his quiet moments, but they didn't last long. Now, I wait hours for a smile, a laugh…anything to make him seem like the boy I knew.
We sat in the conference room, waiting for the Superior. I watched Roxas. His blue eyes were staring out at nothing in particular. I remembered the times when I would've described his eyes as bright, beautiful and full of life.
Now I stared into his eyes which looked dull and lifeless, slightly red and nowhere near the ocean blue they once were.
The meeting came and went without a word from the blond.
xox
A knock on my door brought me to my senses. It was Roxas; my face lit up immediately. We spoke, as if there hadn't been a change in his behaviour. However, as soon as conversation dried up he left, as miserable as he'd been earlier.
I lie down on my bed and let the tears flow without constraint.
That was the first night that I cried myself to sleep.
xox
I saw a little bit of improvement over the coming weeks, but not much. We'd talked a little. We had sat awhile and he told me small bits of information. But he never told me the real big problem. He told me that I couldn't help him. I felt like a doctor that couldn't cure his patient's cancer. He said that we were too close and I wasn't the right type of person. But he'd told someone. Someone who was eternally happy. I want to torture the information out of this person…
I asked Roxas, "if I can't help you, then why not just tell me your problem to put my mind at ease."
But he still keeps everything locked inside, so hidden that I can't even see the shadow of what I'm searching for.
"Surely I can help to try and find solutions?"
Again, the answer is, "you can't help."
Now I feel like the psychologist with a client who needs help, but won't tell me what's wrong. I'm stuck.
Why did I ever get this close? I used to not give a damn; I was a real nobody with no emotions at all. Why did I have to decide to share myself with this boy?
The nights had grown long and hard. I cry, thinking of the person I wasn't, wishing I were them.
Roxas had tried to let me down lightly, but I knew what he really wanted.
"You've both got great personalities – in different areas, they've just got some better qualities than you."
Yep, he wished that I was that person. He wants to spend his days in their company rather than mine. But it won't change now that he's in the Organisation.
Xox
I dream of pinning Roxas down on the floor and hurting him until he tells me exactly what is going through his head. I want him to feel my pain, I need him to know that he's not the only one who's hurting.
I barely see Roxas anymore. Our conversations are few and far between and always short. He's always in his room, sometimes in his pyjamas, usually reading or playing his piano. I walk past often, hoping for any slight change. There never is. He doesn't even look up from what he's doing anymore.
Perhaps this is being a true nobody. He doesn't even seem to remember having emotions. Everyone else does, and we play on what we remember. We still smile, but Roxas can't even remember that.
Xox
I reached the end of my tether. Roxas barely eats anything at all. At breakfast this morning he just played with the milk and chocolate balls in his bowl. As he made his way back up to his room I saw him and I hit him, square in the chest. The blond got up, eyes boring into the floor, and continued to his room. I flung my arm out and stopped him.
The next thing I knew I'd unleashed all of my anger. I kneed him in the groin, slapped his face and pounded his chest repeatedly. Was I hoping to restart the memory of having a heart?
That night I only cried for a short while over the fact that I had beat up my "best" friend. Then I slept until noon the next day. Finally the bags under my eyes began to lift.
Xox
Roxas was out cold for 3 days. No one opposed the fact that I'd done it. In fact, most were pleased I had, barring Xemnas and his bitch, Saïx. All I wanted was my old friend back. I feared that if I had to endure what I had for another 6 months, I would end up burning him to death or committing suicide myself. Would Sora be glad to have this part of himself back? I never thought that this much sorrow could be found in the boy I'd met in Castle Oblivion.
When he awoke he was pretty much just as he was before. I was so angry. Why couldn't he just go back to how he was before? What had happened in that one day?
I asked him again. But the answer was the same: "I can't tell you, you're not the right type of person. You can't help me."
I was frustrated to Kingdom Hearts and back. There was now a black patch on my bleached walls where I'd burned it in anger.
Xox
For the next week, I became a wreck. My eyes were red and puffy and I would occasionally have an outburst. One day, after looking into Roxas's even more lifeless eyes, I yelled in rage at everyone. Another time I burst out crying during the weekly meeting. I cried a lot. I also cursed a lot at everyone and even during what I said. By Friday, everyone kept their distance and watched what they said to me. Only Xigbar came and offered a shoulder to cry on. I let everything out, telling him how useless I was and how I felt like shit. I didn't hide anything.
That night, I considered jumping from the balcony, but then decided against it. Roxas wouldn't win. I collapsed there due to a lack of energy and woke up feeling refreshed. It felt as if I'd just gone past the point of caring.
I put on my coat and realised that my skin tight jacket wasn't quite skin-tight anymore. I'd lost a lot of weight since Roxas changed.
I went down to breakfast, intending on eating a proper full breakfast. However, when I saw Roxas again my world crashed again. A few minutes ago everything had seemed perfectly fine, but looking at his gormless face, I remembered all that we'd done and everything I cared about – him.
I returned to my room immediately.
Xox
Larxene visited my room later in the afternoon. It was as if seeing her for the first time in months. She looked like an angel with a perfect face that wasn't too thin and eyes that were as bright as the sun. I noticed her body too, one I used to think a lot about touching, but nowadays, that was the last thing on my mind.
"Roxas is gone," she said.
"WHAT?"
Xox
When DiZ took Roxas, no one tired to stop him, not Xemnas, not me.
In fact, I was glad.
I went to DiZ's Twilight Town and watched Roxas in his new world. He was as I remembered him with every memory of me and the Organisation erased, he was the person he was when he was fist inducted. I looked on, happy to see his old self, but sad that he wouldn't even remember me if I approached him.
The days were bright now, just like his eyes and if I ever cried now it was because I was happy for him.
Xox
The night before he was to rejoin with Sora, I sat and watched him sleep. He was restless and I was tempted to wake him, but he occasionally whispered "Axel" and it moved me to know that deep down he still remembered me.
I may have had to have been removed from the picture, but I would never go back on it.
(A/N: the end? Read on for the epilogue?)
I met Sora a few times. I wanted to stay with him. He was exactly like Roxas. Their eyes were identical and Sora's sparkled the way Roxas' once had.
Who would've thought that this boy's other half had been as emo as he had.
Xox
As the nobodies closed in I prepared myself for death. I wouldn't let Sora die, I couldn't knowing that half was Roxas.
"For you, Roxas," I whispered as I let the flames engulf me, burning my flesh as I had once imagined them doing to Roxas. I had no regrets… I only wish that I'd been a somebody too.
END
A/N: The idea was based on a problem I had to deal with once. Luckily my Roxas sorted himself out. Please review?