"Leave"
Axel stood against the hard, cold, stone wall. Roxas was pacing, and somehow, each step cracked harder into the emptiness in Axel's chest, the place his heart should have been. Words kept trying to speak, rising like bile in the older man's throat, but somehow they choked at the stone-cold expression on Roxas' face.
It's amazing, how you make your face just like a wall
how you take your heart and turn it off
how I turn my head and lose it all . . .
"Roxas, I -" Axel started, but choked when the blue eyes that had been gazing so harshly into the future turned onto him, piercing him, as though he'd done something wrong. Was it wrong? To care for him?
"What Axel?" Roxas asked, his face still cold as the stone behind Axel's back, his eyes still hard, his voice, mimicking both. Axel swallowed harshly, a dry lump forming at the back of his throat, and he had the sudden impression he'd just swallowed a mouthful of sand.
"I . . . I don't want you to go." He admitted quietly, kicking the ground with the toe of his boot, as though it would distract himself and Roxas from the truth he was spilling all over the two of them. Roxas felt a smirk go across his face.
"No, I suppose you don't." He replied, his voice low, and teasing. Axel felt heat rush to his cheeks, and he turned his back on the younger blonde, cursing himself and his foolish 'feelings'.
It's unnerving, how just one move puts me by myself
there you go just trusting someone else
now I know I put us both through hell . . .
Demyx understood the younger boy, being young himself. He understood the reasons why Roxas wanted to leave, why Roxas wanted to see new places, and learn more about why he was incomplete, and empty. But Axel, somehow, he was content in his emptiness, and it was tearing the two to pieces. He wasn't sure how much longer he could handle being torn to bits by his feelings for Roxas, but he couldn't turn his back on the only thing he'd known since he came into being.
"I guess you're just tired of this . . . of me." Axel remarked quietly, holding a hand to where his heart should have been. He felt it echo against the hollow inside his chest. Roxas laughed harshly.
"Get tired of you?" He asked quietly. Axel bit his tongue. There he went again, saying too much and not thinking. He sure was a strange Nobody. Having feelings, and emotions, and wants and needs, just like a normal person. But he wasn't a normal person. And neither was Roxas.
Demyx had warned him, had told him explicitely what would happen if he ever told Roxas of his 'feelings' for him. That Roxas would laugh in his face. But somehow . . . he had to try.
I'm not saying
there wasn't nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me . . .
"Axel, there is something seriously messed up with this place, with you. I've got to go collect myself, and my thoughts. And find out why I'm here, and why I have this accursed blade. Don't you get that? That's more important than these 'feelings' of yours." Roxas scolded, his eyes burning again. Axel sighed, exhaling slowly before turning around to face Roxas.
"I had to try to hold on, didn't I?" He asked quietly. For a split second a frown spread across Roxas' face, before frustration replaced it.
"No. And we had no right to do so either." Roxas replied. Axel felt his empty dreams and fake heart crumble beneath Roxas' glare.
I'm not saying
we ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let it get away from me . . .
"I can't let go now Roxas." Axel whined, pushing himself back up against the stones of the large brick building. Various members of the Organization were milling about, a few stopping every now and then to watch the confrontation between the two not-so-much lovers.
Roxas scoffed quietly, almost laughing with his disgust.
"I don't know what you're talking about, but I do know that I'm done talking. Go spew your sentimental sap to someone who cares." Roxas sneered before leaving, and Axel slid down the wall, slumping down into a ball as his thoughts consumed him.
But if that's how it's gonna leave
straight out from underneath
then we'll see who's sorry now . . .
"Axel?" Came the ever-so-familiar voice of Demyx rounding the corner, his arm firmly around the waist of Zexion. The purple-haired man stared at Axel, his look detatched and cold, as though he wanted nothing to do with the red-head. And to be honest, Axel wanted nothing to do with Zexion either. They both would have just as soon avoided one another at all costs, but with both of them being tied to Demyx, that proved to be a problem somedays.
"I'm left out. And the emptiness where my heart never was aches with a cold pain that is so unfamiliar. And he is gone." Axel whispered, pushing his red locks from his face as his clear eyes stared with a sense of pain into the distance - into a future that held nothing for him.
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
you know you've been depending on
the one you're leaving now
the one you're leaving out . . .
"Stop this nonsense and get up. You're blubbering over an idiot." Zexion remarked indifferently, his voice totally emotionless. Axel stared blankly at the purple-haired member, his eyes trying to focus on the real meaning of his words.
"Roxas will return, eventually." Demyx replied, lifting up Axel and walking him to his room.
It felt hours before the two of them would finally leave Axel alone, when in actuality it was probably a span of ten minutes. Axel lay on his bed, his cool sheets causing goosebumps to form on his skin. He stared blindly at the ceiling, seeing Roxas everywhere he looked, and in everything he saw.
"You frustrate me Roxas. You use me and leave me, then expect me to just walk away." Axel groaned to the empty room, and the silence merely chuckled in response.
It's aggravating, how you threw me on
and you tore me out
how your good intentions turn to doubt
the way you needed time to sort it out . . .
Axel rolled onto his side, staring into the abyss that was The World That Never Was. He imagined Roxas now somewhere beyond the abyss, trapped in worlds of wonder, and color and amusement, and excitement, and all sorts of things that were no part of Axel. He imagined him with wonderful people, forgetting all about the red-headed man sitting and waiting at home for a dream that would never come true. Then Axel closed his eyes. He didn't want to see any more.
Tell me is that how it's going to end
when you know you've been depending on
the one you're leaving now
and the one you're leaving out
Axel fell into an uneasy sleep that night, dreams of Roxas, and broken hearts, and loneliness crowding his already full and aching mind. Roxas had left him with millions of questions he knew he would never answer. And for now, he supposed, those empty answers would just have to do. Roxas was already gone.
The song is "Leave" by Matchbox 20. I do not own any of these characters. I just wrote the story.
