a/n: The title comes from a common saying. "If you play with fire, you'll get burnt." Just a short drabble-thing I scribbled down. Axel as a character fascinates me, and his love for fire even more so. Unfortunately, he and his universe do not belong to me. If they did, Axel would not have died. Feedback of any sort is appreciated.
Lea's parents had always told him that if he played with fire, he would get burnt, but Lea had never listened. He delighted in the scratch of a match, the whoosh as tinder caught, the crackle of the blaze, and the hiss of settling coals. He loved the warmth the fire provided and burnt himself several times because he'd got too close. He loved the wash of warm, friendly, flickering light and the quiet red glow of dying embers. He lit fires all the time—little fires in the backyard, huge bonfires in the park, and all sorts of fires in between—and always carried a box of matches with him. He got in trouble for the fires and his parents confiscated his matches, but he just bought more. Eventually, they gave up on hiding his flammable materials, figuring that sooner or later Lea would burn himself badly enough to fear fire. It never happened.
As a Nobody, Axel retained his love for fire, learning and specialising in fire magic, keeping a hearth in his room, and lighting fires whenever possible, always trying to replace the beat of his vanished heart with the crackle of flames. He always felt cold, even with the heavy cloaks of Organization XIII, and he burnt himself again and again trying to get warm.
It was only at the very last, when he used his own body as fuel for the flame in a desperate attack, that he felt warm. And so he smiled as he died, for he was finally part of the fire he loved so much.
