Daylight.
Axel always felt strange in the daylight – like he should be hissing and spitting from some darkened corner, hands clenched in claws; but, as Roxas often reminded him, they weren't vampires. Ghosts, maybe.
Still. There was something odd about the way it seemed to him now. Intuition said it hadn't always been this way – stifling to hold himself in its gaze for too long, painful, almost. When he was a kid, he'd loved the sun. Now, in the wasteland they called New York, it was a sad sight for him. "Broad Daylight" rarely came into his life without the words "Shot in" leading.
Out there, light covering every surface like a coating of dust, destruction was ever more evident. More burned everyday. The mystery of fire was gone to him, a fact that was sad enough without friends dead and disease rife.
A wild dog bayed in the distance.
He turned away and looked down at the ground where Roxas lay behind him, staring at the sea on the horizon.
"Pretty."
"Uh-huh." Axel muttered, fidgeting with his hands. He curled a piece of his hair around a finger and pulled on it, keeping a gentle pressure going, trying not to turn back around. He sat down next to Roxas, who lifted his sunglasses to shoot him a tired, incredulous look, then settled down again. Axel folded his legs underneath his chin and sighed.
Life had been simpler a year ago. He and Roxas, always together. Smoking weed and getting wasted and thinking they were the shit, just because they rarely went to class. He furrowed his brow – it seemed like a waste, now. His head was slow and heavy, his limbs a tangled mess. His heart was fit to burst with pain and guilt and exhilaration, because nothing beat the sense of being alive with who you loved. Nothing. He just wished he wasn't, sometimes.
It didn't make sense.
Roxas didn't touch him anymore, not after the fires began. He'd lost his fingerprints, and Axel remembered his words: "Who gives a shit who I am, anymore? They may as well have burned my name."
Axel felt like his name had been burnt off, along with all traces of history. They'd reached a twisted amalgamation of past and future, each threatening to overpower the other. Axel counted the days until the end, experiencing a sudden change of heart, hoping there was life beyond this. He sighed. Twenty-one, twenty-one the day before. They'd had a little birthday party, Roxas going to the trouble of finding him a cake that wasn't past its sell-by date. They lit candles Roxas had found in a drawer, and sang to one another to drown out the silence. It had been wonderful and strange, Roxas with his eyes thick with tears, wandering away, making excuses about the bathroom, simply because it was too much.
When Axel was twenty, he'd gone out with his parents, eschewing Roxas for a few hours. The blonde boy came over later and was encased in Axel's never-ending supply of family. They'd barbequed in the summer light, and Roxas had jokingly danced with him until midnight, stopping then, the excuse being "What? Today isn't anything special." And Axel had laughed and pulled him down to sit on the floor, and watch the sky lighten to a fuzzed blue-green, clouds trailing in twilight, drunk on the future that so assuredly lay before him.
Roxas tried to talk about it, but reminiscing wasn't his forte. On Roxas' birthday, celebration had been difficult, as Axel spent most of his time trying to stem the flow of blood from Roxas' wrists and ankles, the younger boy folded in his lap, Axel whispering "Not yet, not yet." And Roxas crying, yelling, cruelly, "You're not my fucking mother, Axel! Not even fucking close!"
Axel could never have imagined missing his mother, before this.
Roxas sat up again and lowered his glasses. He nudged Axel with his elbow. "Cheer up. It might never happen."
Axel chuckled softly and used one hand to playfully push Roxas back onto the ground. He exhaled loudly. One of the most frustrating things was that this was it. Failing another life, this was the end of the fucking world; and still, he and Roxas had yet to make wild monkey love. Or any other kind, for that matter.
Compared to everything else, it was small potatoes: but Axel often felt that Armageddon plus sex would be a little more interesting, at least. The boredom was sterile. They spent everyday trying to find food, or fighting not to bother with food, or reading any of the thousands of books they had stolen: sometimes together, sometimes alone. All the magazines they used as fuel, too tired to bother with celebrity scandal from a year ago, in which all the culprits were deceased. The sky burned shades of orange, all hours of the day, and Axel felt he needed a colder colour scheme to feel okay. He tried to convince Roxas to paint the house, just for something to do, but brushes were nowhere to be found. In a fit of frustration, Roxas had thrown the paint at the wall instead: splotches of beige and blue and brown riddled their walls, a greasy hotchpotch of missed-bits and lumps. It was theirs, but it was far from beautiful.
Roxas sat up again.
"You're miserable." He reached for Axel's arm, placing his hand gingerly on the other boy's bare shoulder. Axel felt the smooth pads of Roxas' fingers on his skin, and was reminded of the fire. When he was bored, he could still peel off the white lumps of flesh from his left arm and leg, burns they had bandaged and loaded up with cream. He wondered if he'd be around long enough for them to become scars. Roxas' eye still blinked funny, its eyelashes missing, half his eyebrow gone, his hair hastily cut to rid it of the blackened, hardened sections. What was once his elaborate pride-and-joy was a stubbly, fluffed affair. They washed, still. They kept routine. It kept them grounded.
"I'm fine, Rox."
Roxas frowned. "Was it yesterday? I'm sorry. I got all emotional and messed it up, right? I just. I'm sorry, okay? Forget about it. Live now." He slipped both arms around Axel's neck, pressed his chest into Axel's back. Axel stared ahead.
"It wasn't yesterday. It's not anything. I'm okay."
He felt Roxas shrug. "Well, I'm here for you. Even if no-one else is."
"Yeah, those bastards." Axel laughed. "Leaving me here in the lurch."
"Stop it." Roxas muttered angrily. "You're being passive-aggressive."
Axel turned slowly, so they were face-to-face, he with his legs folded and Roxas with his arms looped around Axel's neck. Axel leaned forward and the blonde pulled away, hands breaking at the base of Axel's neck. Axel shot him an incredulous look. Roxas shrugged, and moved forward again, a hand on each of his friend's shoulders, and they bumped noses until they found a medium. Silence was so much louder when neither of them talked.
Axel kissed him gently, mouth open, Roxas gasping a little, then pulled back. Roxas sat on the floor again. Axel lowered himself down, head in the other boy's lap, staring at the sky and the underside of Roxas' chin.
"I'm not miserable."
"No?" Roxas was, with trepidation, stroking Axel's hair.
"Maybe a little."
"I thought so."
"It's okay, though." Axel breathed slowly, and as the light faded, just a little, he felt some of it invade his chest, making his heart swell almost uncomfortably. He felt his nostrils move in and out as he heaved his chest up and down.
"Do you want to stay a little longer? It'll only get brighter." Roxas looked down at him and Axel smiled.
"I think something might happen. Just wait."
Roxas looked at him quizzically, then his face went blank and he leaned down to peck Axel on the forehead. Axel smiled lazily.
"What was that for?"
Roxas looked stricken, and said nothing for a long time. A white light, a different light, crept over the horizon. Everything felt colder. Axel saw the world in a blue night-filter for the first time in a long time, and turned his head to stare out at the city below them. The sky was churning. The fires burned more fiercely than before. Roxas gasped.
"Axel, look!"
The light at the horizon burst.