I'm rather proud of this one and I really hope you like it.
Warnings: Character death, suicidal thoughts, implied boy loving (nothing graphic), and language.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters etc, etc, etc...
On October 16, 2009, Roxas Strife and Axel Flynn were walking to their early morning class on the opposite side of campus. They were roommates and best friends and were bundled up in scarves and worn jackets. The sky was gray and crisp in a late autumn sort of way and they were laughing about something or another.
It was seven thirty am, and they had been walking on the sidewalk. The two friends kicked up leaves and let out puffs of cloudy breath.
Axel had thought Roxas was beautiful.
He had been happy.
At seven thirty-two, a car jumped the curb.
The driver was drunk.
Roxas died instantly.
...
Axel didn't.
The alarm blared, heralding in another unhappy morning. An irate fist smacked down on the snooze button and the redhead burrowed further into the covers. He felt heavy, in a way that permeated beyond his physical body, and the thought of dragging himself out of bed to face another day seemed impossible.
It was going to be one of those days.
After nine minutes of wallowing in self-loathing and throwing a mini-pity-party for himself, Axel smacked the alarm again, and this time threw off the bedding and sat up before he could change his mind. He hissed at the cold air and the sharp pain in his left hip, slowly massaging the smarting area and debating how much he really wanted to go to work that day.
But if he called in that would be the fourth time this month.
His boss might fire him.
That would be the third job in as many years.
Fuck.
Axel groped around for his cane and hauled himself to his feet. His knee protested and his hip revolted, but he pushed through and made slow progress, limping towards the kitchen to put on some coffee.
His stupid leg was there to remind him first thing every morning and every second he was awake of everything that he had lost.
Dammit.
He reached into the cupboard and looked at the bottles lined up with names that had too many consonants and not enough hope. Long fingers counted out his pills and he swallowed them dry as he'd been programmed to do for the last three years.
Outside his window, it looked like it might start to rain.
Seemed fitting.
Definitely one of those days.
Axel sat on a stool behind the counter, idly flipping through some celebrity teeny-bop magazine. The rows of junk food and soda sprawled out before him. Sheets of ice-cold rain beat against the glass front of the small convenience store.
He heard the bell ring above the door but didn't look up to the new customer. Heavy footsteps tromped around the store, back and forth and up and down the aisles. Probably someone that just wanted to get in away from the weather.
A lighter and a bag of chips landed inches in front of his magazine.
"Can I get a pack of menthols, yo?"
Axel sighed. He'd have to get up. "Sure."
He pushed himself off the stool, using the counter for leverage, and did a ridiculous half-limp, half-hop over to the cigarettes, too lazy to grab his cane.
"These ones okay?" He held up the pack over his shoulder, not very familiar with the different brands since he wasn't a smoker.
"Yeah."
Axel hopped back over to his place behind the register and rung up the guys items.
"That's twelve munny."
He looked up to his customer for the first time and did a quick double take. Red hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, a few tufts free in the front to frame steely blue eyes that were underlined by angry red scars. They guy was soaking wet and his dark blue suit hung limply around him, the blazer open enough to let Axel see the white button up underneath and reveal that the other redhead didn't believe in undershirts. His looks were striking to say the least.
They exchanged munny and change and when it was the appropriate moment for the customer to leave, he just...stood there.
"...Did you need something?" Axel sank back onto the stool, shifting a little until the dull ache wound down to something he could tolerate.
"Nah. But it's shitting rain outside, mind if I hang out here for a minute?"
"Knock yourself out."
The redhead leaned onto the counter and popped open his bag of chips, crunching on them noisily. Normally this sort of thing might bother Axel, but he found himself relaxing in the other man's presence, eyes slipping back to the magazine.
"What ya reading?"
"Bullshit."
"Yeah, usually is." The man squinted down to the printed page. "Anything to pass the time, though. Am I right?"
"Mmhm."
"You don't talk much, do ya?"
"Not really."
Not anymore.
"That's all right, probably better that way. People are always telling me to shut the hell up, yo."
"Wonder why." Axel looked up and the other redhead raised his eyebrows and extended the bag of junk food forward in an offering. Axel reached in and grabbed a small handful of chips without really thinking.
"I'm Reno."
"Axel."
"Nice ta meet ya, Axel."
Axel grunted something that sort of returned the sentiment.
"I just got a job over at Highwind's Garage." Reno pointed out the storefront to the repair shop across the street.
"Congratulations."
"Yeah, it'll be different. Haven't been a mechanic for years, yo."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I used ta be a cop." Axel found this mildly surprising. "But had ta quit the force, it wouldn't be the same now that...well. It's just not the same."
Axel looked up and there was a familiar sort of sadness in Reno's blue eyes. The conversation died, and the two sat there munching and Reno read Axel's magazine upside down, occasionally throwing out some commentary on the articles or pictures, making Axel's lips quirk into an almost-smile. The downpour slowed to a light drizzle and Reno finally left the shop with a lazy two-fingered salute and a "see you around, yo."
For the first time in a while, Axel was kind of hoping he did.
The sunsets in Twilight Town were breathtaking and lasted for hours. The orange colored sky bathed the clock tower in its soft light, and in those moments, Axel knew without a doubt that Roxas was the most perfect creature to ever grace the planet.
They sat at the top of the tower in mostly silence, eating away at their sea salt ice cream.
Later they'd have to go back to the dorms and study.
Later there would be other friends to take up some of Roxas's attention.
But, just for then, it was only the two of them.
"Hey, Rox, bet you don't know why to sun sets red?"
The glaring fluorescent lights and peppy radio pop tunes in the grocery store were giving him a migraine. He was comparing prices of cereal and started to bend at an uncomfortable angle for the bags of generic rice crisps on the bottom shelf, trying not to upset his leg.
"Oh! Let me get that for you." A small manicured hand darted down and Axel felt his eye twitch as his gaze fell on some smiling little teenage twit.
She probably thought she was helping, that it was the right thing to do.
Axel wanted to beat her with his cane.
Instead he ground out a reluctant "thanks" and limped away, feeling a tiny piece of his dignity die off.
The lines at the checkout were long, as usual, and Axel shifted his weight into something he could bear, ignoring the stares of people around him. Demyx always used to say that people stared at him because of his hair, his height, his unnaturally green eyes, or, when his sandy-blonde friend was feeling particularly silly, he would say that people stared because Axel was "sex on legs."
Which was ridiculous and stupid, because the redhead knew that no one had ever looked at him this much before the accident.
"Axel!"
Fuck me.
"Hey...Sora." His throat tightened and something clenched painfully in his chest. Axel made a point not to look directly at the shorter brunette's face, and fixed his gaze somewhere above his left shoulder, because he knew, he knew. If he looked into that face that looked so much like someone else's once had and if his eyes locked with that impossible-familiar-perfect blue, the knot in his chest might stop his heart completely.
"So...how have you been?" Sora was doing that nervous tick where he scratched the back of his neck and rocked on his heels.
Suicidal.
"Peachy." Axel wished that Sora would stop trying to talk to him, stop trying to be his friend, stop trying to help him heal. There was no healing. This was never getting better, and Sora was not Roxas, no matter how much they looked alike.
"Thats good, I guess. We should really catch up sometime, you know? We could hang out with the old crew." There was a bright-plastic-forced smile on Sora's face and Axel's knuckles turned white from gripping his cane so hard.
After everything had happened, Sora had sought comfort in other people and leaned on his friends to cope. Axel knew the brunette had to be hurting. The scars left by his twin's death had to have been just as deep, if not deeper, than his own, but somehow Sora kept that positive air, somehow he didn't drown in the aftermath like Axel had. Maybe it was because he hadn't been there, maybe it was because he wasn't the one that...
"Sora! Come on!" A blonde twig of a girl waved in their direction from the exit, her arms weighed down by full shopping bags.
"One sec!" Sora turned back to him and there was an awkward beat while he thought of what to say and Axel tried to will him to leave. "So, I'll call you sometime, okay?"
"Sure."
"Okay. See you later, Axel!" The brunette boy bounced away to his waiting girlfriend and relieved her of some of the shopping. It felt like a weight had been lifted from Axel's shoulders and he could breathe again.
He wouldn't be answering his phone if Sora called. He'd given up trying to connect with old friends a long time ago.
"...I ran into Sora the other day." Axel rubbed his hand in circles along the outside of his thigh to attempt to lessen the throbbing there. He probably shouldn't have walked all the way to his appointment.
The clock in his therapist's office was uncommonly loud and the constant tick tock made him want throw the stupid thing out the picture window behind her desk. The room was falsely homey in a way that was forced and had the unintended effect of making him less comfortable. Everything from the soft couch to the embroidered pillows, the pleasant scenes framed on the walls, and the obnoxious cat-clock that was reminiscent of his grandmother's kitchen, made him want to torch the place.
But Aerith didn't know about his almost constant wish to set the world on fire. There were some things even his therapist didn't need to know.
"That's good. What did you two talk about?" Miss Aerith Gainsborough really was a good person. She was patient and kind and didn't pump Axel full of too many drugs, and even though he wanted to burn her office to the ground, he didn't necessarily want to burn her.
"Nothing really."
"Hmm." She scribbled something down on her notepad and tried to prompt him with a few more questions, but he was done talking.
That fucking clock made it too hard to think.
"Hey, Axel. We're best friends, right?"
"So then, I'm all like, 'whoa there, fucktard' and shit gets real. Idiot pulls a knife on me, a knife, which is dumb cause nothing short of a tank can take me down, yo." Reno grinned down at him from his perch sitting on the counter.
This had somehow become a routine. Reno would walk over during his lunch breaks and talk Axel's ear off, rattling off anecdotes of bar fights and high speed chases, but there always seemed to be something missing from the stories. Like the other redhead was leaving something (or someone) out. Axel let him prattle on to his heart's content, occasionally raising a skeptical eyebrow or letting out an amused snort when appropriate. They consumed alarming amounts of processed-artery-clogging-diabetes-inducing junk food and Axel supposed that maybe they were progressing towards something that might be considered friends.
He hadn't really had any friends in a long time.
"Anyway, what'd you do last weekend?"
"Nothing."
"Your life is boring, yo."
Axel shrugged and reached for another cookie.
"Hmm..." Reno appeared to be lost in thought for a moment and scratched his forehead under the goggles perched there. He snapped his fingers and his face lit up like he'd just won the lottery. "Got it! I need your phone number."
Axel choked. "What?"
Reno pounded him on the back until the food was dislodged from his throat, laughing all the while. "Your phone number man. I'll call you sometime, spice up your boring-ass life."
Axel narrowed his eyes, skeptical. "...are you hitting on me?"
"You want me to be?" Reno quipped back without missing a beat.
Axel didn't grace that with a response and instead dug around in his pocket for his very outdated flip-phone and passed it off to the other redhead. He was slightly amused when Reno tossed him an equally clunky phone in return. They click clacked each other's numbers in and traded back.
"So..." Reno twirled his phone around in his hand absently. "If I call you and ask you to hang out, will it be a date?"
"No."
"Fair enough. Will you answer if I call?"
"...probably."
Reno grinned impossibly wide, a flicker of something in his blue eyes. "I look forward to it, yo."
These were the moments Axel lived for.
He was sprawled across the bottom bunk with Roxas, watching a zombie movie play on the tiny television in their dorm room. Each place where the blonde touched him, an elbow here, a knee there, burned. This easy companionship and uncomplicated friendship stopped him from voicing his true feelings, admitting that although he loved being Roxas's best friend, sometimes he wanted more.
"What is it?"
"Huh?"
"You're staring at me like you want to eat me."
"Oh...sorry." Axel scratched the back of his head, ruffling bright red spikes. "It's nothing."
"Nothing, huh?" And there it was. That little spark in blue eyes that made Axel wonder if maybe, just maybe...
Then it was gone and they were back to being best friends watching a movie together on a Friday night.
Axel stared down at the palm of his hand.
He could do this.
He had twenty-seven painkillers left and a full bottle of cough syrup waiting on the kitchen counter.
He could do this.
There had been three voicemails on his phone that day.
"Hey Ax, it's Demyx! I haven't heard from you in a while. I was wondering if you want to grab a bite to eat or something..."
"Axel, it's Kairi. Would you please call Mom and tell her you're alive?"
"Hey...it's Sora. Um, anyway, this weekend we're going out to the Usual Spot, reminisce, you know? You should come with us..."
He couldn't take it anymore. The reminders, enduring near-constant pain, swallowing pills every morning, robotically going to work just to get by, he couldn't fucking take it.
He could do this, though.
This time there would be no messing up, no waking up in a hospital two days later with a paper gown and a new prescription. No more living this not-life. This time would work.
He could do this.
Despite his convictions and assurances, his head still argued with itself, his hand shook slightly, time dragged on.
What would Roxas think...?
Axel nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his phone going off. He contemplated not answering, but part of him was still longing to delay.
"...Hello?"
"Hey, man. It's Reno. You want to go somewhere, get a drink or some shit?" The other redhead sounded a little strange, and in his mind Axel imagined him pacing and doing that flicky thing with his lighter.
"I don't drink."
"Well, fuck, yo. How about some coffee then?"
"Reno...are you okay?" The irony of asking someone else this question when he had been minutes away from committing suicide was not lost on him, and Axel had to repress the ridiculous urge to laugh.
"I...yeah...no...know what I mean?" Reno made some sort of stressed sound high in his throat, and somehow Axel knew exactly what he meant. "I just need to get out of the damned apartment, yo. I can't fucking breathe in here."
"Okay."
"Great, where do you live? I could come pick you up."
Axel relayed his address then hung up the phone and stared down at the pills still gathered in his palm. Calmly, he tipped them back into the bottle and put it back in its proper place in the cupboard.
Not a good day to die.
Axel cradled his coffee close and stared down into its depths. Reno was sitting next to him on the bench outside the shop chain smoking. It was strange, how quiet the other redhead was being. Axel wasn't really sure what to do. He realized for all the time they spent together and as much as Reno talked, they knew virtually nothing about each other. Reno had the amazing ability to talk for hours and never say a word about himself.
Now there was silence, which allowed Axel to think, which let his mind wander to the pills in his cupboard, and why was he still there?
"Fuck!" Axel twitched at Reno's exclamation and moved his stare up to the other redhead's face. "It's really fucked, you know? Everyone with their stupid pity and poor Reno and it must be so hard. Well, it'd be a whole lot fucking easier if they'd just leave me alone. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Yeah." Axel was starting to catch the faintest hint that maybe Reno was insane. But that was all right, because he really did understand. Or, at least he thought he did.
"Of course you do, man. Cause you know. Goddamn. I thought changing jobs, changing careers, blocking everyone's phone number, and getting the fuck out would change some of this. Nothing. All the same." Reno lit another cigarette, and some of the fight seemed to melt from his shoulders. "It doesn't get any better, yo."
"No. It doesn't." Axel looked out across the street blankly, without seeing. "Never gets any better."
"Fuck." Reno stood abruptly and then turned to help Axel stand. "Let's go do something, man."
"Like what?"
"Well, you don't drink, but do you mind if I do? Let's go play some pool at a bar and after you can be my designated walker."
"...Alright."
They'd developed a weird cycle. Reno would still come to the store almost everyday and bullshit around, but now he'd call sometimes. They'd get something to eat, some coffee, more bullshitting, then they'd usually end up at a bar and Axel would watch him smoke and drink. He'd listen to him ramble and rant. They'd almost gotten in a fight once, but Axel had broken it up by smacking the aggressor soundly over the head with his cane, which Reno had thought hilarious, even after they'd been kicked out.
He knew where Reno worked and where he lived and what his car looked like on the inside. He knew that he didn't like chocolate and couldn't stand spicy food and would drink just about anything, but preferred whiskey.
Axel did not know where the other redhead was from, what he'd done when he was a police officer, why he'd quit, if he had a family, if he had other friends, where he'd gone to school, or why it was that everything was "fucked".
It was okay, though, because Reno knew just as little about him. They got some kind of bizarre comfort from being in each other's presence and Axel was afraid that if he opened up and shared his past, the spell would be broken and Reno's eyes would contain the pity that everyone else's did.
"Yeah, Roxas! Fight, fight, fight!" Axel cheered on his friend in the Struggle tournament, the rest of their clique sitting around him.
He never would have guessed that the petite blonde would be such a tough fighter.
After he won the match, Roxas's blue eyes were shining with triumph, and just a touch of disbelief, and scanned the crowd. His smile became radiant when he found a his gangly ginger best friend waving to him like an idiot, and Axel felt like his heart might burst because Roxas was smiling that way for him.
Axel paused outside the store to pull his scarf tighter around himself.
The weather was quickly cooling off.
He limped away, leaning heavily on his cane and hissing slightly at the stiffness in his leg, the cold always made it worse.
"Yo! Axel!" He looked up to see Reno jogging across the street, his ponytail trailing behind him. "I just finished my shift. Wanna get something to eat?"
"I can't. I have to get to therapy."
"Oh, really? You believe that psycho-babble bullshit?" Reno looked down at the ground and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
"What? No, physical therapy." Axel rolled his eyes. Like he'd ever admit that he had to go see Aerith every other week.
As if.
"Ooh..." Reno looked down at him, like he was just realizing Axel walked with a cane and Axel almost wanted to laugh. "You want a ride?"
"Sure."
They piled into Reno's piece of shit deathtrap of a car that smelled like a giant cigarette.
"Where to?"
"Just turn right up at Traverse Street."
"You got it, yo." Reno fiddled with the radio eventually cursing the music industry and turning it off. "So...am I allowed to ask what happened to you?"
Axel tightened his grip on his cane and stared pointedly ahead.
Hey, Axel. We're best friends, right?
"No."
"Sorry." Reno drummed his fingers on the steering wheel nervously. "That was kind of incon-fucking-siderate of me."
"It's okay." Axel glanced over at the other redhead briefly. "Maybe I'll tell you some other time."
"Yeah? Sounds good, man, sounds good." Reno shuffled around his pockets and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. "You mind if I smoke?"
"Find by me."
"Thanks, yo."
"Reno..." Axel shifted in his seat. "What did you mean earlier...about the, uh, 'psycho-babble'?"
"Oh, well, they've been telling me I'm crazy for years, even before...well, for a long time, man." Reno took a long drag and rolled down his window slightly to let out some of the smoke. "Saying that I'm borderline...anxious...it's a pile of shit, you know? And those fucking pills just made everything...dim or something."
"Yeah...dim..." Axel knew what he meant. When he'd been admitted and when he'd first gotten out of the hospital, there'd been a whole cocktail of drugs trailing through his system and he hadn't felt like himself. Aerith didn't believe in all that, and most of the medications he was on those days were for pain or to help him sleep, with a very low dose antidepressant to make it so he just thought about overdosing but never actually did it. "It's better to just deal. Have some rough days, stop yourself from setting the world on fire, and find a way to just fucking deal."
"Holy shit, yo." Reno's eyebrows shot up. "I think that's the most I've ever heard you say."
"Shut up." Axel smirked slightly and socked Reno on the arm.
"You're right, though, and that's why the psycho-babble is bullshit."
Axel woke up with a start, but at first wasn't exactly sure why. His alarm hadn't gone off, he didn't have work, what the hell...?
A sharp knocking at the door to his apartment answered that question. His eyes slid over to the alarm clock and he groaned at the hour.
Who the fuck is here at eight in the morning on a goddamned Sunday?
He struggled to his feet and took a few stuttering steps forward. The tap-tapping continued relentlessly.
"Just a minute!"
Fuck...
He opened the door, shirtless with a fabulous case of bed head and a glare that could shatter souls.
"Good morning!"
Kairi...
Good thing she didn't have a soul.
"What do you want?" He clipped out, closing the door slightly, getting ready to slam it in her face.
"You never answer your phone. Mom sent me to make sure you're still breathing." His little sister crossed her arms indignantly, her glossed lips forming a pout.
"I'm alive. Piss off." He slammed the door, and decided he was too angry and awake to fall back asleep, so he started shuffling toward the kitchen to take his morning meds.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself, Axel!" Great, now she's shouting through the door. "You can't keep being a hermit!"
"I'm not a hermit!" He glared at the door and swallowed down his pills.
"No one has seen you for months! You can't avoid everything forever!"
Axel fished out his phone and tapped out a quick text to Reno.
"Breakfast?"
To the sounds of Kairi's ranting and stupid advice, Axel dressed, brushed his teeth, and made himself decent enough for public.
"Dude. So hungover. NEED some greasy diner food and coffee."
"I'll be at your place in ten."
Axel opened the door and shoved his way past Kairi, who was still talking.
"Where are you going?" She did an awkward sideways crab walk down the stairs, like she was spotting him, and it would have been funny if it wasn't so infuriating.
"I'm meeting someone for breakfast."
Kairi almost fell down the stairwell in her shock and had to jog to catch up to him. "Really? Who?"
"Not your business." Outside Axel adjusted his gloves and scarf and turned to glare at his sister. "Like I said, not a hermit. So piss off."
Axel swayed slightly, and braced one arm on the wall on each side of Roxas's head, the blonde looking up at him, blue eyes glassy.
"Axel...?"
The alcohol in his blood gave him courage and the redhead said the thing that had been festering in the back of his mind for the last five years.
"Rox. I like you."
Roxas giggled. "Of course you do, we're best friends."
"No, I mean, I like you." Axel swallowed convulsively, wondering if maybe this wasn't the best time for this.
"Oh..." Realization dawned on Roxas's face after a few heartbeats and they were both quiet. The sounds of the forgotten college party echoing in the background beyond their notice.
Even in that state, Axel knew that he didn't want to have some cheap drunken hookup with his friend. He sucked in a steadying breath and locked eyes with the shorter blonde. "Do you...wanna go out with me sometime?"
"...I made a new friend."
"That's good, Axel. Do you want to talk about it." Aerith was obviously trying to sound encouraging, without sounding too ecstatic, but Axel could see right through that. She was happy for him.
Hell, he was kind of happy for him too.
"Yeah...I kind of do." Axel chewed absently on his thumbnail, thinking of how to put his thoughts into words. "I...really like him...but...he doesn't know about...you know."
"Do you want him to know about what happened to you, Axel?"
"I don't know, maybe. I can tell there's something he isn't telling me either, something that happened, but..." Axel looked up into understanding green eyes. "...but I kind of wonder if the reason everything is okay is because neither of us know."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps if you open up to each other you're friendship will become stronger." Axel glared over at the clock, the tick-tocking of its annoying tail making it hard to think.
"Axel...?"
He was done talking.
It was that day again.
The anniversary of the day life turned to shit.
They day the sun went out.
The day Roxas died.
Axel awkwardly bent down to brush all the leaves away from the gravesite, and pulled up the few weeds that survived the cold. They'd buried his friend in a family plot in the Twilight Town cemetery, which Axel thought was good because maybe Roxas was with the people he loved.
The redhead had bought white roses and carefully arranged them next to the headstone, then he just stood there. Staring.
He shifted a little, leaning heavily on his cane, his leg throbbing more painfully than ever. He always wished he had more profound things to say, they had been best friends their entire lives, and if things had gone differently, they might have been lovers.
Axel buried his face deeper into his scarf, a hand-knitted one that had once belonged to Roxas. He sometimes imagined that it still smelled like him, which was impossible, but comforting.
"I love you."
The simple admission made his chest twist in a painful way. He nodded to himself and started limping off toward the path that would lead out of the cemetery, he didn't want to linger for too long, Roxas would have a lot of visitors that day.
As he made his slow progress down the path, a voice was carried on the wind. He looked up with a furrowed brow.
Who would be laughing in a cemetery?
Axel stopped dead in his tracks, shocked. There, across the way, stood Reno.
He was gesturing wildly, flailing his arms about, clearly recounting one of his epic tales of adventure. The redhead was alone, but was laughing and talking and making rude gestures, just like he did when he told Axel his tall tales. Reno had a cigarette dangling from one hand and a takeaway coffee in the other. Another cup of coffee was sitting precariously on the headstone of the grave he was standing on, a lit cigarette resting beside it and slowly burning away.
Reno suddenly stopped his antics and sat down in the damp morning grass, subdued. He drew patterns in the ground and continued talking, and it appeared to Axel that occasionally Reno would pause, as if expecting an answer.
He looked sad.
Axel came to his senses, realized he was spying on his friend, and ducked behind a tree when Reno stood to give the grave a salute and walk off toward the path. Once Reno was out of sight, Axel made his way through the maze of gravesites to the one with the coffee and now burnt out cigarette.
He looked down at the headstone.
He'd found the something missing
Rude Umar
Beloved Partner and Friend
December 2,1982 - April 15, 2010
Campus looked beautiful in the fall. All of Twilight Town turned into a sea of reds, and oranges, and yellows. The morning was gray and crisp, the air the biting kind of cold that made it almost hurt to breathe. Roxas kicked at the leaves along the sidewalk towards Axel and the redhead retaliated in kind.
The blonde's cheeks were an adorable pink from the cold and his hair was squashed down by a hand-knit hat his mother had made. Axel looked down at his best friend and felt a twinge of nervousness, because after that night, after they had finished with all of their classes, they might be more than just friends.
Roxas had said yes, Axel was going to take him out to dinner, they were going to see how things went, and, oh god, just maybe...
Reno's car rumbled beneath them, and Axel was fairly concerned it might fall apart at any moment. Reno had picked him up earlier, grumbling something about 'lousy fucking day, yo' and insisted that he needed to get wasted. Axel had been quiet about what he knew, he didn't tell the other redhead about the day at the cemetery. It felt wrong, guilty.
He was now able to see the pattern to Reno's madness. His anxiety would build and build and build until something finally triggered him and he had to drink or fight and lash out at the world. Sometimes Axel felt like that. It's one of the reasons he didn't have many friends anymore, and why his sister only came to him when his family started to suspect that he was dead.
They both sometimes wanted to watch the world burn, because what kind of world was it without Roxas, without Rude?
Reno was chain smoking his fifth cigarette and it killed Axel to think that Reno was killing himself slowly in alcohol and tobacco ash. He didn't want his friend to die, and for the first time in a long time he had gone almost an entire month without contemplating dying himself.
"Hey."
"What is it, yo?"
"Why don't..." Axel trailed off, unsure of what he wanted to say, how he wanted to say it. It had been so long since...
He'd spent his whole life waiting for Roxas and then Roxas was gone. He didn't know how to handle this kind of crap.
"What, yo?"
Axel swallowed nervously. "Why don't we go somewhere else."
A red eyebrow quirked in his direction.
"As in, not a bar."
"Why not? Getting blackout drunk sounds pretty fucking good right now." Reno tossed his finished cigarette out the window and scowled.
"Yeah, well..." Axel built up his courage and reached a hand forward to rest on Reno's knee. "I can think of something better."
Reno pulled the car over and slammed the gearshift into park. He turned to Axel. For a moment he was afraid Reno was going to kick him out of the car, that he'd ruined it.
Then Reno's lips curved into a predatory grin and his slim fingers carded their way into the soft hairs at the nape of Axel's neck. "My place or yours?"
"How do you feel about your relationship?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean...are you harboring any feelings of guilt? Do you feel like you've betrayed Roxas?"
Axel stared across the desk into Aerith's soft green eyes. "I...yeah, sometimes, but...not all the time...it's like..." He paused to gather himself and take a steadying breath. "It's like we're two pieces of two broken things...and we're just...trying to find someplace to fit."
"So...this is Roxas."
"Yeah." Axel shifted his weight. Being here, the memories were so strong and sharp pains pulsed through his leg. "This is Roxas."
Reno was quiet for once, waiting for Axel to say whatever he needed to get off his chest.
After a couple weeks of dating, he'd told Axel about Rude, and Axel had to feign surprise.
Rude had been Reno's partner on the force and he was more than his best friend because "when you fucking rely on someone for your life day after day, year after year, you become more than friends, more than brothers. Rude was my everything." Axel thought that made sense.
Rude had died on an assignment gone wrong, and Reno blamed himself. Axel thought that made sense too.
So it was only fitting that now Axel had to share some of his past as well, and because Reno was the closest to him, he decided to tell him the whole truth. Which was something he'd never shared with anyone.
"We were best friends our whole lives, grew up in this town. We roomed together at Twilight Town Tech and hardly ever spent a moment apart. When it happened...it was our junior year of college...we were just walking to class..."
Time seemed to slow down, at least in Axel's memories.
One minute, they were smiling and laughing, kicking leaves at each other.
The next, blue eyes widened in horror and Axel turned slowly, seeing the approaching car too late.
Pain.
Blinding pain.
Axel didn't remember much from that day, or the next two months. He remembered screaming, and blood, and hospitals, and a funeral. He remembered a court date, and anger, and despair, and a noose in his closet.
The thing that was engrained in his memory, the thing that Axel never told anyone, was that Roxas had heard and seen the car precious seconds before he did. He'd had a chance to react, and instead of throwing himself out of the way, instead of running for safety, he'd pushed Axel as hard as he could.
When the car hit them, it clipped Axel at high speeds, shattering his hip and pulverizing his knee. He'd never walk the same and be in pain for the rest of his days, but his best friend had saved his life.
Roxas took the full force of the impact, and died instantly.
Axel was aware that the way he was crying was not attractive. It was probably one of the ugliest cries on record. He was a shuddering mess, and his face was wet, and his nose was running, and he realized that he'd never really cried for Roxas.
He'd mourned, he'd grieved, but he had never cried for his best friend.
Maybe it was because he'd never had a shoulder to cry on.
Reno stood there, cradling him against his chest, continually wiping his face with his sleeve, murmuring things about how 'Roxas was a great friend, yo' and 'you would have done the same'. But he never showed him pity, never told him he was stupid for feeling guilty, just held him and kept him from falling to the frozen ground.
Eventually Axel calmed down, and straightened up, feeling slightly embarrassed, wiping away the last of the tear stains on his cheeks.
"You gonna be all right, man?" Axel was surprised to see that Reno's blue eyes were a little red and puffy.
His face morphed into his first true smile in years, his own green eyes crinkling. "Yeah, I think I really, really am."
He took Reno's hand and laced their fingers together. The other redhead placed a chaste kiss on his cheek and gave his hand a squeeze.
"Me too, yo."
"You sure about this?"
"Yeah."
"Okay...well, call me if you want me to pick you up early, yo. I'm just gonna be hanging around."
"Sure."
Axel stepped out of the car and let out a snort of amusement when Reno gave him his usual sloppy salute as he pulled out of the parking lot.
The redhead stood in front of the door to the small diner, the grip on his cane flexing and loosening nervously, until he finally decided to charge in.
"Hey, Axel!" Sora and Demyx were sitting in their normal corner of The Usual Spot, waiting for him.
They talked. A lot.
They talked about how they had graduated, and what was Axel doing now, and what their plans were. They talked about good times, and bad times, and all the times he'd missed. They talked about Roxas, and the accident, and how much they all wished he was still there.
It was good. It was healing.
Later Axel would say goodbye, and 'we should see each other soon' and things would feel almost normal, but he knew things would never be the same with his old friends. He still cared about them, still wanted them in his life, but he knew that when they were together, they'd only ever be able to think of what they had lost.
With Reno, it was different.
There were going to be bad days. Days when Reno was so crazy Axel had to lock him in the bathroom and threaten to call an ambulance if he didn't calm down. Nights when Axel's leg hurt so bad that he couldn't sleep and would be a complete bastard the following morning. There were the times that Reno would come home drunk out of his head, unable to turn down temptation in his moment of weakness. The times when Axel would refuse to get out of bed because it was one of those mornings.
Regardless of all their hardships and all their quirks, the good days vastly outnumbered the bad, and despite everything that had happened they were illogically and impossibly and stupidly happy.
They were two pieces of two broken things that had found the someplace that they fit.
I hope you enjoyed reading and please leave a review to let me know what you think!