A/N: Inspired by the line, "I hated and hated and hated and loved and loved and loved," from Forsake Me Not, by Aya-dono.
Disclaimer: I do not own.
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Axel loved Roxas.
He had attached himself to the new recruit instantly. And because Roxas couldn't feel, Axel found himself feeling enough for both of them - smiling, laughing and joking, and having that odd pull in his chest like he could distantly remember. Sometimes, Axel thought he might have seen Roxas' lips twitch at another of his bad jokes, or almost-smiling at one of his idiotic stories. So Axel smiled and laughed and joked some more, in the hope that one day he might see Roxas smile.
Axel hated Sora.
His hate was intense like the fire he represented, fierce and vaguely irrational. Sora was everything Roxas was not, but all he should have been. Sora was cheerful and happy and brunette and real, and Axel still couldn't get his blonde-haired Nobody to smile. Axel wanted to destroy Sora, who should have stayed a Heartless, who needed to die if Roxas was to live.
Axel hated Roxas.
Roxas had left, and Axel was forcibly reminded that no matter how much he had grown to like Roxas, Roxas could never feel the same way about him. He hated the happy, smiling Roxas in Twilight Town, because Axel knew Roxas and Roxas would never smile. Axel hated the fake Roxas for trying to take the real Roxas' place, and he let the fake join with his Other - the real Roxas was dead and gone.
Axel loved Sora.
Sora had changed slightly - he was sometimes silent and unsmiling, staring into the distance. Axel saw Roxas in Sora in those moments, and began to rebel from the Organization, protecting Sora like he had never needed to protect Roxas. Axel saw flashes of Roxas in Sora, and was willing to die for Roxas to live.
Axel had hated and hated and loved and loved, and as he was fading into the darkness, he wondered how he had ever believed that Nobodies couldn't feel.