Hurt.
An Akuroku tribute.

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any right to claim that I in any way, shape or form influenced the creation of the characters used below or the setting this story takes place in. Axel, Roxas and all everything associated with them are the property of Square Enix and the Disney Corporation to whom all thanks should go because they are freaking brilliant! All credit for the title goes to Butterfly In A Hurricane and xXxBeautifullyChaoticxXx. Love you guys!

The black cloak of night enveloped Axel. Neon lights above gave an artificial glow to the gloom of the artificial world as the thunder which always rumbled across the skies of the World Which Never Was continued to roll forth into the Nothing.

Organisation XIII should have fitted perfectly with the concept of night. Night was just one more cloak. They shouldn't clash, but they did. The Organisation fitted as much with night as they did with day, or light, or hope, or beauty, or any sense of fulfilment. Basically, Organisation 13 didn't fit anywhere. They couldn't, they were Nobodies, forgotten and unwanted.

But it was more than just their black appearance, it was the idea that when night came, all light was taken from the world, that streets became empty and that anyone left outside was on their own in the loneliness that surrounded them, with nothing but the light of a moon, a beacon of comfort forever out of reach for company and hope that somewhere the sun still existed and would rise again.

No-one was truly at ease alone in the dark.

Roxas had been different. Or Axel thought he had been. Screw that, Axel knew he still was. Roxas had brought something into the dark streets. He wasn't just darkness like the others of the Organisation, who passed by their fellow darkness, unseeing and uncaring to each other. Roxas had been like a light, a light which was small and fettering, incomplete and unwhole, being slowly extinguished by the darkness that pressed against him. But to Axel, after so long alone in the darkness, Roxas' light was blazing. A fire stronger than any Axel himself could hope to summon. No amount of light or fire had helped Axel; it had only burned and destroyed all that had been around him. Its warmth had been too strong and had brought no comfort, only more pain. Roxas' warmth... it had been right. It had felt so right.

But now... now nothing made sense.

Axel watched him go. Walking away from him, and it was as if his light was fading into the distant horizon. Another sunset when Axel needed a sunrise.

"You can't turn on the Organisation!" Axel snapped, flinging himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against. He couldn't let this end, he couldn't just give up. He would not go back into that darkness to be alone again. "Get on their bad side and they'll destroy you!"

Roxas stopped, had it worked?

"No-one would miss me," Roxas said, his voice emotionless. The light seemed to fade a bit more, the darkness suffocating it at last. There was nothing left.

If it was going to end, it would end with Axel saying what he wanted to.

"That's not true!" Axel shouted. Biding his time and building up friendship had gotten him nowhere. He thought the friendship was all he needed, and it had been, but now it was leaving. It couldn't leave. Axel couldn't let it leave.

"I would."

Had Roxas heard it? Had he cared? Had he ever cared? Had all that emotion Axel thought the boy had given him just been an illusion like Saix had said? Had it all been in Axel's head, never in his heart? He had wanted to shout those last two words, wanted to let it all out in one final blast of fire before everything went back to being cold, but instead it had come out as a whisper.

Roxas was still walking away, he hadn't heard, and so the cold came.

Axel didn't care anymore, he didn't care about anything. And in one instant of pure undiluted fear, Axel realised he couldn't. Already he felt it going. He felt the emptiness of darkness sweep through his chest, erasing the warmth and feelings that had felt like his heart, all the emotion and heat Roxas had given him, turning it into ice, and then a void. Not even cold, not even pain, not even ice, just nothing. It was gone. Already.

Just one drop remained, one drop left from all that had existed before.

One drop, a departing Grace, residing in its last few moments to cause a final ache in Axel's chest before it would all stop.

Axel's back hit the wall again and he slid slowly down its surface.

One drop.

One drop after everything that had been.

And so that drop left Axel in the only way it should. It came out as a tear. Axel hugged his legs close to him and his throat stuck, a thick mass of memories of the emotions he would soon no longer feel lodging in his throat and sticking, clinging to him as they slipped away.

He sobbed and buried his face in his knees, biting down on his lip to stop himself screaming as he felt the coldness fizzle away the last thing he would ever feel into the lonely abyss. Since Roxas had arrived, Axel had not allowed his heart to hope; now he had no heart left.

The tear was gone.

But...

Something had removed the tear. Something had touched Axel's face and had taken it away. Axel turned and saw Roxas, knelt down beside him, his head moving back slowly, a look of doubt in his eyes and a glistening tear on his lips.

Roxas had kissed the tear away.

It was...

It was... something.

Roxas was there. And in that one moment, while the Grace gave one last beat from the midst of the darkness inside him, Axel moved and brushed his lips against Roxas'. It wasn't a kiss. Their lips just touched. Briefly. Axel's upper moved against Roxas' lower, and the feel of it remained with Axel, welding itself into his soul.

Then Roxas moved his lips to Axel's, and this time, it was more than a brush. Roxas' lips pressed against Axel's and Axel responded, pressing back. His hand moved to the back of Roxas' neck, and the other to the small of the boy's back, pulling him close until their two chests touched. And suddenly there was no ice, no cold, no darkness. The world around them exploded in light and fire as they held each other close. The false world was burned away. There was no Organisation, there was no Kingdom hearts, there was no loss or gain or schemes. There was just Axel and Roxas, holding each other and sharing what they had denied giving to the other, what they had kept to themselves because neither wanted to be hurt, because both had been hurting and been clinging to each other. And the possibility of that support ever being lost had outweighed their need to give into something stronger. Until now, when the friendship had seemed eternal, they had not needed anything else. When it had been breaking, that's when they needed each other more than ever.

This wasn't like the warmth Axel had felt before. This was fire. A fire hotter and stronger than any Axel had ever felt. Even his own fire felt cold in comparison. He could feel Roxas' chest against his, and below the pyro's skin a heart was thumping, throwing itself with the force of new life against Axel's ribs in an attempt to be closer to Roxas. A heart so new, but so strong, springing from darkness; light bursting from nothing into full, blinding existence.

Time had ceased to matter, but it still passed, one moment fast the next slow as if its hands were broken. Reality losing control as creation began over again in fire and light.

Eventually, Roxas began to pull away, removing his hands from where they had been holding onto the back of Axel's neck as he retracted his lips.

"Don't stop," Axel whispered, a plea in his voice, as Roxas rose to his feet and turned to walk away again.

"Axel, I have to find out why the Keyblade chose me, I have to find where I belong."

"You belong with me!" Axel said, rising too and grabbing Roxas to look him in the eyes. Eyes so full of pain and turmoil, just like his own. It was more than Axel could bear and he placed his forehead on Roxas' chest instead.

"Don't you get it? You don't need to understand, you don't need to find anything. We can leave, we can do what we like, we can be who we want to be. But we can't if you... Let me come with you! We'll escape the Organisation! We'll go and-"

"AXEL DON'T!" Roxas grabbed his shoulders and brought his best friend's head up to look him straight in the eyes again. "I have to do this on my own. Leaving... Leaving you is hurting me so much, but it's something I have to do. Please try to understand-"

"Bull crap! I don't understand, if you're hurting so much then why I can't help you!"

"BECAUSE I'M NOT COMING BACK!"

Now it was Roxas who collapsed on Axel, burying his head in Axel's cloak as his voice broke.

"Axel, I'm not coming back, not ever, that's why. I don't want you there when I stop existing. I won't let..."

Axel wrapped his arms around Roxas and just held him, perhaps a little too tight; as if somewhere in his mind he truly believed that by holding forever onto his beacon of hope and light that it could change anything.

"Axel, let me go."

"No."

"Axel, you have to-"

Axel silenced him with another kiss, this one more desperate than the one before. The lips were not gentle and slow this time, they crushed Roxas' as Axel held the boy against him and poured all his hurt and desire into the action, as much as he could for as long as he could. His hands moving across Roxas' body as he tried to show him that everything he needed was already there, that Axel would give him anything, everything, that Roxas didn't have to leave.

But Roxas didn't respond and Axel finally realised it was over.

"Please don't" Axel whispered into his ear.

"I have to."

And with that, Axel gave up. He had given it his all and had failed. So he released Roxas and took a few steps back. Once more, Roxas walked away from him, and every step was a dagger in Axel's burning heart. Darkness could not extinguish this light, it was there now. It was a part of Axel, it was Roxas, it existed, and always would even when Roxas didn't.

Axel sank to his knees with a clink of chains and his head ducked. There was no lodge in his throat this time, there was no sob. Now his heart could weep its tears, and it wept them silently, one sliding from Axel's right eye, down over his tattoo and curving around his chin. Soft lips, one last time, placed themselves on Axel's forehead and pressed against his skin as he looked up and closed his eyes. He felt it all. Roxas didn't want to go.

"I'm sorry."

And with those as his last words. Roxas left. And Axel was alone.