This is what happened when I sat at a computer, intending to write a one shot about Axel and Xigbar. I think they are pretty in character. This is right before Sora goes to The World That Never Was in the second game. It's a bit sad, but I like it.
I do not own Kingdom Hearts.
"What the hell are you doing?" Axel asks, bouncing a ball off a wall and catching it in the white meeting room.
"What the hell does it looks like you idiot? I'm fixing my stitches!" Xigbar growls at Axel, glaring up at him.
Axel glances over his shoulder to see Xigbar twisting around to reach his left hip with a sewing needle. "Why on earth, heck, why in the universe, would you want to do something like that?"
"I wouldn't have to do it if it weren't for you!" Xigbar growls, wincing as he pricks his hip with the needle and a drop of blood wells up.
"What did I ever do to you?" Axel inquires, twisting around to face Xigbar as he starts tossing the ball up in the air and catching it.
"What did you…? What do you mean what did you do?" Xigbar roars. "You gave me these stupid injuries, drug me to Luxord to get stitches, and then you caused me to rip the stitches open six freaking times!"
"I did that?" Axel tilts his head curiously, catching the ball in his hands. "No, I couldn't have possibly done that. I would've remembered." He says shaking his head.
"Maybe if you would cut back on the sake a bit you would be coherent most of the time! Or even fifty percent of the time!"
"I can stop anytime I want to!" Axel shouts. He spreads his arms out, the ball in one hand, the other hand palm up. "See? I'm perfectly sober right now."
"Only because SaÏx hid all the liqueur." Xigbar mumbles, moving on to sew some stitches on a nasty cut in his arm.
Axel glowers for a bit, tossing the ball back into the air and catching it while Xigbar continues to sew his stitches.
"So what happened?" Axel mutters.
"What do you mean?" Xigbar growls.
"What did I do that caused you to get so many stitches?"
Xigbar sighs, cuts the thread on the stitch he just finished and looks at Axel. "Are you sure you want to know?"
Axel nods slowly, catching the ball in his hand. Xigbar sighs and leans against the wall behind Axel, causing Axel to have to twist around in his seat to see Xigbar.
"It started shortly after Number XIII left."
"Roxas," Axel mutters angrily. "His name is Roxas."
Xigbar waves his hand dismissively. "Yeah, sure whatever. It was about a week and a half after Roxas left that you started hitting the sake. Soon you were drunk beyond all comprehension, and Xemnas had a big mission he needed you to complete."
Axel closes his eyes in an attempt to remember. "Right, I had to eliminate a… Giant Heartless?"
Xigbar shakes his head. "No. Xemnas sent you to take out the imposter. The one who caught Numbe- Roxas." Xigbar says, catching himself.
Axel's eyes spark in fury. "Please tell me I kicked his sorry ass."
Xigbar sighs, shaking his head. "Not exactly." Xigbar grabs his coat, which had been hanging off the edge of a chair and pulls it on, moving to sit in the chair opposite Axel.
Axel swivels to stare at Xigbar. "What do you mean, 'not exactly'?"
"Well, you certainly gave him a hard time, but you were barely conscious, and made stupid mistakes. Which is why Xemnas sent me with you. I was to hide in the shadows and attack the guy from a distance."
"A sniper," Axel says, lifting his feet and resting them on the coffee table between himself and Xigbar while tossing the ball in the air again.
"Exactly. The plan would have worked perfectly. Except…" Xigbar pauses, searching for the right words.
"I was drunker than drunk? Heavily intoxicated? Had enough liqueur in me to kill an elephant?" Axel offers, catching the ball and tossing it in the air again.
"Yeah," Xigbar says, nodding. "And you were being reckless. So I had to jump in and save your sorry ass. Which seemed to work at first, but then the imposter quickly ignored you, leaving you to stumble around drunkenly, and he quickly beat me into a pulp"
Axel's eyes flicker with something similar to regret, but he says nothing as Xigbar continues to speak.
"I'm nowhere near his level of experience, and he easily beat me. I count myself lucky to be alive now. He must have taken pity on me or something, because once I had no hope of fighting him anymore, he walked over to you, hit the back of your head, successfully knocking you out, and just left."
"So I'm lucky to be alive as well huh?" Axel says softly.
"Very lucky. Luxord is convinced you were born under a lucky star, or that you're just playing chicken with death."
"We are already dead." Axel smirks, catching the ball.
"Try telling Luxord that." Xigbar grins. "Anyway, after that little escapade, it took you hours to wake, which I spent trying to keep my guts from spilling into the street. When you finally woke up it took me another hour to get you to take me to Luxord to patch me up."
"Bet he got a kick out of that."
"Oh yeah. Before he cleaned any of my wounds, he stared at them for a while and speculated as to whether they would kill me or not, and whether I deserved to live after being so stupid. Only when Xemnas came in and yelled at him did he start cleaning my wounds and stitching and bandaging them. Even then, he did so painfully slow, poking and prodding the whole time."
Axel shudders, "It's too bad he's the only member that had a degree in medicine when he was a person, as he is absolutely the WORST member to be a doctor."
"You've got that right. And I talk from experience. The past few weeks I've had to have him re-sew stitches, give me more stitches, bandage burns, anything and everything that he may have had to fix, he did."
"Wait, burns?" Axel asks cautiously, catching the ball and beginning to toss it back and forth from hand to hand.
Xigbar nods. "After Roxas left you became pretty much intoxicated all the time. Which had different effects at different times. Sometimes you were completely reckless and no help whatsoever in battle, other times you got confused as to what you were doing…"
Axel shakes his head, "I was a mess, I get it, no need to go over everything I did wrong."
Xigbar shrugs," Whatever. The point is after you had your collapse into oblivion, Xemnas assigned me as your babysitter."
Axel's face begins to turn red at the concept of having been assigned a babysitter as he squeezes the ball furiously, knuckles turning white. "Why did he assign you? Why not Demyx? Or Xaldin?"
Xigbar shakes his head slowly, "Man, you really have been out of it. They're dead."
Axel jerks up, dropping his ball onto the ground in surprise. "What?"
Xigbar raises an eyebrow, "The kid killed them."
"What kid?"
"Man," Xigbar shakes his head in shock. "You really don't know? Every time you got away from me, you gave this kid trouble, and you don't even remember him?"
Axel shakes his head, reaching down to pick up the ball.
"Sora." Xigbar says slowly. "Sora killed them Axel. He's been killing us all off, one by one."
"When did this start?" Axel demands.
"Shortly after Roxas went missing."
Axel shakes his head, "That would explain the giant blank in my memory. Are they really gone?"
"They are long gone. And the kid is on his way here. He wants to destroy Kingdom Hearts."
Axel shakes his head slowly. Everything he had known, his friends, his life, everything had been ripped away from him during his drunken depression.
Xigbar glances down at his arm, which was bleeding more now, after his stitching job than before, and sighs. "I should go get Luxord to fix me up one last time, before the kid gets here."
Xigbar stands, dropping the needle onto the table and walks towards the door tossing over his shoulder, "I would get ready Axel. This kid is tough. Don't underestimate him."
Xigbar walks out, leaving Axel alone in the white room.
"Gone…" Axel whispers setting the ball on the table next to Xigbar's needle slowly. "They're all gone…"
Axel stands and walks to the window and looks out to Kingdom Hearts. 'Such a small thing,' he ponders. 'To ruin everyone's lives.'
Axel shakes his head sadly. Roxas had quietly snuck his way into Axel's life. Steady as the rising sun, bringing with him light and warmth. Axel had then felt as if he had a purpose for living, as if he was more than just a ghost, left behind after death.
Roxas was Axel's best friend. He made Axel feel like a person again, but then Roxas had stormed out, ripping away Axel's sun. Desperate as he was for purpose, Axel could see no reason. He refused to accept Roxas's absence, and chased his best friend down, trying to bring him back to the castle. Axel longed for purpose again, but purpose evaded him.
Axel rubs his temples slowly, trying to remember what he had done. Try as he might, he could only remember a few blurry images. And those images were not pleasant.
Axel remembered seeing Roxas, joyous and holding a trophy over his head. But when Axel had shown up, Roxas's joy had been washed away by fear, confusion, and fury. Axel rubs his temple as his head pounds painfully. The image of a young girl appears behind his eyes, with wine colored hair, and sparkling blue eyes. But those eyes had been filled with fear and hatred. Axel scrunches his eyes closed, trying to push away the images. A boy, with spiky brown hair had yelled at Axel, holding a blade fashioned after a key. He had demanded his friends back, and Axel had laughed in his face.
Axel shakes his head. "What have I done?" He whispers, voice breaking with sorrow.
Axel places an open palm on the glass, and leans his forehead against the smooth cool surface. He sighs, warm breath fogging up the glass.
"I've made a mess of everything…" Axel murmurs. "How am I supposed to fix this? Demyx is dead, Roxas is long gone, and the Organization is barely holding together…"
Axel looks up and stares at Kingdom Hearts.
"Would that really save us?" Axel mutters. "Could a stupid moon save our sorry souls and give us new hearts?"
Axel steps away from the glass and turns as he hears Xemnas stride into the white room.
"Axel, nice to know that you are coherent." Xemnas says, stopping barely inside the doorway.
Axel scoffs, "Nice time to enter the land of the living."
"Indeed. But at least you will be in proper senses for the glorious last stand of Organization XIII." Xemnas says.
Axel raises an eyebrow. "Last stand?"
"The boy is approaching, as I'm sure Xigbar has already told you. He has just entered the darkness, and we are attempting to lead him astray, but he is to strong."
"So I've been told," Axel mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck with a gloved hand.
"I need you to meet him in the darkness and force him back." Xemnas says sternly.
"What?" Axel cries, dropping his hand in disbelief.
"You are the best fighter we have left, now that you are coherent that is. Saïx and I must stay here, and Xigbar or Luxord would have no hope of beating this boy. You must go." Xemnas demands.
Axel drops his head in defeat, "Very well sir."
"Very good," Xemnas gives a short nod. "He is lost in the darkness now, but his light is strong and he will soon find his way out. Find him before he finds you and eliminate him."
Axel nods, lips pursed in fury. Xemnas nods and strides out of the room as Axel summons a portal to the darkness.
"Stupid." Axel mutters, glancing over his shoulder before stepping into the darkness. "I can't stop it. No one can."
Axel shudders as the cold grip of darkness surrounds him and he steps forward, looking around for Sora. Axel spots Sora a distance away, fighting off Nobodies with a strange looking dog creature, and a giant duck-like creature.
Sora shouts furiously as he swings his blade through a Dusk. He immediately turns and destroys a Dusk that had been about to attack the duck from behind. Axel watches in awe at the grace, precision, and trust that the three shared.
Axel clutches a fist over his chest where his heart should have been. It ached. This boy, Sora, was pure. He was honest, and true. Axel swallows a lump in his throat and watches the boy continue to fight, bravely guarding his friends when they pass out from exhaustion.
'I can't kill him,' Axel thinks, watching Sora. 'He's so full of life, and we are but Nobodies, already dead.' Axel shakes his head, and pulls out his chakra.
"Here goes nothing," Axel whispers, charging in to fight beside Sora.
And for the last moments of his after-life, Axel was able to fight beside his best friend once more.
Read and Review please! Once again, if anyone has a request for a one-shot, or an idea for me, feel free to PM me, or ask in a review! Thanks for reading! ^^