Disclaimer: Don't own Kingdom Hearts. Trust me, you'd know if I did.

Title: Nemo*

Theme song: My December by Linkin Park.

Pairing: none. Axel and Roxas Friendship fic. This is going to be an AU—it will not follow the timeline between Days and KH II. But then again the prequel to this (Best Friends for you new readers) was an AU too so… naturally this would be the same.

Rating: T for language

Reason for writing: Special request by angelica186. She wanted to see a sequel and got the idea stuck in my head.

Slight Days Spoilers.

Other readers: I'm working on my other stories as we speak—er, read. Expect an update on one or more of them by Saturday after next I think. It depends on how much homework my professors give me.

Chapter One: Delinquo**

Axel stood before Saix, head down, shuffling his feet on the marble floor while he waited to hear what Saix would say. He had returned empty-handed after a retrieval mission and Saix had taken it upon himself to chew out Axel for his failure in private. Surprisingly, the Grey Room was empty but for the two of them and the various couches and tables set up there for the other members to recline in before and after their missions were completed. Axel knew Saix had probably ordered the other remaining members of the Organization to clear out when Axel portalled back into the room, looking haggard after a week of fruitless searching. What was even more surprising was the lack of overturned or damaged furniture that would normally have resulted from such a request on a free day.

"Well, VIII?" Saix said, raising one eyebrow. "Your mission?"

"I couldn't find him." Axel muttered, clenching his black-gloved fists. Isn't it obvious?

"What?" Saix uncrossed his arms, a sign that he was surprised but unwilling to show it. He quickly recrossed them, but Axel had caught the gesture.

"I said I couldn't find him!" Axel said, raising his voice a tad too high to be called civil. "I fucking tried, alright?"

I couldn't stop him. I couldn't stop my own best friend from leaving me.

"Lord Xemnas will not be pleased. He thought you, of all people, would be able to find the boy." Saix said, referring to Axel's friendship—could it even be called that anymore?—with Roxas, "He is very disappointed." He turned away from him to stare out the window at Kingdom Hearts, something he did when something when he was thinking hard on a problem. "As am I. I overestimated your ability to retrieve rebellious teenagers."

"Bite me, Isa. Are you saying he wasn't disappointed with his lapdog for not stopping him as he left the castle?" Axel shot out, knowing it was dangerous to taunt someone who could snap him like a twig if he was pissed and not caring. If Saix killed him, it would be a kindness. He didn't like not having his buddy with him. He didn't like that he had been the reason his buddy had left. "As I recall, Roxas kicked your ass very thoroughly before leaving through the front doors."

"Do not call me by that name!" Saix hissed, golden eyes flashing dangerously. "And do not presume to tell me my mistakes when it is your mistakes that led to this!"

Something snapped inside him.

"MY MISTAKES?" He roared. "THE REASON ROXAS LEFT IS BECAUSE YOU ALL—YOU KEPT HIM IN THE DARK!" He wanted to hit something, break something, but the only thing in the room besides himself and the furniture was Saix and he'd already pissed him off. "You don't know—He fucking trusted me to tell him everything and I couldn't tell him the one thing he'd wanted to know!"

"Then he was as foolish as you are behaving right now!" Saix had begun to raise his voice as well though it was nowhere near Axel's level. "You need to learn who your real friends are!"

"Well, it's obviously not you anymore, Isa." Axel snapped, ignoring Saix's order to stop using his True Name. He turned away. "We used to be best friends. Now what are we? Superior and underling? You know better than that."

Axel portalled away before Saix could give him a reply, and Saix watched him go one hand on his chest where, for just a moment, he'd felt a slight pang. But that was impossible, he told himself. Nobodies couldn't feel.

He turned to exit the room and found that the conversation hadn't been as private as he had hoped it would be, although the latter part would hardly have been private at the volumes to which they had raised their voices.

"Don't you all have missions to be doing?" he asked, narrowing his eyes dangerously at the four Nobodies lingering by the doorway. They clumped together, as if being in a group would protect them if he went berserk right then and there, and Saix supposed the sight would have been funny if Axel's failure hadn't put him in such a bad mood.

"Nope! Free day!" Someone said from somewhere in the back, and Saix recognized it as mullet-headed Demyx speaking before he thought of the consequences as usual.

"Then allow me to assign you some." Saix said. Screw the Free Day, he was in a pissy mood and the only way to make it better was to put others in that same mood.

"Dammit, Demyx! You had to open your mouth." Xigbar growled.

Axel stumbled as he stepped out of his portal and regained his balance as quickly as he could, hoping no one had seen such an uncool entrance. He looked to see what had tripped him and scowled when he saw it was only a coconut. He resisted the urge to kick it to kingdom come and plopped down onto the sand next to it.

He loved the beach. He loved these islands for their serenity; the sound of the waves lapping at the white sand on shore, the palm trees swaying gently in time with the waves, and the tree houses built just beyond the sand all soothed him.

He'd wanted to go to the beach with Roxas. He couldn't remember the exact reason, but he knew that it was something he'd wanted to do with him. The Destiny Islands were even more beautiful around this time of year, and the sunsets even more so.

I wonder if Roxas is watching the sunset right now? Wherever he is. Axel hoped so. One thing the Worlds had in common was the sunset. Actually, most of the Worlds. There were a few that had no sun at all. The World he had just left for example, the World That Never Was, had no sun, only a 'moon'—Kingdom Hearts. It was in eternal night—fitting for a group of creatures of darkness like himself.

He stuck his hand in his pocket, and his fingers struck something hard.

What the…? He didn't remember putting anything in his pockets. In fact, he hardly used them.

He pulled the object out and froze.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Have you guys been looking at your ice cream sticks?"

"No, why?"

"If it says 'WINNER' on it, you get a free ice cream."

"That zombie... He actually found one." Axel muttered, turning the stick over and over in his fingers. He had probably saved it just for him.

Axel got to his feet. He had to find Roxas now. He had to.

Just as he was about to open a dark corridor and begin his search anew, movement in the wooden tree houses just beyond the beach caught his eye. He stopped what he was doing to look more closely and realized that it was a person in an Organization coat.

"ROXAS!"

The person froze, looked over at Axel, and bolted.

"Stop!" Axel yelled. "Roxas! It's me!" he followed laboriously, the sand pulling hard at his black boots and slowing him down. They did not halt, whoever they were. Axel hoped it wasn't Roxas—if it was, the betrayal would cut him to his non-existent core.

The wind picked up, and clouds rushed in from their hiding places, harbingers of a huge storm that was sure to hit soon. Axel willed it to disappear as quickly as it had come, but quickly gave it up as a bad job. He had a running target to catch.

Speaking of which, his target had begun to run faster, as if trying to outrun the impending storm.

No. That's not it, Axel realized. They weren't trying to outrun the storm. They were trying to gain enough time to escape!

"Shit." Axel swore as his target halted and began to open a dark corridor, just as he'd thought would happen. "STOP!" Axel yelled. He reached more solid ground and sped up as much as his screaming muscles would allow, reaching the dark corridor just as it was about to close and diving through it at the last second. He felt the darkness swirling around him and the pants of the person he was taking for a split second and then—

Axel hit pavement, skidding for a couple of feet before coming to a stop. His target was staring at him from the shadow of a nearby building and he caught a glimpse of blue gray hair before they opened another dark corridor and disappeared into it. Axel clambered to his feet and winced; he'd scraped up his face in that last desperate attempt to catch the person in the black cloak.

"Damnit!" he swore, realizing he'd just let the Organization imposter Saix had had all the remaining members of Organization XIII chasing for months escape.

A/N:

*Nemo is Latin for Nobody or No one.

**Delinquo is Latin as well; it means to fail in duty.

I know it's short but I kind of wanted to get myself started and get the story started. I'm going to try to work on my other stories as much as I can when I'm not working on the three or four different papers my professors have assigned .

I'm a little bit mad at myself—I could not remember how that conversation about the WINNER sticks went.

R&R Please! I don't care if it's just "I like it", reviews say a lot more to an author than alerts.

***spelling/grammar/syntax errors, feel free to tell me, thanks :)

Much love,

Writrgrl