Originally written August, 2008. This fic has swearing and murder and dance cards. Also sex. Of the Axel/Roxas variety. If this doesn't suit your reading tastes, you will not enjoy this fic. At all.
000
Everything was quiet here.
In the west part of London there was a tall townhouse with the numbers one-zero-four etched into the red stone, belonging to a Mister Penbrook. And though that part of London was indeed quiet, this townhouse was more silent still. It was nearing the end of winter, and Penbrook traditionally sent his staff back to his summer home where he would join them shortly, as he had no taste for London in its season.
The only occupants of the house then were up on the third floors in the bedrooms. One lay sprawled across the bed, rumpling the made sheets, watching the second occupant in front of the dressing mirror. The sound of the boy getting dressed was the only noise in the quiet house, but the boy was making it louder than necessary with his angry movements.
Trousers hiked up with one swift tug, zippered and buttoned. A thin undergarment, shimmied into with his arms stretched high above him, the low whistle from his companion adding to the noise here.
The boy turned from the mirror only long enough to stalk over to a tossed bag on the floor and pull out the remainder of his outfit. He was doing his very best to ignore that low whistle.
It was cold in the room, despite the fact that his partner could warm it up in an instant if he felt so inclined. The boy would love to pull on some socks but he couldn't risk them getting stained in the rather violent splatter of flesh and bone across the floor. And he was not going to clean that up. If the man lounging on the bed weren't such an asshole, he'd clean up after himself.
They had to clean up after themselves, of course, since Penbrook sent the servant staff away, as it's been said. Though Penbrook might have changed his mind on that decision if he knew what sort of mess would be in his bedroom just that evening. But Penbrook didn't have the luxury of changing his mind about anything, really; he was too busy being a rather violent splatter of flesh and bone across the floor.
"That's going to smell soon," Roxas commented, back at the mirror and straightening the shirt on his shoulders, eyeing himself critically.
"In this weather, it'll take some hours yet. It'll wait till we get back."
"I'm not cleaning him up. I wasn't the one who…" Roxas made a gesture in the mirror, nodding towards the Penbrook splatter. The blood was pooling, almost running off under the bed; that'd be a bitch to get. It was so much easier when they just turned into heartless and scampered on their merry way.
"Me?" Axel murmured, inflecting his voice with false surprise. "I'm only following orders. If he had been willing to play along, I'd have left him alone."
"Yeah right," Roxas chuckled.
"See? I don't know why you were complaining so much this morning. You like working with me. We're going to have fun."
"I like working alone. And I like working on real assignments, not-"
"This is a real assignment, I don't know why you think it's not. Just because it's not going to be all bloodshed and gore and blades a' flying. And, hey, it could have been, as you've seen."
"One old man murdered in his bedroom isn't exactly what I had in mind," Roxas sighed, still straightening his shirt. "I don't need bloodshed anyway, I just… don't need this sort of mission. I don't get why he didn't send you, maybe Luxord… He'd have fun, don't you think?"
"It has to be you."
"But why?" Roxas asked, again, not in a whine but in ever increasing frustration. This was not the sort of mission he generally took at all. His missions were more of a 'here's a world, Roxas, go have fun with your keyblades' sort of missions.
"You're the proper age." Axel grinned, wide and feline. He made a show of looking Roxas up and down from where he lay, waggling his eyebrows. He waited until Roxas' fingers dropped from their rude gesture before continuing. "Look at the rest of us, hm? We're too aged," he sighed, with false melodrama. Arm flung over his eyes like he just couldn't bear it. He could hear Roxas' snort from across the room.
"You're all letches, is what you mean," Roxas muttered. Axel lounged across Penbrook's bed, chin propped on his upturned palms and feet kicking without rhythm in the air behind him. Though Roxas' back was to him, he studied Roxas' reflection from the mirror.
Even annoyed and angry, even demanding 'why', Roxas still followed through with orders. Somewhat. The boy, with an efficiency Axel wasn't sure what to make of, was buttoning up the small buttons to his pressed shirt, carefully and skilfully tucking the tails into his trousers - an outfit far more complicated than the standard zippered affair they were used to.
"You're our best bet for this world," Axel murmured, starting up the conversation as
Roxas shrugged into a slim, narrowed waistcoat. "There's something very powerful on this world, some mirrored dimension that's hidden from us."
"And this… girl? She knows where it is," Roxas concluded, up to date with at least that part of his mission.
"She's been there, from what we can tell. You'll see it too; she's absolutely reeking of the sort of magic we'd like to get our hands on. Our Oneness would, anyway." That at least earned Axel a brief grin, tossed lazily up at the mirror, their eyes meeting in reflection for one moment.
Unlike almost every other member, Roxas was actually indifferent to Xemnas. While the others all had varying degrees of worship, camaraderie, or rebellion in their feelings towards their superior, Roxas just didn't care all that much. That still didn't stop him from enjoying Axel's commentary from time to time.
"Are we sure it's not her that's got the power? Just her? That's happened before, you recall. All the power of a world narrowed into a single individual…"
"It's not her. She's as mundane as they come. Trust me, I got a look at her."
"Poor thing."
"If I had a heart, it would be bursting from the show of your empathy," Axel crooned, making a face towards Roxas that, if nothing else, truly did prove that Axel knew how to be a letch.
"I meant her," Roxas murmured, hands at his neck now, twisting and knotting the fabric of his necktie. The silk of it made such a sound as it tied around his slim, pale fingers that Axel had to shift uncomfortably, lowering his eyes. It was the same sound a woman's dress usually made when that last zipper or button or sash came untied and the entire fabric slipped to the ground around her feet. But Axel wasn't thinking about that.
"It's gonna be simple, you know. In and out before you know it."
"I just don't understand why. The charade of it all. Why can't I just…" Roxas flicked his arm out and down, and an intricate key of gnarled metal flashed into his palm. "I could make her talk."
He turned then, meeting Axel's eye for real instead of through the mirror. The keyblade tilted in his hand until the teeth of the key were resting on the floor. They scrapped across the wood with a muffled growl.
"Hey, I'm all for it," Axel defended, lifting his hands up to show them empty. The position was awkward, and he only held it for a moment before tucking his hands back in so he could lean against them. "It's just not really good for our 'incognitoness'. We can't just run around causing havoc on these little worlds. Not yet. You think it would take long for someone to see a pattern between 'trouble' and 'suspicious characters in black coats'? Hence, le secrecy."
"Hm." Roxas turned back to the mirror so he could smooth out the final creases of his tailed jacket. "In and out," he called over his shoulder, confirming.
"That's the plan."
"Well, let's get it over with then. And you will clean this up," Roxas said, glaring, and delicately tiptoeing around the blood and dripping gore.
"Sure, sure. Let's go crash a party."
000
"You're not nervous are you?" Said after leaving their carriage, walking across the paved walk damp from a late evening's rain shower.
"Nervous you're going to fuck it up," Roxas hissed at him, straightening his clothes one final time as he stepped forward and made his way to the front steps.
"Hey now, hey now. I've been doing this for longer than you have, kid."
Roxas sent him the sharp glare of I usually work alone, why are you here, you are quite useless and folded his arms, making ready for an argument if Axel wanted to make it into one. Defensive little thing, Roxas.
"I won't fuck up if you don't. Deal?"
000
It was Mister Penbrook's invitation that got them through the door. The doorman raised his eyebrows (Penbrook's shun of social functions were so infamous), but let through the sir's young and charming nephew, here for the season. The nephew's attendant grinned toothily at him, tipping his hat and revealing a shock of ginger hair.
Past the doorman and down the hall and out into the ballroom. A wide room with high ceilings and painstakingly polished floors, the walls were lined with tables of food and drink and chairs for the non-dancers as well as the poor nurses serving as chaperones to all the young ladies.
Ah, the young ladies. Axel made a noise, a rude one which Roxas could interpret without even looking. Axel was wasting his noises though, this was a world of carefully guarded sexuality. Besides, they were on a mission.
There was a clear objective to the mission. Step three in Axel's questionable plan. (Step one and two relating to the theft of a town house and the splatter of its owner.) Roxas needed to secure a dance with a particular lady. Unimpressed with the finery and the crowd of smiling dancers around him, Roxas thought how tedious the whole thing was.
The itch was back in his hands, and oh, what could he do with a keyblade in this room? It would be beautiful.
But Axel's hand between his shoulders brought him back. Right.
"You can't get a dance unless you've been introduced to the lady, remember. It's social suicide otherwise, and we really need to avoid that. So. Let's go make friends with one of her male relations, hm? I'll take the left, you take the right."
"Try not to get distracted," Roxas hissed, not joking. Axel laughed, all the same.
"I am the epitome of focus and single-mindedness. Let's go."
There were three weeks of training riding on this single evening. Roxas took a deep breath, letting it fill his chest and slowly exhale it out. Beside him, a handful of young women looked at him with envy underneath their curled eyelashes. He took another breath, and enjoyed their barely concealed longing at his freedom, their own chests bound tight.
Though perhaps that's not what they were looking at at all. One girl, fitted in loosely pinned ringlets and a long train of pink satin, flitted carefully past him. She eyed him as quickly and thoroughly as this society would allow before dashing away, keeping her hand behind her back so her dance card could dangle noticeably.
They had told him not to refuse dances with the ladies, that there was nothing that could earn him, most quickly, unfavourable gossip amongst them. They know their Austen back and front, he was warned. Don't become a Fitzwilliam Darcy. If they want to dance with you, dance with them.
Roxas' teeth gritted and his fists clenched, suddenly sweaty. The room was stifling hot, all these dancers and men and women fluttering about, their chaperones trying desperately to keep up.
How easy would it be, to snap his fingers and call his keyblades forward? How easy would it be to slash a path across the floor, parting pretty girls in their finery and men in their suppressed lust. He could grab the girl of his mission, open a door back to his world, and they could all question her. These girls were ridiculous in their tight waists and painted smiles. She would break without him actually even breaking one of her fingers. So, so, easy.
"Excuse me, sir, I do not believe we have had the pleasure…"
Swallowing his irritation, Roxas turned to the man at his side, curiously leaning towards him with glasses slipping down the slope of his nose. One more breath to regain his control, and Roxas smiled pleasantly at the stranger. A few young ladies hovered behind the man, waiting for their introductions.
"I am here to pay my uncle's regards," Roxas lied smoothly. The poor Mister Penbrook; widower, wealthy, reclusive. Unfortunately unable to leave his apartment tonight due to a recent bout with chakrams to the chest. Most regrettable.
Roxas held up the invitation and flicked it away just as quickly, turning his gaze from the man to scan the room.
"I didn't know William had a nephew?"
"Uncle seems to keep things close to his chest, sir. But I am fond of him."
"Of course, of course." Roxas watched the man blink, watched his eyes as if he could see past them and to all the gears of his mind quickly quickly turning. Yes, look at me. Long lost nephew, likely heir to a fortune, don't you want your daughter to know me?
"Mister Penbrook, my daughter, Elizabeth," he introduced, the girl taking her cue and
gliding up to stand by her father.
"Have you just arrived in London, sir?"
"I have."
"Then this is your first dance? Why, Mister Penbrook, I don't think that will do." She gazed at him from behind eyelashes, head bent, as if all girls in this world were trained in this one look. Roxas bit down a sigh. He was just as well trained.
One gloved hand out, bowing slightly, asking gently and handsomely for the honour of a dance.
He knew the steps flawlessly. Dancing was a simple practice after spending most of his days fighting. His feet knew where to step, his hands knew with what pressure to move, and he glided twirled waltzed his way across the dance floor.
He caught Axel out of the corner of his eye on one wide turn. He looked strange in the clothing of this world. Roxas wondered if he himself looked just as unfamiliar without his black coat and boots.
Roxas carefully turned his partner to the time of the music, spinning her so he could get a second glance at where Axel was standing. Axel inclined his head, just enough that Roxas could see the gesture from the distance between them.
When the song ended and he bowed courteously to young Elizabeth (and she scampered off to tell her friends about her first dance with the new wealthy young Penbrook,) Roxas waded through the crowd to Axel and the group of young men he was speaking with.
"Ah, sir," Axel began, because he was just Roxas' attendant for the evening, and Roxas found it hilarious, actually. He rather thought that he was the only one of the organization that Axel could have stood calling 'sir'. At least, he was the only one he could have said it to with a straight face. "I was just mentioning how you weren't yet impressed with London, as you haven't been able to find a good card game, and these young gentlemen, well they said-"
"Welcome to join us," one announced, grinning.
"Do. Just make sure to share the ladies tonight, they're all eyeing you up, mate."
"I trust you're free tomorrow afternoon?" another asked, and Roxas almost did a double-take glancing at him. Magic was draped over him, thinly but thoroughly. He caught Axel's slight nod, and turned back to the boy with glasses who had just spoken.
"Of course," Roxas nodded, letting himself grin as if in boyish excitement. Yay, a card game. But surely this young man was a clue to the mission, stinking of magic the way he did. Roxas wouldn't turn away from that.
What Roxas didn't know was that he didn't have to settle for this man, oh no, because walking right towards them-
"John!"
"Oh, my sister," John grinned, waving at her. And there she was. Axel was right. She reeked of magic like her dress was made of it. Like she'd bathed in magic before joining the crowd for the evening. Like she still dreamed and played with magic every day of her life.
Roxas smiled and tried not to make it look like a smirk. In and out, indeed.
"Miss Darling," he whispered, reaching out his hand. "May I have this dance?"
000
"Tell me again why we can't just kidnap her and make her talk?" Roxas demanded. Outside the dance room, in the hallway of the house and whispering in front of an oil painting as if it were holding their attention and conversation. Axel shrugged.
"Them's the orders. Don't worry, you're a pretty thing. She was looking at you right. She'll tell you on her own, with enough time."
Roxas scowled, folding his arms and resisted the temptation to tap his foot.
"So much quicker just to torture it out of her."
"Well don't you just have the bloodlust? Don't worry about it," Axel repeated. "Her ovaries all but dropped in there, ya know? Soon she'll be in the palm of your hand. Try to have fun with it."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Roxas seethed, still scowling. "This is more trouble than it's worth. I don't know how to stay close to her. I asked for a second dance and she sort of just looked at me. Said that only one dance was appropriate, what with all the other girls waiting. This world sucks."
"You get to go to her house tomorrow for cards, remember. That'll be dance two."
There was silence as both stared forward, as if in deep concentration over the painting.
Then Axel looked down at him, face open and curious. "You do know how to play cards, yeah?" he asked. "Tell me Luxord has cornered you for a game?"
Roxas nodded, grimacing, and looking as if this indeed was a personal shortcoming, he added: "But I always lose."
"I'm certain old Penbrook won't object to you wasting his fortune, but you may ask him when we get home if you want to be sure."
"You're a little twisted," Roxas murmured, not sounding like he terribly minded.
000
Michael Darling was too young to play the card games his brother was playing with the guests, and too young to be remotely interested in the strange, tense, sexual word dance his sister was playing.
However, he was not too young to enjoy the black horses of Mister Penbrook's carriage. They were the darkest he had ever seen. Their coats were shiny and sleek and they seemed rather angry. He hoped Wendy would see them. She could work them into a story, he was sure. Something about the four horsemen of the apocalypse, maybe.
(Though Father said for her not to tell those anymore, because they were too frightening. Of course he told Wendy not to tell any stories anymore, but his sister was very good at not listening.)
"Pretty things, eh?"
Michael jumped, startled, and turned to the voice. Leaning against the garden wall of the Darling house was a tall, lanky man regarding Michael over the top of a folded newspaper. Michael shuffled his feet, rubbing the toes of his shoes together shyly and trying not to stare at this man.
But his hair, all spiky and red and barely contained by that hat. He was grinning like a cat in one of Wendy's stories, and beneath his amused eyes was something inked into his skin, though they were too small for him to make out. He had only seen that kind of paint, right below the eyes, on one group of people…
"Are you an Indian?" he asked, before his manners could stop him. He looked down, sharply, back to his feet. His face must be as crimson as that man's hair.
But the man wasn't offended, he just threw his head back and laughed to the sky. Sharp and loud, and it caught Michael off guard once again, making him jump. One of the horses behind him made a low, aggravated noise.
"No, boy." Then, quite serious, he leaned forward and asked, "Where have you heard of Indians?"
"Wendy tells stories," he replied, feeling safer with the full truth now that he maybe offended him. He didn't want him saying anything to his master. Then he wouldn't come back again, and John would tell him off. Maybe Wendy too.
"Does she?" the man asked, glancing back at the house. "I love me a good tale. Think you can match her storytelling? If you can, I'll let you feed 'em."
Sugar cubes from the man's pockets, and Michael laughed delightedly while the apocalypse horses licked from his palm, and he spoke over his shoulder.
"Once there was a boy who wouldn't grow up…"
000
"That really does stink like all fuck," Roxas offered from the bed, staring at the ceiling. His arms were tucked behind his head, his legs bent at the knees and swaying slightly to silent music.
"You'd think you'd like that smell." Axel took a deep breath through his nose and grinned as if he enjoyed the scent of rancid flesh. (He actually didn't.) Roxas continued to swing his knees, knocking them together, opening and closing his legs like a strange sort of invitation. There was a lewd comment for that, somewhere, but Axel didn't feel up for the Roxas-fit that would follow should he say it.
"I'll get some dusks to tidy up, if it offends young Mister Penbrook so much."
"Hah," Roxas chuckled, sliding his feet along the covers so he was lying flat. "So. What's phase whatever-we're-on? I passed her in the hallway, just for a bit. We talked, but everything in this world is so… so… guarded? Any phrase could be a verbal landmine, you never know." He took a deep, shaking breath, let it out in a long sigh.
"You saw her?"
"Just for a minute or so. Only time for pleasant talk. Kissed her hand goodbye, though. She blushed crazy…" Another sigh. "This mission is so stupid."
"Hey, if she already thinks you're bold and impertinent, we can work with that! You got another play date set up with the brother though, yeah?"
"Mm. I also mentioned investment troubles with 'uncle's' money. So, I think her father is going to speak to me. I guess he knows about that sort of thing, he's in banking, I think?"
"Okay, well, while you were off losing money and kissing hands, I was doing reconnaissance."
Leaned up on his elbows again, Roxas watched guardedly as Axel skipped over the drying blood on the floor and flopped onto the bed. His head lay against Roxas' shins, hands folded together across his stomach and he grinned that wide snide smirk.
"Our dear Miss Darling, I am told, is a storyteller."
"You call that reconnaissance?" Roxas snorted, kicking his foot out so Axel bounced awkwardly, his head snapping. "Get off," he hissed.
"Let me tell you something about girls, Roxas."
"I neither need nor want to know what you know about girls, Axel. I know what I need to."
"Prove it."
A long, uncertain silence.
"There are many types of girls, but only a set amount of types, you see," Axel continued, as if there had been no silence and Roxas wasn't squirming his legs trying to dislodge him.
He pushed his shoulders down more heavily. "Girls are most weak at their strengths, you understand? The bits of them that make their heart the strongest, those will be the bits that catch their heart the quickest.
"She's a storyteller, Roxas. She knows her fairytales front and back. She knows make-believe, and once-upon-a-time. She knows middles and endings, and what role each character should play. She is the heroine in her own tale. And you, little Roxas, you get to be her Prince Charming.
"This is how we'll get around the rules of this world that, as you say, 'sucks'. Seduce her with stories. You get to be the prince that rescues her from the life you know she finds too constraining."
"I don't know stories. And I'm not a prince, charming or otherwise."
Axel's laugh broke the quiet that was always permeating this house. It shattered it, quick and deadly and sharp like his grin.
"You have no idea what you are," Axel said, still laughing, still pushing his back into Roxas' legs. "Come on, then. Show me your prince."
"Fuck off."
"Now that's not charming at all, Roxas. Give it a go."
Axel sat up, moving off Roxas' legs only to creep forward and lean one arm on the other side of his hips. He was stretching far over Roxas, their faces a good few inches apart.
Roxas licked his lips, stalling, then carefully cleared his throat. Raising an eyebrow expectedly, Axel grinned, waiting.
"I'm not doing this," Roxas complained, using one hand to push Axel lightly away.
"Hey now, you're the one that didn't want me to fuck the mission up. How do I know you won't, just cause you don't know how to worm your way into a girl's pants, hmm? Do you know how to look at them right? Do you know how to touch so that they'll touch back?"
"This is ridiculous. Yes, I know. Now fuck. Off."
Axel leaned closer, narrowing those few inches to even fewer, their faces so close they were sharing each other's breath. Roxas' was coming out in stilted, little gasps, as if the air couldn't properly exhale from his lungs with how tightly he was clenching his teeth.
Then Roxas kissed Axel.
Left hand up, right staying down to balance, he grabbed Axel's head and pulled him down and to his mouth. Teeth and lips smooshed together, bruising. His fingers in Axel's hair were tugging and pulling him back, away from his mouth now curved into a satisfied smirk.
"There," Roxas said, rolling his eyes and squirming his body a bit in an effort to move Axel's weight. Axel blinked down at him, not budging.
"We are in so much trouble," Axel murmured, casting his eyes to the ceiling. "So very much trouble."
"What are you talking about? Get off!"
"No one can get off on that, Roxas. I don't even know what that was."
"It's a kiss, you idiot."
"No, that was you smashing your lips against mine. Look at me as an example. All you have to do is get into my pants, yeah? And believe me, that wouldn't tempt me at all. But with our Miss Darling? Gods. Gloves, skirts, corset, pants, all the layers of undergarments you just know are hiding under all that lace. Strings and ribbons, Roxas. It's going to take forever to get her naked, you have to be tempting her with something worth her time. And that…"
Roxas was the most interesting shade of red. Axel almost leaned forward to set his hair against it, to compare colours.
"Fuck you."
"Maybe later. You haven't even mastered kissing yet, Roxas. Basics first."
"Axel, stop, would you just-"
"Roxas?" Leaning fully on him, pushing Roxas back against the bed so his shoulders hit the mattress, Axel cupped his face and stroked across his cheekbones slowly. "Like this, Roxas."
Then Axel kissed Roxas.
000
Wendy, in the hallway outside their parlour. Her father calling from inside the room for young Penbrook to come in, come in, and he was standing right there, hands still on her cheeks, and he had just stolen it. Her hidden kiss, surely, it was in his pocket now. Her father would know. He would know.
"Penbrook? …Wendy?"
000
John Darling was not someone who Roxas would usually pick as a friend. In fact, he was the sort of person that set Roxas' teeth on edge. The man could go on and on and on.
Every time he crinkled his nose and pushed his glasses further up his nose, (indicating that a much longer and winded dialogue was on the way) Roxas wanted to punch something.
Scientific discovery, Mister Penbrook. Fascinating, truly. Did he know Tesla? Mother was hiding Darwin again. Einstein on the other continent was beginning to make some fuss, but that's just proper British genes from the colonies, wouldn't you agree?
Made Roxas want to punch him.
"You remind me of someone," Wendy said quietly, gazing over at Roxas from coyly lowered eyes, distracting Roxas.
"Oh?" Roxas asked, playing along, charming smile plastered to his face. He couldn't see Axel anywhere, couldn't feel him either, but he had an itching feeling that Axel was watching just the same. Roxas wanted to cut the damn smirk he was probably wearing right off his face.
"I don't know why I didn't see the resemblance before…" Her hand reached up, gloved in white, touching his temple near his eye. She dropped it, suddenly, and she was blushing deep scarlet as she looked away from him.
Their hands dangled apart, though her fingers twitched as if she would like nothing better than to link hers with his. Lovers in the park, but she was nowhere near so bold. Not with her brother just steps ahead of them.
"You're not him, of course," she murmured, looking ahead, as if focusing on young John's back could ground her. "You look the way I remember him, but he would have grown up, just like me."
"Maybe I don't grow up."
"Please don't ever say that."
000
"I remind her of someone… I've heard that before, you know, on other worlds. They all look at me like I'm betraying them. It doesn't make sense."
"It's just the way girls' minds work, Roxas. Never mind it."
"I don't mean just girls. I mean on other missions, on other worlds-"
"Never mind it."
000
I've heard that before, you know, on other worlds.
Impossible, impossible. Axel, at Castle Oblivion, marching through the corridors and hallways but. No. There was Sora, still safely tucked away in the castle, oblivious. Off on another mind adventure.
Turning on his heel, he stalked back up and up and up, to that depressing white room of the little white witch.
"Hey," he growled at her. She jumped at his entrance, staring at him with wide wide eyes.
Her fingers were tangled in string, Axel having caught her in the middle of a game of cat's cradle. "You know Neverland?"
Naminé nodded, slowly, watching him carefully. She had already taken apart that bit of Sora, clearly. Her table was scattered with pictures, and Axel was sure if he riffled through them he would fine at least one with their Wendy Darling in it.
"You know how to get there? We're stuck in London."
Shaking her head now, a slow No. Axel growled, disappointed but not surprised. He wanted Roxas off this world now, probably as much as Roxas wanted off himself. He didn't know why he cared so much, let the kid find out who he was. Except somehow that would be bad. He didn't know why, but…
"Don't leave him alone," she whispered, fingers still trapped in string, staring at him. Staring through him. "You can't leave him alone. He'll leave when you're not looking. Everything is slipping."
"What would you know?" Axel snarled, snapping his fingers and enjoying her startled yelp as she dropped the bits of strings suddenly caught on fire. She rubbed her fingers absently, already blistering.
"Everything is slipping," she repeated.
000
Maybe everything was slipping. Something in this world of London was slipping just as quickly. Marluxia's little witch felt it, and Axel could feel it too. Could Roxas? They were running out of time.
Things were being twisted into motion, into a plot that Axel could not yet understand, though he knew it had something to do with the castle Oblivion. He knew that Sora, lost in a series of memories, had something to do with it. And here they were wasting time courting young ladies.
Don't leave him alone.
What did Axel care, really? He wasn't meant to be babysitting Roxas on this mission; no one could judge him if something happened to Roxas. Whatever she had been alluding to. And it wasn't Axel's business to care, was it, because Roxas was really just an annoying brat that swore and was stubborn and who looked Axel in the eye - just to look, instead of manipulating.
And the taste of his lips was still in Axel's mouth, and the sound he had made as Axel pressed him closer and closer against the bed was burned behind Axel's eyes right into his memory. If he had a heart, it would be beating the same rhythm as the sounds Roxas could make.
Don't leave him alone.
Axel wasn't. The horses' reigns were tight in his hands as he led them round and round the streets of London. He could hear Roxas behind him, hidden in the comfortable cabin of the carriage. Little Wendy was with him, stolen in utmost impertinence when John Darling's attention was elsewhere.
He could hear Wendy's heart, feel it. Roxas had to hear it too. So powerful, so quick and breathless and beating just for Roxas. He had her.
Axel grinned.
"I once wished I never had to grow up," Wendy was saying, softly, to Roxas, unaware of her intentional eavesdropper.
"Whatever for?" Roxas asked just as soft, the kid picked up things so easily. Axel half wanted to take him to other worlds and see how quickly he could seduce other women.
They could make it a game. Winner gets to-
"All those rules," Wendy sighed, lamented, voice echoing so he knew she was looking out the window. "I cannot stand them. They don't exist for children."
"Growing up doesn't mean you have to follow the rules. It just means you have to grow up clever enough to get around them."
"And are you clever, Mister Penbrook? Just what rules do you think you're escaping?
Your uncle has a career lined up for you, your guardian never lets you out of his sight, and you are destined to-"
A pause, where Roxas must have leaned over and
"-oh," Wendy gasped, her heart beating fast, fast, faster. "Oh," repeated.
000
"I assume you were listening, you pervert," Roxas called from in the carriage. Axel snorted, though he doubted Roxas could hear it over the horses. After they had returned Wendy to her family home they encountered her father sputtering at the impropriety of a non-chaperoned carriage ride, her mother watching her daughter slyly and no doubt guessing lots of things, and Wendy herself red and smiling and lips bruised.
Roxas had fallen silent until now, and Axel had spent the trip back to Penbrook's apartments wondering if he could open a portal big enough for the whole carriage and pop out right at the end of the trip. How much time would they save? How would horses take to the dimensions between space? How much of a fit would Roxas throw if anything went wrong?
But then Roxas had spoken, breaking the silence, and yes, of course Axel had been listening.
"I think it went well," he called over his shoulder to Roxas. "You played her like a-"
"I don't want to know," Roxas quickly shouted up. They would have to work on that, Axel decided. The kid really did need to appreciate his metaphors more.
It had gone well. Roxas had apparently repeated what he had quickly learned under Axel's hands (mouthteethtongue) for little Wendy Darling. Round and round the park Axel had led them, keeping the horses at a careful trot until Wendy seemed to be finished talking.
("They say you tell stories, Wendy, that aren't quite stories")
Roxas had gone quiet again, just as well, as he turned up to their stolen home. Axel pulled on the reigns and aligned the carriage straight. There was something actually quite fun about these horses. Maybe if they couldn't go through portals, he could still take the carriage itself with him. Hook it up to a few nobodies…
("Tell me this story, Wendy. I want to know it.")
Roxas, unlike a gentleman at all, though he was dressed smartly like one did not wait for Axel to get the door for him. Axel took a moment to trail his eyes down the line of Roxas' retreating back, wide shoulders and tapered coat defining his narrow waist.
"Do you still smell him?" Roxas asked as they walked inside.
"I cleaned him away the other day."
"I know you did, but can you still smell him?" Roxas asked, face tilted up as he sniffed
around the room.
"No," said Axel without sniffing for their departed Penbrook.
("They're just stories. Pirates and Indians and Fairies and Boys Who Won't Grow Up.")
"So." Roxas dropped his arms and turned to Axel, deciding to ignore whatever smell he thought lingered. "What do we do now? I feel like we know enough of this 'Neverland', but we still don't know how to get there. I don't know that we got anything useful at all."
("Tell me.")
"You're looking at the wrong picture, Roxas. Stop squinting and look at the big masterpiece in front of you," Axel said, eyes bright and grin wide and looking ridiculous in that hat of his.
"What?"
"I don't care that she told you nothing. She told you something, and that's what counts."
"You're being an idiot again."
"We've set up a precedent now. She talks, she gets kissed. The more she talks, the more you kiss. The more she talks about things we want to know, the more you get to fuck her,
yeah?"
"Axel," Roxas half-cried, half-growled, his cheeks pale but for the red splashed under his eyes, and oh. Axel hadn't even been expecting this, and he should have, he should have been fucking anticipating this, but he was being dumb or something but oh. Yes.
"Roxas?" Walking over and hand by his cheek, a position he's had before, but only to kiss. Only for lips on lips and maybe his hands had strayed to Roxas' hips but nothing really more… "Do I need to teach you again?"
"No!" A mixture of wail and anger again.
"But remember last time? Miss Darling never would have talked under your own power,
never would have talked from the way you used to kiss until I taught you better. And this isn't kissing, Roxas. You have to be so much more careful."
"No." All anger now, embarrassment washed away until it was just Roxas looking young and fresh and stubbornly prepared to keep Axel's hands away from him.
"You want to be the one to tell Superior why the mission failed?"
"It's not going to fail, I know what I'm doing."
"I feel like we've had this conversation before. Maybe a few days ago? When I showed you quite convincingly, I believe, that you don't know what you're doing but that I can show you. Let me show you."
Axel knew how to do this very well. The slow stalk over, grin twisted sly and eyes slanted. His hands lightly on Roxas' shoulders, then harder when the boy tried to squirm away.
Roxas was his own worst enemy. The more he squirmed and blushed, the more Axel really just wanted him. Want. In its simplest most base form. Not attached to missions or affection or to anything really. Just want. And he was more than willing to let want slip into need.
"Roxas," his name on Axel's tongue, not a plea or a command, but an I am going to have you translated into two syllables.
The thing about teenaged boys, whether nobodies or not, was that when one put one's hand between their legs, clasping suggestively, they began to make decisions with parts of their body other than their brain.
When one put one's hand down their pants and between their legs, clasping more than just suggestively, those decisions became very predictable.
Roxas grunted, then a groan that was almost a whine except this was Roxas and the brat wouldn't give Axel the satisfaction. He didn't like to be overpowered or to relinquish the upper hand in any situation. So he fought back.
Not like before, not like trying to get away, but with hands on Axel now and his palms dragging painfully down Axel's sides. He was just as inexperienced and fierce as that first kiss, that mash of mouths, but in this it was good. Maybe not for Wendy (he could teach Roxas slow and gentle later), but for right now…
Pulled away and Roxas just barely caught the noise in his throat before Axel could tease him with it. Axel's fingers, warm and rough and slipping out of his pants dammit, caught Roxas by the chin gently.
"Roxas." His name once more, and his hands sliding down his shoulders, taking the boy's waistcoat with them. Just a few weeks ago he had watched Roxas in front of a mirror, pulling on the clothing of this world with quiet fascination.
Under the tailed coat was the tight little brown vest, and Axel was extra careful on those buttons because he wanted to keep this, yes. He wanted to carry the garment back to the Xemnas and say make Roxas where this all day long, okay? And just ignore my hard-on, because there was something criminal about the way it hugged his chest now visible through the white shirt underneath.
A moment to regret that he wasn't pulling the zipper down of his black coat, maybe with his teeth. He would have liked to hear that pull of metal, instead of this slow popping of buttons. Perhaps next time.
Roxas was nearly frozen, his hands on Axel's arms and not sure what to do with himself. He was growling, occasionally, but Axel could mostly stop that by covering his mouth with his own. Lips and tongue and teeth in a dance Roxas was getting rather good at.
Roxas was still fighting in their kisses, like that first time, though Axel was sure he kissed Wendy with something like gentlemanly softness. This was all power play and greed and stubbornness. If Roxas had his way, he wouldn't even let Axel know he was enjoying what they were doing, even on a physical level.
But pressing closer, hips meeting hips, Roxas couldn't hide how much he was enjoying it.
Another growl in between their tongues, caught in their mouths, and Axel wasn't sure who it belonged to. He didn't waste time.
("Everything is slipping.")
Dropping to his knees and (his hands still on Roxas' shoulders, gravity doing most of the work) pulling Roxas down with him. Roxas made a noise but didn't otherwise protest as Axel tipped him over and started to work on undoing Roxas' belt. Above where his fingers worked quickly, there was a stretch of pale stomach guiding up and up.
Roxas' shirt was still on his arms, but spread entirely open, the rest of his upper clothing tossed beside them. Axel had to hike the undershirt up to his armpits, where it bunched no doubt uncomfortably, but Axel wanted to see Roxas' nipples tight and hard.
Axel's hands tugged his pants down, over his knees, off, and Roxas wasn't fighting in this if only because it all led to Axel putting his hands back where they belonged. One at his erection, hard and already leaking, his thumb reaching down to stroke along his balls.
Roxas made another noise and Axel looked up, smirking.
Roxas was glaring bloody murder at him. It was a strange combination, the blush and the lust and the bloody murder glare. Axel's own pants became a little more tight from it.
Another thing about teenaged boys - they made their own lube. Axel had his hands wrapped around Roxas stroking onetwothree, and then Roxas was coming, back arched and growling like Axel had stabbed him through the chest and was twisting the weapon. It was somewhat difficult to tell, with Roxas, the difference between pained noises and pleasured noises, and Axel found he quite liked it.
Axel slowed his hand, still stroking, but more careful over tender flesh. Roxas' back slumped back to the floor and he blinked up at Axel for a moment, face flushed calm and sated, and he looked too strange without his perpetual glare. Time to get it back.
Axel moved his fingers, warm, wet and sticky, off Roxas. He slipped them down and over and hah, there was his glare. Roxas' eyes snapped open, tried to slant them into a glare, even as he said (voice rough and high): "What are you doing?"
One finger in Roxas, one long finger, and Axel was humming to himself, ignoring Roxas' question. Bit harder to ignore the squirm of Roxas as he tried to nudge himself away (remedied by Axel's free hand pushing on his chest), but continued nevertheless.
"What are you doing?"
"You know what I'm doing," Axel growled, leaning over so Roxas' spread legs were at a bit of an odd angle, his knees twisting up by Axel's shoulders. He tried to whack them into Axel, but the position was too off to actually harm.
"Stop it," Roxas growled, his afterglow flush quickly leaving, and Axel just leaned closer.
"You sure?" he asked, sliding his hand down from its restraint on Roxas' chest. Down his ribs, counting, and past his stomach which was quivering in nervousness or anger or desire, Axel wasn't sure. Back between his legs, even as he moved another finger inside.
Roxas made the strangest noise Axel had ever heard and it almost made him stop, almost made his fingers on one hand pause in their scissoring motion, and the fingers on his other hand stop in their stroking. Almost.
"Are you absolutely sure?" he asked again, grinning, because Roxas wasn't sure of anything with so many fingers on him and touching him in sensitive places and oh, to be a young teenager. Roxas was already getting hard again under his touch.
Roxas seemed to go quiet, his breath held and his body rigid. His muscles were squeezing everywhere, even around Axel's fingers which was making parts of his own body rather desperate, actually.
Axel's trousers had become the most uncomfortable place in the universe.
"You're so fucking smug," Roxas breathed out, anger not gone but morphed, like fire in a stoned pit instead of raging through the woods. Still as dangerous, but somehow contained.
Knees holding tight, Roxas pushed Axel over, flipping him onto his side and then on his back. Axel held tight, and they both tried to ignore the small wail from Roxas as fingers pulled in wrong places and wrong times and that really was all pain, not pleasure.
"Idiot," Axel breathed, actually cross, glancing up at the boy now straddling across his waist. He let his touch move featherlike over Roxas, still hard and straining, in an almost-apology.
"So, so smug," Roxas repeated, and his chest was jumping and his eyes were a little bright, and he shifted his hips so Axel's fingers were once again caught and buried deep inside him.
Axel shrugged, his own chest just as jumpy. Not to mention other bits of him.
"This works just as well," Axel smirked, pushing up with his still-covered waist and fuck did he want his fingers out of Roxas and replaced with something else. And oh, oh, Axel would never think another bad thing against Roxas, he swore, because the beautiful brat was reaching at the buttons on his pants and beginning to undo them slowly.
"I know what I'm doing," Roxas said, smirking, as he tugged Axel finally free and the air on his flesh was too cold but Roxas was moving forward and squirming away from Axel's fingers. "I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Prove it."
000
"Do that with Wendy and we'll know where Neverland is by morning," Axel said to the ceiling, which was all the compliment or bedroom talk Roxas should be hoping for. Except, Axel hated feeling guilty but surely that's what that creeping sensation was, so he glanced over at Roxas. Naked and still flushed, the boy was staring at the high ceiling of Penbrook's front hall, his hands clasped lightly over his stomach sticky with his own come.
"Oh Miss Darling. Could you please wank me off as I shove my fingers up your a-"
Axel's hand over his mouth, and Roxas bit it, and why oh why had Axel ever thought he was dealing with someone other than Roxas?
000
"I leave in less than a fortnight, Wendy."
"I-"
"Come with me. Stay with me."
"You know, I think I've been waiting my whole life for those three words."
000
Roxas walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs, his pants hanging loose and low on his hips, his dress shirt dangling open. He found Axel in the kitchen, by the sink, leaning and gazing out the window. He turned slowly, eyebrow raised.
"First star to the right. Straight on till morning," Roxas said. "Neverland."
"That's my boy," Axel murmured. He pushed himself from the counter, walking over, and Roxas' stomach tightened at he approached. Axel's hand out, finger tracing at Roxas' temple where a drop of sweat slipped and clung to his flushed skin. He clapped Roxas on the shoulder heavily, and sauntered past him.
"You have your coordinates, Roxas. You've been waiting for this from the beginning."
It was all the permission Roxas needed. He had his keyblades in his palms before Axel had even left the room.
Out the halls and up the flights of steps to the bedrooms, Axel walked quickly, refusing the idea that his swiftness was anything to do with jealousy. In the air, the smell of sweat and tears and sex, sly sly Roxas. Axel opened the door.
"Hey sweetness."
"I-" Wendy tugged the sheets up to herself, covering her blushing skin, and looking quite bewildered in loose hair and empty bed. Axel watched her throat as she swallowed nervously. "Mister Penbrook…"
"Penbrook," he laughed. "I'm going to send you to join him right now. Don't fret."
Maybe Roxas did have the right of it, Axel thought as his chakrams twirled visible and fell heavily into his hands. Maybe there really was only one way to go about a mission.
000
Second star to the right, straight on till morning. But there was no morning for Neverland this day, as Roxas marched on, grinning, and burned and burned and burned the world empty.
And everything was quiet.