A/N: Happy AkuRoku day! I finished this just in time for the holiday! Whoo!
Caught Up
Red.
His mind was drowning in the color, he couldn't escape the image of it, dripping, saturating everything. It had gone from a little fixation to an all-out obsession over the course of the week. He wanted to bathe in the color, so that every sense bled with it. He'd wanted to just pour a bucket of paint over his head, then splash it on every surface in his room.
He didn't, of course. Even though he felt as if he was going crazy with the need to surround himself in crimson, he was sane enough to refrain from actually doing it.
He settled with dying his hair, painting his nails, wearing the color as much as he could do tastefully. It was like satisfying an addiction, combing the vibrant dye through his long hair, watching the excess trickle down the drain when he was finished. Maybe the fingernails were a bit much, but the scarlet staining them calmed his compulsion, a little, when he could see it so easily. It eased his mind, just a bit. It was better than the other things that had flitted through his thoughts. Crimson jeans, not quite a match for the paint and dye, but close enough.
He wondered, later, if it was the red on his person that had caught Roxas' attention, or if the short blond had placed the compulsion in his head to get Axel's attention.
"Red suits you."
The words were whispered in a club that Axel frequented; how he heard it above the din, he couldn't say. An alcoholic drink, red, appeared in front of Axel shortly after the blond sidled up.
"The name's Axel," he supplied, falling into routine. "A-X-E-L. Got it memorized?" He tapped a finger to his temple. It had become a habit, announcing himself like that, maybe a little arrogant, but it brought him the attention he wanted, generally.
Again a whisper, so close to his ear that he could feel the hot breath. "I'm Roxas." He'd had to lean down from his considerable height to accommodate Roxas, but he didn't remember the motion. Roxas' hand had already tangled into a lock of Axel's hair, blue eyes rapt. He glanced up at Axel's green ones, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Axel. What beautiful eyes you have."
Axel chuckled. "Is this where I say, 'The better to see you with?' Am I the big bad wolf? Or are you?"
Roxas' smirk widened. "Something like that."
Axel gently disengaged the hand in his hair. "Do I know you, Mr. Wolf?"
Roxas' took the rebuttal in stride and instead let his eyes flick over the tall frame. "Not yet. Isn't that why we're here?"
Axel grinned in response and downed his drink. "I suppose it is. Wanna dance?"
The dance floor was a cacophony of noise, strobing lights, writhing bodies. It was incoherent, except for the feel of Roxas moving against him, hands ghosting down his sides. Another drink juggled within the press of bodies and Axel was more amenable to the unsolicited touches, a third had Axel moving to return them in kind.
The heat between them escalated, so that Axel felt warm and light as Roxas steered him to the door. He wasn't usually one to leave with strangers; the club was always more about feeling the music, the dancing, than it was a way to get some. But Roxas was captivating, his hands persuasive, lips insistent. He was in a daze when his back hit the alley wall, where Roxas pinned him. The blond was just tall enough that he could reach to press kisses against Axel's pulse without effort.
Axel moved to meet his lips, but Roxas had snagged his hair again, in a firm grip this time, and pulled it so that Axel's throat was exposed to him in a taut line. Axel let out a strangled cry.
Roxas shushed him, a hiss of breath on his skin that preceded a laving tongue. And then, without warning, a sharp pain as pointed teeth pierced Axel's throat.
"What-?" Axel gasped and tried to pull away, but Roxas had wrapped an arm around his waist and only tightened his hold at the movement. The slender hands that pushed against Roxas were useless, but he had to try. A panic had started to gather in Axel's chest as the pain where Roxas' mouth was buried turned into a hot burn.
Finally—it had only been a minute, but to Axel it felt longer—Roxas' hands loosened and he leaned back, just enough to let glazed blue eyes meet Axel's fevered green ones. His tongue darted out to catch a drop of red on his lips, and Axel could feel a trickle of blood from the bite. "Why are you struggling? Stop."
Axel blinked. "Why-you-? What the fuck are you doing?"
The look Roxas gave him was bored. "I thought that was obvious." He bared his teeth, revealing sharp incisors. "I'm not a wolf, after all."
Axel tried to push the blond away, and as unbelievable as the situation was (vampires did not exist, he was pretty sure), all he managed to do was huff, "Well, you can't just go around biting people without their consent. That's like, rape or something."
Roxas snorted. "What, am I supposed to be cliché and politely say, 'I vant to suck your blood?'" he exaggerated the accent, but dropped the act in a moment. "All this time I've been waiting and when you finally come back to me, you're so difficult. It would figure." He gave Axel's hair a sharp tug. "I've been waiting a long fucking time, Axel. And I am not a patient person." Without waiting for a response, he pressed his face against Axel's neck again and lapped at the wound he'd made there.
Axel made a choked sound. "Waiting for me? I don't even know you!"
Roxas growled and scraped his teeth against Axel's collarbone before pulling back again. "You said 'Let's meet in the next life,' Axel. I didn't forget, but you did. If you would just shut up I can help you remember." He glared up at the redhead, his scowl marred by a smudge of Axel's blood.
"And I'm supposed to trust you?"
"It'd be nice, yeah. You'll probably even enjoy it if you relax." He was already nuzzling Axel's throat again, and when he spoke next, his voice was low. "But it's not necessary."
Axel wasn't sure if it was a decision of his or if the vampire at his neck had somehow hypnotized him, but he was suddenly boneless in the other's arms, growing heavier as the blood was pulled from his veins. It was dizzying, and not altogether unpleasant at first, aside from the sting of Roxas' teeth as he worried the twin punctures. He felt hot and feverish, and lights danced in his eyes.
When the nausea began, he made another weak attempt to push Roxas off, only to be hushed by a gentle voice. They had already slipped to the ground together, and the last thing he saw before he drifted into unconsciousness was Roxas tucking his hair behind his ears with a familiar tenderness. The last thing he heard was, "We'll make this life last forever."
o - o - o
Axel was burning. He'd spent himself, put it all into a fire attack, and lost control of it, until he felt himself consumed by the flames. It hurt, god did it hurt, but he didn't scream. He couldn't, not in front of Sora, not with even the glimmer of a chance that Roxas was there inside the brunette. He was too hot, and really, he didn't have a heart, so how could he cry? He was glad that he couldn't. He had to put on a brave face for Roxas as he burned away into nothing.
o - o - o
Roxas didn't know he'd spent a lifetime as a part of somebody else. Didn't know how significant it was when he finally was his own somebody, didn't know the source of the aching, empty, lonely hole in his heart, as he lived his own lives, separate from Sora. He didn't know how many lives went by before he remembered.
When the creature turned him, it all came back. He forgot his infatuation with the vampire, and began searching for Axel. If Roxas had returned, Axel must have, too.
He killed Axel by accident, the first time, draining him too completely to turn. He was still new, didn't know how it was done, didn't have the restraint. It clawed and tore at his heart, but Axel had remembered him, hadn't blamed Roxas for his inexperience. He promised again to meet in the next life, and asked Roxas to wait. So Roxas waited.
Axel didn't remember, the second time, but Roxas knew what to do, this time.
o - o - o
Axel was reborn the same way he'd faded away: burning. Or so it felt. There was no smell of burnt flesh this time, just the metallic scent of blood. He searched it out blindly, until his mouth met the slow seep of it from another's skin. The burning eased, and when he looked up, there was a familiar face, complete with blue eyes and spiked blond hair.
He smiled at Roxas. "I missed you."
Roxas placed a kiss on his head. His tenderness didn't match the grumpy tone that followed. "You're not the one who had to wait out two generations alone, asshole."
Axel flipped his nose. "I'm just glad you didn't forget about me."
Roxas rolled his eyes. "You're the one who told me to commit you to memory." Roxas caught the slender hand before he was tapped on the head.
"Yeah, you got it." Axel grinned, flashing new, sharp teeth. "So, Roxas, what did you do while I was gone?"