Metamorphosis, a kingdom hearts fanfic

For Duckie! Thanks for letting me play Roxas in your house. I OWE YOU A THOUSAND THINGS!!! I LOVE YOU LOTS OKAY.

They sit down at the edge of the clock tower, legs dangling in the air and watching the sun drowning into the sea and neon lights glowing brighter. Roxas fiddles with the hem of his coat's sleeve, and picks up the jar beside his hip. It was covered with bits of torn paper that doesn't allow anyone to look through it.

Axel raises an eyebrow. "What's inside?"

Roxas looks up at him, then back to the jar. He doesn't fumble with the lid, hands and fingers steady as he opens he glass jar.

When Axel peers to see what is inside, he sees nothing.

After a mission one day Axel finds Roxas sitting in his room, a steaming mug in his hands.

"You were waiting?"

For me, he wants to say, but doesn't. Roxas stares at him.

"Coffee."

Axel lifts the cup from his hands, and the heat was like comfort, like his fire, and he is pleased when he notices Roxas' fingers are stung red.

"One day," Axel says, "I'll take you to the beach."

Roxas is looking at him, apathy replaced with slight interest. "What's a beach?"

"It's somewhere beautiful," Axel promises.

"With birds?"

Axel almost smiles. "Yeah. And the sea."

"Oh," Roxas' eyes are blue again when he looks down at his lap. "I'd like that."

They are on a mission, to find Heartless and kill them all. They found them soon enough, and Axel launches to attack them immediately.

There is a shop behind the place they're fighting at, a glass display of porcelain plates and cups and silver keys, and Roxas leaps in front of it, never letting any Heartless touch the glass.

When they are done Roxas is slightly hurt, and Axel is angry.

"What have you been doing?" he hisses, something unrecognizable pricking his chest. "You could've gotten hurt badly!"

Roxas gazes at him with eyes so blue and bright they hurt his own.

"I liked it," he answers, then walks away, "But not anymore."

They had killed all the Heartless in the town, so Roxas wanders around the place in mild disinterest, and when he sees an abandoned theme park he treads towards it slowly, Axel trailing behind him.

The gates are rusty and brown and creaked loudly when they open it, but Roxas doesn't care anyway.

"I want to play that," Roxas tells Axel, pointing towards the ferris wheel.

"Okay," Axel replies.

When Roxas climbs into one of the carriages Axel turns to the controller, pushing the correct buttons. The ferris wheel moves slowly, bright and colourful like flying rainbows. Roxas is in the green carriage, looking out of the window, palms gripping the sides of the seat.

Axel waits for the carriage to descend then pushes the right button to stop it. Roxas climbs out of the carriage, looking blank and expressionless as usual.

"How was it?"

Roxas doesn't glance at him. "Nothing good," he answers, and bites his lip to stop himself from vomiting.

There are three scratches on Axel's cheek after a mission one day, oozing blood that is not red. Roxas comes into the room sometime later, a white box with a red cross in his hands. HE sits beside Axel on his bed and opens the box.

Axel takes a look at it, then frowns slightly.

"You took that from that hospital," he doesn't ask, says.

Roxas ignores him and takes out a band-aid, pulling out the white plastic strips behind it and sticking it onto Axel's face. Axel's eyes follow his fingers as they smooth the plaster neatly in place.

Axel raises his eyebrows and doesn't frown. Roxas doesn't glance up to meet his eyes.

When he is done, Axel has three band aids on his face, and he was pleased and annoyed everyone by boasting about it at every second.

This is the second time. Axel trails after Roxas into the old park, where Roxas demands for a carousel ride. Axel obeys and presses the control buttons.

Roxas has picked to ride on a white horse with yellow hair and brown hoofs. He swings his legs gracefully over the seat and hums a light tune to himself as the carousel moves soundlessly.

Axel jumps onto the spinning ride and seats himself ob a black horse beside Roxas', and they can almost smile or laugh or be happy, except they didn't.

The ride halts suddenly, and Roxas is panting heavily and gasping. Axel leaps off his horse and extends a hand to Roxas and helps him off the horse.

"That wasn't fun," Roxas is saying when Axel carries him back to the castle, his knees weak and feeble, "Let's do it again sometime."

Roxas is on his bed, sweat covering his face and neck and body and he feels so uncomfortable and his head is aching, pounding and Axel comes into the room and looks at him. His gaze looks worried, but Roxas never felt and doesn't know how worry makes a person look like.

"I brought you tea," Axel says, and hands his teacup to Roxas. He glances at it and moans.

"I don't want it."

"Roxas," Axel starts, his hand out and reaching towards his forehead, "maybe I should—"

"Go away," Roxas sighs heavily, pushing his fringe out of the way and groaning into his palms. "I'm tired."

Axel's expression is scrunched up and strange, alien, and somehow it made him look like he was feeling, but Roxas doesn't know and understand so when Axel leaves he doesn't know what to look like.

Roxas has found a photograph lying on the ground, colourful and bright. There are thre people in the picture—a blonde with spiky hair, a plump looking boy and a brown-haired girl. They are smiling up at him, those eyes brimming with something unfamiliar.

Something looks like its missing.

Axel watches Roxas pick it up, scan it slowly, and then his expression darkens and he rips it into small and tiny pieces that escapes between his fingers. Then he leaves and deliberately spins on his heels to step on the shreds of paper and ink.

"Let's go," he says, and Axel follows him, glancing at the torn photograph before staring at the back of Roxas' head again.

"Axel," Roxas frowns, "What are you doing?"

Axel grins. He is hanging beside the clock, hands gripping the roof tight and placing his feet on the wall, looking down t Roxas.

"You might fall."

Axel's face lights up. "You're worried about me?"

The shorter boy scoffs and squints at him.

"I'm carving our names," Axel says, pointing to the hands of the clock, "on here. It's for reminiscence." He goes back to finish his task and Roxas watches him.

When he is done he carefully crawls down and joins Roxas at the edge of the tower. Roxas stares at him, eyes hard and so blue, then he turns away.

"Take me to the beach," he says, and leaves Axel to stand alone.

"You told me you'd bring me there." Roxas is angry, arms crossed on his chest. Axel runs a hand through his hair, sighing.

"I've got a mission," he replies, "I'll take you when I get back."

The smaller boy glares at him, eyes pinning Axel down down down so that he feels like his knees are weakening. "When is that?"

"A few days."

"No," Roxas looks away, furious, "I want to go today. Bring me there."

"Roxas," Axel tries to explain, tiredly. "I have to go. The mission. It's important."

"Fine," Roxas snaps and walks away, shoving Axel away when he grabs his arm. He gives him an icy glare and disappears down the corridor.

Axel slumps down and turns around, feeling exhausted and weak and frustrated, and scrubs his chest anxiously, where his heart should have been, and tries not to think of Roxas.

The next day Roxas doesn't appear for breakfast. Axel leaves without saying goodbye, and his chest burns and it hurts.

When he comes back days later, tired and hurt and his head is pounding against his skull, but he ignores all that and runs straight towards Roxas' room.

Roxas is sitting on his bed, staring at his jar and tapping his fingernails against it. It makes a soft noise and Roxas doesn't like it.

"I'm back," Axel announces breathlessly. "Let's go to the beach."

Roxas looks at him, then back at the jar.

"I don't want to go there anymore."

They are sitting at the edge of the clock tower. Axel grips on the ledge tightly, on hand scattering papers that are swept away by the wind. The sun is rising.

"It's beautiful," Roxas lips curl into an almost smile.

Somehow this makes Axel's chest tighten painfully, and he grips the wood even tighter, nails chipping them off a little.

Suddenly Roxas is standing, and he spreads his arms apart and loses his balance and falls over the edge. Axel's eyes widen and he gasps and looks down.

Roxas is staring at him, blue eyes like the sea and sky and ice, as if saying, Axel, I'm falling.

Axel wakes up sweating, and then realizes it was all a dream, and chokes back a scream.

During breakfast Roxas isn't seated on the marble bench and eating, but leaves his plate empty, and seats himself beside the tall window that reaches the ceiling instead.

Axel joins him and watches Roxas look outside the window, head rested on his palms.

"Roxas," Axel says, but Roxas doesn't glance at him even once, and stands up and walks away. Axel looks at his retreating back and his throat constrict painfully, the taste of ash on his tongue.

The day Roxas leaves for a mission alone, Axel enters his room and basks in the air that smells like sea and sunflowers. He wanders around in the room, pushing open white curtains over white walls and touching the windowsill, fingertips ghosting over the wooden pans of the windowframe.

Roxas comes in later and Axel almost cries in relief, or happiness of frustration and impatience, but he doesn't know how any of them feels like. He rushes over to him and pulls him into his arms, feeling him breathe and live.

"Roxas," he gasps, tears threatening to spill from the backs of his eyes, "you're back."

Gentle hands crawl up the fabric of his coat and clutch at it silently, and Axel feels there's something wrong, wrong, but he doesn't understand at all.

"No, I'm not."

"You what?" Axel almost yells. His chest is painful, so very very painful, and his head feels heavy and everything is spinning and being thrown off balance.

"I'm leaving," Roxas repeats. Axel's grips on his shoulders are tight and painful, but he can't feel them at all.

"You can't leave," Axel chokes, "I-I'm…I can't…"

Roxas stares at him, blue eyes dull and vacant and gazing on him, as if piercing his chest and striking it repeatedly and making everything even more painful.

"If I wanted to die, will you kill me?"

Axel freezes, his hold loosening as something dreadful flows down his spine. Roxas' gaze is stil on him, darker and more opaque than before. It's slowly killing Axel and he feels as if everything's falling, he's falling, dying, drowning in his own flames.

"I thought so." Roxas escapes from his grasp and walks away, never turning back.

The clock ticks, ticks, and Axel dies in every second.

It had felt like infinity, but something sparked and there was something again, and Axel can cling onto something like hope for the shred of his life that's left. He holds onto it tightly as he walks, steady and trying not to tremble and cry.

He is glad that he doesn't stumble or stutter in front of him, the way his blue eyes are on him, watching him with open eyes that has lost something.

"You really don't remember?"

Roxas—

"It's me, you know, Axel."

You didn't forget, right?

"…Axel?"

fin.

Word count: 2013

I couldn't put a lot of feelings inside, so I know it's that lousy. Haven't been re-read or beta-ed. Hopefully I don't get any facts wrong.

Thanks for reading.