Axel approached the house, non-existent heart down in his heels. He looked up at the large windows. They seemed to beckon to him, calling him inside. The brightly colored house was the exact opposite of what he had expected. It was too friendly. He had expected to feel uneasy and worried when he looked upon the dwelling, but all he could muster was a slight discomfort at the memories the place held. He took a deep breath, forehead creasing in worry. Was it really okay to be here like this? Was it okay to just come here and visit? He felt like he was trespassing, although since it was not really a house, and someone didn't really live here, he was doing no such thing. He touched the door with a leather gloved hand, feeling the wood beneath his trembling fingers and wondering why he had come.
His footsteps echoed in the empty house as he walked the hallways that used to hold someone dear to him. The heels of his leather boots clicked on the linoleum. The place seemed shattered and empty compared to a house filled with laughter. Outside, rain began to pour down in sheets, staining the roof with their melancholy music. The upstairs beckoned to him, calling him to enter the proverbial lion's den. Making his way over, he sighed and let his eyes drop, face becoming downcast. He paused on the stairway, looking into faces smiling at him from delicately hung photographs. The happiness they displayed haunted him, made his chest feel uncomfortably empty and hollow.
Upstairs, he made his way to the room at the end of the upper wing. The door was dusty and neglected. It hung open as if there was no one who bothered to close it anymore. He passed the doorway, standing before the room. It was as messy as he remembered it. The only difference was the way it now seemed abandoned. The clothes strewn about the floor were crumpled sadly and smelled of disregard. Everything was coated in dust and had an air of neglect about it. It was a tragic sight, and Axel crossed the room to the desk as quickly as he could manage.
Like the room, the desk was discarded and cheerless. He ran a finger along the surface, eyes dark and unyielding. Unshed tears glistened just below the surface. He bit his lip, breathing heavily.
A dry sob split the air as he let both hands rest on the desk. His eyes closed in agony and he sought release in a strangled cry he let out at top volume. He pounded at the desk as though it were the thing he was frustrated with, not something that had nothing to do with his pain. Tears reached his eyes, dripping onto the dusty desk as he collected himself. His shoulders heaved with helplessness.
"Dammit… if I had to, I would put myself right beside you…"
He wondered if he would like that. If he would be able then to admit that maybe their love wasn't the last time. He was shaking from anguish and frustration when his eyes grazed over something lying on the desk. The title caught his attention.
Axel looked down at the small book. It wasn't that large, about the size of a bible, but to him it seemed to be the most foreboding thing in the room. He took a deep breath, reaching for it with shaking fingers. They grazed the rough surface, and he shivered in nervous anticipation. It was innocent, wasn't it? He was just looking. He picked it up, marveling at its weight in his slender hands. The cover was tan, and plain to look at.
He opened to the first page. Tentatively, he began reading.
As his eyes swept the tattered pages, he realized that this was not going to make him feel better. In fact, it was probably going to make him feel much worse. He was past caring. He just needed something to hold onto, something to see that wasn't inanimate. This was full of feelings, good and bad, and that made it a lifeline. He read each line, the hollow feeling in his chest growing.
The words were cruel, mocking. He almost put it down, but he couldn't stop. He needed to know.
The random phrases crashed around in his head, battering his remaining sense. He read hungrily, enjoying the pain flooding through his body. It made him feel alive. The tears were flowing freely now, no longer held back by his desire to save face. His eyes were wide, taking in every detail of the man who, it now appeared, hated him.
He read about how his partner wished he had never known him, and something inside him finally snapped.
Axel collapsed to the ground, curling up in a corner. His sobs wracked his body now, and he hacked up some bile on the dust covered floor. He wiped his mouth, the angry words repeating themselves to him, making him tremble as though he were with fever. He let himself be swept away, and yet still he clutched the book, desperate to know what made his partner tick.
He lay shivering on the floor now, devouring still more pages.
Axel crawled to a sitting position, staggering blindly as he read to the bed. He sank into its surface, distressed that it smelled simply of dust and sheets. He set down, sore and sick, and tried to find his place in the diary.
He moved on, crying out as if the book was causing him physical pain. His tears were so thick now he could barely continue.
Page after page, there was nothing about their memories, their friendship. It was all regret. It was all the things that went wrong. It was everything they ever cherished, broken. He sat up, clawing at his shoulders and howling like a wounded animal. His breathing was composed of heaving sobs as he clutched his face in one hand, holding himself with the other. He let himself cry it out, dropping the book to the floor. Every page he had turned, every word he had read, it all pulsed as a sharp pain in his chest.
He ripped a couple pages violently from the book and burned them beneath his fingers, watching the flames lick them clean of their haunting words. He tore out page after page, watching them curl and blacken.
He realized as he watched his partners thoughts blaze between his hands that there was a fine line between love and hate. He wished he could be back then, anywhere away from there.
"Axel, I want to leave here…" Roxas whispered against the older man's chest as they lay, curled together, in Axel's bedroom. Axel kissed his brow, wincing at the pain in the blonde's voice. He massaged the younger's arm beneath him and held him close.
"I promise, I'll take you away… We just have to wait."
Roxas nodded at him and moved still closer, whispering hollow words of affection that were enough to satisfy the both of them, and they let themselves believe.
'It shouldn't have been like that,' the page read. 'We shouldn't have made love out of pity.'
"Then tell me how it should be," Axel sobbed to the paper before lighting it as well.
"Axel! I did it! I summoned a weapon!"
Axel turned to smile, genuinely happy with the blonde.
"Way to go!"
Roxas gripped the redhead's arm, looking up with too blue eyes.
"You promised! We have to go out and celebrate!"
"I'm sorry," Axel replied, surprised that he actually meant it.
"I got a mission… I won't be back till tomorrow…"
'It became about sex. We had only that because we couldn't have anything else. It hurt.'
"It hurt me too," Axel insisted, crumpling the next page.
'I had a dream about him again. He was smiling, and we sat talking for hours. Then we slept on the clock tower, just cuddling, watching the stars…'
"If you had asked, I would have done that…" Axel sobbed in response, grabbing yet another page.
'I wanted something more'
"So did I."
Fire.
'He meant the world to me.'
"As did you to me."
Flames.
'It had to end.'
"No it didn't!"
Ashes.
The diary slowly faded, becoming no more than ashes and sparks. Axel sucked in deep breaths, face drawn and tortured. He screamed and slammed his fist against the wall, letting himself go.
He struck out at the room and himself, crying and yelling himself hoarse.
"I'll be waiting.'
'You can't turn your back on the organization!'
'Just because you have a next life…'
'No one would miss me.'
'The Roxas I know is long gone.'
'I would!'
"I WOULD!!!!!" Axel screamed to the empty room. "I DO!!!!!!"
'I was so happy just to talk to him!' a page had read.
At last Axel turned back to the source of his anguish. The last page of the diary lay there, looking like a lone survivor on a bloody battlefield. It only had one sentence on it.
'I love him.'
Axel took the page delicately, cradling it as if it were a butterfly or something equally fragile. He folded it into an origami heart, as he had been taught by Roxas so long ago. His lips brushed it as he tucked it next to his chest. It would become his heart.
'It shouldn't have been like that.'
"It should have been so much better," Axel whispered.
"I'd die for his love…"
Axel left the room shakily, having found himself in the diary of Roxas.