A/N: Inspired by CaideSin's wonderful writing and funny pictures of using fire to get rid of pests. Combine that with me at around two-thirty in the morning deciding that writing a Namixel is a wonderful idea. That's about all I can say on this. Um. I'm sorry? I suppose. Please give me constructive criticism on Axel. I have never written him in COM timelines before. That is about all.
Ashes to Ashes
Axel hates most everything.
It's true that he doesn't care, that he really couldn't give a damn where half the Organization ends up. If he woke up from a useless nap to discover they were all dead and he was the only one left, he'd feast near the places where their black blood was spilt. He'd celebrate with their killers, he'd light the whole world on fire in bombastic victory. He'd dance until it was dawn and his legs gave out; he'd dance until the bonfires died down and his stomach stopped churning; he'd go on celebrating until everything around him stopped.
The only thing he loves and cares about in all the worlds is his fire.
Pyromaniac and fire-swallower are names he accepts with pride. To impress petty bystanders in the worlds and land some more munny, he'll ignite a fire in his mouth without the use of troublesome gasoline. They'll applaud and whistle and throw the munny while he leaves his mouth wide open to let the skeptics know nothing in it was black.
He wasn't granted the name Flurry of the Dancing Flames just because he could make a flame float above his hand for the Superior. He didn't find much in the ooh-ahhing crowds; he'll let someone else entertain them. He doesn't deal in parlor tricks and show business; he left that to the amateurs.
Axel keeps himself hot to the touch, sharpens his angles and words, leaves a trail of embers behind him when he walks. He can't afford to be anything less than what he is, and it's maybe for that reason that the memory-witch focuses her attention on him.
---
Naminé fears most everything.
It's true that she has no real powers of her own, that the only thing she can really do is change people's memories. But that takes time and effort, and she can't draw her way out of a battle. She can't even draw her way into the sky above Castle Oblivion. She sits in the cage, a joke they all find so funny. She is only brought out to stretch her legs once in a while so they don't atrophy. Every shadow holds a nightmare for Naminé; the world is so big and she's so small and there's a lot to be afraid of; Marluxia and Larxene can make her bad dreams come alive and walk the halls.
The only thing she's not afraid of is her sketchpad.
Paper cuts can be avoided easily when she treads lightly around the corners. The colored pencils are sharp, but not sharp enough to ever break her skin. And the pictures always come out to be so pretty, wonderful little lies she can't help but almost believe.
Naminé keeps herself small and soft, rounds her angles and calluses away, makes sure she's never louder than her paper. She can't afford to be anything less than what she is either, and it's for that reason that Axel's eyes catch hers and she follows him when he commands it.
---
They conduct the nothing affair, a dirty secret they'll never share, in the darkest parts of the night when they know everything else is asleep.
His sharp angles pierce her enough to feel but not to hurt; her soft, untouched skin feels like satin against his. He has to carry her to get anything done, and his lap becomes the most familiar part of his body to her. During the beginning she knows hardly what to do at all, but she follows his tense orders and he's rewarded for her obedience.
She is all silent sighs and he is muffled moans. She clings to him desperately, he wraps a long arm around her small waist. She gives him everything from nothing and he takes it to keep the emptiness from getting to him. Theirs is a sickness that affects them, eats them from the bone on out.
Very soon they can hardly think of anyone but each other.
He keeps her warm with lies and he calls her angel and other things he can't imagine ever coming true. She just sighs and complies with the lies, opening and closing her mouth based on his whims.
Very soon they are too heavily tangled together and pulling apart becomes more and more painful. They want to spend all their time together. They want Axel to take charge of her so that Marluxia and Larxene don't interfere with what they don't see. He makes her his everything, brings her closer just to see her look at him with those bright blue eyes. She makes him her idol, she is paying more attention to him than to Sora, her task at hand.
She calls him her fire-eater, her hero, and very soon she stops lying to him altogether.
He can't afford to be anything less than what he is, and even when he stops calling her angel and bringing her closer, he's still her heroic fire-eater.
It is then that Axel realizes he has to destroy her.
---
He asks her one day to consider paints instead of pencils. The sketchpad can only do so much for her. He tells her he wants her to fill her bedroom with the brightest colors she's ever seen.
She is scared of how rich the colors are, how the color drips down her legs and pools in her sandals. He tells her that she will have to be careful, but that she'll be amazing at it soon. He gives her something called paint thinner. He tells her it's for her mistakes. If the color ever gets away from her, she can paint this over and the color can go a little lighter. It can become a pastel that she can easily manage.
She says that he's being so wonderful to her and she owes him everything for this chance. She hugs him, he gives her a quick peck on the head. He forgets to put feeling into it, and asks her to get to work.
---
He forgets to tell her the paint thinner she uses has turpentine. He forgets to tell her that if she inhales it, she'll be very very sick. She is soon in her cage, struggling to stand, let alone draw. She is brought to the White Room where she draws under supervision, but even Marluxia's Venus flytrap eyes and Larxene's sharp knives bring nothing out of her.
Her skin goes very gray, her eyes turn very dull. Even Marluxia and Larxene are concerned for her. They accuse each other, accuse Axel of breaking her. He says he has no use for her, why would he break her if she's bringing Sora to them?
Axel forgets to wink to Naminé to tell her he's just kidding.
And he forgets to tell them that the damage is permanent, that she'll never breathe correctly again.
---
But she walks to the room in the dark parts of night when she knows nobody will tell her she's being stupid and forces her back to bed. He forgets to tell her that not only is turpentine very toxic, it's very flammable.
He forgets to tell her that he plans to set her sketchpad on fire because it's the center of everything she is, it's everything that makes her up. It's every lie and truth she's ever told; it's every "I love you" she ever said to him that he pretended not to hear. Maybe she's the one who can change memories, but he likes being in charge of his own. He burns away things he doesn't want to remember.
If he burns the sketchpad, he burns her too.
The turpentine smells horrible as it soaks into her papers, the ones she always treated as if they were made of gold. The sketchpad curls in on itself, and he pinches his hood against his nose as he watches the toxic rivers run around Naminé's room. From the walls, bright, candy-colored fantasy islands shine in the faint starlight. The walls are so much brighter and beautiful than she is. It's a shame that they need to disappear, that nobody else will ever see them.
She stirs and he freezes, almost caught. She smiles vaguely, a ghost in her bed.
"…Axel, Axel?" she calls quietly, a smile flickering, dying, on her wan mouth. She stretches out her arms, hopeful. "Come here. I'm so cold, won't you make me warm? Hold me, please, won't you? Please hold me, please love me. You'll love me, won't you, Axel?"
He smiles and says, "I don't have the heart for it today."
He forgets to put meaning into it.
He forgets to tell her to run.
But he remembers to watch her burn.
---
Later Marluxia approaches him, distraught. His toy is gone; everything is ruined now; witnesses have said everyone was accounted for. But it was Axel who was closest to the scene, it was a fire that burnt Naminé alive.
Axel tells Marluxia that for a long time, Naminé had been planning the entire escapade. She was fading fast, she was turning gray, she was afraid of what the future held for a poisoned girl like her. She couldn't even draw and her time was over, she had outlasted her welcome and she had stopped being useful.
She died in that fire, Axel says, businesslike. She's all ashes now.
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. Out of sight, out of mind.
And so he forgets her.
---