Disclaimer; I am in no way related to KH and I do not own the characters.
It isn't the insanity that twists bile from the back of his throat.
Not that it doesn't bother him, and it bugs the hell out of him when Demyx in all his dim-witted glory decides to deem Axel 'bat shit fucking crazy' after one of their less pleasant missions, but with what's now at stake in the game the redhead quickly learns to smother the urgently growing urges to kill-to maim to fucking tear the people around him to goddamn shreds, and pretends with a carefully crafted carefree laugh that the Sitar player's evaluations are empty. He keeps up his perfect little façade that all he is, is Axel; the flurry of fucking dancing flames and slobbering obedient mutt and martyr of Organization Thirteen's purpose. Surely someone so devoted to the cause can't be insane? It's not as easy as he'd hoped, but dammit he needs something that he's addicted to and if anyone brought suspicions to Superior he would loose that.
It's not that he's afraid that his subtly cracking self control will burst.
Even if he is afraid- petrified at times- that one day all the pent up need to paint the world in hues of red will flood him at the wrong time, that he'll find himself smiling down at his blue-eyed angel one moment and the next be lost into a hazy oblivion, it's just another one of those small little nagging things that ensnare his mind in barbwire ribbons. It's just there; it's not the thing that keeps him up all night, desperately gasping for the ever illusive air and looking around imploringly at walls, nearly as bereft as a small child.
It's when Roxas isn't there that has him fucking petrified.
While Axel was willing to admit that, yeah, having the blond with him at all times was a bit dangerous (hell, more than dangerous because every miserable day Axel got that much closer to the edge…) it was nothing compared to the situations that seemed to run rampant through Axel's mind any time Roxas wasn't right where Axel could keep a damn good eye on him. Ungodly hours of the morning would always seem to find him alone in his room, slits of greens staring at white walls while he tried to ward off unwanted but effortlessly conjured images that assailed his entire being. There was no reason that they should make the nerves in his body curl into themselves in pulsating pain that felt like murder, but they did. And it was during these moments, where the voice of poisoned silk whispered damnable possibilities that somehow made him writhe, that Axel started to hate his game.
Because Roxas was in the very center of it. Axel's prize, his goal.
Because Roxas was their tool. Their sacrifice for 'The greater good'.
It's these nights/alternate realities/thoughts when he's shaking; a fine layer of sweat covering his hunched over body while he tries not to drown in his own sick. It's gotten too personal to him. No one can say that he doesn't feel anymore, because Axel does and he hates the unswayable emotion and perverse empty feeling that the image of blood-matted hair and empty electric blue eyes begets. More than this, he despises the dry rasps and empty sobs that tear from his throat at the thought of Roxas simply not existing. God, how can anyone want to let him not exist?
It can takes hours that feel like years for the quivering to die down to a manageable level. The very moment he can manage to get out of his pathetic huddled mass on the floor, he's swaying to his feet; running. He's ignoring the abnormally loud crack of his door behind him and the occasional bemused onlooker because they don't matter. He might as well be fucking airborne for how desperately fast he's moving. Red spikes fly in every which direction as his head hastily turns from one direction to the next, looking for that door; the one that can make the still flickering thoughts stop. Roxas can make the empty feeling go away.
When he finds it, he nearly breaks Thirteen's door down in his need to get inside.
The blond jumps into an upright position at the sound of the door slamming behind his friend, and wide, unnaturally blue orbs stare up at Axel; shocked, shaky. Axel grins, so big it nearly hurts, at the sight of his blond. It doesn't matter that Roxas is now rolling his eyes, muttering in his pseudo-annoyed tone "Again?" and going on a sleepy rant on how Axel obviously does this on purpose just so he won't have to be an insomniac alone. The redhead just keeps grinning, suppressing a loud, relieved laugh at the pleasure of knowing that Roxas is alive and breathing and here. It's so obvious that he was up waiting for him because no matter how much he protests, Axel knows Roxas worries about him too, and probably has his suspicions about the fact that every time the elder bursts into the blond's room he's drenched in sweat and the distinct sour smell of sick radiates off his shivering body. Roxas never asks about it though, he simply smiles and pretends that he doesn't looked like death's been chasing him.
For that singular moment in time, Axel can say he feels whole and mean it.
He practically falls forward, shoving the covers off Roxas and blithely ignoring any protest the boy makes as Axel settles almost too comfortably into the bed. Dauntingly, green eyes search for any actual sign of protest and when they finds none, one leather-covered hand fists gently into shimmering golden locks and the other wraps possessively around the younger's middle. Roxas, thankfully, doesn't comment on the development and instead takes to staring down at the hand clutching to his stomach as if trying to memorize the way the dark covering stretches with the elegant curves that the other male's fingers make.
Finally, as one of Roxas' much daintier hands wrap around the one holding his middle, the voices and images in Axel's mind just stop and the feeling that's purely Roxas combined with countless sleepless nights wash over him with overlapping tones of warmth.
It doesn't matter if Roxas holds half of Sora's power
What matters is that he holds all of Axel's heart.
A/N Right, so this was just a drabble that I wrote at about one in the morning to try to cure my writing block. I have about twenty different unfinished stories on my computer now, ranging back from about a year ago. They're getting annoying to look at…
(Insert poem about how nice reviews are here.)