Title: All There Was
Pairing: Akuroku
Summary: Axel should know better.
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts, Axel, Roxas, and co. are not mine.
Word Count: 1316
---
Axel knew that in truth, there was very little between them. In boredom, he'd pester Roxas, follow him around, hide his delight when he startled the blonde, dodge the blow of a keyblade, and ignore the curses. It was delicious, really, getting him riled up, pissing off the grumpy idiot enough to get them to come to blows, and even then, Axel savored the rush of the fight, the savage smile that flickered on Roxas's face that he was certain was mirrored on his own. Two people, bound by battle and boredom and mutual conflict.
Axel used Roxas, just as Roxas used him; to catch the spark of life in the sterile whiteness of the World that Never Was and ride it, breathless and exhilarating, in the space between a silver-edged keyblade and a fiery chakram, and in the empty moment between thought and action.
Rinse. Repeat.
Axel pestered Roxas.
And Axel had never asked for, nor wished for more, because to wish, one must have a heart. And though Axel did in fact possess a larger range of emotion than most of the other Nobodies, in the end he was still one of them, and couldn't wish with all his heart for anything because he didn't have one.
And he hadn't realized, then, that there would be anything to regret.
---
Until one day, Roxas left. And Axel had been left behind, startled by the sudden ache and throb where nothing existed, certain that some great, cosmic rule had just been broken somewhere, because the idea that Roxas would just up and leave him was utterly incomprehensible. He'd caught the sneaky blonde on the outskirts of the World that Never Was, and saw in one glance that whatever he said wasn't going to be able to change Roxas' mind anyway.
Not that that had stopped him from trying.
But he'd assumed that it was a Mood, or just Roxas PMSing and so he spent a few days making up a list of names he was going to call the little pipsqueak when he next saw him before he realized, a week and a half later, that Roxas was really gone. Gone. Poof. Left. Not returning.
The inconsiderate bastard had not even bothered to look back as Axel shouted at him. As if he didn't care. As if there was no connection at all between them.
And maybe there wasn't.
Two people. The rush of adrenaline that came at the price of the risk of a keyblade through his skull, but was all worth it in the monotony of the World that Never Was.
That was all there was and Axel knew it. Knew it from the inside out because hadn't he had it ground into his very being every moment he spent with Roxas?
And what did he miss? He had not realized until now that there was anything to miss, and even so, he didn't know what it was. When he tried to further analyze it, tried to drag that odd sensation out into the light and poke at it with his mind, he was invariably left with a handful of fragments, bits and pieces of memory that had something to do with whatever it was that he wanted, but none of which quite fit.
Roxas's body still warm through the cloak even though he was a Nobody, they were all Nobodies- Ignoring the younger Organization member when they passed in the hallways, but looking sidelong at the hard line of his shoulders, the set of his face before moving on- Pitter-patter of rain on the ceiling and boredom getting Axel to teach Roxas how to play cards after Xemnas had chewed them out for property damage, and Roxas putting up with him long enough to learn- flash of silver, and his chakrams and Roxa's keyblades clashed, locking together in the savage dance of battle…
And what was he going to do about – this, it, him- ?
Damned if he knew.
---
And so, Roxas was gone, and Axel was left with a handful of memories that he could make neither heads nor tails of. He knew those fragments somehow contained what he wanted, but still couldn't determine just what that was, couldn't pick them apart and distill that the essence of that wistful longing into something definable, something he could label and then shelve away into the recesses of his mind.
Even now, he had yet to come close to pulling apart the knotted tangle of emotions the Key of Destiny had left him with. The only way to describe his situation was with a name. A name that somehow described everything about the… problem, the desire, the loss.
Roxas.
---
So it was decided. Axel would find him, find the very root of the problem, and then…
He hadn't thought quite that far yet, but he'd deal with that problem when it cropped up. Along with Xemnas's displeasure, the opposition from the rest of the Organization, Sora…
The sheer number of roadblocks he was likely to run into jarred his concentration, distracting him from the problem at hand, but Axel decided that they were hardly situations he will be able to plan and prepare for, so it will be easier to wing it when the time comes along and, for now, keep his focus on the overarching goal.
Something- he would do something, anything, so that this… these broken ties, the nothing that was still something, the feelings that weren't, and the want that couldn't be defined, were not all that existed in his relationship with Roxas.
And part of Axel realizes that, yes, he had indeed lost whatever he had of his mind because he was now setting off to go find a stupid, messy haired brat that he wasn't even sure liked him, and in the meantime incurring the wrath of… just about everyone he knew. And even some he didn't.
Fuck.
He was crazy. Absolutely insane, on a level where electroshock therapy and nice, padded rooms were probably necessary.
Perhaps it is the most foolish thing in the world.
Perhaps that is just another way to define love.
---
But in the end, he hadn't even been able to manage that either, had he? In the time Roxas had gone, Axel had met, fought, and failed to keep another Roxas, one that knew nothing of him, of the Organization, of hearts and not having them, or of a world that never was. And when that Roxas had faded into the smiling face of a warm-hearted brunette boy with dark blue eyes, he'd done his best to keep that one too.
Hadn't worked out well, that. Sora and himself versus more Dusks than either of them could really handle, and Axel knew with a sudden sharp clarity that there would be no after, that Roxas had escaped out of his sight, over the next hill and beyond the horizon into the light he could no longer follow. And it is that knowledge that lets him burn, burn, everything, including himself, feeling his fire consume him from the inside out, filling his chest with and exploding out of him before he fell back, spent.
Even as he felt his very being disintegrating back into nothingness, Axel had found no answers. Not from Roxas, who no longer existed. Not even from himself.
He was right the first time, Axel thought wryly, that he might have been better off if he'd just heeded common sense and got himself committed into some institution or another when he'd first realized that he'd been afflicted with a case of idiocy. Excuse me, love.
Regret is a wistful, bitter thing. All he'd had of any value were his memories of Roxas. And now, those were fading too, and he'd never come any closer to deciphering just what it was he'd wanted.
Axel wished…
---
A/N: Stupid thing took almost a year to work out of my brain, and I'm still not fully happy with it. I hate plot bunnies that refuse to let go.
For those who don't get it, the ending is to signify what Axel really wants from Roxas, which is never defined. And even now, we don't know what it is.
Review, people, and validate my sad existence which has spent waaay too long messing with this fic.