A/N: I just realized that, as of the last chapter, this story is the longest thing I've ever written (in both chapter count and word count). Also it's over one NaNoWriMo long. I am utterly astounded that I ever made it this far, let alone that I'm continuing to write it. I AM FULL OF GLEE.
In other news, happy Axel/Roxas day! Although this is a terrible chapter to post today. Oh well.
Warnings: VIOLENCE. I LOVE VIOLENCE. Um, character death? And smoochin'. (P.S. I know nothing about ships. Please forgive me.)
Disclaimer: lol i own nothing ;_;
Summary: AU. Axel/Roxas. He wanted an ending. He got Axel instead.
Chapter Twenty-One: Break Your Heart
Roxas didn't even give Hook a chance to respond before he leapt at the man, and couldn't resist the smirk as the captain's eyes widened in both surprise and fear. To Roxas' annoyance, the man had enough sense to dodge out of the way, and only parried when he couldn't dodge fast enough. Fortunately, though, Roxas was angry—certainly angrier than he would have expected to be at the near-death of someone he barely knew. Maybe it was just that Rufio was the first person he'd made friends with on his own the last three years, the first person to treat him as something other than one of the most dangerous men in the world or a naïve kid wandering where he shouldn't be. Either way, the fact that Hook had almost killed Rufio was something he was taking as a personal affront, and he didn't give the man the smallest amount of ground until he had almost fallen off the side of the ship.
"What's this, Thirteen?" the man asked, a smile twitching up under his mustache. "You're not taking this thing personally, are you?"
Roxas didn't say anything, just taking a step further and feeling a sadistic smile spread across his face as Hook flinched and nearly slipped over the edge.
"My boy, do you really think this is going to solve anything?" Hook asked, his nervous smile making him look demented. "Kill me, and what happens to Neverland? The Lost Boys need an enemy to fight! Who's going to provide that when I'm gone, eh?"
"I'm sure someone will step up," Roxas said coldly. "And they'll probably be better at it than you were, judging by how easily I snuck onto and around your ship. I don't think anyone will miss you, James."
"That's Captain Hook, boy!" the pirate snarled, lashing out with his sword. Roxas dodged it easily, a cold laugh bubbling out—the man was an amateur at best. Roxas responded with a final swing of Oblivion, stopping just short of slamming the weapon into Hook's throat, and watched as Hook obligingly dropped his own sword. Roxas gestured with Oathkeeper, and the man slowly stepped back, closer to the side, and almost lost his footing as something slammed into the side of the ship. A distant ticking noise could be heard, and Hook bared his teeth.
"That damn crocodile," he muttered just loudly enough that Roxas could hear him, though it was obvious he hadn't meant to be heard. Roxas stared at him silently, his mind going back to the little he knew about Hook. Something was niggling at the back of his head, a little side-note about how he had lost his hand...
"Oh," he said softly, "a friend's dropped by to see you, hasn't he?" Hook glanced at him sharply, and when Roxas moved forward, he didn't step back this time. "Maybe I was wrong about you suffering." And he leapt forward, Hook trying to dodge out of the way without falling from the ship, but the man didn't move fast enough and a keyblade slammed into his stomach, cutting it wide open. The pirate doubled over in front of him, breathing harshly and clutching at his wound.. Roxas let his keyblades fall away, smiling in triumph, and grabbed hold of the front of Hook's shirt to pull him over to the side. He peered over it curiously, the ticking noise growing louder, and saw the crocodile thrashing in the water. He couldn't remember why the crocodile made the strange ticking noise, let alone why it was so obsessed with eating Hook, but he wasn't going to question that now when it was so useful. The man struggled weakly as Roxas dragged him, but he'd already lost a fair amount of blood, so it was easy enough for Roxas to give him the last final shove over the edge.
He winced at Hook's screams, the sound of the crocodile's jaw snapping shut, the sound of Hook's feeble splashes, but he did his best to ignore it and walked back in the direction of Pan's sword. The two pirates that were holding on to Pan were still there, looking horrified at what had just happened to their leader, and ran away as if under one mind when Roxas walked over to them with the golden sword held loosely in his hand.
"Your sword," he said softly to Pan, holding the sword out hilt-first towards him. Pan stared at him warily, obviously not sure if he trusted Roxas, but he reached out and took it anyway, then silently sheathed it. The boy then brushed past Roxas without a word, heading over to Rufio to check up on him. Roxas stayed where he was, arms crossed, and waited to see what was going to happen.
"Ro—" Rufio started calling over to him after a few moments, and Roxas' head snapped up in alarm.
"Don't call me that now," he said sharply, sighing as Rufio winced, and then he walked over to the boy. "We should get off this ship before some of the pirates grow a half brain between them. I don't want to be here while they're recovering."
"If I'd known Hook was going to die tonight, I'd have invited the Lost Boys along," Pan said grumpily, glaring at Roxas. "We could have taken the rest of the pirates easily."
"You still have time for that," Roxas said softly. "It'll be a while before they decide what to do, believe me. But for now, I need to get off this island and report back."
"We should leave you to them!" Pan snarled, hands on his hips and legs spread in the classic Peter Pan pose. "How do we know you won't do anything to us?"
"Attacking you would be counter-productive," Roxas responded dryly. "I'm tired, and it's hard to swim weighed down with this jacket on. Believe me, I've had to try before. Besides, I saved Rufio's life, didn't I?"
"He did," Rufio agreed quietly. Roxas turned to face him, and was surprised to see the boy blush again. Clearly, what he'd just done hadn't effected the boy's crush on him in the slightest. In fact, when he lifted his head again, he could see a fair amount of awe in the boy's eyes. "Look, Peter, can we just get him back to the island and through the forest?"
"...Fine," Peter said grudgingly, giving Rufio a curious look, and then turned to lead them to one of the small rowboats on the side of the ship. With Rufio's help, he got it loose, and gestured for Roxas to get in. Roxas did as asked, sitting down away from the oars, and tensed as the boat was lowered, swinging precariously, by the other two. When it finally hit the water, Rufio and Pan both jumped down—Rufio landed lightly mid-boat, and Pan seemed to float down somehow. Seconds later, a bright light zoomed down and settled itself on Pan's shoulder. Roxas had the feeling that, whatever it was, it was glaring at him.
"Hey, Tink," Rufio said quietly. The light made a strange noise at him, and Rufio scowled, then settled himself down by one of the oars. Pan took the other one, and they rowed over to the shore in silence. They didn't even bother hiding in the cove this time, getting up as close to the shore as they could before jumping out and pulling the boat back up on the sand. Roxas decided to get out and help them this time, ignoring the indecipherable looks Pan was sending at him.
The three of them made the slow trek back through the forest, but the tenseness didn't fade. Roxas tried to keep his distance from Pan and Rufio, watching them curiously as they talked in low voices between battles. He could tell they were arguing about something, probably him, and they were completely focused on the conversation. After a few minutes of walking, Roxas noticed that the sounds of the forest had died down, that the rustling of creatures in the trees and underbrush had faded, and it seemed to be getting darker. The other two didn't notice a thing, and Roxas tensed up, looking around in the hopes of finding out what was scaring everything away from them. He caught sight of something a distance into the forest away from them, some man-shaped creature that he couldn't quite make out inching closer to his two companions.
"Look out!" Roxas yelled when it suddenly leapt towards Pan and, seeing that the boy wasn't going to get out of the way in time, he called his keyblades to him before running forward and knocking Pan out of the way. Something sliced past his hood, forcing it back slightly in the breeze, and Roxas lifted Oblivion automatically to block the rebound swing.
"What the heck is that?" Pan yelped from somewhere behind him. Roxas jumped away from the creature uncertainly, eyeing it with some trepidation, and found himself without an answer. It seemed to be made of the same liquidy substance as whatever they'd found in Hook's cabin before, but this time it was alive.
"It's one of those things from the ship!" Rufio snarled, backing away from them and clearly stopping to call up some magic.
"...A Heartless," Pan said quietly, backing away as well. Roxas glanced at him curiously, and then turned his attention back to the creature. He'd never seen anything more profoundly disturbing in his life. If you just glanced at it, the thing was actually kind of cute—it looked kind of like a kid wearing a pirate outfit and carrying a fake sword as big as he was. But if you looked closer you saw that what appeared to be a bandana covering his hair and an eyepatch was actually the top half of its head, and then it had a wide split across the 'face', and there was a pair of little glowing lights inside that had to be its eyes, as they seemed somehow fixated on Roxas' weapon.
"What the hell's a Heartless?" Rufio asked, voice high with panic.
"A heart," Roxas said quietly, "that's lost its body and soul. If one of these things gets you, Rufio, you'll never be the same."
"Yeah, because I'll be dead," Rufio snapped.
Roxas shook his head, spinning Oathkeeper in his hand and watching as the Heartless' eyes followed the move. "No. It's worse than that." He leapt at the Heartless, swiping both of his keyblades down at it and smiling when it leapt almost straight into them. He didn't know what meaning the keyblades held for it, but he had the feeling that the creatures were mindlessly attracted to it. His keyblades went straight through the Heartless, and he could hear Rufio's gasp of surprise as it melted into a puddle of the same interesting stuff he'd seen on the ship. "You'll turn into one of these. Mindless. Driven only for the need to steal others' hearts and create more of you, never able to recombine with your soul..."
"What happens to your soul?" Rufio asked, walked over and standing beside Roxas.
"Depends on how strong you are." Roxas turned to Rufio, keeping his face blank because he knew his hood had slid back far enough for the other to see his face again. "Most of the time, that part of you is dead and goes to the Underworld without any real form. But if you're strong enough, it twists into another mindless creature, much like the Heartless. And the most strong, they turn into creatures that look like humans, very similar to who their whole self was, but...darker. Sometimes emotionless, sometimes just the extreme opposite, and sometimes just plain evil."
"And I know where to find some of these souls," Pan cut in, walking over to them, and Roxas reflexively tugged his hood forward again to hide his face. The green-clad boy gave him an unreadable look, and then turned and started walking off. "Let's just get home, okay?"
They moved through the rest of the forest quickly after that, walking in complete silence with their guards up. When they finally made it through, Roxas nodded at them and moved to get back to the ferry that would take him to the mainland.
"Thirteen," Pan said quite suddenly as Roxas made to leave, and Roxas didn't turn to look at him when he stopped moving. "You can't follow him where he's going. There's a hole in some place called Kingdom Hearts, and he's going to close it so the Heartless can't escape any more."
"Where's this hole at?" Roxas asked, half-formed thoughts of rushing off to find it himself forming in his head.
"He wouldn't tell me where it is," Pan answered so guilelessly that Roxas knew he was telling the truth. Which was fair enough—the guy probably didn't want someone else following around to hold him up. Roxas knew he certainly wouldn't. Still, he decided to keep this information a secret from the rest of the Organization for now. It'd be nice to be the one withholding information for once.
"Thanks," Roxas said, making to leave again, but being interrupted by Rufio. He held back a sigh. "Yeah?" he asked instead.
"Just one thing," Rufio said quietly, his voice shaking a little. "How is it that you were so...human to me before? You seemed so normal, like you actually cared about us. But everyone knows that the Thirteenth is callous to the point of cruelty and absolutely passionless."
There was a tense pause as Roxas thought the question over. He knew he couldn't give Rufio a real answer, not only because that was entirely too personal for Roxas to tell him, but also because he wasn't entirely sure of the answer himself. But, and here he felt himself grinning, he could definitely give the boy a parting gift.
"They're right about me being callous," Roxas said airily, spinning around and moving the few quick steps back to where Rufio was standing. "And cruel, I suppose is often true enough." He grabbed the front of Rufio's shirt, pulling him down to eye-level, and continued in a much lower voice, practically purring out his next words. "But passionless?" and kissed him.
Rufio froze for a long moment, and Roxas could see his eyes widening in surprise, and then he was whimpering and clutching at Roxas' waist, trying to pull himself closer. Roxas let him, sliding the hand that had been clutching the boy's shirt into his hair and sticking his fingers into the edge of the boy's pants to pull him closer. Rufio wrapped both arms around Roxas, and, despite their position, Roxas utterly dominated the kiss, enticing nearly intoxicating moans and whimpers from the taller boy. For a long, glorious moment, Roxas nearly forgot he wasn't kissing Axel, as Rufio's hands slipped further down his back and Roxas arched into him, hand tugging at Rufio's hair, and then the sound of the water crashing against the shore slipped into Roxas' consciousness, and he pulled away suddenly and completely, smiling as the other boy tried to follow his movement and was left panting and dazed.
"But passionless?" he asked again, licking his lips and swearing that Axel would absolutely never hear about this on pain of his own death. "I don't think so."
Then he turned back around, walking quickly into the depths of the boat taking him away from Neverland, and didn't look back.
A/N: Roxas/Rufio: best crack pairing EVER. (Has anybody else noticed how much I seem to love hyphens? There are just so many of them in this chapter!)