Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.
Note: The infamous moment between Roxas and Axel in The World That Never Was wherein Roxas leaves Axel behind, only this is perhaps another version of that.
Somehow he could see, even from a yard away and in the dark, the thread hanging. It was thin, black, and on the lower left hand side, hanging off the tail of his jacket. Axel found something thoroughly depressing about that thread, the way the tight braid was coming undone, so thin, splitting hairs. But what was a meaningless thread, splitting and breaking, compared to that one word that still hung between them, as if their line of communication had been cut and it dangled on the end, as if it had stopped somewhere in the middle and he wasn't quite ready to retrieve it.
"Enough."
There was nothing gentle, nothing understanding, in a command. No cracks in the wall to let hope in. Axel couldn't even say the one word he had been bold enough to think; he had tears in his eyes now, and he thought it was from the pain in his throat, that one word clawing through flesh to get out. He didn't have the power to stop it, but he wasn't strong enough to say it.
'Wait…'
He watched that string dangle with the movement of the jacket, of the black boots moving away from him, tearing more holes in their communication grid. Even if he spoke now his words might just get lost in the distance; he didn't have radar, he couldn't judge the distance.
"It's not like any of them care. That's what happens when you don't have a heart, after all."
Roxas had always been like that, right? Always able to hit a bull's eye blindfolded, able to sink every battleship. He didn't need radar.
More steps away. More dangling thread.
'They don't love you like I love you…'
Axel couldn't have said anything if he'd have had the courage to anyway. He could barely breathe as it was. Self-preservation said no wasting the oxygen on words, because words were just simple creatures that might not hit home, might not save you, might just get you hurt. Self-preservation was worried about Axel losing his life, after all, not his raison d'etre.
'Don't go, don't stray, don't leave, please, don't go away…'
Had Axel ever been a chess player he would have known that the best way to drag out a game was indeed to wait before making a move, but he would have known that not making any moves at all was no way to win. Because this wasn't a game that they were taking turns in-- Roxas didn't have to press pause and wait for Axel --and the longer Axel wanted to sit and think, the farther astray he was letting Roxas go. But it wasn't Axel's fault. He never had played chess.
The thread had disappeared. Even with the neon glow and the thin skin of moonlight, he had finally lost it to the dark and the distance, sure that by now it had come untwisted and had frayed. If his boots weren't made of lead, if they hadn't been too heavy to run Axel would have chased him, but Self-preservation said to be afraid to give chase-- lest he run out of energy. It was all for his own good that he be afraid. Afraid to move, afraid to try, afraid to reach out and touch the ghost.
The image of that swaying jacket blurred at the edges, treads all melting away into the backdrop of dirty gray and black. He had to try, to tell the truth just once--
"They won't love you like I love you…"
--but the distance was too great, and there were too many holes. And he didn't have radar.
