Soooo. Yep. Posting to . In 2020. Cause 2020 be like that I guess. Can you tag yet on this useless website? idk but username laxdyn said to me, "maybe he's waiting 5 years so it's just like the character! jks" and you know nothing motivates me like spite so you know what? Fuck you. Five years later, I present to you an update. No beta cause it's FFnet who fucking cares. You're welcome. Check out my ao3 KingdomFlameVIII. Which I can't link you to... because it's FFnet.
Bodies pressed flush together, the tropical warmth of the late evening sun washing over them. Some part of Roxas knew that they should be taking this inside, that they have neighbors, other tourists like himself.
But the thrill was delicious, and that hesitant part of himself seemed to be shrugging its shoulders. It's my night off, it said.
Roxas is lying with his back against the sand, Axel's naked body pressed close to his own, their clothes discarded in a small pile nearby.
And Axel is kissing and sucking on his neck, right over that spot, ohhhh that spot that would make him weak at the knees if he were standing.
Roxas runs his hands over Axel's warm shoulders. They're textured with fine sand, and sweat. Sunblock too. He cries out as Axel enters him, overwhelmed by the intimacy.
Just knowing that he can do this, that they can have this, that this level of intimacy is possible for them, it nearly has him edging already. The feeling of Axel, slowly working in and out and brushing his prostate in a way that only Axel can do. Nobody else had ever learned him, not like this, never devoted to him the hymns of their bodies, make songs of him, stroke his keys with reverence.
Tell me what it is to love another person. Tell me the give take, the I want and I'm here. You're my fire, consuming and wild and I love you for it. You burn me, a blinding star, searing my vision. That's okay. I don't need to see you to touch you.
Roxas crosses his legs over Axel's back to take him deeper. Axel has picked up the pace, his hips slapping against Roxas with every thrust.
"Axel," he sighs and then they're kissing again, and he's there with Axel, and Axel is there with him, and he's so close.
Roxas bolts awake to the blaring of his alarm clock, cool sweat drying on his skin. He breathes swiftly and immediately relieves his aching cock.
This isn't the first time this has happened. Since confessing to Sora his feelings for Axel, it had opened a floodgate in him. Axel's never left his mind, always sitting on the back burner on a simmer. A simmer, slowly creeping to a boil. Nowhere for it to go but over the rim, crusting against the stovetop. Better to go with electric than gas, the clean up is easier.
It was the curiosity that did it. Were these memories? Or fantasies concocted out of frustration? He hadn't the slightest. Surely they hadn't actually made love on a not-so-private beach in the Caribbean, as Roxas had dreamed about.
But others, like going to a rock concert in Philly, or having ice cream fights for an excuse to have shower sex, those seemed a little more plausible.
He lasts a few days following the dream, and then cracks. He's going to tell him. Only he doesn't quite know how. Axel seems to be acting normally, but, he reasons, he doesn't entirely remember what normal is for Axel. He has to know, he needs to know, so he can get it back.
Nothing he plans in his head sounds appropriate. It always comes out sounding dramatic, like a soap opera, or otherwise much too sappy or possibly even accusatory.
We never really can plan for things like this. They simply come out, spilling all over, dribbling from between our lips, threatening to splatter the tablecloth. Love is the color of wine. No use trying to clean up red wine. Better to just throw it away, start over. It's a shame to cover a well-crafted table with a cloth.
There is no tablecloth on the table Roxas is eating Axel's soup over. They're quiet, and it's maddening, and Roxas patience hits empty.
"There's a reason the room I moved into looks like it hasn't been used in years."
Axel's eyes dart to him, and then quickly away, focusing diligently on his soup.
Roxas continues, "It hasn't been used in years, has it?"
There were some truths that Axel has chosen to withhold from him, but he's not a liar, never to Roxas. He preferred to squirm around the questions he didn't know the answer to. But he knows the answer. Roxas too.
"No," he admits.
Hearing it from Sora had been easier, in a way. It had felt more like elation, like surprised disbelief and like hope. If Axel had shot him down now, then Sora would be the asshole. But hearing it from Axel, well, that opens a different door entirely.
"Jesus, Axel, when were you gonna tell me that?" He demands, "How could you think it was okay to keep something that big from me?"
Axel's eyes flick to Roxas for half a second, and then to the floor. His knees are bouncing nervously.
"In my defense, Sora talked me out of it," he says in a rush, "It was an impossible situation. I couldn't place expectations on you like that, not when I was a stranger."
"It was our life! You had no right. What were you gonna do? Wait for me to wake up with an inexplicable memory of washing sand out of my butt after getting my ass blown out on a beach?"
Finally, Axel's gaze shifts to him, and stays there. He breathes a relieved sort of giggle.
"You remember that?" he asks softly.
Roxas shakes his head. "Pieces. Just random snippets. I can't really distinguish between memories and imagination."
Axel's chair makes a sound much louder than it has any right to as he scoots back to leave the table.
"Scuse me," he says, making for his- their bedroom. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be back in a sec."
He leaves Roxas alone to play with his now cold soup. He couldn't have eaten it anymore if it was the best soup in the world (and in his opinion it was close to it). He was so nervous. His heart pounded painfully and his mouth was dry. He wondered if he had felt this, the first time he fell in love with Axel.
It took Axel less than a minute to come back, holding a flash drive. His hands are shaking.
"I made this after you woke up. In case you ever started remembering. I thought maybe it would help move things along, you know, or like jog something, or get you caught up if you wanted- I don't know. Maybe I should have just given it to you right away."
Roxas takes it. "Is this 50 First Dates?" he jokes.
A shadow passes over Axel's face.
"It better goddamn not be," he says, his tone low and shocking. "If you ever forget me again, I'll never forgive you."
His face softens again, the cold anger vanishing.
"Go watch it by yourself," he says. "Take it in, give yourself as long as you need and then we can talk about it. Or not. We don't have to- what you need."
"Okay… thanks." Roxas says awkwardly. When he started realizing his feelings for Axel, he imagined this going much differently. He had hoped there would be kissing. He knew this was going to be complicated, but the drive felt so much heavier in his hands than it had any right to be.
Roxas thinks about giving the drive back, and just wait to remember on his own. But Axel was so focused on what he needed, and watching whatever is on this drive is what Axel needed. So he goes.
He goes back into his not bedroom and loads the disk into his laptop. A few keystrokes later, Axel's head and upper torso appear on the screen and the video begins. The Beach Boys were not playing.
Axel's eyes and nose are red. He's been crying, and he hasn't slept. Roxas also notes that the sweater Axel was wearing belonged to him.
"Hi Rox," he says. He voice sounds gravelly and he has to clear his throat before continuing. "So you uh, got yourself hit by a car and uh, kinda lost your memory. Which isn't all bad!" he adds quickly. "You might never have to hear any songs released in 2012, and there are tons of movies you don't have to wait for the sequels and you won't have to remember your senior year of college or fifty shades of grey, both of them I assure you, you hated."
He pauses, like he's forgotten what he was going to say next. Or maybe he was just bracing himself for it.
"But you don't remember me either. And I'm gonna like, that sucks, that really, really sucks." His eyes are watering. "I mean, I keep having this fantasy that one day you'll look at me and know exactly who I am and what you are to me. But I know that might not ever happen. I'm making this for you so that you know, that I know, that it was real. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me and I'll remember it for both of us."
Axel disappeared, and a new clip started. Roxas saw himself sitting on Axel's bed. Their bed, Roxas reminds himself. The Roxas on the screen has his arms folded.
"...never put that fucking thing down," he's saying.
"Oh come on Rox," Axel's voice said, presumably from behind the lens. "It's brand new, just let me play with it. And you're the prettiest thing in this room, what else am I supposed to film?"
"Something that's not me studying," Roxas suggested. "Maybe you should film your own notes and that way you'll pass. Really Ax, I'm in my underwear."
A pause.
"Yes you are."
The video changes again. And again and again. Short clips roll by, some taken of Axel by Roxas, and some vice versa. Others included both of them, filmed by a third party. Some were Axel's good camera but others were mobile and even web cameras.
Roxas standing on deck of a luxury cruiseliner, with an open shirt and a drink in one hand.
Axel's brother's bachelor party, Axel being dragged up onto a stripper pole, Roxas hooting from behind the lens.
Roxas telling Sora to hold the camera while he and Axel proved they weren't pussies. How would they do that was unclear, because the scene was cut off to be returned to later.
Axel walking away from the camera to approach Roxas on their living room couch. "Hi, me and Roxas are here trying ecstasy-"
"Happy BIRTHDAY dear Roxas-"
"Yes but why do we have to film it?"
"For science."
"-shh, Axel's asleep. Look look, he doesn't know I'm filming, bless his innocent soul. What should I do to him?"
Roxas is entirely unprepared for the next clip. It had returned to the ecstasy video, the camera focused on the couch that Axel and Roxas were very much making out on.
Real time Roxas sucked in a deep breath, his heart rate escalating at an embarrassing rate. He knows he's watching himself, he knows it's him on the screen. But how could it be? Film Roxas looks so at ease, so comfortable, splayed out on top of Axel like it was nothing, rolling his hips down lazily.
Did he know? Roxas wonders as he watches his own lips part for Axel's tongue. Did he know how lucky he was? Did he savor it?"
Then film Roxas was on his knees, attacking the button on his pants.
"Turn the camera off," he orders.
"But-"
"No, we are not filming a cheap drug porno for science."
Axel sits up and their lips meet once again. His hair covers up a good deal of what's going on, but there are gasps and kissing noises. Roxas was beginning to pull Axel's shirt over his head and real life Roxas worries that the clip isn't going to stop.
But the clip does stop. If past Axel hadn't gotten around to shutting to camera off, present Axel at least had the sense to. The movie changed again.
Axel and Roxas competitive cup stacking.
Axel drinking beer out of a funnel, most likely the same bachelor party as before.
Sora taking the camera from Roxas, focusing it on the couple holding hands and jumping from a twenty foot cliff into a crystal clear pool of water.
Roxas blowing out trick candles over and over again.
Axel blinking his eyes open in confusion after being wrapped up in Christmas lights while he slept.
Roxas excitedly shouting "Happy New Year!" Just barely discernable from the times square crowd as the 2012 ball dropped in the background.
Suddenly silence. Sora's face, obviously from above, blinking in confusion. "Is it on? Ok, ok, it's on."
The camera shifted upright, revealing a low lit restaurant that Roxas was unfamiliar with. Axel, Roxas, and several of their friends were there. Roxas knows some of them, others he'd just met recently. And a few he still didn't recognize at all.
"Right, so Axel and I should start filming like, now, so here we go!"
Axel, catching eyes with the camera, started clearing his throat to get everyone to listen to him. Silence fall peculiarily quickly, as though everyone already knew what this was about.
"So!" Axel begins, clapping his hands together. "Now that Reno is off to… um… Reno," Everybody laughs, "having the time of his life getting smashed and laid and general honeymooning, my parents are gonna start hounding me. It's my turn, when am I gonna get married? Isn't it about time I settled down? Well-" he says to Roxas. "What do you think?"
Film Roxas and real life Roxas both freeze, both bring their hands together to cover their mouth and nose, because out of Axel's pocket there's a ring, and holy shit this is happening. It happened.
Tears are streaming down Roxas's face as he shakes his head yes. He said yes. Yes. Over and over, yes, yes, yes.
Roxas takes his hands down, his face screwed up from crying, and he says, "I love you."
And Axel doesn't need to hear any more. He gathers Roxas in his arms and kisses him, while their friends clap, and cheer, and make toasts.
A few more snippets of the movie roll by, but none so important as that one. Roxas watches almost with detachment, waiting nervously for a wedding video. It doesn't come. Roxas had known it wouldn't, because surely he mustn't have gotten this far without noticing he had a husband.
When the compilation ends, Roxas is so lost in thought that it takes him a full minute to realize it. The play button glares at him. He shuts the laptop.
He's engaged. And his fiance is only a few walls away, probably knocking his head against the wall in a feeble attempt to punish himself for daring to hope.
For twenty minutes Roxas had visited the life of a stranger, full of love and adventure, of bubbling laughs and long nights. A life of being totally seen and unconditionally loved. And he'd missed the whole damn thing.
A distinctly younger looking Axel floats just underneath his vision, fretting with his hands and chewing on his lip. He find finds it endearing, until echoes of butterflies and nerves course through him, and he knows, he knows what this is before he's even finished remembering it.
"Why've you been avoiding me? You can admit to losing the controller, I told you I wasn't mad."
Axel appears to forget himself for a moment, looks as though he's ready to argue. But instead he huffs a little laugh and runs his fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck. More nervous behavior.
Roxas thinks he might know what's coming. He hopes he knows what's coming, because he wants it too. He does, he does, he's wanted and waited for months.
"It's not about that," Axel says. It sounds more like snahboutha.
Axel clears his throat again, pulls himself together.
"It's just. The thing is, I'm kinda crazy about you."
Roxas's shifts his focus to the closet, tilts himself over the edge of the bed until two wrapped suits come into view. He's seen them many times, his eyes always glazing over them.
It hits him full stop now, and he's losing balance, drifting further over the edge of the bed, threatening to tip.
He flings his hand out to grasp what should have been his nightstand, if he were sitting on his own bed. Instead he knocks over a floor lamp, shattering it, cuts his hand as he breaks his fall, and the room goes dark.
Tell me a story about photographs. There was a time when pictures were taken without a screen. Photographs were not only taken, they were made. Full color requires total darkness. You must trust yourself to know what to do, and trust the film too. Trust the image that appears to be the one that's expected. Clean, in focus, well lit. A photograph cannot be fully seen until the process has been finished.
See Roxas now, a blank strip of film draped softly over his fingertips. A reminder, a promise, that things that cannot be seen are not gone, but waiting.
He barely has time to stand up before a dim light permeates the room and Axel is by his side, grabs his hands in a way that suggests he's trying to calm him but with the implication that he was also trying to restrain him.
His hands are new and exciting but it also feels like coming home, after being away for a long time.
Axel is bursting apologies in rapid fire. The same thing, over and over, just in different words. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have sprung that all on you at once. I should have spaced it out more. I shouldn't have created a whole new identity for you to try to fall into.
He realizes abruptly that Axel thinks he broke the lamp himself.
And then it's too much. He tries feebly to break from Axel's hold, but Axel is too busy babbling to realize it.
"Just stop apologizing, Axel!" He shouts.
Axel quiets and his hands fly off Roxas as if he were burned. Roxas is hyper aware of himself now. He feels Axel's heat next to him, he feels the pain of the broken skin, the pounding feeling underneath the heel of his palm that will eventually form bruises. He feels as though there is a heavy, damp force bearing down on his chest. But he knows if things are calm it will go away. So he sits on the bed, and calms.
"I'm not mad at you! I haven't been, not once," he says. "I am mad, I'm definitely mad. But not enough to break a lamp."
Axel doesn't say anything, but he sits down on the bed next to Roxas. Roxas had a feeling he may have left out of insecurity were he not afraid of Roxas hurting himself again.
Roxas takes several attempts at deep breaths, and he continues. "I'm angry because these moments are precious. They can never happen again and I have to look at them through a screen. I might never get all of them back. We could go through all the motions again but it wouldn't be the same for you. Who knows how long we're going to be on different levels? Yes, I'm mad that this happened."
Axle gingerly picks up one of Roxas's hands under the guise of examining it for damage. they both know what he's doing and neither of them wanted to stop.
"But I think what I'm mostly feeling is heartbreak," Roxas says quietly. "And guilt. Guilt for daring to cross the street."
"If it's over," Axel says, "I don't want you feeling guilty if you feel that you can't pursue a relationship with me and-"
Roxas cuts him off with a look that he doesn't know he's used before. He chooses his words carefully.
"No, it's nothing like that," he says, smirking, because his poker face has always been rubbish and even if it wasn't going as planned, Roxas still has a crush on Axel. "The thing is, I'm kind of crazy about you."
He sees the recognition dawn on Axel's face. He didn't fully understand the significance of the words, but he's okay with that right now.
And then Axel breaks. he breaks and his head is tucked into Roxas's stomach and his hands are clutching feebly at the small of his back.
"I miss you so much," he whimpers quietly.
Roxas doesn't know if Axel is crying, and he senses that Axel would rather keep it that way. He doesn't know what to do, but his hands do. They thread through Axel's hair, stroking soothingly."
It should have been a bit uncomfortable, unfamiliar as it was. And it was, in a way. But it was also natural, and familiar. This was the first time, but it wasn't.
"I'm sorry I can't remember it all," Roxas whispers into Axel's hair. He rests his head on the top of his head. "I'm trying so hard, ever since Sora told me I've been trying to."
Axle's head was suddenly gone from his lap. His face and eyes are pink but that seems to be the norm these days.
"Sora told you?" he asks. He sounds a tad accusatory. "I thought you were starting to remember on your own."
Roxas looks at the floor, embarrassed. He had begun to remember, but the specific memories were… well.
"I was a little!" He says defensively. "But it was kind of hard to tell."
He considers omitting the truth but that hadn't gotten them anywhere in recent past. B, he liked to think that he and Axel were always open with each other.
"I went to Sora because I didn't know I was remembering. I thought I was, I mean, I like you I thought maybe…"
He trails off but Axel seems to get the idea. His lips curl into a tiny smirk as he puts two and two together.
"Did you think you were fantasizing about me?"
"No! Yes."
Axel smirk widens into a genuine smile, the first one of the night. "That's so adorable."
Eager to get off the subject, Roxas adds, "He didn't tell me we were engaged though. Christ Axel I don't know how to do this. They didn't teach what to do if you forget your partner in Speech Communications.
"Roxas you don't have to do anything."
Axel is sounding like a broken record at this point, so Roxas kisses him. It's a tactic he suspects he's used in the past. It's 100% effective. Axel melts right into it, probably just out of instinct more than anything else. His lips open and close again, and Roxas just sighs into it because yes this is what he's been wanting and how many times has he thought about this?
Roxas knows there's a long road ahead but he doesn't want to stop. Axel's kiss becomes hard and pushy, needy. Roxas slips him a bit of tongue before Axel can remember himself and apologize again.
He doesn't need four years of context to know that Axel isn't as okay as he says he is. Roxas is also not okay, and he doesn't even know what he's missed. Yet here they are, sitting on a bed that Roxas shouldn't be sleeping in and sharing an impossible second first kiss.
"Do you understand?" Roxas asks, elated at the intimacy of their breath mixing together. "This is what I want. I went to Sora because I figured it would be weird to have an enormous crush on a guy I supposedly been just friends with for years."
As an afterthought, he adds, "So now that I know it's not weird I was kind of hoping we'd get to move forward again."
"Okay," Axel says immediately. "Okay we can work with this. We can figure it out. We're great at that."
Roxas knows that Axel still hasn't quite grasped, not quite accepted what was happening, and is still trying to convince himself it's not a dream. He doesn't mind. they'll take it a day at a time. Roxas doesn't really know much about them, but he knows that they love each other. They love each other and they're both willing to work to save that.
"Tell me about us," Roxas said, "it might trigger something. Happens all the time at work."
Axel takes a long pause. But it's not heavy, it's thoughtful. The way one might take a long pause after being asked what their favorite song was, to realize that they couldn't remember a single song they had ever heard.
"Well, we met in college?" Axle begins awkwardly. "We bonded in astronomy over our shared belief that Pluto should be a planet again. We chatted a lot in that class and somewhere down the line it came up that we both needed a roommate. So at the end of the semester we moved in together."
"Hm. Did you like me then?"
Axel laughs, but it sounds more like "cheh."
"You like to think so, but it was more so after we moved in together. I think I always sort of knew but I put it out of my mind because you were still fresh out of a breakup."
He takes another pause. "I love when you play the violin, and you know it. You like to pretend that you're not as much of a sappy tit as you are, but I know better. You composed for me."
This interests Roxas. He'd never been able to compose before. That would explain all of the handwritten music in his desk drawer.
"I did? Really?"
Axle smiles. "Yeah, I have videos. I would have put it in the movie, but you always say you and your violin are boring."
Roxas is nodding along eagerly. He wants to know everything. He wants to soak it all in like a sponge, gorge on it until he couldn't possibly remember anything else.
"I convinced you to dye your hair blue once," Axel says. his eyes lighting up as he stares off, recalling. "You hated it. You got so mad at me. It took two months to wash out completely."
"That memory I could do without," Roxas says in disgust. "Who does the grocery shopping?"
"Me," Axel says immediately, "you never buy milk."
"I hate milk."
"I know. But it is a required ingredient and most of the things that I make for dinner. I also do the laundry, cause you won't separate whites."
The room distracts Roxas. It makes the conversation feel clinical. Pleasant but stilted. They're sitting side by side on the bed, too far away from one another, Axel still holding his hand as a doctor would. This is not where they belong.
"Can we get out of here?" Roxas blurts. " It's just. The room. I hate it in here."
Axel lets go of his hand, which isn't really what Roxas wanted but at least they were getting up.
"Sorry," Axel says. "Do you want to switch rooms with me?"
I want to sleep with you.
"No, it's okay. Can we just sit somewhere for a while? Wherever late night conversations happen."
"That would be the couch," Axel says, pointing as though they could fit more than one couch in their tiny two bedroom apartment.
"Couch," Roxas agrees.
Because when he thinks of sitting on their couch, he thinks of cuddling. He thinks of being tucked comfortably in Axel's arms, while Axel plays with his hair. He thinks of how easy it is to turn around and kiss him, just like in Axel's video.
And it's what they both want. They know it's what they both want, and they are frightened of it.
As Axel sits down, Roxas worms his way into the position that they normally rest in."
"Um," Axel says, unsure of what to do with his hands. Typically at least one of them draped over his hip, or rested on Roxas's legs, or his butt.
"It's okay," Roxas says, and then realizes that he hadn't even asked if he could do this. He pushes himself back up on his hands.
"I'm sorry," he says, flushing. "I didn't think- did you not want-?"
"No!" Axel says defensively. "I mean yes, not yes like I didn't want," he puts his hands on Roxas, gently guiding him back down. "I didn't know how much I was allowed to touch you, is all."
Roxas turns in his grasp to peek at him.
"Did we take it slow the first time?" He asks.
Axel flushes.
"No," he said, his tone almost thoughtful.
"Do you want to take it slow this time?"
Axles flush runs deeper. "I want what you want," he deflects.
He has to break this. This wrench trapped in the gears, a harmony off key. His jeans where pajamas should be, starch in his collar. Stiff and itchy. They'll need a tow truck to pull this out of the mud.
"Relationships are a two-way street," Roxas sighs. "In order for us to be okay, I have to be okay and you have to be okay. Do you want to take it slow?"
"... No. I miss your touch. I miss your love. You're a little bit different now but I don't mind, not really. I still love you."
Axle is going to kill him with this.
"Kiss me," Roxas whispers.
Axel does, he does. A kiss is quite versatile, you know. A kiss can mean stop what you're saying for one second, please. A kiss can mean hello, or goodbye. But this kiss, here and now, is the simplest one of all. It means I love you.
"When I first saw you at the hospital," Roxas says, "my heart leapt at the sight of you. I didn't know why, but it was kind of obvious. Even if my mind doesn't remember you, my heart does. I still love you."
Axle presses their foreheads together, holds on just a little tighter.
"Told you you were a sap."
Roxas shifts back around into his original position.
"If we're going to go fast," Roxas says thoughtfully, "can I have the ring back? To keep with me?"
Axle peppers kisses into his hair.
"Sure, I'll go get it. Well, eventually."
Roxas snuggles close. "Yeah… eventually."