After Aeleus has walked off, Axel leans his back against the rough edge of the window frame and pulls his knees to his chest. "Damn," he mutters, ruffling his hair and exhaling slowly. He watches Aeleus' hulking form disappear around the bend before turning back to face Roxas. "How did I not see this coming?" One of his feet starts to tap out a slow, thoughtful rhythm. "I mean, everyone knows they're together, and they have been forever and…" Axel shakes his head and meets Roxas' eyes sportingly. Roxas has always been perceptive. "I don't know, Roxas. Did you see this coming?"
"Huh?" It takes Roxas a moment to stop staring after Aeleus and shake his head. "No…"
Axel tries to find this comforting but can't seem to. Resisting the urge to simply scoop the guy up, back into his lap, he stretches one leg out to prod Roxas' thigh with the toe of his boot. "You're awfully quiet there, sunshine. What's up?"
He frowns when Roxas doesn't immediately whack him or touch him or even reply. Pangs of pain and worry prod at the insides of Axel's chest like sharp sticks.
He sees a quick flash of Roxas' face, in his early Organization days, after a mission with Lexaeus. A fresh Nobody, his skin had still been milk pale from lack of sun, but across one side, it had blossomed blue and violet and pink like spilled water colors. And that had been after whatever healing spells and potions Rox had managed on his own. When Axel had seen, for just a second, he had had to suppress the very real urge to vomit, and had spent the rest of the evening convincing himself that he hadn't—couldn't have.
"I remember," Axel begins gentle, tentative, "back, before. Lexaeus would push you pretty hard—too hard… Said he was teaching you your limits, breaking you in."
Axel's eyes flash, green venom, his knuckles blazing up. For a moment Roxas sees the ghost of the man who returned from Castle Oblivion utterly alone, and deluded himself into thinking Roxas didn't know in the back of his mind what that meant.
Axel has to take a breath before the flames fizzle out into faint tufts of smoke. "And now Aeleus, he's, ya know…" His head tilts, and he gestures vaguely, pulling an exaggerated smile. "And maybe you don't want him to be."
Roxas goes still. He can still feel the force of the sudden impact in his face, his chest, his back. See the world crash into empty black in an instant of unadulterated pain. "No." His head shakes firmly. Axel winces, pulling his leg back to his half of the sill, and Roxas takes a breath and shrugs, a big helpless thing. "No," he repeats more evenly. "Aeleus is a good man. He's apologized to me a hundred times over. He might be the only one who has. I want him to be—I want everyone to be…" he stares downward at his boots, glossy where they aren't spattered with dried mud, "happy." Roxas doesn't even pretend to smile.
"You might want that," Axel reaches out to run his fingertips down Roxas' arm, "but we can't help how we feel, Roxas." Axel turns his gaze skyward. He thinks it's easier to confess to the cloudless ice blue than to watch Roxas' jaw twitch, or his eyes fill with scorn or shame or pity. "Sometimes, when I run into Xemnas, my skin crawls. He could be weeding begonias in his own yard or buying carrots and celery at the market to make soup. It doesn't matter. I know, in my head that he's a different person now, and I know in my heart how much he loves Isa, but it's like I can feel his ethereal blade singing my throat, or I can see him looking down his nose at us on that high white throne, threatening to snuff out your life with that smug smile and fuck-all remorse, and I just…"
Axel shuts his eyes for a second to try and swipe the dark tendrils of memory away with a mental keyblade slash, but more rapidly replace them. "I'm one to talk. Ienzo's changed so much. Such a sweetheart to everyone, so happy all the time, so eager to help and be part of the team... Least, that's what I've heard. He won't spend five seconds with me if there's no one else around. Not that I blame him, after what I did to him…" One of Axel's hands shades his eyes for a moment, and not from the sun.
Roxas' hand covers Axel's other and squeezes. He knows Axel's sins by now, but he's also seen the way they haunt him. He doesn't eat for hours after seeing Ienzo. There are days he wakes up in the night covered in sweat and twisted in sheets with bits of salt water in the corners of his eyes and doesn't nod off again without Roxas tucked too hard against his chest until their heartbeats fall into sync. "You're not that guy anymore," Roxas tells him, softly but firmly, eyes urgent.
Axel rubs at the back of his neck. "I'm trying not to be…"
"I think…" Roxas takes a slow breath, exhales, feeling the sun against his cheekbones and the back of their intertwined hands and thinking about how every night's inky depths eventually, inevitably fade away to daylight. He thinks about how beautiful it is when they do. "I think sometimes that's all we can do."
They had been trying to avoid talking about this. They had each privately thought that maybe they were supposed to be past feeling like this about the others, and that maybe they never really would be.
"Anyway, you can talk to me." Axel rests his free hand around Roxas' elbow, as Roxas turns to him, eyes hooded, frown jagged. "Whatever's eating ya. I'm here."
Roxas tries not to be distracted by this vulnerability, annoyed that Axel thinks he knows what this is about and that it doesn't even occur to him what he's done wrong.
"It has nothing to do with that."
"C'mon, Roxas… You happy?" Axel suggests, unconvinced, massaging Roxas' skin with his thumb. "Pissed? Surprised? Scared? Nervous? … Jealous?"
Roxas' twists his arm away at the condescending tone of the last comment, his voice rougher around the edges than usual, so that Axel feels a little like he's been dragged down a road paved with small, sharp rocks, when Roxas counters, "About what?"
Axel's cheekbones sting like they've been slapped. His hands drop back down into his lap. "Help me understand, Roxas. You don't want to talk about their engagement?" He forces his tone to soften, but there's still an edge, the kind Roxas wouldn't want to run his hand along. "Or you don't want to talk about engagement in general with me?"
"No," Roxas snaps quickly, thrown by Axel sounding so hurt, so quickly. He hadn't wanted that. He jerks back around to meet Axel's eyes, his own wide with concern, and is immediately pissed at himself for giving in to the urge to look back so soon as his fury ebbs, calmed by their familiar, transfixing depth. "I don't know. Maybe. I'm trying to understand why this is such a big deal." His arms cross, and he turns his head sharply, back out to the street, out to the shattered glass store front across the street with its crumbling stone facade. He just wants honesty. "You're the one who hasn't been talking about it."
"Me?" Axel's fingers land over his heart, affronted. "I'm trying to talk to you about it right now and you're being weird about it." Axel swings one leg out the window, and glances back out to Aeleus' abandoned cart. His heart clenches like his body's trying to get a better grip on the damn, wild thing. This certainly isn't how he'd imagined any version of this conversation going. "You really hurt Aeleus' feelings just now, you know that?" Axel kicks the back of his heel against the brick beneath it, raising a cloud of ash.
Roxas tilts his head and glances back again in spite of himself. "How could you tell?"
"Well," caught off-guard, Axel gestures vaguely, pauses, and then drops his hands in defeat, "mine would have been hurt, anyway." His eyes narrow, lips a hard line. "This is important to him."
"Oh, well, forgive me," Roxas jumps down from the ledge, tossing up his hands. "If it's so fucking important to everyone..."
"Roxas…" Axel jumps down after him as he whirls away, catching him by the shoulders, entirely thrown by the way his boyfriend's entire strong, well-trained body has begun to quiver like a man soaked to the bone being torn at by a frost-licked wind.
Axel's mind goes white and numb, his hand falling back. He feels like a Nobody again in that moment, like he's had part of his chest carved out.
Does the idea of spending our lives together scare him?
Roxas had never given Axel that impression before. Out of everything in his new life, spending it with Roxas is the thing he's always been most certain of. Roxas had agreed to forever over and over again without hesitation.
But why else would he brush off the subject of engagement again and again? Why else would he be shaking? Roxas isn't one to avoid hard conversations or beat around the bush. Never has been. In the Organization, he'd regularly prodded Axel with questions about friendship, love, and heartache, like those weren't the kind of topics any of their coworkers would have hung them out to dry for whispering about.
So, why…? Why…? Unless… Roxas' words replay in his head.
Something about a ring.
Xemnas says this is very big and exciting news.
About what?
I'm trying to understand.
You're the one who hasn't been talking about it.
If it's so fucking important…
"Oh," Axel mumbles. "Oh."
Axel draws closer, pulling Roxas backward against his chest and wrapping him solidly in his arms. He begins pressing featherlight kisses to his face and hair as the guy squirms against him and tries to tug himself out without hurting Axel.
"What the hell are you doing?" Roxas demands as he pries, and Axel squeezes tighter. Roxas is more than a little pissed now. It's not like Axel not to take his feelings seriously.
"Roxas…" Axel murmurs into his ear, "my sexy, bad ass, darling, sunshine, sweetheart, deadly, gorgeous, honey bunny bear… I love you, and I don't want to embarrass you ever, but… Do you… not know… what an engagement is?"
Roxas gives one final half-hearted shove at the arm securing his waist, and then he sighs and leans limply into it. He waits a few beats before he finally mutters, "No…"
"How about a wedding?" Axel kisses his ear. "A marriage?" Kisses his cheek. "A husband?" Kisses his throat.
Roxas tries to fight the warm fuzzies his body gives him in reaction and nudges at Axel's face with his shoulder, tilting his head to try to meet Axel's eyes, and admitting begrudgingly, "I've never heard of any of that shit." He finally manages as close to a scowl as he can get while being pummeled with affection. "And somebody never thought it was important enough to tell me."
Axel loosens his grip, and Roxas turns to peer up at him, glower less sharp, but still present.
"You know…" Axel's brows rise, fingers tapping against Roxas' shoulder. "You used to just ask me about this 'shit.' You didn't used to get all embarrassed about it."
Roxas scoffs, his hair flopping adorably. "I'm not embarrassed, Axel." He scooches an emphatic step back, but not far enough to break from the comforting weight of Axel's hands on his shoulders. "I thought we agreed:" he lifts a finger accusingly, taps a beat against Axel's chest, "no more secrets." His palm flattens and he sees Axel's brows furrow and his frown stretch strangely in pity or sorrow or one of the other emotions Roxas least likes to see him wearing. Axel's heart beats faster against Roxas' palm, and he snatches it back, immediately regretting it, as Axel's pained expression etches deeper into his face.
"Well, this engagement shit seems pretty damn important." Roxas turns away only to peek back again, voice losing its conviction, "Unless it's… Is it not that important?"
It wouldn't be the first time Roxas has been told to pretend to be excited about something that didn't seem like it should be that big a deal. Terra getting named a Keyblade Master. Himself moving into an apartment with Axel. Demy putting his sitar down long enough to get a job.
"No," Axel rubs at his neck, blowing a strand of sweat damp hair from his face, and looking a little ruffled and helpless, despite the way his chiseled biceps flex. He sounds weary, "I mean, it's pretty damn important, Roxas."
Roxas words come quiet and slow, "Then, why the fuck do I feel like an idiot right now, Axel?" Roxas' hands snatch at Axel's shirt. The thin material is sweaty and dirty, and he doesn't mean to do it, but he has to.
"It's just," Axel laughs, though his earlier amusement has faded. His hands drop, callused, ash darkened palms spreading open, "I just—I thought you knew."
It's not the poetic, climactic explanation Roxas was hoping for, yet it diffuses his fury in a single optimistic instant. His lip juts out, eyes narrowing like he's staring into something far too bright. "Seriously?"
Axel's eyes seem to Roxas more guileless than he's ever seen them. Leaf green and sharp and earnest, his usually quick words dragging into longer, more desperate things. "Honest to the gods. Roxas. I thought you knew. Okay?"
Roxas' grip loosens, Axel's shirt slipping through his fingers. "Really?"
Roxas looks so fucking hopeful, Axel's heart feels weightless, like it might float up his chest and out his throat.
"Yes." He sweeps Roxas into his arms again, and Roxas embraces Axel's narrow waist with equal force. "Yes, baby." He kisses Roxas' right cheek and then his left, never more relieved to hear his breathless giggle. "Yes. Yes."
"Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay," Roxas' pleas turn into more of a grumbly growl with each syllable and Axel grins all the brighter and kisses him more frantically wherever he can reach, as Roxas pushes teasingly at his chest and squirms, "get off, get off, you're smothering me."
Axel raises both hands in surrender, but leans in, grin taunting, "I thought you liked it when I smother you."
Roxas leans up on his toes and kisses the tip of Axel's nose below his smatter of freckles. Roxas smiles back, a slanted, self-satisfied little thing. "I might."
Axel lets himself exhale, finally feeling forgiven for his unintentional slight, though the real danger lurking ahead sends pin pricks to the back of his neck and wrists.
When Roxas is back on his heels they watch each other for a long moment. The breeze tosses Axel's red mane and he shifts a few strands, sunlit gold, out of his eyes. The air smells like ash and distant spring flower petals.
"So…" Axel hums, hands slipping into his pockets.
Roxas crosses his arms. Axel raises a brow. Roxas frowns, a dry irritated sound forming in the back of his throat.
Axel's smile turns sheepish. "You want me to tell you what engagement is now, huh?"
Roxas nods.
"Not exactly something I was planning to wing," Axel mutters to himself, head cocking to the side, "but alright…" He turns on his heel toward the street, and takes a step. "Why the fuck not?" He turns again to catch Roxas' curious eyes trailing him, and jerks his thumb toward the supplies Aeleus had abandoned. "Alright. Let's, uh, put the cart away, and then I'll take you somewhere nice and tell you anything you wanna know."
Roxas nods again, and starts to follow him down the road, but stops, catching at Axel's sleeve, his wrist. "Wait. Wait." Something has occurred to him, sudden, pressing, insistent, and he winces, realizing he may have just let his temper flare up incredibly irrationally. "I just have one question."
Axel looks hesitant, his hand grasping at thin air and tightening into a fist. "Okay, yeah, sure." His eyes dart down to meet Roxas', expression uncertain but open. "Fire away."
"Engagement." Roxas' hand slides up Axel's wrist. He watches his palm pressing Axel's palm, their callused fingers aligning, sliding at his black and white rings. He can't help but think of a few other things Axel had taken some convincing to tell him about. Being best friends. Falling in love. His past. Kissing, snuggling, spooning, and then, most recently…
Roxas glances up. "It's not… I mean… Is it, ya know, like…" Roxas' lip curls up. His voice is always husky, but this is one of those times he makes Axel really notice it. "...a sex thing?"
"What?" Axel snorts, eyes going skyward, a silent plea for divine intervention. He loves Roxas for his bluntness, but… "Fuck." Axel's gaze shifts to meet Roxas' eyes and ensure he's not been screwing with him this entire time, but Roxas just looks intently curious and maybe a touch chastised. "No."
Roxas' blond brows arch. "No?" he echoes.
"Roxas." Axel can no longer hold back his laughter. "No. Cross my heart." He draws a finger in an 'X' across Roxas' chest. " would you even ask me that?"
Roxas laughs himself, a light puff and then shrugs and starts walking toward the supply cart. "Usually, when I don't know what something is, and someone laughs and tells me to ask you, it's a sex thing."
Axel chokes, coughs, takes a long moment to process this before he grins and steps up to join Roxas, arm wrapping his shoulders, squeezing them. "Not sure what else there is to teach you there, pal." Laughter stains his voice, lines crinkling around intent eyes. "I think we've been pretty thorough."
Roxas smiles a soft, genuine Roxas smile, catching the hand on his shoulder in his, tugging him toward the supply cart. His entire chest feels warm as Agrabah sand. His imagination starts to stray. "You'll think of something."
Axel snorts and buries a kiss in the golden tufts of Roxas' hair. "Probably."