A/N: Sorry it took so long to upload. I hit an insane writing streak and then just couldn't be bothered. A shorter chapter but things will start taking off in the upcoming chapters.
Axel currently had two very big problems, both of which were centered around Roxas. The first problem was how to broach the topic of potentially moving the blond into an abandoned mansion on the outskirts of town with several werewolves. The second issue was that the blond was currently stumbling around the kitchen half-awake and attempting to make breakfast. Now, this wasn't an uncommon occurrence but today the teenager hadn't bothered to get dressed and was stumbling around the kitchen in nothing but his boxers. Axel bit his tongue, hard, but still couldn't keep the whine from escaping his throat.
"Axel?" Roxas asked, peering over his shoulder. "Are you okay?" The werewolf stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, hands gripping the edges of the door-frame. His face was pale and drawn and tremors wracked his body. Roxas drew his eyebrows together in concern and left his breakfast preparations on the counter. "Hey," he said, slowly approaching the older man.
"Don't," Axel told him, his voice low from the effort it took to hold the wolf back. Roxas paused before a particularly violent jerk spurred him to move forward. "I...said...DON'T," Axel hissed, green eyes and elongated canines flashing. Long fingers flexed and the blond could hear the wall giving way beneath Axel's unforgiving grip. He spared a moment to wonder what had brought this about before back-tracking across the room. Axel heaved a deep breath, reining back the wolf. "Go get dressed," he told Roxas, pointedly not looking at the blond. Roxas glanced down at his black and white checkered boxers, realization dawning before he fled out the doorway into the hallway and back to his room.
At the slamming of the bedroom door, Axel pried his fingers off the door-frame and collapsed at the kitchen table, letting his head fall onto the wooden surface. The wolf in his head whined and the mini-Axel in his mind glared at the beast. 'Mate or not, he wouldn't have appreciated being jumped in the kitchen,' he chastised. 'He's barely tolerating the bond as is, and you...aren't...helping.' The wolf hung his head.
"Axel," a voice asked tentatively. The red-head turned his head without lifting it from the table. Roxas stood in the doorway, examining the fingerprints in the door-jam.
"We need to talk," Axel sighed, sitting up. He scrubbed a hand over his face. "How do you feel about moving?" he asked before wincing. That wasn't how he'd wanted to broach the subject but he was exhausted from holding the wolf back.
"Axel, I swear to God that if you're implying we have to move to...to...Wolf Land, I'm going to shoot you," Roxas told him.
"...you know that wouldn't kill me, right?" he asked, letting his head rest back on the table.
"But it'd hurt like a motherfucker, wouldn't it?" the blond demanded. Axel snorted.
"We wouldn't be moving to 'Wolf Land'. We'd stay here in Twilight Town. At the old mansion." He listened as Roxas moved around the room finishing the breakfast preparations.
"The mansion? There's nothing out there but woods." Roxas stated and Axel gave the blond a bemused smile. "Which would be perfect for a werewolf," Roxas realized. "But why such a large place?"
"It wouldn't be just us," Axel told him. "There's a war coming and our pack is young. A majority of the members haven't had to fight and if Larxene attacks they'll be slaughtered," he explained, taking the cub of coffee Roxas offered him.
"So their solution is to uproot us to a new house hell and gone from civilization so you can train them?" Roxas scowled. "And you're okay with that?"
"Okay first of all, it's not that far away from the town and second of all, it's not about what I'm okay with – it's about what's safest for you."
"And how is a human being surrounded by werewolves the safest option for me?" Roxas demanded, slamming his plate of scrambled eggs onto the table before sitting himself.
"Because as pack-mates, they'd help protect you. War is coming, Roxas, and it's going to get ugly, especially seeing as Larxene has a personal vendetta against me. I killed her mate, remember? Do you think she'd hesitate to kill you if given the chance? She's even more dangerous now that she has Marluxia on her side. He has his own reasons for wanting to hurt me and he won't hesitate to use you to do it."
"Do you purposely piss off the deranged werewolves?" Roxas asked as he let his fork clatter onto the table – his appetite having fled. Axel didn't respond. "So, we'd move to the mansion, you'd train werewolves but everything else stays the same, aside from two psychos out for my blood," he stated with a sigh. "Perfect." His tone implied that it was anything but.
"Roxas," Axel began but the blond pushed away from the table.
"I have to get to work," he muttered.
Roxas groaned as he saw the other man step inside the bookstore. The initial rush of the morning had long since died down, leaving the blond no customers to hide behind. And he'd so been looking forward to an afternoon free of werewolves.
"Where's Axel?" he asked the silvery-blue haired boy.
"Helping Demyx deal with a hell-hound." There was a time when Roxas would have thought the man was insane for making that statement. Now it was just another part of the week.
"So why aren't you helping him?" Roxas asked, shifting uncomfortably. Something about Zexion always made the blond feel like he was being scrutinized.
"Illusions don't do much when fighting a demon dog. And I wanted to talk to you," Zexion stated.
"I'd really rather not," Roxas stated, grabbing books to shelve.
"You need to know everything. And Axel won't do it," the werewolf stated as he trailed after the store owner. Roxas paused before eying Zexion.
"What do you mean?"
"You and Axel bonded but you haven't mated," he stated.
"Mate-"
"You haven't had sex," Zexion stated clinically and Roxas felt his face flush.
"THAT is none of your -"
"The longer you wait the weaker Axel will get. He's already having a hard time keeping the wolf at bay," Zexion told him. Roxas though back to earlier that morning - to the new finger-shaped indentations decorating the kitchen door-frame.
"What'll happen?" he asked softly.
"What do you think will happen?" Zexion snapped, his eyes flashing. "Wolves are pack creatures. They need touch. As long as you accept the bond he'll live. But if you keep denying him everything else he won't have much to live for."
"What do you mean?" Roxas asked.
"A mate is the heart of a werewolf. Losing a mate, or being denied...it's like ripping the heart out of someone. Take a heart out of a werewolf and all you have left – if they even survive in the first place – is the baser nature. Most werewolves turn feral. And then they're neutralized," Zexion ended softly.
"Why didn't he say anything?" Roxas asked the man quietly. Zexion snorted.
"You weren't exactly receptive to the idea of the bond to begin with. How was he supposed to tell you what he needed? He's been telling you what you absolutely needed to know and nothing else. Quit letting him get away with it or you'll both end up dead before Larxene even launches the first attack." With that, the werewolf turned on his heel and exited the shop, leaving Roxas by himself with a hell of a lot to think about.
And he did think about it. It wasn't like the blond hadn't noticed that Axel was good-looking and the older man was obviously anxious to keep his mate safe and happy. After all, after the whole 'oops, I accidentally bonded with you' episode the werewolf kept himself scarce unless necessary. Roxas supposed Axel wouldn't be the worst person to be tied to, and Sora seemed perfectly content with Riku. But he needed more information before he could come to a definite decision and it was high time he forced the red-head to answer all his questions.
"You. Me. Talking. Now. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!" he demanded, barging into his apartment. Axel sat sprawled on the floor with a burn kit spread out in front of him and was attempting to wrap his upper arm one-handedly. Axel grinned weakly.
"Sparky didn't take too well to being sent back to Hell," he stated before cursing as the gauze slipped. Roxas blinked.
"You were fighting a Hell-hound named Sparky?" the blond asked, trying to keep his lips from twitching into an amused smile. He was pissed, not amused.
"Not exactly. Demyx and I nicknamed him Sparky after the Hell-hound on Big Wolf on Campus," Axel explained. Seeing the blank stare Roxas gave him, he elaborated. "Teen jock gets bit by werewolf right before his senior year? Decides to use his power to protect his town from supernatural beings? Never mind…" he trailed off as the blond began rubbing his temples in frustration.
"You're an idiot," Roxas sighed, kneeling down and taking the gauze from the werewolf. He applied burn lotion to the scarred skin before wrapping fresh gauze around the marred flesh. "Axel," he began as he tied off the wrap, "What happened this morning?" The red-head gave him a tight smile before swallowing pain medication, standing and moving to tug his shirt back on before realizing that all that was left of it was shredded rags.
"Wolves are social creatures with a deep-seated Isolophobia," he told Roxas. "Werewolves need people - not for comfort or support or things like that - we need people for touch, to allay our wolves' fear of solitary confinement. When we find our mates the urge to reach out is even stronger. I've been holding the wolf back since we bonded but…in a non-stop tug-of-war between a human and alpha wolf a human can only last so long."
"So you're saying you nearly lost control of the wolf this morning," Roxas confirmed and Axel nodded as he sank down tiredly onto the couch. "What would change if we…" he trailed off, his face flushing. Axel sighed, tilting his head onto the back of the couch and shutting his eyes.
"Essentially? Aside from the actual physical aspect of our relationship, nothing. I'd be even more protective of you. But at the same time, those protective instincts would demand absolute loyalty and would demand I punish you if you were disloyal. And trust me, you don't want to know what that entails," he warned and Roxas' face went from flushed to white in mere seconds. "This isn't a decision to be made lightly," Axel told him before the pain medication kicked in and he dozed off. Roxas watched the werewolf for a moment, noting for the first time how exhausted he looked. His pale face was even paler than usual and he had dark circles beneath his eyes. The blond wondered how long he'd been silently struggling before sighing and pulling down the blanket from the back of the couch and covering the older man with it.
With Axel passed out on the couch, all of Roxas' questions were left unasked and unanswered. Would he be expected to become a werewolf? Why did Marluxia have a vendetta against Axel? If they moved into the mansion, would Roxas still be able to bring his friends over? Would it even be safe for his friends to come over with werewolves running around? What would Roxas' role be as they built a pack in Twilight Town? Would Roxas be expected to fight in the war when it finally broke out? And more importantly, would he be able to give Axel what he needed? Deciding that all decisions could wait until he'd had a good night's sleep, Roxas crawled into bed and turned out the light.
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