Notes: And now for something completely different. This is a weird one, in terms of the series as a whole, I think. It's overall the most optimistic and happy, which possibly makes it the saddest. It can't end well, and they know it, but that doesn't take away their sort of doomed joy in being together. They're victims of circumstance, trying even though it will be over almost before it can begin.

Disclaimer: Stray Italian Greyhound is a song by Vienna Teng. The song itself is not what this story is about (unlike the song in part I), but it has the right tone and I put it on loop while writing.

VI: Stray Italian Greyhound

So what do I do with this?

This stray Italian greyhound

These inconvenient fireworks

This ice-cream-covered screaming hyperactive throng

God, I just want to lay down

These colours make my eyes hurt

This feeling calls for everything that I am not

Roxas isn't sure when this happened, this thing that's come into his life and settled in and taken over. Had it been a week ago? Two? The moment a man with crazy red hair and too-bright eyes had come up to his table in a crowded coffee shop and asked if he could sit down?

It's been three and a half weeks. Three and a half weeks and his face is starting to hurt from smiling so much, the muscles trying to once again get used to the movement after so many months of worrypainfear that had finally lost their nerve and slipped into bitternessindifferenceapathy.

He's tired, he really is, no less tired than he'd been before Axel had walked in and thrown open the blinds to let in the light. But it is getting easier - it's easier to make himself get out of bed in the morning when he knows that there's someone out there who will always be happy to see him.

But Axel, who is colourvibranceyjoy, doesn't know and Roxas has to tell him before the guilt overwhelms him. Before Axel gets too attached and won't want to leave. It will be better if Axel leaves. Roxas will hate it, will be back to resignation and long sighs and staring out the window and wishing for rain, but Axel will be happier in the long run.

It probably means something that he cares so much.

"Hey, babe," Axel says easily, sliding into his seat across the table and slipping a white lily into Roxas' hand. "Here, there was a chick selling 'em and I decided you had to have one."

A flower. Axel brought him a fucking flower. Roxas tightens his fingers around the stem and feels like crying. He doesn't, though, because he's already cried enough for a dozen lifetimes and doesn't want to do it anymore. It doesn't help, anyway, and just leaves him with aching, tired eyes and damp sleeves.

His silence is probably worrisome, because Axel's peering at him, eyes alight with concernaffectioninterest. "You okay, Rox? You're not looking very good."

Of course he's not. Roxas can't even remember the last time he really had. It's funny in that way that really isn't at all that Axel hardly ever seems to notice.

"I..." Was there even a nice way to say it? No. "Listen, I have something to tell you." He draws a deep breath, can smell just a hint of the lily in the air between them. It's sweetcleanperfect and makes his chest ache a little. "I have cancer."

Axel blinks once, twice, then nods slowly. "What kind?"

"You know the kind you get better from?" He smiles bitterly. "That's not the kind I have."

Another nod, a little wary. "How long?"

"A little over a year." Roxas lifts the lily to his nose briefly. "I really should have died a couple months back, but I guess I'm a stubborn son of a bitch or something. Or maybe I was waiting to meet you." He hadn't meant to say it, so he keeps talking to cover it up. "Anyway, I saw my doctor the other day and he said that, at this point, it's anyone's guess how much time I've got. I could drop dead next week, or I could hold on a little longer. But I know I won't see the end of the year. I can feel it."

Axel's just staring at him, stunnedangrysad, so Roxas, turning the flower slowly in his fingers, lets himself talk, all the things he'd wanted to say to someone, anyone, but never had.

"I hope it happens in my sleep. Gently, you know? Just go to bed one night and not wake up in the morning." He nods. "That's the best way, I think." He looks up finally, meeting Axel's gaze. "I thought you needed to know, so you can get out now." His lips twitch in something that's almost a smile. "You deserve better than my last days."

And his silence breaks as Axel reaches across the table and grabs Roxas' hand tightly enough to bruise. He shakes his head fiercely and says, eyes gleaming brightdeterminedbrave, "Let's go out for dinner."

"What?" And Roxas is so surprised he laughs. "Why?"

"Because I want to. Because I'm falling in love with you. Because you're beautiful." He smiles, a little watery, but holding strong. "You are so beautiful and, when I look at you, it's like looking at butterflies and sunsets. Things that are so breathtaking they can't last long in this ruined, fucked up world. And I just want to hold onto you and protect you, but I can't, so we're going to dress up and I'm going to take you to the nicest restaurant in town. Have you ever done that?"

Roxas' throat is a little tight and his eyes burn, but he blinks a few times to keep his vision clear. He doesn't want to stop seeing Axel's colours, bright spots in a world gone otherwise flat and grey. The best he can do is whisper, "No."

"Then it's decided. We're going." His smile is fiercehappyfragile. "And we're going to do something nice every single day, from here on out. Even if it's just coffee, or a walk downtown, we're going to live every second we have left. And then we won't regret anything."

He's wrong, of course. Roxas knows it. They'll be filled with regret, when the end comes, because it will come so quickly that all they'll be able to think is I wish I'd met him sooner. But they can't change the past, anymore than Roxas can get rid of the sickness that's killing him faster and faster every day.

The end will hurt, when it comes in a week or a month or a few, even more now that his life has become worth living again. But it'll be worth it, too, to have that small burst of happiness to hold onto. It'll be enough, just barely enough, to make up for all the pain and loneliness.

"What do you say?" Axel strokes his wrist comfortingly, unsteady fingers belying his calm.

It's hopeless. Roxas is just going to die. Axel would be so much better off without him.

But he smiles because, even though he knows with a certainty that's like breathing that it's all going to end in heartbreak, he's never been so happy.

"Okay."