Title: Celestial.

Pairing: Axel/Roxas

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I dun own it.

Warnings: Slightly graphic sexings, ridiculous amounts of drug abuse, prostitution, character death. This mafucka's angsty.

A/N: I don't like doing this to my boys, I like it when they have happy endings. This kind of came out of left field. Back to reading articles about climate change, now. Enjoy!

Roxas was busy coughing up sweet opium smoke when Axel walked into the room. Maybe it was just the smog from the various drugs, or the cocktail that was chugging through his veins and churning up his brain; but the first thing he thought when he'd saw the skinny redhead saunter into the room was pretty.

He'd never thought a boy looked pretty before, much less Axel of all people. He was all bones and papery-pale skin and wild red hair, dark smudges under his eyes from getting sauced on coke and fucking for eight hours straight. His mouth was always dry and red around the edges - a hazard of sucking cock for money - and he was covered in bruises, his walking stiff from the discomfort of having a steady stream of men to pay the price and fuck him into the mattress (or wall or floor or whatever).

However, in that dark, smokey room, Axel's pale skin was alabaster; glowing rather than sallow. He fluttered his big, green bedroom eyes and purred in other boys' ears, but Roxas' second thought after watching him walk in was mine. Axel made his way through the room, stick-thin legs climbing over people who were smoking chronic and doing lines off the floor. When he was close enough, Roxas reached out and pulled him into his lap.

"Mm, well hello there," Axel murmured into his hair, smelling like soap and deodorant. Roxas buried his face into Axel's neck and collarbone.

"You don't even know my name, do you?" He asked, words slurring together and stroking the redhead's side possessively, bonelessly from the drugs in his system.

"Not really. I've seen you around, though," Axel muttered into his ear, seducing, fake. Roxas sucked in the smell of him, foggy brain realizing that he couldn't have fucked anyone yet, or else he wouldn't smell that clean.

"You're beautiful." Roxas tripped over the words he didn't ask to come out of his mouth. Axel laughed.

"You're high as fuck, dude," he said, eyes glimmering in something other than the raw sex appeal he exuded, something like amusement-but-not-quite. Roxas' drug addled mind was trying to chug through thoughts and pull a string of words together.

"You're a god. A goddamn celestial being." The amusement-but-not-quite fell out of his eyes, leaving him shielded, green eyes turning to stone walls and Roxas didn't know what he'd said, but it was clearly the wrong thing.

"You're fucked." His voice lost it's resonance, sounding rough, sounding real, and Roxas wanted to attach his lips to Axel's mouth and devour that voice.

"I'd worship you if you let me," he whispered, hands tightening on that thin torso and blinking rapidly, trying to clear his tunnel vision. It was too much, his gaze centered on Axel and that was all he could fucking see. The coy looks were back, lips curling at the corners and one eyebrow raised, just slightly.

"I can let you for a price," Axel's breath was hot on his face, smelled like mouth wash and Mexican spices. Suddenly shaking hands gripped Axel's cropped leather jacket, fisting the tough material tightly.

"Not-not like that -" Before the blond could even say another word, Axel had slipped through his fingers, off to proposition the others in the basement of the club. Roxas stared until someone passed him a fifty and lead him off to the bathroom. Nausea rose in his stomach as he reached for another opium hit, he could taste the bile in the back of his throat as the smoke rushed into his lungs.

All he could think about was that wall in those green eyes, and the glimmer of something-just-for-him.

Roxas left before he had to sit through Axel finding another person to fuck in the bathroom. He could already hear the moans of the first one.

~x~

The next morning-day-evening, when Roxas finally deigns it time to wake up, he laughed at the image of Axel in his head. He chuckled grimly, thinking about how fucked he would have had to be to want to have that particular scuzzy piece of meat.

'Besides, I'm fucking straight.' He told-convinced-forcedhimselftobelieve.

Roxas giggled to himself and ran around dancing in the ash-rain, the sky alight with blue and purple flames. He ran through the literal cement jungle, concrete and steel twisting until they became vines and leaves and he could hear the giant robot panther crashing through it in the distance, must have found something to hunt.

It wasn't until he saw an ethereal figure, thin and pale and dancing through the steel leaves, that Roxas decided that maybe LSD was a terrible idea that night. Nevertheless, his hands clamped down on bony hips and he pulled that skinny body into his own, touching red hair with tentative, shaking fingers. One of Axel's thin eyebrows rose, lips curling into a smirk and eyes glittering in that amused-but-not-quite-just-for-Roxas look.

"Still thinking about me, hey?" Axel asked, the seductive purr falling by the wayside in favor of a slightly sarcastic, low tone. Roxas buried his face in the taller boy's chest, his leather jacket unzipped and the soft cotton of the t-shirt rubbing his cheek. Roxas inhaled hard, the scent of laundry detergent and soap and clean surrounding him.

"You still smell good even when you're not here," Roxas mumbled, wrapping his arms around Axel's waist. The chest under his cheek seemed to heave with laughter.

"What do you mean, when I'm not here? What would you be holding on to if I wasn't here?" His voice, rough with laughter and completely missing any pretense of sexual satisfaction was what made Roxas start. He'd never heard Axel talk in this voice, and though he was high as a kite in the middle of a fucking hurricane, he'd never be able to imagine a voice like that coming out of Axel's mouth.

This was the second time in the evening when Roxas decided that taking that blotter was the worst idea he'd had in a long time. He pulled away from the redhead like he'd been stung, holding his arms to his chest as if they had a mind of their own and would twine around the redhead's neck again.

"What, you're gonna be shy now?" Axel came closer, teasing, and Roxas could pick out the engorged veins in his eyes, could smell the weed on his breath. His body moved of it's own accord, pulled Axel against him by his belt buckle, tongue in his mouth and hands halfway down his pants.

And Axel...he acquiesced. He ran long, thin hands into wild blond hair, arched his worn body into the other's, and didn't pull away. The shining metal leaves glittered in triumph, and Roxas could hear the jaguar purring off in the distance.

That is, for a moment. After the moment, that glorious, glimmering hiccup in time, Axel pulled away.

"You have to pay for that, you know," Axel murmured against Roxas' kiss-red mouth, indicating the hands that had made short work of clothing and fingers that were wrapped around Axel's half hard cock.

"I-I don't-" Roxas tripped hard on his words, the drugs and arousal working together to make his tongue heavy; and Axel was pulling away, gently pushing the blond's body. And Roxas, well, he could have none of that.

"Stop! Just-just let me find words," he spat, squeezing the other boy in his hand, eliciting soft mewls and intakes of breath. Axel just nodded, head falling forward onto Roxas shoulder. The blond wasted no time nuzzling into the warm flesh of his neck, trying to string together words that evaded him the moment they made themselves present.

"I don't just want this," he said slowly, emphasizing what he meant with another tight squeeze, "I want all of you. I want to wake up beside you, and I want to make you laugh, and I want that dead look in your eyes to go away." Roxas pulled his hands out of the redhead's pants and wrapped his arms around that malnourished body, pulling him close, so close, trying to slip into his skin. Axel pressed his nose into dry blond hair, and held the shaking blond until the arms around him loosened. The redhead jerked, pulling himself out of his arms.

"One day, Rox, maybe. But tonight I need to work, and you need to do whatever it is you do." Roxas heart sank as he watched him walk off, felt his heart and spirit and mind crack and fall away with every step the other took.

It wasn't until three lines and a few huffs later that Roxas realized he hadn't told Axel his name.

~x~

Axel's body was sore when he crawled back to the place he was crashing at. It wasn't much, a dirty mattress on the floor beside the window with a few threadbare blankets piled on top. It was somewhere to lay his head, though; and it meant that he didn't get woken up three hours into his sleep to get thrown out by whoever had bought him. He was even allowed to use the shower, to wash away the come and sweat and use accumulated over the night.

In the dim morning light, dark and soupy as it was, Axel could see something was off. He got closer to his area, stepping over unwashed bodies on similar mattresses, and recognized that familiar head of honey blond hair.

"Rox," he breathed, a bare exhale, the slightest upturn to the corners of his lips. His distant star, his everything and nothing. He sank to abused, bruised knees; jeans torn and bloody from being forced down onto them for so many days-weeks-months. The blond was face down on his flat pillow, no doubt drooling, and Axel's mouth pulled, smile widening.

He reached out, caressed flaxen strands with slightly shaking hands - it took him a few passes to figure out that something was wrong. His head was cold, scalp slightly clammy, arms far too stiff on the mattress.

Axel bit his bottom lip until blood dripped down his chin, joined by tears as he moved the body onto it's back.

Axel stroked the waxy, cold skin with callused fingertips, rolled them over his eyelids and mouth. He pressed his lips against the blond's forehead, gathered that small, perfect body into his arms and lay down with him. One time, the first and last, that he would ever lay with the boy he loved enough to drop out of school and fall into prostitution and travel the country to find him over a fucking dream. He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed the lump in his throat.

"One day, Rox. One of these times, we'll get it right."