Sometimes he feels like the universe is crashing down right onto skull and he can't do anything about it. All he can do is just stand there and bite his lip till it's bruised and bleeding and try not to crumple to the floor.

He figures everyone has those moments – where you try and say something or do something that'll change your life forever but then you freeze; like you're suspended in midair, held up by invisible puppets strings, or stuck in concrete with a gag over your mouth. Axel can see the blond mess of hair and the black coat fading off into the distance and it's like his feet have been superglued to the ground and all of a sudden he wishes his power involved stretching his arms to obvious lengths - instead of burning everything in his path - so he can grab him and bring him back right then and there and slap some sense into him and tell him that he has to stay. He needs Roxas to stay.

Or else the whole entire universe is going to come crashing down as soon as he completely fades out of view and is gone forever.

He hate himself for staying and murmuring those words - That's not true, I would.. – instead of going out and living those words with everything he has left. He wanted to grab him, and hold him close and never, ever let him go.

He just wants to hold his breath and bite into his tongue and make all of the pain go away.

Pain is an even crueler mistress than fate sometimes, really. Because the second you think you've found some solace the world crashes down five times harder than before.

Realization of this had started when Roxas would just stand there –there, outside in the rain and in the mercy of the entire World That Never Was. It didn't matter if it was raining in buckets and floods were sweeping though the dark streets – his Roxas would stand there, water running off his hood onto the rest of his coat. He could have stood there until he was blue and freezing – and even then he probably wouldn't have moved. Bright eyes were filled with dark shadows and an eerie lifelessness that could have never belonged to Roxas – even though sometimes they would be flashing with anger, Axel had always loved Roxas' eyes for what they were – blue like the ocean, blue like the calm before a storm. They were not the eyes of someone standing in the middle of a rain storm in this hellhole of a world. They were not the eyes of this shell of a boy, unresponsive to every coaxing word or whisper or touch.

Axel must have stood there with him for a long while, because he was shivering in his boots despite his power over fire. He had picked the boy up in his arms, because he was not going to move on his own. He'd summoned a portal which had gone straight to Roxas' room and put the boy on his bed and gone about that task of peeling off wet clothing suctioned-cupped to the boy's skin. Roxas' hadn't moved, hadn't done anything, hadn't even blinked as Axel had changed his clothes and pulled his blankets up over his nose. It wasn't until Axel had kissed him softly on the nose and was making his way out of the room as Roxas spoke the fateful two syllables.

"Soo-rra."

.Axel realized then that his Roxas was no longer his alone.

"You'll be better in the morning, so go to sleep, Rox."