The grass crunched under the weight of his footsteps. Roxas rubbed nervously at the inside of his elbow in slow, rhythmic motions. He shouldn't have been nervous—it's not like she was going to stare at him with cold, calculating eyes or drum her fingers impatiently at him. She would have all the patience in the world, he knew that.

Sigh. Why was he even here?

Still, his footfalls formed a steady staccato beat as he continued trekking towards his destination. He eyed the grounds stoically, his eyes merely gliding over the landscape—searching. It was empty but the air felt full. Thick.

Her place came up faster than he thought it would. He hadn't spent enough time thinking about what he was going to say. A long silence fell. Inhale. Exhale.

"I'm sorry," he breathed finally.

He waited a while, looking every which way but forward. More silence. He continued, "I-I was wrong for what I did. I just"—he searched for the words. "I hope you can forgive me. I understand if you don't." His mouth felt dry. He searched once again for words that felt hopelessly out of reach.

"I never meant for anyone to get hurt." He winced at how—he didn't know—small he sounded? "I can't take back the lies I told. And I know my actions didn't communicate it but," his voice broke at the same time that his stoicism did. His eyes watered involuntarily.

A pause.

His words came out as a croaked whisper. "I loved your son."

An hour had passed. Roxas ran a focused hand gently along the gravestone, tracing the words.

A-e-r-i-t-h. Aerith.

L-e-o-n-e. Leone.

J-a-n-u-a-r-y. January.

3-r-d. 3rd.

1-9-6— "Hey."

Roxas jumped, his finger displacing from the letters he had been tracing. That voice. It wasn't—no—it couldn't be. He kept his eyes trained on his hand even as it began to shake. He didn't know if he could manage to look. He felt such an awful mixture of dread and hope. It felt like someone had wrenched his mouth open and filled his insides with cement.

He dared to look. One look.

There he was, red pieces of hair standing out like palm fronds. His gangly legs dangled from the tree he was sitting in.

He stared. It was like he was incorporeal. The sunlight shone behind him. No, he wasn't real. Roxas shook his head solemnly. It was clear to him that he'd fallen asleep while talking to Axel's mom—or at Axel's mom—or maybe just to himself, if he was honest. This was just some stupid dream waiting to pull him back into the depths of his depressing old yearning.

"I didn't cheat on you, you know," Roxas blurted. At first, he felt horrified at himself. For months he had turned this moment over and over in his head. He had considered every contingency—right down to Axel throwing a punch at him. He had planned carefully, excruciatingly. At times it was the only thing keeping him sane. He was supposed to start with an apology, not some juvenile, backhanded denial. He'd never felt such a deep repugnance for himself.

He guessed it didn't matter. If it was just a dream, he was going to wake up feeling hollow and cheated just the same. If he was going to get anything out of this, he ought to scale the tree and steal a kiss from Axel one more time. One last time, really.

Roxas smiled bitterly at that thought despite himself. He'd thought a lot about his last kiss with Axel lately. Of course, he hadn't known it was going to be their last. It's funny being in the midst of a moment that you know you'll never forget. You can feel the makings of it branding itself into your memory. When he was pressed up against the glass window of his cramped, beat up Sedan. When he was leaning out over the edge of the clock tower, the air whispering love poems along his toes, Axel's hair tickling his cheek as he leaned over to steal a sea salt kiss. You think to yourself I am always going to remember this moment. Every detail. But that's a pipe dream. A week passes and you can barely feel the ghost of the sensations tingling in your fingertips. A month passes and you press your own fingers to your lips, hoping to feel something, anything. There had to be some semblance, some tiny insignificant notion of Axel left on his lips. But there wasn't.

You're left with the knowledge that it happened. Maybe a few stray images. But you can't recreate the feeling of his skin underneath your fingertips. Axel was a poltergeist that haunted him but drew the line at possession. What he wouldn't give to be possessed…

He shook his head. No. He wasn't going to chase after Axel this time. Even if it was a dream, he wasn't going to waste it by turning it into some senseless, steamy romantic revival. He just wanted closure. Please.

"I know," Axel replied.

Roxas looked up, squinting through the glints of sharp sunlight. He couldn't read Axel's face at all. And he was still half expecting him to dissolve into the shimmering light, to evaporate into smoke and thin air.

"You what?" Roxas had forgotten what he'd said in the first place.

Axel shifted his weight, placing his elbow against the trunk of the tree and leaning on it. Roxas traced over him with his eyes, memorizing the traces of detail he could make out. His eyes lingered on the worn areas of his jacket, right at the elbows. He watched wordlessly as Axel pulled a toothpick out of his pocket. Roxas stared pointedly at it.

"I stopped smoking," Axel replied with a shrug, seeming to follow Roxas's eyes. He placed the toothpick in his mouth to punctuate his comment.

Roxas shook his head incredulously. His thoughts flitted back to why he'd come here—to talk to Aerith. Through some deluded logic, he'd made it up in his mind that if he couldn't find Axel and apologize, he could at least deliver the apology to his deceased mother. Makes sense, right? Except for the part where it doesn't. At all. He wondered if Axel had heard any of that. His speech to Aerith. "How long have you been sitting up there?"

Axel seemed to consider this for a moment. "Long enough."

"Oh. Are you…did you come here to talk to your mom?"

He quirked a lopsided grin as he examined the backs of his knuckles. "Nah. I don't need to be here to talk to her."

"Where do you talk to her then?"

"In my dreams, mostly," he replied seriously. "Not really of my own accord, either. She shows up uninvited."

Ironic. His attention returned to their previous exchange. "I didn't cheat on you, you know." That part was Roxas. Stupid. But what Axel had said—"I know." What?

"How—no, when did you know that I hadn't cheated?" Roxas asked incredulously.

Roxas caught a short, mirthless smile appear on Axel's lips. It disappeared as quickly as it came. "Months ago...Maybe a week after the whole incident?"

"Why didn't you come back for me?" He murmured.

Axel pulled the toothpick from his mouth, staring at it with hard eyes. It looked as though he was mulling something over in his mind. He placed the thin stick back in his mouth. "You were better off without me. You knew it, I knew it."

"Axel—"

"Was I pissed when I saw you with someone else? Yeah. But in a lot of ways I was looking for a clean escape. I was trying to give you a clean escape." He shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"I'm not better off, Axel. I'm broken. I'm barely getting by." He hadn't said Axel's name in so long. It made him too real. He felt tears pricking at his eyes, threatening to open the floodgates.

"You have Tidus now."

"I don't deserve him," Roxas muttered to himself. He tried not to think about Tidus—of his bright blue eyes and reassuring smile and his unbreakable trust that Roxas seemed to test endlessly.

"But you deserve me, huh?"

Roxas looked incredulous. "Yeah. Yeah, Axel. We deserve each other." His tone was rising in intensity. "I let you down and you had a right to be angry. But I have a right to be angry too— you took the first excuse you could find to run away. To give the fuck up." Tears were spilling down his face before he could stop them. He swallowed hard. "You know what? Fuck you, Axel. You were so goddamn stubborn, so determined to make me fall for you. You just wouldn't let up. But then when you finally broke through all my inhibitions and my hang-ups, you left me high and dry. You left me, Axel." He rasped. "I let you down, but you let me go."

At this, Axel began to shift his weight towards the trunk of the tree. He was...climbing down? Roxas watched numbly as Axel descended the tree. He half-heartedly wiped at his nose, trying to stop his pathetic sniffling—it was one of the only audible sounds in the simmering silence after Roxas's outburst. Axel was getting closer and the increasing proximity was giving him anxiety. The thought of having Axel standing on his own two feet in front of him—it was something he had craved for so long. He'd stayed up so many nights praying to a god he'd abandoned years ago, bargaining to give up every vice he could think of for an opportunity like this. But now he felt like his stomach was filled with hardened cement and dread.

Axel stood towering above him. Roxas could feel Axel's proximity and see the makings of Axel's legs in his peripheral vision. But Roxas remained seated on the ground, his eyes trained on the mealy earth. He pulled idly at a strand of grass in front of him, his heartbeat quickening. He couldn't bring himself to look Axel in the eyes. Axel offered him a hand anyway.

Roxas stared. Those hands had built up a reputation in his mind. He didn't feel ready to break that. He didn't want to replace the memory of perennially warm hands with whatever cold, empty illusion this dream would conjure up. But when he looked up into those familiar poison green eyes he couldn't stop his hand from finding Axel's.

Roxas breath hitched with alarm when his hand registered the warmth emanating from Axel's hand. His hand felt so damn real. Roxas shut his eyes forcibly, pained by how convincing the illusion was. He felt even warmer arms enveloping him. He was surrounded by safe warmth.

He began to sob wretchedly.

"Hey, hey, shhh. It's okay," came Axel's voice, soft and lyrical.

The sound of Axel's voice—so close and affectionate and convincingly real—only made him sob harder. It was just like the voice from so long ago—the voice that serenaded him with stupid quips and flirty advances. The voice that made him rise so high and fall so hard.

"Look, Rox. I know you came here to talk to my mom. I can't speak for her, but I can speak for her son." He swallowed, pulling back slightly to look Roxas in the eyes. "He forgives you. He—he loves you. And he's a fucking idiot, okay? ...Actually, his mom would agree with that part."

Roxas could hear the smile in Axel's voice and it ached something painful.

"I'm sorry, Rox."

"Axel," Roxas sobbed even harder. He could barely catch his breath, he felt like his world was caving in. If Axel wasn't holding onto him he didn't know if he'd be able to stand on his own. His breathing felt shallow. It came in quick, labored bursts. He felt like he was having some kind of anxiety attack.

"Roxas—Roxas, please." He took a slight step back, holding Roxas gently by the shoulders and trying to look into his eyes. "Shhh, just breathe. What is it? What's wrong?"

"—euh." Inhale. "I—" Exhale. Inhale-inhale. "Axel—I can't." Inhale-inhale-exhale.

"What? What can't you do?" he asked gently but imploringly, his eyes looking increasingly worried. His eyes so looked so different like this—caring—not like the memory of Axel's eyes that Roxas carried like a cross. Cold and stony. Indifferent.

Inhale. Inhale-inhale-inhale. "Y-you. You can't, Axel."

"Can't what? I'll do whatever you need me to do, Roxas. Take some deep breaths for me, okay?"

Roxas nodded. I-n-h-a-l-e. E-x-h-a-l-e. I-n-h-a-l-e. E-x-h-a-l-e.

"Axel, you can't let me wake up."