Chapter Text
But what does it feel like, Roxas asks. Axel laughs.
It doesn’t, he answers, languid. That’s the point. Roxas wrinkles his nose. His hair tickles with the movement.
But, of course he’s not satisfied with that answer, do you miss it. He’s really one of a kind, Axel starts to think, then holds back another laugh at the sheer absurdity. Roxas is, by definition, two of a kind - three, if you count Xion. It’s funny because he’d rather not think of it as the other option, which is ceaselessly, furiously tragic.
I’m a Nobody, Axel says, as if he’d been deep in thought about his own situation rather than Roxas’s. I’m not capable of missing things. He breathes evenly, careful to avoid making it a sigh. I just want it back. Axel wants a lot of things: to feel the red of the sun in his bones, to figure out the problem of what Roxas must share, to reduce his sincere apology deficit to a quantity less appallingly grotesque, to run until he collapses for a reason other than self-preservation, to use a particular vocabulary he hasn’t let himself say in years. Hell, he even wants Saïx to stop being such a gigantic asshole.
But wishing is for children and those naïve enough to favor the concept of fairness. Axel knows when to keep his mouth shut.
What are you going to do when you get yours back, Roxas traces the shape where it isn’t, reverent in his sacrilege. He speaks in absolutes, as if the world is made of clockwork and intentions of salt and summer. He sighs quietly and unrestrained, lips parted only a fraction, and blinks his gaze from his finger to Axel’s face. He stares at Axel patiently.
I don’t know, Axel lies, smiling back easily. I’m out of practice. Roxas shifts closer. Axel helps him. Just have to take things one day at a time, probably.
I don’t know the difference, Roxas bites his lip for the fraction of a second, so I don’t know what to do. The hollow, dead space inside Axel’s chest is nearly a decade old, and the pain familiar in the background. It only aches when Roxas acts like a human. The sensation is becoming increasingly common. How much do you remember.
You’ll be fine, Axel reassures him. It hasn’t been as long for you. He doesn’t worry because he can’t; he only makes hastily scrawled mental notes. Roxas sighs again. It’ll be like it never went away.
But what if when I get it, I still can’t remember, Roxas presses closer. Axel’s mental penmanship gets more illegible by the day.
Then we’ll both work on it, Axel lies again. Think of it as a learning experience. Roxas huffs into the curve of Axel’s neck. He has such a small nose.
Ah, Roxas says. Axel knows he only wants things for selfish reasons because he doesn’t know how to want them in other ways anymore. The world is strange refractions, and his intentions are sleight of hand.
Axel grins slowly, and continues planning.
You’re so warm, Roxas says, and doesn’t say much after that that’s coherent. Axel thinks that if there are only so many ways to get a heart, he might be able to lie his way into getting Roxas one. If everything about them is half-formed, then what's a few more moments of conjecture?