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The smell of smoke seemed to permanently burn into Roxas’ nose that night. Every day, he wakes up and silently works menial labour jobs around the village while almost expecting to turn a corner and find a house fire. Or another pyre. He avoids the town centre as if the ashy circle burned into the dirt was a portal to hell itself.
Every night, he curls up under his thin blanket, hugging himself, feeling inexplicably chilled to the bones, and cries himself to sleep. In the dark and quiet, he remembers green eyes and red hair, Axel’s warm hands and his infectious grin. All the happy memories of evenings spent together and breathless moments wondering if his feelings might finally slip out were tainted with memories of fire and ash, his neighbours screaming and jeering, afraid of the man they were condemning to the flame.
For what? For rumours and superstition. Because when Father Ansem stoked a flame, everyone in the village was quick to add fuel. Because Axel was bold and didn’t fall in line, so there had to be something wrong with him. Because there had been an unusual spat of small incidents with fire, so someone had to be to blame.
Those that did dark magic had to be killed by the element they perverted. Even if there was no proof. Even if the accidents he was blamed for had caused nothing worse than a few minor burns and property damage. No, he had to be removed from the good mortal world because the only logical possibility was that he was going to escalate and burn the village down any day.
And Roxas didn’t even know until it was too late.
He lost his voice for nearly a week after that night, though his screams of horror and agony were lost among the voices of the crowd. No one noticed. He didn’t speak much to anyone else anyway, he was just told what work there was for him, and he did it. Life went on as usual for everybody else. No one noticed the bags under his eyes or the way his hands shook. No one cared. No one but Axel had ever cared.
After the first week, there were more fires anyway, so what had been the point of any of it?
There is something in the woods, rumours started to pass around. Some dark spirit was responsible for setting the barn on fire. Roxas felt curiously numb when he heard. Whether the first fires were genuine accidents and this is a coincidence or if every fire had been the spirit’s fault, it didn’t matter much because Axel had already paid the ultimate price for nothing. They are worse off now, and they all deserve it.
It is Axel, they said. Axel is in the woods. They saw him. Someone saw his face in the woods before a house went up in flames, and nothing but luck and frantic efforts to douse neighbouring houses saved it from spreading. Axel was some demon this whole time, they said. They had to hunt him down, kill him all over again, this time for good.
The accusation spurred Roxas to fury again; was it not enough to murder him, now they need to make up stories to keep blaming him? But as he chops wood and hauls it to town, he sees it; with his own eyes, he sees the dark spirit lurking between the trees.
And it wears Axel’s burned, disfigured face, still smouldering with flame.
He runs away from it, nauseated, horrified. When he collapses at the edge of the farmer’s field, he curls over his knees and starts screaming again, tears pouring down his face, wishing he could rip his own heart out of his chest just to find an end to the pain. For the entire horrific month since Axel was murdered, he wanted desperately to march straight up to Father Ansem and profess his hatred, tell him that any tragedy that might befall the village was his own fault for killing an innocent man, knowing that aligning himself with the condemned practitioner of black magic would grant him the same fate. Some days, some moments, he craved it, he wanted to bring his pain to an end and follow Axel, but he always felt held back.
Now he knows that was for a reason. Perhaps whatever is in the woods stole Axel’s face as a twisted form of justice, but now the fury of the village has turned towards it, and he knows they will form a party to hunt it down and destroy it as certainly as he knows the sun will rise tomorrow.
He can’t let that happen, he can’t bear the idea of them desecrating Axel’s memory, having the satisfaction of destroying him a second time. And he can’t stomach the idea that some dark, twisted thing is puppetting Axel’s mutilated appearance, no matter its motivations. Even if it is some spirit of revenge or justice, it has no right to parade around in Axel’s face.
It has no right to look like Axel when Axel has been cruelly ripped from this world and Roxas misses him so much it feels like he is being turned inside out.
Though his ears ring from the stress, he works double time to find his quota of lumber somewhere else, and he is grateful that the dark spirit doesn’t haunt him again. He ends the day exhausted, but the town is stirring with fear and panic, and he knows he cannot wait for them to tear apart Axel’s memory, continuing to blame him for their misfortunes. He eats a sparse dinner, stomach twisting too tight to have an appetite but knowing he needs energy, then retrieves his rarely-used hunting rifle and steals out into the streets. The sunset above looks like the sky itself is bleeding vivid red over the world. If he doesn’t survive this last attempt to protect Axel’s memory…
Out in the woods, the smell of damp fallen leaves pervades the air, soothing. His eyes become wet as he tries not to remember previous years when he and Axel would go for a walk after the harvest feast, a tradition he wasn’t sure he could bear to continue alone. Despite himself, he remembers listening to the lilt of Axel’s voice mixing with the crunching of leaves, remembers the cool breeze passing through the trees, remembers drawing close to Axel, remembers Axel casually draping an arm over his shoulders, remembers soaking in his warmth feeling more content there than anywhere else in the world.
His breath is hitching, and he’s holding back sobs when he pauses in a clearing to look up at the burning sky and begs to calm down enough for what he needs to do, and begs that the spirit crosses his path before the night is through. “I’m sorry,” he breathes out to the sky, blinking and straining to keep his tears from falling. “I’m so sorry, Axel. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
It seems normal at first, when he smells smoke, just his lingering olfactory hallucination returning, but when he blinks the blur of tears from his eyes and tilts his head back, he sees the trails of grey in the corner of his vision.
It takes him a second for his worn mind to register what he sees and smells, and he gasps as he whirls around towards the village behind him. Smoke above the trees, between him and his home.
His thoughts immediately whip up into a whirlwind. A forest fire? Will it reach the village? Will anyone notice in time?
His chest tightens, breathing faster in panic. Can he get back in time? Seems unlikely, too much of a risk. Is there anywhere for him to go? To hide? To escape?
He’s frozen, rifle clenched uselessly in both hands. How can he possibly outrun a forest fire? And what would the point be even if he could? Where would he go? How could he go on?
Then, a shape emerges from the shadow of the trees, black yet burning, tall, whispy, and impossible.
Roxas finds himself breathing harder, faster, unable to break his gaze away, tears welling up more undeniable. “No!” he whimpers, almost choking on his own breath.
More ash and bone than man, ribs glowing with perpetually smouldering flames, the thing wearing Axel’s ruined face walks out of the woods, and tears fall like rivers down Roxas’ cheek as he takes a weak step back. “No! No, no, no! No!” he groans, wishing he didn’t know the face so well that he could recognize it even in this horrific state, wishing those eyes, those beautiful eyes he’d lost hours staring into, weren’t uncannily perfect and unflawed, staring at him from blackened sockets. His arms tremble, but he raises the rifle, though now he wonders what a gun could possibly do to a thing like this. He longs to wake up from this horrific nightmare.
“Roxas…” Axel’s voice whispers on the wind as the image of his burned corpse steps into the clearing. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry!”
Roxas nearly screams as his heart feels like it’s being ripped in half, bringing the monster before him to an abrupt halt, “How dare you! Don’t speak to me in his voice! Don’t talk to me like you’re him! How dare you steal everything from him!” He falls to his knees, entire body shaking with the effort of his sobbing out all the grief tearing through him, but he keeps the gun pointing up. “Why do you look like him?” he demands, glaring at the dark figure through the haze of his tears. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Roxas!” Axel’s voice gasps, and the creature tentatively takes another step closer. “No, no, no! It’s me! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! You weren’t ever supposed to see me like this!”
He wants to shout out more denials, more demands that this thing show its real face, but Roxas can’t speak anymore past his groaning sobs. He drops the gun uselessly to the ground. What did he imagine he could possibly do with some mundane mortal weapon against a horrible spectre like this?
“I’m so sorry, Roxas! I can’t imagine what you… But it’s me… I swear to you, it’s me!”
Shaking, Roxas blinks to stare up at this nightmarish vision. “How?” he breathes, and he sees wet tracks running down the creature’s desiccated cheeks.
“I… I don’t know… I remember dying… I remember hearing you scream…” Roxas bites his lip painfully hard. “Then I woke up out here…angry…at what they did to us…”
Roxas finds himself slowly able to breathe again, but he can only shake his head in disbelief. “I… I don’t understand…”
“I’m sorry… I don’t know… I just…” Axel shakes his head, and his tears fall, sizzling, on his burning chest. “They did this to me… That’s all I know… I hoped you’d leave. I never wanted you to see any of this…”
Roxas is surprised by the sound of his own weak, hoarse laugh, and he lifts his hands to rub at the wetness soaking his cheeks. “Stupid… Where would I even go?”
“I’m sorry,” Axel whispers. “I tried to make sure you never got hurt, I wanted to wait for you to leave, but I can’t control it, and they need to suffer for what they did.”
Dragging in a deep breath, Roxas rubs his eyes dry enough for Axel to come into focus above him. It hurts to see him like this, body locked in his agonizing last moments.
Slowly, Axel sinks to his knees a couple feet in front of Roxas. “You need to get out of here. I…I can’t stop the fire once it’s started, but I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. I think…” The black ash on his cheeks crack beneath his tears as he slowly, wryly smiles. “I think I knew you’d come here tonight, that’s why I knew the village would finally burn tonight.”
Shaking his head, Axel wipes his cheeks with his hard, skeletal hands, opening up more pale cracks in his burned flesh. Roxas’ brow tightens. “Does that hurt?” he whispers, afraid Axel hasn’t escaped his suffering through death. “Are you in pain?”
Axel pauses then lifts his head, staring at Roxas a moment, then shakes his head, though Roxas grimaces as the ash flakes away from his face. “No, I don’t feel anything. Just…heat. It feels…good.” He smiles again, and the cracks open up to reveal supple, suntanned skin beneath. Roxas’ mouth falls open in shock and meets Axel’s eyes again. The tears continue to fall from Axel’s eyes, washing away the burned flesh, exposing his thick eyelashes and crinkled eyelids, framing his perfect eyes the way they used to be, the way they are supposed to be.
Roxas can’t be entirely sure yet whether this is all real, an illusion of some dark spirit, or a horrible dream, but if this is his last chance to look into Axel’s eyes, he can’t bear to throw it away. Leaning forward, he reaches out towards Axel, fingers trembling in the air, not even bothered by the radiating heat as if he is reaching towards an open flame, but Axel flinches back before Roxas can reach his face, brows furrowed, turning to stare at the dead leaves singed beneath his long, bony legs.
“Don’t,” he mutters. “You’ll get burned. You need to go, get somewhere safe.”
Roxas’ heart stops momentarily, unexpectedly hurt by being denied some small, physical confirmation. Axel had always been casual with touch, never afraid to give Roxas playful shoves or to ruffle his hair. He had never before denied when Roxas reached out for physical comfort. Roxas blinks, watching Axel’s living human face emerge little by little through the slowly splitting charred mask of his corpse, and drops his hand to his lap, filled with aching disappointment and fear. Is he falling for the tricks of something pretending to be Axel and getting better at looking alive the longer it wore his stolen skin?
Axel takes a deep breath, and the fire within his chest flares up and stretches past his ribs momentarily. “I’ll do my best to buy you time to make it to safety, but I can’t hold the fire back for long. You should go to the river; you’ll be safest in the water…” His brow furrows deeply, and his hands squeeze into fists. “Away from me.”
Roxas wants to protest, but his lips curl open without sound for a moment before, instead, he tries to confirm once and for all that it is his lost best friend before him and not some unknown entity unjustly taking his form, whether this is some creature he should be happy to walk away from or his dearest friend. “Do you remember the last time we went to the river together?” He finds himself leaning forward, frowning slightly, staring intently for signs of deception, whether familiar quirks of Axel’s or not.
Surprised, Axel looks at him again, mouth slightly open, and his lips are cracking open to expose them as soft and pink. “Yeah, of course,” he murmurs, audibly confused, but perhaps something in Roxas’ stare spurs him to elaborate and soothe Roxas’ last lingering doubts. “Back in summer, it was still hot even though the sun was going down, and we were talking about nothing. You were braiding blades of grass, and I took my shoes off to cool my feet in the water, but then I…” Trailing off, he snickers and grimaces. “I slipped and fell in.” Axel lifts a hand to rub the back of his head. Tears well in Roxas’ eyes again as he uncontrollably smiles, and his heart aches with relief. “You started laughing at me, and I wanted to grab you and pull you into the water with me.”
Roxas watches long enough to see Axel’s ruined scalp crumble beneath his hand and his thick red hair start to come loose, and Roxas has to close his eyes and face his lap again, shoulders shaking as he begins to sob all over. “I wish you had,” he breathes between heaves. Now that they can never happen again, every moment spent physically close has become incomparably precious, and he just wishes they had more to hold onto now. He wishes he’d been more open, braver, he wishes he’d taken any of the chances he’d had before to tell Axel how precious and loved he was.
Axel lets him cry for a minute before shuffling a bit closer. “Roxas? Please, I’m so sorry, I wish it didn’t have to be like this, but you can’t stay here. You have to go.”
“No!” Roxas snaps, burying his face in both hands. “I won’t! I can’t walk away from you now that I have you back!” He furiously shakes his head without taking his hands off his face and tries to pull himself together and stop crying, struggling to take slow, even breaths.
“Roxas…” Axel sighs, voice shaking. “You’ll die if you don’t, and I can’t let that happen. You can start over. I’m sure you’ll have a much better life somewhere new.”
Face aching from the unceasing tears, Roxas hugs himself tightly, fingers digging into his arms. “Not without you! I don’t want that. What will happen to you?” He looks up again to see Axel’s face, the handsome sharp shapes softened beneath skin browned by sun, smudged with ash but fully emerging from the mask of his death.
Axel slowly takes a breath. “I…I don’t know.” Setting his jaw, he suddenly frowns firmly, eyes sharp with determination. “But it doesn’t matter! I’ve already died, so you have to move on and find a better life.”
Eyes briefly squeezing shut again, Roxas frantically shakes his head. “No, I won’t! I don’t care what kind of life I can scrounge up, it’s not worth it without you!”
“Roxas, I’m not going to keep arguing with you!” Axel snarls, eyes still brimming with tears despite his furious scowl.
“Then leave me here,” Roxas hisses bitterly, thumping a fist against the ground. “I’d set myself on fire if it meant I could stay with you,”—he takes another shuddering breath and shakes his head—“and make up for all the time I wasted taking you for granted, just thinking we had all the time in the world for me to find the courage. You died thinking my world wouldn’t be shattered with you gone.”
“Roxas…” Axel mumbles, and Roxas tries to savour the sound of Axel saying his name and hold it close for…whatever is going to happen to him before the night is over. Softly sniffling, he hears the rustling of Axel moving against the ground, and he wonders—maybe hopes—for a moment if Axel’s getting up to leave him before he feels heat coming over his arms and glumly looks up again. Hands shaking as they reach towards Roxas, Axel grimaces, hesitates, then falls back, sitting on his heels, again with a grunt of distress. Gritting his teeth, he stares down at his hands, flexing them, turning them as the burned skin cracks and flakes off them as well, then he shakes his head and presses his hands to his chest, the flames looking alarming next to his normal-looking flesh. “I don’t…” He sighs softly. “I…I selfishly hoped it wouldn’t hurt you so badly…but the sound of you screaming…” Biting his lip, he wipes his hand across his eyes again. “That was the worst part…” He exhales sharply. “But I’d die a million times over before I let you go through what I did.”
“Selfish,” Roxas chuckles, absently rubbing his cheek again, then silently stares up at Axel for a minute again. “I can’t just leave you, though. I can’t. Please…”
“Roxas,” Axel repeats, voice agonizingly soft with affection, “I think I came back because of you. Because the last thing I remember was how furious I was that you were being hurt, and there was nothing I could do. I sincerely think I was brought back because I wanted more than anything in the world to make them suffer and ease your pain. But I guess I’ve only managed to make you hurt more.” Sparks race across the grass by his legs when his hands clench into fists.
Feeling his face soften, Roxas lightly bites his lip, watching tears continue to drip from Axel’s chin. “I am so happy to see you again,” he whispers. “I’m… I’m afraid of what’s going to happen, but it doesn’t hurt at all more than it did without you and…well, the last memory I had of you.” He allows a tentative smile. “At least I can see your face and hear your voice one last time. Maybe…” Feeling a flush come across his face, he bites his lip and looks down at his lap. He can’t squander this, can he? A second chance to talk to the dearly departed and share his true feelings at long last? It would be a sin to waste such a precious gift, wouldn’t it?
“I hope you’re going to say it’s the last time because you’re going to leave soon,” Axel remarks with a weak chuckle. “The fire will start burning towards us any minute, and believe me, you don’t want to go through that.”
The twisting tightness in Roxas’ chest eases slightly, but he continues staring silently at his lap. It feels strangely comfortable, hearing Axel trying to joke and make things light and easy as he used to. He wishes he could just close his eyes and pretend nothing happened and they are just spending time together like normal. “I don’t want to leave things between us the same as when you died,” he murmurs, watching his fingers curl into loose fists before looking up again, brows furrowed.
Axel cocks an eyebrow and gives a slight, crooked smile. “Like what? Did you steal something from me, and now you can’t live with the guilt?”
Snickering, Roxas rubs his eyes one last time while shaking his head. “I’d never tell you that.” He sighs and shakes his head again then leans forward, longing to be closer. “Axel, I… I was always afraid to ruin our friendship by…by telling you how much you really mean to me.” His jaw tightens and brows furrow together, trying to hold back a fresh sting of tears. Axel’s eyes widen. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, so I should just tell you that…I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time, but never-” His voice chokes off with a hitch of breath, Axel’s face blurring behind tears, and he struggles to take a breath and steady himself to speak again. “I’m sorry I never told you. So…selfish of me to hide my feelings so I wouldn’t lose you…”
Axel moans. “Roxas…” Tears fall heavily down his cheeks again, glistening almost red in the dying sunlight. “Fuck, I… I’ve always loved you.”
Roxas almost chokes again as his heart rises into his throat, and he doesn’t even care how much his eyes hurt from crying so much.
“I’m so sorry I’m such a damn coward. I’m so sorry I never kissed you or… And now we never can.” Folding in half over his knees, Axel groans while hugging himself tightly. “I hate them… I hate them so much for taking me away from you… I hate myself for not taking you and running away together somewhere we could have a better life… Fuck, I can’t believe how stupid I am.”
Roxas finds himself frantically shaking his head and sliding closer across the grass. “It’s all their fault, not yours. Please don’t blame yourself.” He doesn’t even think, he just wants to hold Axel like he’s always wanted to with all their feelings out in the open, but when his hands reach for Axel’s shoulders, he can’t stop himself from reflexively recoiling from the painful heat with a hiss the moment they touch.
Axel jolts upright, eyes wide, as Roxas looks down at his hands and the stinging pink marks on his fingertips. “Shit! Don’t- don’t touch me!” Axel hisses. “I told you, it’s dangerous!” Roxas looks up, and Axel’s entire face tightens, jaw clenching, teeth painfully bared. “So please, please leave. Please, I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t stop any of this!”
“I…” Roxas helplessly trails off. He didn’t expect confessing to suddenly make it easy to walk away, but having his feelings reciprocated makes him long, even more painfully, to stay at Axel’s side. If Axel got up and walked away, Roxas would chase him down instead of languishing here in misery, but he can’t leave not knowing whether Axel will still exist once his vengeance over the village was complete. He’d rather burn right here by Axel’s side.
“Keep me with you,” he pleads softly. “There must be…some way for me to become like you, right? Even if not…I can’t leave you. Please don’t make me leave you.”
Axel’s jaw falls open momentarily before he curls his nose and bites his lip with visible pain in his eyes. “I don’t know… Either way, you’d have to die, and I can’t let you go through that. I don’t want you to suffer that much.”
“I don’t care!” Roxas cries, frustration building in his throat. Gritting his teeth, he lunges again to grab at Axel’s arms, and even though Axel flinches back, Roxas holds tight despite pain shooting up his arms. “Don’t you get it? I love you!”
“Let go!” Axel shouts, eyes wide with panic, and when he jerks back, Roxas can’t keep his grip and bites back a groan of pain. Stars flicker at the edges of his vision, and he doesn’t dare look down at his hands, so he continues to stare at Axel and try to ignore the way his hands shake and nerves scream in protest up and down his arms. “Roxas, you can’t be serious,” Axel begs, staring, grimacing, at Roxas’ hands.
“I am,” Roxas chokes bitterly, trying to ignore the pain and not to start panting. “You’re the one who taught me how to live instead of just surviving. If there’s any sliver of a chance that we can have any kind of second life together, I’ll go through anything…” He barks a laugh through his tears. “I never even got to kiss you. If you want that even half as badly as me…can’t we give it a chance? Don’t we owe it to ourselves?”
When their eyes meet, Axel laughs and shakes his head. “You have no idea how badly I want that.” He slowly looks down at his own hands and raises them from his legs. As he flexes his fingers, more and more ash falls from them, exposing supple flesh the same as his face. He bites his lip, closes his eyes, and exhales heavily. “I think maybe I can. I think if I give a part of this fire to you, it’ll do to you what it did to me. Whatever that is.”
“I’ll take it,” Roxas agrees immediately with a bit of a smile, softening with tentative hope. “I’ll take any part of you.”
Closing his eyes and looking down, Axel chuckles softly, then quiets as he takes a couple slow breaths and the fire within his chest thrums like a heartbeat. He tilts his head slightly for a moment as if listening to something then looks back over his shoulder. “Need to be quick,” he mutters, and when Roxas follows his gaze, he realizes with a start that the woodsmoke scent in his nose isn’t from Axel or from his own mind; off in the distance between the trees is a perceptible orange glow like the sunset. “I think it needs to be my fire to…to burn your mortal life away. I don’t think it’ll work if the forest fire takes you. I need to be the one to…”
For the first time, fear stirs in the beating of Roxas’ heart, already accelerated by the pain still throbbing up from his hands. He looks back at Axel, and his breath catches momentarily as the memory of his body engulfed in flames uncontrollably plays in his mind, but he gulps heavily before tears can rise again. He puts on the best smile he can when Axel looks at him. “I don’t really care what happens to me,” he murmurs, “but if I don’t live until sunrise, I want you to know that I love you more than anything.”
Axel’s eyes screw shut momentarily, and his mouth twists into a tight, wry smile as he shakes his head. “Don’t say that,” he whispers. “I’ll die the moment you do. It had to be me who died first because I wouldn’t have survived a day without you. If I wake up tomorrow without you… Well, at least I’ll be paid back the pain you’ve gone through for me. I can only hope more than anything that I’m right.”
Heart aching, Roxas bites back tears again. “I trust you.”
Axel laughs softly, and his eyes gleam with affection when he finally opens them again. “One of your worst choices, let’s be honest.” When Roxas grins and chuckles, Axel slowly draws himself closer, spreading his knees so Roxas’ legs fit between them. Heart pounding, face flushing, Roxas looks up at Axel’s face. “I love you so much,” Axel whispers. “More than anything in the world, more than I ever thought I could feel in my life.” Though Roxas doesn’t look away, he can see Axel’s hands trembling in his peripheral vision, hovering near his face, warming his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” Roxas breathes, closing his eyes and tilting his face up towards Axel’s. He doesn’t care how much it may hurt, but if it’s going to be the last thing he does, he wants to kiss Axel at least once. More than anything.
He feels the heat of Axel’s sigh across his face then the gentlest, softest pressure against his lips. Tears fall again with pleasure and joy, and even though his hands hurt, he lifts them to hold Axel, then Axel’s hands cup his cheeks, and sharp pain shoots deep into his nerves, blazing heat penetrating into his skin and muscles and bones, but he only presses harder against the kiss.
Then nothing.
Warm numbness.
Darkness.
He isn’t sure how long he floats before, suddenly, he opens his eyes.
He immediately squints and turns away from the glare of the setting sun only to face Axel, sitting beside him, leaning lazily back on his hands. His heart jumps, but at the same time, he recognizes this memory when he notices their surroundings. It was last year, last autumn, a few days before the harvest festival. He can feel phantom aches from heavy labour. They’d gone out far into one of the emptied fields to get some time alone. Axel always looked so beautiful and handsome in the light of sunset.
Roxas blushes and turns away when Axel catches him staring, and tries to look as casual as possible.
Am I dying? Is this my life flashing before my eyes?
“Getting chilly?” Axel asks.
“Just a little. I’m fine,” Roxas replies softly, looking up at the sunset. It occurs to him that, even if he wanted to, he can’t alter this memory to turn and look at Axel instead, but at the same time, it doesn’t bother him. It’s a good memory, and he’ll be happy if it’s the last thing that he has to hold onto.
Axel sighs with mock irritation and leans forward, throwing an arm across Roxas’ shoulders. “C’mere, you. Always acting brave until you start shivering, then I get cold trying to warm your icicle fingers back up.”
Roxas bites his lips, and his cheeks flame with burning heat, but he’s helpless to resist being pulled to Axel’s warm side. “Alright, maybe a little,” he chuckles, scooting over a little to pull in closer.
Axel hums and rubs his arm and looks out at the sky with a smile, eyes glowing in the dying daylight. He always seemed to be one with sunset, with autumn, with fire. With warmth, with comfort, with the most vibrant colours and the undefinable sensation of feeling home anywhere they were together. “I’ll make sure you don’t freeze, like always.”
Roxas chuckles and curls into Axel’s side. “Yeah, no need to rub it in.”
Grinning, Axel rubs Roxas’ arm roughly for a moment before relaxing as well, arm settling comfortably across his shoulders with a soft, content sigh. Within a minute, Roxas feels his eyelids growing heavy and his body relaxing into Axel’s warmth. His heart, however, beats too hard to let him actually drift off. He pretends to, though, slowly slumping his head against Axel’s shoulder while his eyes fall shut. Axel shifts and settles his arm more firmly around him.
The words “I love you” hover behind his lips, and he wishes he would’ve said them. He breathes slowly, pretending to doze, surrounded by Axel’s scent of sweat and earth and leaves with just a hint of woodsmoke, savouring every moment.
I’m glad I didn’t tell him and interrupt. It was perfect just the way it was.
Time freezes, perhaps, in this moment of perfect bliss. He’s vaguely aware that, whatever he’s experiencing, it goes on far longer than they actually sat there in that field and that the last rays of red never leave the sky. Absolutely nothing exists in his world but him and Axel, nothing but warmth and love. And Axel loved him in this moment, he knows that now. Every time Axel held him close, it wasn’t just playful teasing or being practical and warming him up, it was because Axel loved him every bit as much as he loved Axel.
This intense, blissfully aching love swells and becomes his only thought, his only concern. He drifts, and he doesn’t mind too much where, because he loves Axel so, so much, and that’s all that could possibly matter.
…
Roxas’ screaming has become one and the same with the roar of the fire. The pure, unadulterated agony is so, so much worse now than last time; last time his mortal life faded from smoke inhalation before the fire could burn every inch of flesh from bones, but now whatever immortal spirit is left of him cannot escape the damage being done to Roxas’ body.
Though, that isn’t entirely true. Axel is aware that his own body is still right there, still embracing Roxas’, and he knows he can return to it any moment to escape the hell burning Roxas from within.
He’d never think for a moment of entertaining his own escape. He’d burn and burn and burn like this for an eternity before he let Roxas feel a moment of this. For Roxas, to protect him or ease his suffering or just to stay at his side a moment longer, he would go through anything.
And even if he can’t stop screaming, even if every moment of flames eating away at Roxas’ flesh is torture, it isn’t all-consuming. He can feel Roxas’ consciousness tucked away and safely dreaming, waiting to find out whether whatever brought Axel back deemed him worthy as well.
Axel would go to any lengths to destroy himself if not and if he doesn’t simply burn away as well once this last fire he sparked dies away. If Roxas can’t be preserved, he dearly hopes they can simply burn away together.
Warmth and the tenderest love radiates from Roxas’ dream, so intense and painfully joyous that Axel would cry if he could. It’s worth it. All of the pain is a small price to pay to know Roxas’ love and keep it safe. If the worst happens, Axel is sure that Roxas will pass gently, slipping from whatever happy dream he is having into oblivion without having to experience the damage of his body for even a moment.
He doesn't know how or why he knows this, but he knows it as surely as he’s known that Roxas was safe from every fire he set, as surely as he knew that the village would be destroyed tonight, as surely as he knows the weather will turn and the forest fire will be extinguished come morning. All that waits to be known that Axel is concerned with is whether the rain will scatter the ashes of two burned corpses or not. If their ashes were to mingle together and soak into the ground as one, he wouldn’t mind that at all.
He has become so used to pain that the first strikes of rain against Roxas’ smouldering body come as shocking as the prick of a needle, so startling he almost flinches back into his own body out of reflex. He cannot puppet Roxas’ body, only carefully hold it, so he can’t open his eyes to look at the state of their bodies or their surroundings.
The pain eases as the fire is extinguished, and the lingering crackle of fire is stifled by the muffled patter of rain on fresh ash. Soothing cool washes over Roxas’ body, and Axel suddenly feels a stirring, practically a push, jolting him back to his body.
He rapidly blinks his eyes open, finding himself staring at the ground with his cheek on Roxas’ shoulder and arms draped limply around Roxas’ body. Blinking a few more times, he unconsciously tightens his arms, feeling his heart speeding up and the flame in his chest fluttering within his ribs, realizing somewhat absently that it’s no longer open to the air and that the rain is falling on his skin. For several breathless seconds, he’s too afraid to move, to look, to confirm their fates.
Then Roxas stirs, chest rising, and Axel sharply sits upright, lifting his hands to reach for Roxas’ face.
And he’s perfect, skin stained and smudged with the ash running in wet rivulets but now utterly unburned. Axel’s breath hitches in his throat, and he watches Roxas’ eyelids scrunch then crack open into slits just before Axel’s palms cup his cheeks. He blinks, then his eyes open halfway, dazed for a moment before beautiful blue focuses on Axel’s face. Remaining sitting perfectly still, Roxas’ eyes traverse Axel’s face for a silent moment, as if assessing whether this is another dream, but Axel can’t hold back a sharp exhale, nearly a laugh of joyous relief.
Immediately, a smile like a beam of sun breaking through the clouds spreads across Roxas’ face, and he sits forward, eyes gleaming, reaching up for Axel’s face.
His touch is soft and warm, and Axel laughs again as his eyes drift shut, and he tilts his face to lean into Roxas’ probing fingertips. When Roxas’ palm presses to his cheek, Axel can’t stop himself from taking it in his own hand, nuzzling into it, grateful for the rain hiding the tears he can feel running warm down his cheeks. His other hand trails from Roxas’ face and falls to rest softly on Roxas’ chest, feeling the gently thrumming heat beneath his skin. Heat and unconquerable life.
When he slowly opens his eyes again, Roxas is looking around them with eyes wide with awe, so Axel somewhat reluctantly looks as well. In the muted grey of an overcast morning, the larger trees remain standing stoically, scorched but unfailing, while most of the undergrowth has been levelled, enough that, far in the distance, the empty space the village used to inhabit is visible, brought down to nothing but blackened building frames criss-crossing in the air. Axel feels himself take a deeper breath as his chest lightens with a sense of resolution.
It’s over.
And yet they continue.
He looks at Roxas again, golden hair darkened brown by the rain flattening it to his head, and smiles before turning to press a kiss to Roxas’ palm.
Startled, Roxas looks at him again, and his cheeks promptly flush pink. Axel slides his hand up to hold Roxas’ shoulder, softly thumbing over his collarbone. “I love you, Roxas,” he whispers, voice unexpectedly rough with upwelling emotion.
Roxas takes a shaky breath, smile growing wider across his face and squeezing his eyes. “I love you, too,” he whispers back, thumb rubbing across Axel’s cheekbone while his other hand reaches out to rest on Axel’s waist. He pulls himself up to his knees to step closer to Axel, glowing with joy as he leans in, and Axel stretches up towards him.
They simply melt together, unbothered by the rain running and dripping over their faces and bodies, only concerned with the gentle caress of their lips building with excitement. Together, is the only coherent thought that rises above the rushing waves of overwhelming joy in Axel’s mind.
He doesn’t know how long they sit crouched on the ground, lips locked together, before they gradually drift apart and he impulsively stands. They have forever now, after all, to make up for lost time. He weaves their fingers together and helps Roxas to his feet, eyes locked, all but lost in each other.
In the ground beneath them, he can feel the promise of vibrant new life below the blanket of ash.
Roxas squeezes his hand as if he plans to never let go, not that Axel would ever disagree. He doesn’t know where they’ll go, but he supposes that doesn’t matter much now. They could go everywhere or nowhere if they so chose; hold each other until the stars fall and die around them or walk until every inch of the earth knows them.
For now, hands entwined, they slip silently away, deeper into the woods, together.