Title: El Tango de Roxas
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Pairing: Axel x Roxas
Theme set: Beta
Rating: M
Warning[s]: Not for kiddies.
Summary: If you love someone whose body isn't his to share, it's like you're all alone anyway, isn't it?
No. 01 // Walking ::
I know by the look in his eyes what he’s come to tell me, and I wish he would just continue past me and ignore me, because when he stops then he’ll have to say it and neither of us wants anything to do with that conversation.
No. 02 // Waltz ::
He’s barely eighteen, just legal and the bidding war begins, and the Superior basks in the money he’ll make as the wealthy stare with their big sodden eyes at the ripe teen, dancing in circles until a victor is chosen and Roxas is sold off.
No. 03 // Wishes ::
“In another life,” he murmurs from bruised lips in a voice that makes my chest ache, “I’d pick you first, I promise.”
No. 04 // Wonder ::
How in the seven hells is it possible for someone’s eyes to beg so ceaselessly mercilessly blue?
No. 05 // Worry ::
When the Superior says he’s going to be had by a King for a record-breaking price, everyone congratulates him, because a large piece of that pie will go to his pocket; but his eyes keep flickering to me, keep waiting for my reaction, my acceptance, my defeat, my fury…I only cover my mouth with a casual hand and stare out the window, and hope that he can’t see me scowling from there.
No. 06 // Whimsy ::
“Maybe I’ll go back to school,” he muses one day, and I press my face into the back of his neck and wrap my arms around him, over his shoulders and around his chest, and selfishly pray he’ll stay here with me, untouched and seventeen and mine forever.
No. 07 // Wasteland ::
Some like to get, but most often they like to give, which is a little easier, because it’s difficult to fake it when you’re supposed to stay hard the whole time.
No. 08 // Whiskey & Rum ::
The clock tells me he’s only been gone twenty minutes or so; but after tossing back glass upon glass of amber and copper colored liquid, the burn doesn’t lessen any.
No. 09 // War ::
He didn’t protest when Superior came to get him…did he even care to begin with?
No. 10 // Weddings ::
Our fingers entwine, his shy and mine overeager and both covered in the safety of darkness, and together we are a single united entity, neither beginning nor ending in a single discernable place.
No. 11 // Birthday ::
“And many more,” I mutter, and in my heart I feel the very first prick of poison, because now he doesn’t belong exclusively to me anymore.
No. 12 // Blessing ::
“You need to be okay with this,” he says, and he’s still so young, still untouched, that I almost slap him because it will never, ever, ever be okay; instead I nod, silent.
No. 13 // Bias ::
“You’ll get a pump full of royalty-what more could you want?!” I snap, and instead of being angry he grasps my wrists and says, “You.”
No. 14 // Burning ::
Two hours he’s been gone and the poisonous prick spreads like fire through the booze and through my veins, into my lungs until it’s all I can do to keep my own ears from smoking.
No. 15 // Breathing ::
In our final unspoiled evening we don’t speak or swear or giggle or play; we just lie, him tucked into my side and me with my cheek against the top of his blonde head, and air fills us and leaves us with such an intervallic consistency that we forget, for awhile, what tomorrow will bring.
No. 16 // Breaking ::
From the upstairs suite we hear the sound of glass shattering, and something inside me snaps into a thousand white-hot pieces and before I know what’s happening I’m standing, teeth grinding and heart ablaze and no, no, no, what’s mine is mine and I don’t feel like a man if it’s so easily taken from me.
No. 17 // Belief ::
I really thought that I could handle it, because I knew deep down no matter what happened he would return once more to my side; what I didn’t count on was how hard it was to look him in the eye after that first time.
No. 18 // Balloon ::
“We should fly away,” he murmurs, all teeth against my neck and I’m nearly blown away from the sensation.
No. 19 // Balcony ::
Superior has the new recruit up beside his seat and he’s unreachable, unattainable, ‘as glorious to this night, being o’er my heard, as is a winged messenger of heaven, unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds, and sails upon the bosom of the air…’
No. 20 // Bane ::
“If we weren’t here-“ I start, but he cuts me off with a kiss, and the frustration dies into acceptance because we are here and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.
No. 21 // Quiet ::
Upstairs grows silent, and inside, I’m catching fire.
No. 22 // Quirks ::
“I forgot why I asked you to come,” Roxas flushes, a smattering of pink across his cheeks, and I tug his wrist to me and whisper, “Let me stand here till thou remember it.”
No. 23 // Question ::
“If you say it’s cheesy, then why do you read that stuff, anyway?” he asks, frowning from his cozy spot on my sleeper hammock, and I toss one of my books back into the trunk and answer him with a sinful kiss.
No. 24 // Quarrel ::
“You can’t be mad when I come back,” he says, presses his forehead to mine and twines our fingers, but I’m irrational and filled with fury so I push him away, and my silence is as terrible as if I’d just insulted him a thousand times.
No. 25 // Quitting ::
--And yet when he’s in my arms again come the evening I forget all about any disagreement we’ve ever had, because he is my addiction and no matter what happens as long as he’s near I’ll keep bringing him back for my selfish ceaseless wants.
No. 26 // Jump ::
Once the King’s men have taken their liege away I head to the room and slam the door open; the precipice beneath me crumbles, crumbles to dust, because the room is empty, and Roxas is nowhere to be found.
No. 27 // Jester ::
I am a fool to have believed that he would have stayed.
No. 28 // Jousting ::
I’d have done better if I were in the storybooks; the King and I could have had a tourney, and I’d knock him off his righteous steed and stab him until blood came out his ears, and then I’d sweep blondie right off his feet with my hand wrapped around the warmth of his favor.
No. 29 // Jewel ::
“Gone for the money, I’d suspect-wouldn’t you leave too if the King himself offered you a place in his royal harem, to be well fed and well dressed?” Larxene snickers cruelly, and my chest feels empty and my stomach heavy as I remember just how precious he was to me.
No. 30 // Just ::
I’m shocked when it’s enough to stand next to him at the dinner line, and feel the warmth of this stranger’s elbow brush against mine.
No. 31 // Smirk ::
“Got it memorized, blondie?”
No. 32 // Sorrow ::
The stranger pushes my face into the pillow and I shut my stinging eyes, because what if it hurt this much when the King took Roxas, what if he’s still hurting today, every night, to satiate the needs of some strange man and-
No. 33 // Stupidity ::
The whites of his eyes burst red before he stops struggling, and the laughter that bubbles from me is because in my head he looks just like the King.
No. 34 // Serenade ::
Roxas doesn’t speak much, but when he does his voice is soft but strong, and smooth, and when I first hear it I think my knees melt, stomach bursting into a thousand backflips and now I know what Romeo meant when he beckoned beneath the moonlight, ‘speak again, bright angel…’
No. 35 // Sarcasm ::
“Gods I just love you,” I say without thinking one day, and even though I may (or may not) mean it Roxas is so flustered and mad that he doesn’t talk to me for the rest of the night.
No. 36 // Sordid ::
When I come into the room Roxas looks at me, shaken, because I’m filthy and still covered in sweat and spit and sticky, but he holds my cheeks and kisses me back to him.
No. 37 // Soliloquy ::
I read once that merriness often accompanies a man’s last breath, but this one only shits himself and heaves, and the gasping exhale makes me wonder where all those flowery words came from because there is no glory here, no peace, no nothing, only the distant look of raw instinct defeated.
No. 38 // Sojourn ::
“Let’s run away,” I beg, only once, and his eyes are brilliant sapphire blue as he rejects my notion with a nibble on my fingertips.
No. 39 // Share ::
The night is dark, but I’m quick and silent as an alley cat as I make my way through the waterways where I used to play as a kid, and I’m selfish, so horribly selfish and possessive but the pulsing throbbing aching heat in my veins will not be satisfied, because Roxas is mine, and nobody else’s.
No. 40 // Solitary ::
Some of the others start talking when Roxas’ bunk is empty for consecutive nights, and though many giggle and wink and whisper, Zexion comes to me on his own and sternly tells me, “If you love someone whose body isn’t his to share, it’s like you’re all alone anyway, isn’t it?”
No. 41 // Nowhere ::
I’m halfway there when I realize maybe Roxas is better off anyway, consistently with only one person, and for a long time I stay in the hour and gnaw on my bottom lip, plagued by the idea that to love him fully I may have to let him go.
No. 42 // Neutral ::
“I heard that a prostitute killed one of the higher-up officers in the Capitol last June,” a skinny short-haired ninja tells me in a café, and even though I snort and ask what else is new, let it roll over my shoulders, she grins, and I can see the greed for a bounty in her pearly teeth, “I heard that the prostitute looked just like you.”
No. 43 // Nuance ::
“I don’t love you,” I say, and his breath catches as a flash of hurt bursts behind his eyes, and he’s only seventeen and just barely tall enough and definitely too vulnerable, so I kiss him, I love you, I love you, I love you.
No. 44 // Near ::
The Capitol looks as it always has, even though it’s been half a year since I’ve fled, though this time the cuffs cut into my hands as the knight takes me straight into the building where my obsession waits.
No. 45 // Natural ::
I’ve felt little in the past six months, but when we pass the courtyard I see him, and when his eyes lock with mine there is an electricity that ignites in me all over again; he has aged a thousand years and yet not an hour since I’ve last seen him, but between us fizzes the same energy that has always been and will always be.
No. 46 // Horizon ::
When I see the sunset it reminds me of this time when he and I snuck out to the rooftop, snatched ourselves two of Superior’s favorite popsicles, and felt like we owned our own bodies, like we had our own fates to control and our own lives to lead, long and sweet and filled with kisses and embraces and brushes and the taste of sand and salt and freedom.
No. 47 // Valiant ::
That he even comes to my trial is enough to keep me standing tall as I admit with a smile that sickens that I murdered him, and I would do it over again if I had the chance because the red of his eyes made me feel like a man.
No. 48 // Virtuous ::
“I will always love you, Roxas,” I say, and the blonde is left gobsmacked by the confession, but I don’t give him six seconds to think before I pry my wrists free of the loosened cuffs, and Yuffie throws a dozen stars in a circle, and the knight who hosted me into the castle bursts forward to stab the King right below the navel, and my job is to throw the grenades in my pocket and set the whole corrupt room on fire.
No. 49 // Victory ::
He’s in my arms again, breathing through the air thick with smoke, and he understands, and so do I, and I kiss him so hard that both of us are breathless.
No. 50 // Defeat ::
“You’re mine,” he whispers, and his sing-song voice has grown raspy with intensity, “And I don’t want to share you with anyone else, not anymore,” and in that moment I realize that despite my efforts to own him he owns me, fully and completely, and when he kisses me he has all of me, and my merriment is palpable, it must be, as stars burst behind my eyes.