KH II -- I Can't
Title: I Can't
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts II
Pairing: Axel/Roxas
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 888
Warnings: blood, stubbornness
Summary: He wanted to die, and he wanted to live forever.
Author's Note: I hadn't seen head or tail of the game, but Nijuuni on deviantART is fantastically talented, and I'd been art-stalking her, and I came across Let Me Go and had to write something.
I CAN'T
The moon cast frail patches of light, filtered and distorted by the windowpanes, onto the carpet. They looked like a hopscotch game from a long, long time ago, a time when it seemed as though things might just work out. Like yes/no boxes, to be adorned with Xs, boldly stating some negligible preference. Like a chessboard.
Checkmate, Roxas thought, and the word ricocheted, razor-edged, against the tender innermost layer of his skull.
And wasn’t that it? It was always the innermost layer with Axel. It was always something buried deeply in Roxas’s chest, something at the very base of his being, that Axel stirred up into a maelstrom that left his head spinning and his eyes watering and his heart pounding fit to shatter his ribcage into a thousand ivory pieces.
He wanted to die, and he wanted to live forever.
He felt the presence behind him long before Axel spoke.
The voice was so horribly Axel’s that the pit of Roxas’s stomach twisted at the unfamiliar coldness to it.
“You can’t leave.”
Not a question; not a query; not a negotiation. An order. A prohibition.
Roxas sometimes thought he knew Axel better than Axel knew himself. Some of the things that flickered in his eyes, that tugged his lips every which way, that burned beneath his fingertips-these were things Axel would have denied in the light of day, in his right mind, in any circumstances other than ones in which…
In which he was with Roxas.
Having that kind of power over someone was too hard. He knew Axel’s every angle, Axel’s every line, Axel’s every move; he knew how to coax from the man with the blazing green eyes and the drastic cherry hair any reaction he wanted. Anything in the world.
So he knew what would happen when he inquired, “You think you’re going to stop me?”
And so they fought, precisely as he’d known they would. They fought to gouge, to slash, to kill, to transmute something amorphous and overflowing into the kind of physical pain that they could understand. Into the kind of wounds that they knew how to heal. They tried to hurt each other to smother their own hurt in the cradle where it cried. They were willing to tear each other to pieces, if that was what it took to make it go away.
Roxas had to admit that he hadn’t anticipated that the oozing laceration across his arm would make the metal in his hand suddenly so heavy, meaning that a mistimed backwards leap slammed his shoulder into a lantern mounted on the wall. Glass shattered, tiny fragments glinting where they became trapped in the weave of the shredded black fabric clinging to his frame. Something fed the flames; he didn’t see what, and he didn’t care. Fire devoured things. It destroyed things. It ate up oxygen and crackled with pent-up power like the teeming blood that throbbed through his veins, and he felt something of a kinship with it.
He aimed a vicious blow, and Axel dodged.
They knew each other too well, he thought, knew each other too damn well; and that was why this was a dance, a pas de deux, a tête-à-tête, instead of a slaughter.
He wanted to rip out the vast green eyes that frequented his dreams and crush them beneath his heel, and he wanted to set them among the stars.
Hot tears and acrid smoke blurred his eyes, and he took a staggering step backwards and dropped his weapon. The hollow clang echoed in his ears.
“Why won’t you let me go?” he shouted, hysteria making his voice sound shrill.
Axel hurled his chakram aside, and the vibration of the floor ran up Roxas’s toes through every bone in his body. And then Axel was there-there, where he always was, far too close and never close enough, and the faint, warm scent of him, the scent of life, of hope, of little knowing smirks and of mischievous winks and of lilting whispered promises, was tainted by the invasive metallic tang of the blood that Roxas himself had drawn.
Axel grabbed his shoulders, his eyes ablaze, lit more from within than by the darting orange flames, and his lips curled into a sneer.
Then it faded, and all the fight went out of him. He lowered his head and closed his eyes.
“I can’t,” he said. “Because I can’t.”
Roxas gripped arms he’d learned by the feel of them tight around him. They were the same as they’d always been. Axel was the same. Why couldn’t he become something else? Why couldn’t he be something that Roxas could hate?
“Fuck you, Axel,” he gritted out.
They might have said it, then; might have out and said it all. But the words didn’t come. Not because they weren’t there, but because they were so thick, and because the throats they had to pass through were tight, and their owners’ lungs were singed by the scorched, seething air.
He couldn’t do this anymore.
He wasn’t strong enough.
Roxas pried his fingers from their reassuring resting places, turned his back on the one man he’d dared to try to love, and strode down the corridor and into the darkness.
He wanted to forget it had ever happened, and he wanted to go back.
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts II
Pairing: Axel/Roxas
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 888
Warnings: blood, stubbornness
Summary: He wanted to die, and he wanted to live forever.
Author's Note: I hadn't seen head or tail of the game, but Nijuuni on deviantART is fantastically talented, and I'd been art-stalking her, and I came across Let Me Go and had to write something.
I CAN'T
The moon cast frail patches of light, filtered and distorted by the windowpanes, onto the carpet. They looked like a hopscotch game from a long, long time ago, a time when it seemed as though things might just work out. Like yes/no boxes, to be adorned with Xs, boldly stating some negligible preference. Like a chessboard.
Checkmate, Roxas thought, and the word ricocheted, razor-edged, against the tender innermost layer of his skull.
And wasn’t that it? It was always the innermost layer with Axel. It was always something buried deeply in Roxas’s chest, something at the very base of his being, that Axel stirred up into a maelstrom that left his head spinning and his eyes watering and his heart pounding fit to shatter his ribcage into a thousand ivory pieces.
He wanted to die, and he wanted to live forever.
He felt the presence behind him long before Axel spoke.
The voice was so horribly Axel’s that the pit of Roxas’s stomach twisted at the unfamiliar coldness to it.
“You can’t leave.”
Not a question; not a query; not a negotiation. An order. A prohibition.
Roxas sometimes thought he knew Axel better than Axel knew himself. Some of the things that flickered in his eyes, that tugged his lips every which way, that burned beneath his fingertips-these were things Axel would have denied in the light of day, in his right mind, in any circumstances other than ones in which…
In which he was with Roxas.
Having that kind of power over someone was too hard. He knew Axel’s every angle, Axel’s every line, Axel’s every move; he knew how to coax from the man with the blazing green eyes and the drastic cherry hair any reaction he wanted. Anything in the world.
So he knew what would happen when he inquired, “You think you’re going to stop me?”
And so they fought, precisely as he’d known they would. They fought to gouge, to slash, to kill, to transmute something amorphous and overflowing into the kind of physical pain that they could understand. Into the kind of wounds that they knew how to heal. They tried to hurt each other to smother their own hurt in the cradle where it cried. They were willing to tear each other to pieces, if that was what it took to make it go away.
Roxas had to admit that he hadn’t anticipated that the oozing laceration across his arm would make the metal in his hand suddenly so heavy, meaning that a mistimed backwards leap slammed his shoulder into a lantern mounted on the wall. Glass shattered, tiny fragments glinting where they became trapped in the weave of the shredded black fabric clinging to his frame. Something fed the flames; he didn’t see what, and he didn’t care. Fire devoured things. It destroyed things. It ate up oxygen and crackled with pent-up power like the teeming blood that throbbed through his veins, and he felt something of a kinship with it.
He aimed a vicious blow, and Axel dodged.
They knew each other too well, he thought, knew each other too damn well; and that was why this was a dance, a pas de deux, a tête-à-tête, instead of a slaughter.
He wanted to rip out the vast green eyes that frequented his dreams and crush them beneath his heel, and he wanted to set them among the stars.
Hot tears and acrid smoke blurred his eyes, and he took a staggering step backwards and dropped his weapon. The hollow clang echoed in his ears.
“Why won’t you let me go?” he shouted, hysteria making his voice sound shrill.
Axel hurled his chakram aside, and the vibration of the floor ran up Roxas’s toes through every bone in his body. And then Axel was there-there, where he always was, far too close and never close enough, and the faint, warm scent of him, the scent of life, of hope, of little knowing smirks and of mischievous winks and of lilting whispered promises, was tainted by the invasive metallic tang of the blood that Roxas himself had drawn.
Axel grabbed his shoulders, his eyes ablaze, lit more from within than by the darting orange flames, and his lips curled into a sneer.
Then it faded, and all the fight went out of him. He lowered his head and closed his eyes.
“I can’t,” he said. “Because I can’t.”
Roxas gripped arms he’d learned by the feel of them tight around him. They were the same as they’d always been. Axel was the same. Why couldn’t he become something else? Why couldn’t he be something that Roxas could hate?
“Fuck you, Axel,” he gritted out.
They might have said it, then; might have out and said it all. But the words didn’t come. Not because they weren’t there, but because they were so thick, and because the throats they had to pass through were tight, and their owners’ lungs were singed by the scorched, seething air.
He couldn’t do this anymore.
He wasn’t strong enough.
Roxas pried his fingers from their reassuring resting places, turned his back on the one man he’d dared to try to love, and strode down the corridor and into the darkness.
He wanted to forget it had ever happened, and he wanted to go back.