I am way too obsessed with 12/13/8. The pairing, I mean. Larxene/Roxas/Axel. Which this is. Kind of. It's AkuRoku, with some Roxene and a tiny amount of Larxel (oh god, I actually wrote that abomination, but don't worry - it isn't a pairing). This story was actually inspired by something I wrote a while ago, and am dithering over whether to post it or not. Some mentions of SoKai and Namiku are at the end...because I absolutely adore SoKai and Namiku is very fitting. Oh, and a miniscule mention of Selphie/Wakka, which is random and weird but kind of cute, when you think about it. The end is pretty sappy and cute, I think, but my girlfriend (who read this over) thinks it's ridiculously sad. So we'll see.

Warnings: sexuality (but no lemons, as usual), sickness, mentioned drug use, possible confusion

This story is a combination between the most awesome video game in existence and my sick, sick brain. I don't own the characters, or the towns, or anything else connected to the games; however, I do own the idea for this story. Sorry about that, by the way.

It's really fucking early in the morning for most of Traverse Town, but it's bedtime for the heartless street-rats drunk on lust and shadows. Roxas decides to pretend he's not part of the crowd, but only because Sora thinks he last made love to Aero three months ago.

Two hours. Maybe. He's still shaking from the orgasm.

He's got to be back in the hotel room by six or Sora will ask where he's been, who he's been with, why he was out so late. It's funny, because Sora never figures anything out. He's always been heavy in sleep. Mama once joked he could sleep for a year, but that was before she snuffed it.

Sora talks about Riku and Naminé in his sleep. Roxas knows because he's doing it right now. He doesn't know Naminé, he's just seen her picture, but he knows Riku and doesn't like Riku.

Roxas can't talk about his girl, because Riku knows Larxene's still kicking and he's bastard enough to –

"Morning, Roxas," Sora murmurs, stretching under the covers.

"Morning," he replies, and goes to brush his teeth. The bathroom's tucked into the corner and he can't let Sora smell the Elixir on his breath.

Sora's a good brother, but it's not just that. Roxas is selfish and Sora doesn't deserve the shadows and neon signs of the third district. Sora has Riku and Naminé and a smile that reaches his eyes, and Roxas won't let Sora take away the last thing keeping him sane.

It's three o'clock, the end of witching hour, and he's stuck to Larxene like glue. Like duct tape. He's shaking like he's just been electrocuted, feeling like he's seventeen again and they're twisted in the handicap elevator. If he squints his eyes it looks like her eyes are bright because she's actually happy to be with him and for a minute he wonders how they'd look under a white veil, or maybe a black one, depending on the venue. She'd probably make him wear it though, because she likes to see him squirm, see him wriggle like a snake held by its head.

She says squinting makes him look retarded though, so he just shuts his eyes and pretends he doesn't care. He's good at that, she's good at that, and that's how they get by.

When they were eighteen and just out of school, Roxas thought about asking her to marry him. Once. A few times. A lot. But he didn't, because they were just two small-town nobodies with small-town dreams and he couldn't afford a ring. Somerset Academy on Sunset Terrace was full of them, small-town kiddies wishing for bigger and better things.

Roxas got out. Larxene followed. And Sora followed, kinda, but not really, because all Roxas left was a note that told everyone not to follow and Sora truly-honest didn't know the long-lost twin he was looking for actually lived away from Twilight Town. It's weird, probably. Sora cares too much to admit when he's letting people get away with shit-capitalized, but he's always ready to swoop in and save the day like some hero. Roxas knows Sora will ask him to go with him Twilight Town again, but he stays here for a reason and really, he's happier here than he ever was back home. He has Larx, and the ghosts of Twilight Town don't haunt him here.

Larxene wasn't mad when he ditched her the day Sora showed up, just laughed at him and said at least he had a brother. So Roxas let Sora know he was living in Traverse Town, told Sora where the hotel was, and now six months later he still pops up once a month like the random ball of butterflies he is. Comes in with the wind, maybe, who knows?

When Larxene doesn't show up, he isn't worried, because she's forgotten before. She's a free spirit and she does whatever she wants; he wouldn't have her any other way. So he goes to the abandoned House of Merlin – which isn't so abandoned, now that the freak-club-kiddies have found it – and makes a little-while friend in the attic. His name is Lee, or rather L-E-A-commit it to memory, and he's probably a runaway; he's three years younger than Roxas, just shy of eighteen, and refuses to say where he came from.

When Roxas sees the blanket sadness in Lea's eyes, he decides the poor kid probably needs an Aeroshot a lot more than Larxene right now; so he hands the second one over, tells him to avoid the vein – it's the one drug that will kill him because it's an actual poison, not a drug. And watches, impressed, as Lea expertly finds the fattiest part of his arm – which isn't saying much – and quickly pushes the plunger.

A long while later - it takes a ridiculous amount of time to kick in, but it's always worth it - Lea tells him in all seriousness that X is the coolest letter of the alphabet, before going off about parents and names and something stupid. Roxas can't concentrate, even though his tolerance is much better than Lea's (who is trying to balance something invisible on the end of his nose now).

He takes pity on the kid, takes him to the hotel (Sora is gone now, thank the stars), and makes him sleep it off before he can do something dangerous.

Larxene finds him at the Gizmo Café the next morning, sitting on the roof and drinking coffee with Lea. She tells him she's sorry for blowing him off, expertly snatches a pack of cigarettes from an oblivious lady's purse, and asks Roxas for his lighter. Lea watches, wide-eyed, as Larxene lights the thing; and she asks Roxas where he picked up such a cutie.

Roxas tells her irritably that the 'cutie' is named Lea, and he's underage so don't bother. Larx rolls her eyes and flicks Lea's forehead, welcoming him to the family. Roxas can tell by looking at her that she doesn't want the kid to stay very long.

He hears a voice calling.

Sora, she says. Sora, please. I miss you so much.

But then the Aero kicks in. Right on time, thank the stars. He can't deal with that voice any more.

Three weeks later, Lea tells him that it was his birthday yesterday and he's now a legal adult.

Roxas doesn't really know why Lea bothered to tell him that, but whatever. If he just wants a present, Roxas will give him a present. Later that night, after a round of Aeroshots and watching Lea fidget like a kid in a candy shop, Roxas sighs and tells him he's got a present for him.

And he welcomes Lea to the adult world by giving him an X. Lea, or rather Axel, likes the new name, but there's something behind his eyes Roxas isn't sure he wants to recognize. Something that at least tells Roxas an X wasn't really the coming-of-age present the kid wanted.

He wakes from a disturbing dream.

This happens often, but this dream wasn't about a beautiful redhead his dream-self believes he's married to. Instead, it was about an average-looking redhead who sometimes looks at him like Roxas used to look at Larxene, before Mama died and they skipped town.

The look is inappropriately pleasing, and this latest dream leaves Roxas in an uncomfortable state he probably can't relieve because he's stuck between Axel, who takes up an absurd amount of room for such a scrawny kid, and the wall. Larxene is sleeping peacefully on the other side of the redhead and Roxas notices – wincing as Axel moves in his sleep – that if the kid was awake, he'd know about the problem (for it is a problem) quite intimately.

Then the kid opens his eyes.

Somehow it feels like cheating, Roxas thinks, but it's not like anyone actually cares about honesty these days.

Axel's sprawled in front of him, stretched over the wet tiles like too little butter on a big piece of bread, slick from water from Roxas' intended shower and sweat. His eyes are heavy but not with sleep, long red lashes shadowing what Roxas might be able to see otherwise.

"Please, Roxas…"

He likes that. He likes to hear Axel beg. He likes it because it's always what Larxene wants, and he always enjoys what Larxene wants, but he's in this new position and he likes it.

"Roxas…"

He decides to reward Axel for the way he makes Roxas want him, for the absolute pulse he has yet to get rid of. And even though he really wants to, he's not going to fuck Axel. No. Not this kid, the wide-eyed kid from nowhere who used to be known as Lea.

But the least he can do is relieve the pressure building inside the redhead, the average-looking redhead he's not married to.

He gets that shower, eventually, after Axel shakes his way out of the room.

Larxene tells him that Lea – she refuses to call him Axel – has a stupid crush on him, and they should have ditched him long ago. Long before he started sleeping between them, a physical reminder of what was and what is no longer. They're stuck to each other like glue, like duct tape, and Larxene really does look beautiful right after sex.

He tries to connect her green eyes, tries to imagine Axel beside him, and can't.

So he tells her he already knew that, but it's not like he's leaving her for a wide-eyed kid from nowhere, the X-loving kid who now calls himself Axel and who has too much expertise injecting himself, even though his tolerance for drugs is pathetically low.

She laughs and asks if she can have him, then.

An awful sensation, like the one he got when he saw Larxene fucking Demyx, wells up. He doesn't know if it's because Larxene just asked for permission to cheat on him or because he thinks it would be really fucking hot, so he kicks it aside like leaves in fall.

And tells her not unless he can join them.

Larxene ditches them for the communal showers, tells them it was fun, but sorry, Roxas is better.

Axel retorts, dully, that it's not like he ever had sex before that. Fuck, he really is part of this sick family. Roxas idly wonders if that means they're all incestuous, but it doesn't even make sense and he laughs.

Larxene laughs at the both of them, Axel for admitting to losing his virginity in a fucked-up threesome, and Roxas for being a fucking retard. Roxas flips her off and tells her to go take her damn shower, and her eyes glint dully like fireworks in sunlight.

As soon as she's gone Axel turns over, slowly so as not to aggravate the pain in his back, and asks if Roxas would be angry if he died.

Roxas tells him that makes no sense, because suicide is stupid and he'd only be disappointed and really sad, because Axel really is a friend now. He thinks something along the lines of what the fuck, but he doesn't know whether it's because Axel's wormed his way into their lives or because Axel is thinking about his own death or because he actually used the term 'really sad.'

"It's not suicide."

Roxas shrugs and asks what it is, because damn, Axel is so much less fucked up when he's on Aero and he realizes it's corruption of the worst sort.

"A sickness?"

He doesn't bother to answer because Axel asked it, like a question, like a hypothetical situation and Roxas isn't going to put much thought to it until Axel tells him what the fuck is going on.

Kairi listens to the doctor list her options, and she considers carefully.

She thinks to herself, Sora's peaceful princess of heart isn't here right now. Leave a message at the sound of crunching bones.

Then she punches him in the face.

Larxene sucks on a cigarette, smoke cloud swirling in the draft and making pictures. She tells him Lea has a crush on him – tells him not to interrupt, she knows he knows and she'll call him Lea if she wants – and tells him to fucking clean up his act because she's sick of taking care of the stubborn kid who will follow him to the ends of the earth.

He's never hated her, and he still doesn't, but he's pretty damn close. She doesn't know, couldn't know, about the voice and the dreams and the tugging at the back of his mind, like he should be remembering something. He can't stop because if he does he might disappear.

So instead of telling her why, he just tells her if she has a problem with it, she can kick Axel out; he doesn't care.

But he knows she won't, because she thinks the kid's a cutie and he knows she can't decide between them. She never sleeps with Axel, but he knows she wants to and he wonders if the thing holding her back is the same thing that holds him back, except for that one time with both of them.

Axel's young and impressionable and larger than life, even though he's small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Axel's waiting for him in the room, fury in his every movement like the screaming metal Roxas hates. Unlike the music, it's pretty fucking sexy, he thinks, and locks the door because if they start shouting at each other he doesn't want any nosey bitches barging in.

He watches impassively as Axel paces; balls his fists; finally stops in front of him.

"What do you even want from me?"

Roxas is so surprised at the question he answers without knowing the answer yet. "Everything."

Axel's expression only darkens and he hisses, "Except you've never kissed me. You fucked me once, because Larxene wanted me and you couldn't let go of her enough to just let it happen. You gave me a blowjob in the showers and made me think…"

This is so far out of his territory it's ridiculous. Larxene doesn't talk about her feelings. He sometimes doubts she has any. Roxas just ignores his feelings, or drowns them in a river of Aero and the throbbing bass in the House of Merlin.

"Think what?"

"That maybe, you know, I could actually be loved by someone before I fucking die."

Something wells up inside, some panicky feeling that couldn't be panic, not in a million years, because Roxas is long past panicking about anything. But it's drowning and all-encompassing and makes him angry. So for the first time since leaving Twilight Town in the dust, he calculates the distance and backhands the fucker.

The smile stretching across Axel's face is satisfied and inappropriate and Roxas does it again, just to get it off. But the smile only gets bigger, morphs into something like lust, and it scares the shit out of him. Not because Axel is remotely frightening, no, but because it's actually really turning him on.

When the pulse starts up again, he know he's in too deep to ignore it any more, and gives in. Gives into the fucking stupid desires of this kid, this kid. Kisses him, sucks the air out of his mouth, pushes him down on the bed, gives him a choice.

A fucking choice.

But ends up fucking him anyway, because Axel refuses to stop their motion – it's not like Roxas has much self-control at this point anyway – and resists the idea of actually fucking another guy.

"You're too perfect," he says, and Roxas thinks maybe it isn't lust at all, maybe it's hate. But Axel's eyes look nothing like Larxene's. Softer in the middle, sharper at the edges. Awe written across the pupils in the form of dilation. And Roxas realizes it's neither.

He loves the stupid fucker.

Afterward, he can't really call it a good fuck, even though he wants to. It's better than the first time, but he can tell Axel still has no idea what he's doing. He entertains the idea of walking out, telling him sorry, but he's not as good as Larxene.

But then he looks at Axel, peaceful in sleep like he never is awake, fidgeting gone and replaced by steady breathing. This average-looking kid from nowhere is suddenly the most beautiful sight he's ever seen – because of nothing but the way his body curves like a woman and the way Roxas could never think of him as a woman despite this – and he knows he can't do it.

He'll teach him instead.

She doesn't want to face the facts, so she doesn't. The second opinion, and the third opinion, all agree. He's not going to live.

But Kairi refuses to give up. It's only been a year and he still has a chance. So she goes to the abandoned chapel and prays to the darkness, since the light has deserted her. Prays to the dead. Prays to the lesser gods. Prays to Naminé, to Riku, to Axel. Even to Roxas.

Please, she whispers. Please help me-

Roxas pushes the plunger and kisses Axel fiercely and violently until it kicks in.

Begs. Please, fuck me. Oh, god, please. Fuck, please.

But he ends up fucking Axel again anyway. And just like every other time lately, Axel's eyes flicker from green to blue and back again.

Larxene finds him at the House of Merlin and shakes him so hard his neck nearly snaps. She tells him she's sick of this, sick of stupid fucking 'Axel,' stupid kid from nowhere. She's leaving but he doesn't want her to go, because they've been a team since birth, practically.

He promises he'll get rid of the kid, anything, as long as she'll stay.

But he knows she knows he really can't mean that so it's no surprise when she tells him to go fuck his little toy and let her find someone worth finding. He smacks her and she punches him, and then they kiss and fuck one more time. A sendoff, a good luck charm they'll keep in their empty little chests where their hearts would be if they weren't rotted by experience.

He meets her eyes and holds them the whole time, because they never turn blue.

Axel rolls over and tells him, bluntly, that he's going to die. And Roxas listens. Listens to a tale of a car crash, amnesia, hatred, and eventually running out of money for insulin shots. Listens to the end, where Axel finally got sick of waiting to die but never living, and ran away.

Listens to Axel say, like it doesn't matter, that he never expected to actually live this long.

When the story is done, Roxas walks silently into the little bathroom without a shower and locks the door. He stuffs a towel in the crack below the door, sinks to the floor, and for the first time since Mama kicked it, buries his head in his arms and cries.

The desperation in the room, that only Roxas feels as he clings tightly to Axel's sleeping body, is broken by a knock at the door. The only ones who knock are the room service waifs and Sora. He knows it's still nighttime, so it has to be Sora.

Fuck. Sora's going to see Axel, to find them, and –

Maybe it's not such a big deal.

As soon as he opens the door, he feels a pull to his brother and nearly shuts the door. He feels like this is the part where he maybe disappears and wants to hate Sora for it, but Sora probably doesn't even know.

Axel stirs on the bed and Sora stares at the half-naked kid, stares at Roxas, stares at the floor. He's embarrassed, not because they're both guys, but because he knows what sort of intimacy must happen between them.

Then again, Roxas could be off the mark. Maybe Sora's disgusted.

So he just goes back to the bed, and tells Sora he can still stay if he wants.

Secretly, he doesn't want Sora to stay. But Sora does anyway.

The voice is loud and obnoxious, and no matter how much he does, Aeroshots don't drown it out any more. Axel still refuses to fuck him and his eyes turn blue and Sora hasn't left, but he got a separate room because he didn't want to sleep in the hall when the absolute desperation kicked in.

Sora, please, I need you…

I know you can do this, please…

I don't want them to kill you, please come back to me.

He hears this from Axel's mouth, when his eyes turn blue. But his mouth is only saying I love you, I love you, I love you.

"I love you," Roxas murmurs, and for some reason he feels like maybe when he wakes up in the morning, Axel won't be there, because he won't be there either. He hates it.

Kairi watches in awe as Sora's eyes open for the first time in a year.

She wants to throw her arms around him, but she's so scared he'll disappear again that all she does is take his hand, tentatively, while trying not to cry.

"I love you," she says. "I'm so glad you're back…"

But all he says back is, "…Where's Axel?"

Axel looks everywhere for Roxas, but he can't find him. But he does find Larxene. He rushes to her side, grabs her hand, spins her around to face him. The guy with pink hair looks like he wants to deck him, but he doesn't care because it's not like he wants Larxene.

"Roxas…do you know where Roxas is? Have you seen him? Please tell me you've seen him…"

Larxene sneers at him. "Look, kid, I don't know who the fuck you are, or who you think I am, but I don't know a Roxas. So let go and fuck off, or I'll kill you. Got it?"

He lets go and wonders if he's crazy. But when he reaches into his pocket and grasps the photo, he knows he's not.

Living, he figures, isn't worth it. And he decides to let go. He's past his time anyway; he just won't eat and it will go faster.

When Kairi tells him it's definitely one girl and one boy, Sora knows what he wants to name them. Roxas, after the twin brother he could have had if it weren't for the umbilical cord around his neck, and Naminé, after Kairi's little sister who died on her honeymoon with Riku.

Selphie, who has just moved to the Islands with her husband Wakka, remarks offhandedly that she's pregnant too, that Axel sounds like a fine name, don't you think, Kairi?

She holds back tears, thinking of her other younger sibling, the jaded diabetic boy with eyes to match his envy of all the 'normal' kids, who died in a car crash on his way to his graduation from high school.