A/N: -crawls out of corner- Hello. Guess who's alive? I've been totally eaten by summer work and school work and am just now getting back into the swing of things. I'm so sorry this isn't a Five Acts or Motel update, but it's literally the first thing I've been able to write in months, for any fandom or pairing, and I needed to get it out there.

Anyway, this will explore canon! Shocking, I know, but after discussing the concept of Roxas potentially influencing other Nobodies and making them feel with my lovely beta, DARiCAT, I had to write something. She wrote "Statistical Impossibility" - which you should read if you're a fan of LexZex - and I wrote this, which will chronicle those six days with the Organization which Roxas can't quite remember. A lot can happen in six days. -pokes the rating- Including some AkuRoku of slightly dubious consent. Nothing too bad.

Anyway, enjoy the first day of Roxas' existence, and I'll see you soon!

---

Day 1

---

Roxas.

Roxas was the name of the kid he was looking for, the name of a new Nobody, one more hopeless, unfortunate, pitiful existence stranded between Darkness and Light. Roxas. Nobody of Sora, he'd been told. Important, he'd been told. Find the kid and bring him back to the World that Never Was. Simple enough. He was used to more difficult missions. This would be a breeze.

"But how will I know I've got the right kid?"

"You'll know him when you see him, Number Eight."

Helpful, Xemnas. Very, very helpful. And oh-so-informative, too. But that was the Superior for you; he often strung words together without caring whether you understood him or not. You always did, somehow. Axel was not stupid, and by no means the village idiot, as some would claim, but he really had no patience for the constantly cryptic lines he had to put up with from his boss.

Regardless, he had a mission, and Axel had not yet botched a mission, not in his seven years with the Organization. The fact that this mission had come straight through Xemnas, and had not, in fact, been passed to him through Saïx, meant that it was too important to screw up.

Well, good. Xemnas had given this job to the right guy.

"Alright then, Roxas," he said, briefly scanning the square in front of the Twilight Town Train Station as he stepped out of his portal. "Where'd you run off to?"

Well, not here. The square was devoid of people. Axel liked that. Too many questions were raised when an almost-man appeared out of thin air. The Organization had only one way of dealing with questions, and Axel wasn't really in the mood to set innocents on fire that afternoon. Too messy. Really, getting his hands dirty on a simple seek-and-retrieve mission seemed a little much. He did spy a few Heartless, though, on the other end of the square, which was strange—they usually appeared when there were people around. Shrugging, he quickly immolated them with a snap of his finger, then walked to where they'd appeared, the spot only marked by thin wisps of smoke curling up into the clear sky, and thought about it.

Roxas, Xemnas had said, was the Nobody of Sora, which really meant very little to Axel except that Sora was a Keybearer and that was important to the Organization's plans. Xemnas theorized that since Sora could wield the Keyblade, Roxas could as well, which meant the unfortunate kid would act as a beacon to the Heartless. All Axel had to do was follow the trail of Heartless and he'd be able to find the kid no problem. Of course, he'd have to get to Roxas before the Heartless did. Otherwise, there might not be much to take back to Xemnas. He'd be torn apart by Heartless who thought him a threat, and who would look for a heart that wasn't there.

"What a nuisance," Axel sighed, summoning his chakrams. If only the kid had gone with Xemnas when he'd received his name, instead of walking the other direction. If only Xemnas had thought to go after the stupid kid himself. But, no, Xemnas wanted the Keybearer to come into the Organization of his own free will, or what remained of it, and whatever Xemnas wanted, Xemnas got.

So, Axel would have to find the kid before the Heartless did, and make nice. And he could make nice, sure. It was just annoying to have to do so. It was all so simple. Simple was easy, sure, but it was also boring as hell.

Whatever. Axel walked out of the square and down the street, only to see another Heartless—a Shadow—running along in front of him. He had been about to ambush it when he realized it might be able to lead him straight to his target, so instead he did nothing, watched it vanish around a corner, then followed quietly, so as not to startle it into attacking. Who knew these little guys would ever prove so useful?

He had just cut across the next street when a blur of blond and camouflage darted in front of him. Having very, very good reflexes, as most Nobodies did, Axel veered to a halt just before he hit the kid. The kid stopped, too, and looked up at Axel with uncaring brown eyes, apparently not about to apologize for nearly hitting a perfect stranger. Sheesh, what were they teaching kids these days? About to move on, Axel hesitated for a second. Was this Roxas? He was, supposedly, the right age. But no…no, he didn't seem right in the slightest. Perhaps that was what Xemnas had meant. The real Roxas would seem right.

"Watch where you're going, man," the kid said, then he took off running once again.

Axel shook his head, then, realizing he'd lost the little Shadow, cursed. He started walking in the direction he had been before he was so rudely interrupted. Then, quite suddenly, he felt an odd tingling sensation in his chest. He stopped. That was…interesting, to say the least. He hadn't felt anything from that particular part of him in years. He took a step forward, and the tingling intensified. A step back, and it lessened.

Ah. So this was what Xemnas had meant. He had said Roxas was a special existence. Convenient, really. Axel'd follow this feeling, whatever it was, until he found the boy. Then, he'd cozy up to him and take him back to the Castle, would be allowed to take the day off early, and everyone would be satisfied.

Axel began to run. The tingling feeling in his chest began to spread throughout the rest of his body, to his arms and legs, nearly propelling him forward. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought that what he was feeling was apprehension, and that a beating heart in his chest driving him on, pumping adrenaline into his system. Axel hadn't possessed a beating heart in years, and he almost laughed at the fact that he felt like he had one now, despite the fact that it wasn't really funny at all.

Special existence, indeed.

He found Roxas lurking beside one of the storefronts, staring at the wall. He knew that it was Roxas because no one but a new Nobody would look so intently at nothing at all with those wide, unseeing eyes. And Axel also knew it was Roxas because of the way his chest threatened to burst at the sight of him. There was something sick, something very wrong about this, but he couldn't fret over it. Instead, he approached, most ungracefully, and grabbed the boy's shoulder, unable to stop himself.

Something curious happened when he did that. He would have said it felt like someone had run an electric current up his arm, but since he had once had an electric current run up his arm, no thanks to Larxene, he knew this not to be true. Try as he might, however, he couldn't come up with a better way to describe it. Something jolted from Roxas' body and had been channeled up Axel's arm, something jarring that made the tingling cease and unnerved Axel because it wasn't logical. None of the other Nobodies had ever done anything like this. He hadn't signed up for this.

"Are you Number Thirteen?" he demanded, suddenly irritable, jerking the boy around to look him in the face. "Roxas?"

Roxas said nothing. He merely looked up at Axel with huge, empty blue eyes, and his pale face wore no expression whatsoever. Two symptoms of being a Nobody, at least at first. The body had trouble accustoming to such an existence, the scientists said. Initially, there was always some trouble responding to external stimuli. And, boy, was Roxas unresponsive now. Axel was glad he had outrun the Heartless to him, because otherwise they would have made mincemeat of this kid in seconds. Now that an Organization member was here, they wouldn't dare to get so close.

"Can you hear me?" Axel asked again, pointlessly. He needed to speak, though. It was distracting him from the fact that he may have felt a surge of genuine relief. Genuine relief. "Roxas. Is that your name?"

Axel waited. Roxas remained silent. Axel reminded himself that his duty here was to make nice, and no matter how weird the kid was, or how unresponsive, he had to be polite. "Right, then," he said. "Roxas. That is your name. I'm telling you that."

Roxas' face remained as blank as ever. Axel gave up.

"You're not safe here," he pressed. "There are Heartless and all sorts of nasties waiting around to pick you up. You're lucky I got here first. Come on. I'll take you home."

Roxas tilted his chin upward slightly, then blinked. Well, that was a response. Sort of.

"Home," Axel repeated. "It's not as if you have anywhere else to go, right?"

Hell, none of the other Nobodies had been this bad. They'd all had the same blank look, and they were all a little slow to respond initially, sure, but none of them had been deaf, dumb, and mute. Axel scrutinized Roxas for any real signs of life, and thought he felt the boy's shoulder tense under his hand. Maybe he was reacting to the suggestion of not having anywhere to be. Axel took a deep breath—unnecessarily, but it had become a habit, one that was difficult to break after having been human—and tried to calm himself down. Yes, there was freaky shit going on here. Axel had dealt with freaky shit before. But something about this encounter with this particular Nobody was making him more alarmed than he had been since before…well, before he'd lost his heart.

But that was impossible, wasn't it? It was impossible for him to be freaked out. And, indeed, the unwanted feeling was ebbing away, the longer he held Roxas' shoulder, looked into those eyes. The fear was being replaced, however, by a sort of pity. Roxas knew no better. He was a new Nobody. He wasn't capable of controlling his own actions. And those eyes were so blank…

Time for a new tactic, before he got too drawn in.

"Alright, how's this? You spend a little time with me, and then, if you want, we can go back to the Castle." Axel offered Roxas a thin-lipped smile which was not returned. "I'm a nice guy. I promise. See, look."

He took Roxas' hand and led Roxas across the street to a different store, where, on an impulse (an impossible impulse, said a little voice inside his head), he bought two sea-salt ice cream bars. He was rewarded with an odd look from the cashier, but he supposed that a grown man in a funny robe leading an unresponsive teenage boy by the hand would have seemed a little suspicious to someone who wasn't in the know. Oh well. Axel took the ice cream and walked away, making sure he was out of sight before dropping Roxas' hand and opening a portal.

That did garner a reaction from Roxas, who looked at Axel, his expression still blank. Axel thought he might have imagined a little bit of curiosity flickering in those glassy eyes. "It's perfectly safe," he said, reassuringly, feeling a small, subtle pang in his chest at how helpless Roxas was. "You really are a zombie, aren't you? Well, go on through. I'll explain them later. I'm not in the mood right now."

Roxas gave no sign that he had understood, but did take one tentative, shuffling step forward, then another, until he had disappeared into the darkness. Axel sighed, then followed. This was turning into one hell of a mission.

And Xemnas owed him munny for that ice cream.

---

"See?" said Axel. "This isn't so bad."

They were sitting together on the ledge of the Twilight Town Train Station, high up on the tower. Axel sometimes came here alone, and watched the sunset. He knew, from another life, that watching the sunset was infinitely better with company, but none of his fellow Nobodies would, of course, join him. He wasn't even sure why he did it, really. Habit, perhaps? A testament to a girl he'd loved in that other life? Either way, he hadn't told anyone he did it. He knew that Nobodies didn't look fondly upon sentimentality.

But Roxas wasn't going to be telling anyone, was he?

He'd had to show Roxas the way to hold the ice cream, and how to eat it. That had been worrying. The other Nobodies had known how to eat, at least. But the boy had stared blankly at it when Axel placed it in his hand, so Axel moved Roxas' wrist and raised the ice cream to his mouth, letting Roxas taste it. He seemed to like the flavor, so he began to nibble tentatively at the bar, which was when Axel decided that, as long as he didn't choke, it was alright to leave him alone and let him eat. Axel's own ice cream had begun to melt by that point.

"What are you?" Axel wondered, and it worried him, because he wasn't the type to ask those sorts of questions. Rhetorical questions with impossible answers were better left to Xemnas. And it worried him more because he was worried, so he stopped talking and watched Roxas eat instead.

Roxas had light blond hair and a round face. He was small. Axel found that surprising. That meant that Sora, the fabled Keybearer, the one the six Elders had been discussing constantly, was little more than a child himself. How old? Fourteen? Fifteen? Young, for someone so important. Roxas' hands and feet were a little bigger than the rest of him, which meant he still had growing left to do. And yet, he was cute, with that small, straight nose and those clear blue eyes. Rather, he would have been cute if he weren't so out of it.

"Bet the girls are all over you where you come from," Axel muttered, without really knowing why. "Or all over Sora." He glanced down at his knees, thinking that they would be more interesting than Roxas. They weren't. The boy was actually much more fun to look at. "You're not him anymore," Axel said. "That might take awhile to get used to."

Roxas nibbled his ice cream.

Axel sighed. Talking with Roxas would have been really depressing if he had a heart. In fact, it was depressing anyway. Axel felt as if sadness were a faint idea drumming at his temples that wouldn't leave him be. Why would he be sad, though? Feeling sorry for Roxas? Roxas was just going to be another coworker of his. Axel shouldn't sympathize with his plight. Every single goddamn member of the Organization—perhaps with the exception of Xemnas—had a sob story.

And yet, a part of Axel wanted to care. Perhaps because all that had been inside him all of these years was this emotional void, this great emptiness that all Nobodies shared. He yearned for better, or he would have, if he could. And now these illusions of emotion came along, and—

"It's…salty," said a small, faint, rusty voice from his left. Axel realized, almost startled, that it was Roxas who had spoken. The boy was looking down at his ice cream, as if contemplating its flavor.

"What?" Axel asked, very softly.

"Salty," Roxas repeated, his voice no stronger than it had been before. "But…sweet, too."

A wave of something—tenderness, it was definitely tenderness, although Axel had never been a particularly tender person outside of certain contexts—washed over Axel, leaving him entirely vulnerable. "I guess it is, Roxas."

"Roxas," Roxas echoed quietly. "Number Thirteen. Roxas."

Gently—he'd never been a gentle person, either, not since becoming a Nobody—Axel rested a hand on Roxas' shoulder. "That's right," he said, his gloved fingers brushing a lock of golden hair. "You're learning."

"Number Thirteen," Roxas said again. "Roxas."

And then Axel surprised himself, because, the longer his hand remained on Roxas' shoulder, the more potent the feelings of pity and tenderness became, and he felt, felt, the need to lean forward, slowly—very slowly, though it wasn't as if Roxas knew what Axel was doing anyway—and press his lips to Roxas' cheek. He'd wanted, he realized, to go for Roxas' mouth, and the direct contact, lips against skin, made the urge ten times worse. Roxas didn't move.

"Damn it," Axel whispered, and then really kissed him.

Roxas' lips were soft and unresponsive and sort of cold because of the ice cream, but none of that mattered to Axel. All at once, he was overcome by feelings—feelings he hadn't felt for years. Hunger, sadness, pity, confusion. Desire. The last flared up inside of him like a rare flame he couldn't control. He wanted to feel more of them. He wanted. He moved a hand to the back of Roxas' head and shifted his position to deepen the kiss, which was difficult since Roxas' body wasn't reacting to anything Axel did. He pressed the boy closer to him. He felt warm.

And then another feeling welled up inside of him—disgust. He shouldn't be doing this. This was insane, and Roxas was barely conscious, and it wouldn't have mattered to Axel except that it did. This was disturbing. The kid was a zombie, and Axel knew from the way his body was beginning to react that this was going to go too far too fast. It would be rape, and Axel had no idea what he wanted but he didn't want that. Roxas had been through too much today already.

He pulled back. Roxas' expression revealed nothing.

"You don't even know my name," he said, then laughed bitterly, cupping Roxas' cheek in his palm. "You don't. I never said it."

Roxas remained silent. The ice cream trembled in his hand, threatening to fall off the stick.

"It's Axel," Axel said. "Got it memorized?"

Roxas' eyes flickered downward. Then, he said, "Number Thirteen. Roxas."

Axel sighed and removed his hand. "You're lucky Xemnas sent me to get you," he remarked, turning away so that he wouldn't be tempted again. The emotions were retreating now, leaving only emptiness and a faint trace of relief. "Marluxia would have had you in a heartbeat."

Unsurprisingly, Roxas had nothing to say to that. Axel closed his eyes. "Finish that," he said, gesturing to the ice cream. "You'll have to make up your mind soon. Whether you want to come back with me or not."

"Come…back."

"Back." Axel flicked his ice cream stick off the side of the tower. His ice cream had melted beside him. His body temperature had increased when he kissed Roxas. It happened. "To the Organization. Organization XIII."

"Number Thirteen," Roxas repeated.

"That's you."

"Thirteen. Organization XIII."

"That's what we're called. We're all Nobodies, like you." Axel looked out at the setting sun. "And it's getting late, so if you want to go, we should go now. Otherwise, you can sleep here tonight."

Roxas hesitated, then, very lightly, placed his free hand on top of Axel's, still staring out at the sunset. He licked the last of the ice cream off of the stick, then, as Axel had done, tossed it off the tower.

Axel took it as assent, and opened a portal.

---

They arrived this time in a barely furnished room. A bed lay in one corner, and a dresser stood against the opposite wall. That was all. Next to the bed was an open window, which opened onto a glorious view of Kingdom Hearts, what the Organization, apparently, was striving for. Axel couldn't care about that. Those plans were in the hands of the Elders. He closed the portal, and Roxas stood in the center of the room, unmoving, as Axel went over to the dresser.

"You'll need to wear this," he said, picking out a pair of pants and one of a few black cloaks stashed in the drawer. "The cloak'll be a little big on you, since it was one of Zexion's spares, but someone will get you a better one in a day or two."

He held the clothing out to Roxas, who stared at it blankly. Axel, growing impatient again and mildly antsy at being stuck in the same tiny room with Roxas, waved it under his nose. "Hey. Put it on."

Roxas, it seemed, was no longer feeling chatty. Realization dawned.

"You don't know how," Axel stated flatly. He shook his head. "Okay, you have got to be kidding me."

His only response was a blink.

"Alright." Axel closed his eyes, then opened them again. Roxas didn't even look confused. He looked simply empty. "Well, get undressed, and I'll show you how to put them on."

Still nothing.

"Oookay. Don't know how to do that either. Right." Axel was beginning to think that Xemnas had, in fact, sent the wrong guy for this job. After what had happened earlier, he didn't trust himself around the kid. He hesitated, then went and locked the door to the room. "So, just stay still and don't look cute."

Roxas obeyed to the best of his abilities, but it was difficult, now that Axel knew what Roxas could do, to keep his mind from sinking into the dark, dark recesses of certain perversion. He just reminded himself that, with any luck, it wouldn't be long until Roxas was conscious and possessed more free will and understanding of his surroundings, and then sleeping with him would pretty much be a-ok. He was young, yes, but that sort of thing hardly mattered in Organization XIII, where many of the members slept around to try to regain some slight imitation of feeling or just to pass the time. There was a certain way of being in the Organization which Roxas would just have to get used to.

That didn't stop Axel's hands from shaking a little as he pushed Roxas' white shirt off of his shoulders and unzipped the black one he wore under it. He tried to avoid looking at the boy as he did so, but it couldn't be helped. And it wasn't as if Roxas were a particularly gorgeous specimen of Nobodyhood—he looked much like one would expect a fifteen-year-old boy to look without a shirt—but the combination of the lack of clothing and the fact that Axel's gloved hands would occasionally come into contact with Roxas' bare skin and send him brief shots of emotion made it difficult for Axel to resist backing him up to the other side of the room and pressing him down into the sheets. It was strange. He'd never been attracted to children before.

"Step out of your shoes for me?" Axel asked, almost pleading, and, after a minute or so of fumbling, Roxas figured out how to do that much. Axel then, with only the slightest of glances, helped the boy remove his pants, then instructed him to go sit down on the bed. He wondered what was wrong with Roxas, that he had no idea how do to this himself. Unless…unless he'd never done it before…but he'd come from Sora, so he had to have.

Perhaps he didn't remember. Perhaps he thought he hadn't.

"Alright," Axel said, heaving a sigh of relief once Roxas sat on his bed wearing only socks and underwear. "Hardest part is over. Now we're going to get you dressed. Basically, do everything in reverse. Got it memorized?"

Roxas didn't. Just getting him back into the standard pants was a struggle in itself, one that involved much stumbling and tripping over hems and Axel having to unfortunately hold the boy up a lot. Eventually, after a lot of effort, Roxas had been re-clothed. The shoes he'd been provided with were a little large in the toes, and the cloak nearly came down to his fingertips and brushed the floor, but it would do for now.

Meanwhile, once it was all over, Axel leaned against the wall by the door, panting, completely exhausted. Never in his nonexistence had he ever wanted to lie down in his room and close his eyes more than he did that very moment. He was drenched from head to toe in a thin, sticky sweat which was evaporating quickly in the cool air, and he had to press a hand against his eyes to keep his vision from swimming. He didn't think he'd been so emotionally drained when he had been truly capable of emotion. Fighting this had left him…so…weak.

He wasn't sure why he had to fight it at all. He could easily just have his way with Roxas and get it over with. No one was around to stop him. The door was locked. The Superior had no idea when Axel had returned, really. He hadn't checked in yet. Surely the extra time spent wouldn't make that much of a difference. But whenever he pursued this train of thought, he hit up against a strange roadblock. He didn't want to. Seeing that dopey zombie look on Roxas' face, how clueless and disoriented the poor kid was, brought on a new surge of pity. Axel, for all of the terrible things he'd done, couldn't bear to hurt that.

That was one hell of a self-defense. All of the Nobodies had some kind of element, Axel recalled. Perhaps Roxas' was emotion?

How ironic.

He grinned. He had a tendency to crack jokes or bring out humor when prospects were looking bleak. "I must look like a wreck, huh?" he asked Roxas, mopping off his forehead with his sleeve. "You have no idea what you're doing to me."

Roxas looked back blankly. Of course he didn't.

Axel stood up, shook his head, straightened his robe. "Well, let's get you to the Superior before you can cause anyone else any trouble, yeah? Then I'm going to bed and taking a very long nap. Come on. Follow me."

---

Xemnas watched with interest as Roxas, their Number XIII, walked into the Round Room, Number VIII trailing behind him.

So, their Key of Destiny had finally arrived.

---

A/N: I am well aware of what Roxas' element is. :) Axel, however, is not at all. Not yet.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that, and I'm happy to be back. I'll hopefully get around to updating more of my stories very soon!