AN: Hi guys this is the result of me scrolling the Axel tag on tumblr at unholy hours in the morning, stumbling across someone musing on an AU where Axel is the one to get Norted instead of Saix, leading to a sort of role reversal, so I'd just like to say damn ClaireFireDragon to hell because here the fuck I am, writing this instead of I don't know SLEEPING. OR WORKING ON MY OTHER BEHEMOTH PROJECTS. MANY THINGS. THAT I COULD BE DOING. THAT I AM NOT DOING. HERE I AM, WRITING A NEW AU.

Anyways so here's a day in the life of non-possessed Saix, pre KH1. There's a few years to go until that. Axel is the second in command of the Org, and Saix is just a normal lackey, albeit one whose in good with the boss. Axel's still got his Axel-y personality, just with all the unpleasant aspects magnified, and the good parts downsized. The same goes for Saix in reverse, as he's still more quiet and stoic, but considerably less of a prick, due to not being possessed, and not having the constant stress of basically herding cats every day. He mostly stays in his own lane.

The parts in italics are flashbacks on Saix's end, of how the younger Axel ended up being promoted, and the early stages of his possession. He refers to their younger selves as Lea and Isa, with my headcanon having been them holding on to their old names (at least between each other) until after Saix was too far gone into his possession to care, leading to Axel also giving up. Here, that's obviously reversed. There's also my headcanons regarding what exactly the fuck Axel and Saix were plotting together, as they were very obviously up to something, and had been for a very long time, even if it didn't really go anywhere.

Cold Flame

They had decided early on that one of them would have to work their way through the ranks of the Organization. One of them to have the power, and draw the attention of the others, and one of them to quietly support the other from beneath.

There had been many long nights of debate over who would play what role, and endless lists of pros and cons. Finally, they had settled on Lea working to become the second in command; albeit mostly due to him putting his foot down, and declaring that really, he was the manipulator out of the two of them. Which, to be fair, was accurate. Isa was more studious, but Lea was a natural liar and plotter. And now without a heart to get bored and distracted with, his work ethic could rival Isa's if he felt so inclined.

So Lea would work to be second in command, and from there they would have the leverage to get exactly what they wanted.

It had taken a few years. Lea didn't exactly give off the impression of responsibility, and Xemnas wasn't about to promote a dumbass fifteen year old. But as time went by, and Lea started casually taking over more and more responsibilities from the others, Xemnas noticed.

And when Isa and Lea were nineteen, he had acted.

Saix was jolted awake by his alarm going off. For a moment, he was frozen, waiting for a wave of melancholy and grief to hit him, and instead finding only emptiness. But the moment soon passed, and he sighed into his pillow.

He didn't dream often, but he especially hated dreaming about that.

In his personal opinion, any time before noon was a deeply offensive time to have to wake up. He'd never been much of a morning person back when he'd been… well, a person. Losing his heart and gaining a powerful moon affinity had not helped in the slightest.

But slacking wasn't acceptable, so he dragged himself out of bed, and turned off his alarm. And also turned off all his other alarms, which were set to go off at five minute intervals for the next hour.

Saix really wasn't a morning person, and he'd long since learned that he was very capable of sleeping past his alarm. After the second time Axel had physically dragged him out of bed in the morning, he'd started taking extreme measures.

Still half asleep, he staggered to the bathroom, and into the seventh area. Half an hour later, he was showered and dressed for the day, as well as feeling considerably more alive.

The kitchen was fairly quiet, the only ones in there being Luxord, Demyx and Zexion. Luxord and Zexion were usually quiet in most situations, and Demyx, who was also not a morning person, seemed to be attempting to merge with the table, while still consuming a bowl of oatmeal.

Saix wasn't in the mood for cooking, so he instead he took a container of leftover pizza. Unlike most of the other leftovers in the fridge, the rightful owner hadn't thought to mark the container with threats of grievous bodily harm to whoever took it, making it fair game.

He considered joining the other three at the table, but decided against it. Instead, he backtracked to the cupboards, grabbed a protein bar, and headed for the Grey Area.

Sure enough, Axel was in there, sprawled out on one of the couches with his feet up on the coffee table. There were two clipboards left on the cushion beside him, and third was in his hands, one he was reading through intently, pen in hand.

He looked up at Saix's entrance and grinned, the expression sharp, and without any hint of affection behind it.

"Morning Saix. Getting up on your own today?"

He rolled his eyes, and sat down beside Axel.

"That only happened twice. Have you eaten yet today?"

Now it was Axel's turn to roll his eyes, and let out an irritated sigh.

"Yes mother, I had a bagel for breakfast. You know, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to harass your boss about his eating habits. Insubordination, is what this is."

Despite the token protest, he still took the protein bar that Saix handed over, the argument being an old one between the two of them. Ever since Axel's promotion (and whatever the hell Xemnas and Xigbar had done to him that night to make his eyes change colour), he had a tendency to skip meals, or eat less than he should have. Saix ensuring that his friend ate at least two meals a day was not new.

"I think letting you collapse of malnutrition would be insubordination, actually."

Axel snorted.

"Sure, sure. Anyways, sweet Kingdom fucking Hearts, I don't care how big the new guys scythe is, if he doesn't start writing better mission reports, I'm going to shove a chakram somewhere highly unpleasant on his anatomy. I mean really 'Located Heartless and eliminated target'? That's all that happened over a span of five hours? Fuck you. Demyx writes better reports than this. Demyx." Axel bitched, glaring at the paper in front of him, clearly wishing he could set it on fire. Instead, he settled for scribbling what was likely some vicious commentary, and flipping to the next report.

"Didn't you have to set Demyx on fire just to get him to write reports at all?"

"I mean… yeah. But now he writes acceptable reports, so it was worth it."

"Because he's terrified of you."

"Eh. Fear is a good motivator. I fail to see a downside. Yeah, if Marluxia doesn't get his shit together soon, I'm going to give him the Demyx treatment. Make an evening out of it. Might be relaxing, actually."

As Axel mused, Saix considered moving a bit further away on the couch. It was… disturbing, when Axel got like this. He never cared when Saix called him out on his increasingly unnerving methods, and always had some form of cold logic to justify his actions. Conversations like that always left Saix vaguely frustrated and worried, so it was better to just change the subject, and hope Axel went along with it.

"Are you doing anything after work today?"

"Not really, just paperwork. The usual. Why, you have plans?"

Saix gave him a strange look.

"Axel, you're twenty four today."

A rare surprised look came over Axel's face.

"Oh, right. Is that today? Well, I can't celebrate tonight, I'm super behind. We'll do something later, alright? Besides, it's not like the day actually means anything to us."

Saix frowned, but let the matter drop. Axel had said the same thing last year, and they'd never ended up doing anything.

Any sort of holiday was banned within the Organization, but that didn't stop the members who cared from having quiet celebrations on their own. When they'd first lost their hearts, Axel and Saix had fallen into a habit of doing something after work for their birthdays, and spending the solstices in each others rooms, having quiet celebrations. Said celebrations usually boiled down to exchanging presents, and spending the winter solstice hanging out in Saix's room with some candles burning, and spending the summer solstice in Axel's room with some smuggled plants briefly living on the windowsill.

They hadn't done that for years now.

They ate in silence, until Saix finished his breakfast, and left again. He dropped the empty container on top of the dishwasher, and returned to the bathroom to finish drying his hair, and doing the minimal styling he preferred.

When he returned to the Grey Area, Axel had gotten up, and was standing at the front of the room, holding one of his clipboards, the other two having presumably been returned to his room with the rest of his files. He was speaking with Xaldin, and as Saix entered, handed over a mission brief, which the other man scanned over, and then left through a dark corridor.

Axel was all business now, and already had another mission brief in hand, this one being handed over to Saix.

"There's a giant Heartless in Twilight Town. If I were you, I'd stock up on blizzard spells before going in, alright? Kick ass and take names. Also, Demyx is going with you. Don't let him slack off." Axel instructed, clapping him on the shoulder, and handing over the mission brief. It gave about the same information as Axel's explanation had, albeit in more official wording, and more detail. Saix moved back to sit on one of the couches, and wait for Demyx while re-arranging his panels.

Several other members came and went while he waited, before finally, Demyx wandered into the Grey Area, looking slightly more awake than he had at breakfast.

"Hey, you're with Saix today. Giant heartless. Don't fuck it up." Axel ordered sharply, handing over Demyx's copy of the briefing with a sharp look. Demyx winced, took the paper, and quickly retreated to join Saix at the couch.

"I'm ready to go if you are." He said, guessing the blond man would rather not be around longer than necessary.

Demyx gave a quick glance at the mission brief, before nodding hurriedly.

"Yeah, let's go."

Saix summoned a dark corridor, and they both entered.

As soon as they were in the corridor, Demyx shivered.

"Man, I don't know how you're friends with him. He's so… creepy."

Saix shrugged, unable to argue the point.

"We joined the Organization together. He's not that bad."

"Not for you, maybe. He set me on fire! I still have the scars!"

Saix couldn't think of an argument against that that wasn't either stupid, incredibly rude, or both, so he elected for an awkward shrug, and stayed quiet.

Demyx huffed in annoyance at the non-response, and didn't say anything else until they emerged into the perpetual sunset of Twilight Town.

"Sooo, giant heartless, giant heartless… If I were a giant heartless, where would I be?"

"Somewhere with room to maneouver? Let's check the larger areas first."

"Sounds good to me."

Naturally, the giant heartless was not co-operating. They ended up searching the entire town twice, until finally, finally, the damn Tailbunker decided to show up by swooping down on them in the Sandlot.

Needless to say, at that point neither Nobody was overly thrilled with it, and they eliminated the target with extreme prejudice.

"Well, I guess that mission sure flew by." Demyx said cheerfully. The grin on his face made it clear that he knew exactly what sort of pun he was making.

Saix closed his eyes, and sighed.

He hated working with Demyx.

They had noticed the new attention on Lea, and how he was being assigned increasingly complicated missions. Isa and Lea had taken it as a good sign, proof that their plan was working. That they were finally getting somewhere

When Lea was called to meet with Xemnas and Xigbar one day after work, they'd been thrilled. Sure, the message didn't openly say that Lea was being promoted, but they could read between the lines. Lea had left for the meeting with an air of confidence around him.

That night, Isa fell asleep in Lea's room, waiting for him to return.

He didn't.

Lea was missing the next day. When Isa confronted Xigbar about it, the older man had only grinned, and ruffled Isa's hair, claiming that Axel was just getting a full run-down on his new job, and all the complications that it entailed. Isa had been suspicious, but reluctantly left for his mission that day.

When he came back, he immediately checked Lea's room. To his relief, Lea was in his bed, coat, boots and gloves discarded on the floor, and face buried in his pillows.

Isa had gone to shake Lea, to find out exactly what had happened, and why he had been gone for so long. He was slow to react, and when he did finally sit up, Isa flinched back in surprise.

Lea's chest was bleeding sluggishly, the X shaped wound clearly having been caused a while ago, and left untreated since. And more disturbingly, his eyes had changed, the green having turned to gold, and the look in them was flat and empty. Like he had died.

Lea had refused to explain what had happened, eventually shutting down completely and refusing to respond any more.

The next day he was announced as Xemnas's new right hand.

Mission reports really weren't as bad as the rest of the Organization seemed to find them.

All it really meant was giving a detailed description of what had happened on the mission, and anything relevant they might have noticed. Today, that meant describing the Tailbunker's unusual behaviour, and the signs of an approaching Shadow Glob infestation that Saix had noticed. Summarizing it took about fifteen minutes, and soon enough he was handing over his report to a pleased Axel.

After that, the evening was his own.

He decided against returning to Twilight Town for ice cream. He'd spent enough time there today, and honestly, there wasn't really a point. Him and Axel had gone for ice cream on top of the clocktower after work every day at first, but after Axel's promotion, he'd taken to skipping it more and more, before he'd stopped showing up completely. There wasn't much point in eating ice cream alone up there, so Saix had given up on it as well.

So instead, he retreated to the castle's library.

Unsurprisingly, Zexion was there as well, and the two nodded greetings at each other. Reading was still a pastime Saix enjoyed, even if he didn't have nearly as much spare time as he would have liked to pursue it. The castle's library was well stocked, and it didn't take long to find something that looked interesting and take it back to his room.

He read for a while, until it was starting to get late, around seven at night, and he was feeling hungry.

Axel was usually done with the days mission reports by now.

Saix put his book aside, got up, and went to Axel's room.

The Assassin's standing guard let him through without protest, as usual. Axel was sitting at his desk, scowling at his laptop as he typed rapidly on it.

"Knock, asshole." Axel said idly, not bothering to look up.

"I'm guessing you haven't had dinner yet."

"Dinner? But it's only – oh, it's seven."

"Taking that as a no. Come on, you need a break. Let's go get pizza or something."

Axel raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously? No. I'll have a sandwich or something in a minute, I need to get this finished first. Bye."

Saix frowned.

"Axel, it's your birthday. You shouldn't work yourself so hard."

Axel's typing paused, and he closed his eyes for a moment, clearly searching for patience.

"Saix. Birthdays mean nothing to us. Everything means nothing to us. I don't care about holidays. I don't care about celebrating. I don't care about hanging out. Stop pretending that any of this is important. The only thing that matters is getting our hearts back, and this stupid shit is only slowing us down. Get your shit together. Got it memorized?"

Saix was frozen for a long moment, lost for words. Axel didn't bother giving him time to reply, turning back to his computer, and waving a dismissive hand in Saix's direction. Almost immediately, he was grabbed by two Assassin's, and unceremoniously forced out of the room.

He stared helplessly at the eighth portal, before finally giving up, and walking away.

Axel slowly stopped answering to Lea, and kept referring to Isa as Saix, even when they were in private. More and more, Lea slipped away.

Axel's personality began shift as well, becoming something cold and vicious, covered up with fake grins, and seeming levity.

He was faster to resort to violence to solve problems, and had a wider definition of what qualified as a problem. Demyx's habit of slacking led to Axel flat out attacking him, leaving the other Nobody with horrible burns on his side. He stopped spending time with Saix, treating him as more of a tool than a friend, and withdrawing from the others. He developed disturbingly sadistic tendencies, ones that he definitely hadn't had as a Somebody. Some days it felt like Axel had been taken over by an entirely different person.

Axel also stopped taking care of himself, often forgoing sleep and food unless Saix stepped in and ensured he looked after himself. Axel didn't even pretend to be grateful when he did, apart from not giving anything beyond a token protest.

And through it all, all Saix could do was helplessly watch his oldest friend spiral.

Saix was woken up by someone else entering his room. The lack of reaction or warning from his Berserkers made it obvious who it was.

His clock said it was two in the morning.

Saix groaned into his pillow.

This had better be good.

"Saix? I'm sorry. About earlier. I don't know why I said all that." Axel said, voice quiet, but clearly upset.

Saix sighed.

He never knew how to handle moments like these. When Lea would shine through for a while, and be horrified by his actions, usually after he'd done something to hurt Saix. Normally, Saix would try to still be angry about it, or hold something of a grudge. To not let a single apology wipe away years of problems.

But right now, Saix was tired, and Axel was sorry, and that was good enough for him.

"C'mere." He muttered, rolling over and lifting his blanket.

Axel didn't say a word, but climbed into bed, burying his face in Saix's chest. Saix wrapped an arm around him, and closed his eyes again.

In the morning, Axel would be gone. He'd be in the Grey Area, handing out missions, and would treat Saix like every other member. He would be cold, violent, and sadistic, and do it all with a fake grin on his face.

But right now, in the dark of his room, Saix couldn't see Axel's eyes, golden and empty. He couldn't see the scar on his chest, branded right above where his heart should be. He couldn't tell how warped and wrong Axel had become.

For once, he could fall asleep with Axel in his arms.

And he did.

AN: So, that last bit can be read as platonic bed sharing, or romantic bed sharing, I can go either way. It's definitely not sexual bed sharing though, and you should really not read it like that. The context is that Axel is having a rare moment of lucidity, realising that something is very deeply wrong with him, and seeking comfort.

Does Axel know he's possessed? I don't think so. Considering Saix's death lines in KH2, he legitimately believed he was fighting to get his heart back. He knew something was different about him, sure, but not what. And the control Xehanort would have had over him would be enough to stop him from trying to get answers, or help. Same goes for Axel here – he legitimately believes working for Xemnas will get his heart back. In his lucid moments, he knows that something is very wrong with him, but Xehanort's still there enough to stop him from explaining his situation, or trying to do anything about it. All Axel's really able to do with it is try to make amends with Saix, and/or try to get comfort from him.

Axel's in a bad place, is my point.

This AU has consumed me, so I'll probably write more about this. Maybe a real story, or maybe just more one-shots, I don't know. We'll see.

And again, I advise everyone go to ClaireFireDragon on Tumblr, because DAMN THEM FOR MAKING ME THINK ABOUT THIS AU.