Aftermath
Tormalyne
Roxas returns from missions with his coat dirty and stained with blood that isn't his own, too stubborn to bow his head and let his shoulders slump when he can barely keep himself on his feet. He smells of the dark, thick and choking, sweat and the sharp tang of steel, and something like ozone that Axel knows is from too much time spent using his strange power over light to burn through wave after wave of Heartless.
His voice is always flat when he makes his report, an indifferent description of location, type, number killed, a list of devastation so long it makes Axel hard just thinking about the sheer destruction Roxas' slender hands have wrought. Roxas never deigns to look at anyone when he's leaving the throne room, back straight as he walks beneath the others' stares, their eyes filled with the awe of knowing they see their own deaths in human form.
Axel makes a point of beating Roxas to his room, waiting for him just outside the doorway that leads to the starkest space in the castle. The walls stretch pristine and white and empty, and when Roxas is not there, it's like no one has ever lived in it at all. Roxas pauses, turns his head before brushing by, blazing, electric eyes meeting his gaze in silent permission to follow.
The other members of the Organization try to forget that Roxas is, beyond all else, lethal. For Axel, it's that quality that keeps him coming back.
Touching Roxas is like offering yourself to a feral animal with your throat bared. The first time he'd done it, Axel had been slammed against the floor, keyblade leaving a shallow gash in his neck before he managed to summon a portal and drop away from what would have been a fatal blow.
The second time, Axel caught the strike on one of his hastily-summoned chakrams; the third he drove Roxas back a half-step with a wall of flame hot enough to leave a scorch mark on the marble floor.
By now, Axel has it down to just a hissed breath before he finds himself brutally shoved against the nearest wall, Roxas a cool line pressed full-length against him as the blond captures his mouth, all demanding, careless claim.
Roxas slides a leg between his knees and Axel easily spreads, doesn't even bother to hide the want in his eyes or the way that he'd been poised and waiting for that movement. He unzips Roxas' coat, shoves it open enough for Roxas to shrug it to the ground, and starts to inventory each scratch and bruise on pale skin, smirking as the other's eyes go half-lidded, pupils blown.
Axel likes a good fight, adrenaline and pure energy, and of course the clean burn of his flames, but what he loves is Roxas in the aftermath, too keyed up to be anything but vicious and the forced wariness of a fight too immediate for him to do anything but just react.
Sometimes, Axel wonders how Roxas would come down off his battle highs if they weren't friends, if he didn't drop his head to Axel's shoulder when a hand slides into his pants, staring up through spun-gold lashes and just as detached and dangerous as ever.
"How was the slaughter?" Axel asks with a smirk, moving his hand in long, even strokes.
Roxas bites at Axel's neck, hard enough that it's only through luck he doesn't break skin, and shifts so Axel has to support more of his weight. Axel doesn't mind, though, because he also begins speaking, a low, murmured catalog of every death, every strike and slash and every Heartless screaming as it released its stolen heart, and each syllable makes heat coil low in Axel's chest.
Axel quickens his strokes, curling around Roxas and purring into his hair, and doesn't care that he's nearly hard enough to ache. Roxas' voice turns ragged as he rocks into Axel's hand, both of them panting for breath as his words gain an almost lyrical cadence. He moves from descriptions of shadows to broken bones and torn flesh, of watching and waiting for the Heartless to come turn a somebody into a heart ready for harvest by the flash of quicksilver blades.
He lingers over each unique method he used to steal away their voices, crushed windpipes and severed vocal cords, and Axel has never been more grateful that Roxas hates to hear someone beg.
Between blood pooling on the pavement and the whisper of a man's flesh being ripped into shadow, Roxas sounds almost like he feels more than indifference, and Axel jerks forward, rubbing against his leg. His hand flexes, rough and tight, and he comes an instant after Roxas, with the blond's teeth deep in his skin.
Roxas has bright red on his lower lip, boneless in Axel's arms but not unwary, blade-sharp eyes still intent even below half-closed lids. Axel shivers under the attention, wants to melt into the heat searing through that gaze, and dips his head to lick the blood away.
Axel slides down the wall, taking Roxas with him, and pulls the other boy onto his lap. Roxas tries to tense again, but Axel runs his hand beneath the blond's thin shirt, splays his fingers across Roxas' back and summons a wash of heat. Roxas can't help but relax, listing toward Axel's chest, and doesn't even fist his hand around an invisible hilt when Axel tucks his head under his chin.
Axel grins, all fierce satisfaction and possession, because Roxas, violence humming under his skin, closes his eyes and says "come with me, next time."