He's a broken little doll, eyes half shut and limbs twisted inhumanly, porcelain features delicately painted and set in place with an infinite amount of care. He's Vexen's little doll, staring vacantly up at him, skin perfect, white and flawless, lips starkly red against green eyes, vibrant as silken hair that falls into his face and over his shoulders. Vexen likes Axel so much better with his hair down.

But the doll's sprawled on the floor, lifeless and unmoving; Axel's only a puppet and his strings have been cut. The redhead makes a beautiful corpse. With his lips half-parted and eyes void of his fake emotions, he's the specimen Vexen always knew he would be. The general patheticness is gone, replaced by a frosty elegance in how silent he is, how still, how cold to the touch. It's lucky that there are no words, no protests or lies on VIII's part; Vexen would've hated having to sew those red lips shut.

Even with his chest cut open, bearing his internal organs and fragile skeleton to the air, Axel's perfect. The unusual silence on the younger's part is soothing to the academic--he could never think clearly through Axel speaking. He lies so nicely on the operating table, eerily decorative, eyes closed, leaving him white and red. His skin's been pinned down, away from his organs and chest cavity, exposing lungs, ribcage, heart, all the necessities for the human body, to allow it to breathe, to move. But something won't work; Vexen's sensitive little doll can't feel; but the heart doesn't control the emotions, the brain does. Quick little synapses, flashes of thought, words and ideas behind the senseless actions.

His doll won't be quite as perfect with stitches reminiscent of a medical examiner, a 'Y' through the chest and over the collarbones, but the curiosity to see what made Axel tick had gotten the better of him. Each stitch made with care and by hand to keep his lovely little doll sewn up nicely; Vexen won't be letting anyone else touch him--not anymore. To think, his specimen had taunted him with his body, letting it become injured, used by practically anyone. Not anymore, never again. But he'll be taken care of, a delicate porcelain doll; he needs to be protected, kept in a safe place, far from harm. Dolls aren't puppets, but Axel never knew. Puppets are made for wear and tear, expressions gashed into an immobile wooden face, as opposed to perfect expressions painted into a china face. Little limbs and fingers, strong and still fragile little digits on a little hand, slender arms and torso, long legs covered by black leather, coat folded and set off to the side.

How sad that this little bird kept fleeing, trying to fly away, but he'd been pinioned the entire time. Axel's even more pale in death than he was in life, the slash across his throat like a second mouth, thin and red, a cut drawn across his neck, just a fine line of blood, but vein-severing all the same.

The doll had been rigid at one point, his limbs leant stiffness by rigor mortis. Life had fled Axel quickly, every futile pump of the heart. The physical but not emotional heart. His beautiful, silent doll.

If only Axel hadn't talked so much, he wouldn't have to be so silent now. Vexen just hadn't been able to take it anymore, so he grabbed a scalpel and pulled Axel's head back, slitting his throat, his scream suddenly cut off to be replaced by silence, eyes wide with actual fear as he slumped to the floor. Vexen had freed him, saved the perfect little doll from life as a puppet. He needed to be treated delicately, seen by not heard. Axel never really had anything of substance to say, so it was of no consequence that his vocal cords had been slit along with his jugular vein.

So beautiful, so exquisite, even exotic in a way, so foreign to Vexen. Axel was a mystery in how he looked, how he acted, how he moved, he was so utterly graceful, but his words ruined the previous illusion. When he opened his mouth and spoke, it was always so brash, so crude; not to mention that Axel always lied. But now that he's a silent doll, Vexen could pick and choose what it was he'll say, if he'll ever say anything at all.

Axel looks so serene, as if he's found something in death that finally completes him. Death becomes him. Poor boy, he hadn't been the same since Roxas left. Before he met Roxas, he'd been impulsive and exuberant. Once the newest member had joined, his precious doll had treated Roxas with something akin to respect, spending all his time with Sora's Nobody. But once Roxas was gone, Axel had taken to silently watching Vexen, which had been preferable to the incessant talking which had followed. But now, everything's right, as it should be. Roxas is gone is gone, Axel is beautifully silent, and Vexen has his doll.

He smiles, kissing Axel's lips gently, caressing his chest, fingers lingering on the stitches in his doll's otherwise flawless chest. Axel's lips are cold, even to the academic, but he kisses them again anyway, a hand moving to the redhead's hips, fingers trailing over the white, white skin of his doll. It's not necrophilia if he was never truly alive.