Smile

by Grayskyemourning

Rating: R

Disclaimer: Disney and Square Enix own all.

Warnings: non-con sex (rape)

Summary: Axel wants Roxas back. No matter the cost.

Notes: This is my first KH fic so I'm hoping I'm doing this right. This is non-linear in every way. Also, probably dark and not good for your soul.

The moment before…

There is a moment where he waits on an infinity that has Roxas's eyes and Sora's hair.

The moment gives him pause, and he pulls back, not far. Just far enough to look into Roxas' eyes and see a rage in them that makes a fire curl up within him and spread throughout his body, down to his fingertips that trace a collarbone and a cheek and then down.

His hand is fisted in his shirt, pulling, but he freezes as it falls away and there is flesh. Flesh, and then muscle, bone, rib, then –

Then just heart.

It was all it had ever been about.

The moment passes, and it's Sora again, and Axel has to close his eyes, because they look so similar – so frightening alike – it makes his non-existent heart ache but then he opens them again and it's still not him.

Flesh moves, and then clothing, and he presses an ear to the chest, and it's a heart, a beating heart, a heart that belongs to Sora.

His eyes slip shut again and it's Roxas now.

He's so completely fucked up, isn't he?

The moment when he knows…

They are sitting outside under a tree in the summer sun.

"It's bright," he says, shielding his eyes as he looks into the sun.

He can't see Roxas, but he feels him shift next to him, a sweaty palm ghosting over his for a moment as the boy adjusts himself. It's an accidental touch, a mistake that Roxas isn't aware he's making, but Axel is suddenly tense and then he's scolding himself because it's Roxas.

"Maybe we should invest in sunglasses," Roxas agrees, peering up at the sun.

Axel smacks his cheek. "Don't look at the sun, idiot."

Roxas has yelped and moved away, and the feel of the warm body is no longer there.

Axel feels oddly alone.

"It's just the sun," says Roxas softly as he stands up and he is in front of Axel, blocking the sun, his hair silhouetted by light. He is framed by sun, golden, shadows chased away and there is no darkness in his eyes. "Better?"

And there is no sun on Axel, just this cool shadow that Roxas has given him, and Axel thinks he'll love Roxas just for that.

The moment when they meet again…

"Axel."

He doesn't want to look at him, stupid Roxas who has forgotten him. He wants to do a number of things – hit him, exchange blades, perhaps strangle him until he remembers – but Axel doesn't want to look. There is nothing, no recognition in blue eyes that have laughed with him, shared with him, made him feel alive.

All Axel can see is the nothing in those eyes. There are no shadows, no light – nothing.

His greatest fear now – Roxas is nothing.

Axel is nothing, then, too.

They are fighting in fire, in heat and flame. Axel is winning, then losing, then winning again.

And then he is smiling.

There are shouts of pain from both sides. Roxas is trying to kill him – Axel is trying to kill Roxas. There are flashes of light, a speeding blur of metal that is aimed for his throat that he can barely dodge. He can smell things burning, feel the lick of heat at his back.

But he is smiling, because Roxas is here, and they are arguing – friends again.

At least until Roxas wields that Keyblade that isn't really his and Axel has to back away, the darkness wheeling up around him, building a wall, blocking Roxas from his view and then he is being pulled back, away.

"Roxas," he whispers, and is gone.

The moment when he pulls…

"Axel!" Sora is screaming, chasing after him.

Axel is waiting beyond the wall, every muscle tense in his being. He is ready to spring away or open his arms. Which, he cannot decide. He won't decide until Sora comes around the corner and there is no time for thought, but only action.

Suddenly there is a flash of hair, a glimmer of steel and then those eyes – Roxas' eyes.

Then there is only action, and Axel opens his arms, catching Sora in his run and he turns away into a portal of darkness, taking Sora with hjm.

The moment before he decides…

Sora is unconscious.

That's who it is – it's Sora laying there, his head tilted to one side. If he were to open his eyes, it would be Roxas' eyes but it would be Sora, but it wouldn't be, because it would be both of them.

Axel's head hurts.

He is calm, steely. He hunches next to the body, and before he can stop himself, he is tracing fingers all over, hands clenching in hair. It's too close and too real for him to do anything but feel and remember, because that's all Roxas is to him anymore – that's all Axel is to himself anymore.

Axel doesn't know if he should do. He knows he shouldn't do this. Roxas is gone – doing this will not bring him back.

Unless it does. Unless it does, and Axel has his best friend back.

It is this uncertainty, this possibility, this compulsion and this love that drives Axel to bring bindings and shake Sora awake.

Because when he does this he has to see Roxas' eyes.

The moment when they meet…

"Hey. Hey, Axel!"

Axel doesn't like Demyx, on principle. You can't like someone who has fooled you with his body and lack of heat, taunting but pulling away at the last second. They don't have hearts to play with, but it would have been nice for Demyx to pretend with him. Demyx is a joker that can go to hell, for all Axel cares now.

He thinks later that he should have just kept walking.

But at that moment he doesn't, and he turns to see Demyx leading a kid over. Because he's a kid – he's shorter than anyone Axel has ever met and it's almost hilarious that he has to almost bend down to shake the kid's hand.

"What do you want?" he growls at Demyx.

"Be kind, Axel," says Demyx with a wry smile. It infuriates Axel – because Demyx will never take anything serious. Not rage nor lust. "We have a new person. Thirteen, now."

The kid with the pretty eyes meets his for a moment and then looks away.

"Since when do you parade them around?" Axel asks.

"Because I thought you might like this one," Demyx says and there is so much suggestion in his tone that Axel's fingers tighten on his Chakrams. "This is Roxas."

"Roxas?" There is laughter from his lips before Axel can stop it because really. Really?

"And Axel is so much better," Demyx says immediately, his hands on Roxas' shoulders and there is a flare of jealousy within Axel that he cannot cast away. "Roxas is my apprentice."

"Your apprentice? When do we get apprentices?"

"You do not." Demyx lets go and pulls his sitar from his back. "He wants to learn the sitar."

Axel is looking at Roxas and Demyx's words aren't exactly making sense.

He had pretty eyes. Eyes the color of frosted glass and he was looking at him, green against blue and there was a click in Axel's mind and suddenly Roxas is standing next to him.

"Hi," Roxas whispers, and he has a lilting voice.

"Demyx is weak," Axel says back.

"I thought so," says Roxas as they watch Demyx mess around with his sitar. "Also kind of ugly."

"Come with me," Axel says immediately to this.

And they walk away together.

The moment where he steals.

He doesn't have a heart.

It is the sad fate of the Nobodies – to live heartless, to live with no emotion and soul.

This is a false fate. At least Axel thinks so. He can call to mind Demyx, and Xaldin and Xemnas. He knows the names and the faces of all the others in the Organization. They do not get along all the time – whenever he is around Demyx, he wants to strangle him. Xaldin is somewhat crazy and Xemnas so singular in his quest the man sees nothing else. He does not enjoy them all; Axel has a personality that is only suited to some.

Yet there is emotion, and there is soul in all of them.

The only thing they each lack is a heart – a live, beating heart.

Sora's flesh is warm, tingling beneath his hands. He is darker than Roxas – hair and flesh. The electric eyes are open and peering up at him, clouded by the blow to the head that had rendered him into darkness. Axel can lose himself in those eyes; it is much the same way he is losing himself to the beat of Sora's heart.

He wonders what it would be like to just lay down with his head on Sora's chest and let the steady drum lull him into sleep. He thinks it must be nice and there is such an ache inside him because he wants to but he can't because this isn't Roxas – not yet.

When he is done, perhaps Roxas will have the heart and it can sing Axel to sleep for the rest of their lives.

Sora is starting to wake up, more than fluttered eyes and rapid breath. It's time for Axel to move.

He shifts, pulls off his shirt. Sora struggles, watching him, but the bonds are working and now there is panic in his eyes. He shakes his head back and forth violently and his entire body is convulsing. Axel is almost amused; if this were any other night the reaction could be to his naked chest.

Axel is almost amused but he's not because instead of amusement there is desire coursing through him. He should feel more wrong about this, he thinks. More wrong about forcing himself onto a boy who he has only stolen because he looks sickeningly like Axel's best friend.

The only thing that is in his mind right now, though, is that when he is done Roxas might – will – be back.

Possibly with a heart that will feel enough for both of them.

So he begins the task of stealing Sora's innocence roughly. He buries his face into Sora's neck and begins to kiss and lick and bite. Soft, rabid keening sounds begin to spill past the gag Axel has shoved into his mouth. He is struggling wildly, body buckling. Axel doesn't pay attention any more than it takes to pin him down, concentrating solely on the flesh he is bruising.

Axel's eyes stay firmly shut except when they are eye to eye. He knows Roxas' body well enough that if he were to open them than the fantasy of this being his best friend would fall away. For all their shared looks, Roxas has a body that is weaned to him and Sora does not. The division there is what drives hands to run down chest and lower, yet never for Axel to open his eyes and kill the illusion.

The keening sounds are nothing like Axel has ever heard before and he is fascinated by them. He nips and bites at the neck and the sound goes higher. When his knee brushes a crotch the sound goes so high it disappears. Intrigued, desperate, Axel brings their faces together, close, and says, "give him back."

He jerks his knee around.

"Just give him back to me. Try, at least."

Sora isn't looking at him. His eyes are shut so tightly his entire face is screwed up, as if in pain – probably, most likely, in pain. He has long lashes, like Roxas, lashes the color of wheat that splay across his cheek like a wind battered tree. Axel thinks it is Roxas' third best feature, behind his eyes and his smile.

It is rough, and painful. Sora is tight in places that are not his eyelids. It hurts Axel as he forces himself in, and he can only imagine what it must be like for Sora. Here Axel does not look anywhere but the darkness of his lids. He can feel the wetness on Sora's cheeks as tears leak out of them.

"You're not Roxas," he growls with each thrust. "I just want to see Roxas."

Sora cries, his voice childish and loud. His screams, oddly enough, stir and stoke the fire beneath Axel's waist.

Axel has always enjoyed others' pain.

Axel comes, which he finds almost strange. He had expected to rip Roxas out of Sora, but the thought that Sora has aroused him is disturbing. Sora's eyes are wet and damp with tears, and if Axel didn't know better he'd say there was a difference now, in those eyes. He has never seen Roxas cry, and the water in Sora's is pretty, like a lake.

He pulls out, and Sora grunts at the new pain. There is blood on both of them and Axel, always a clean-minded individual, cleans them up, keeping his eyes resolutely from Sora's face the entire time. The boy is lying listless, his body limp and his eyes fluttering open and shut, the long lashes embracing the salt-stained cheeks.

Finally, Axel can take it no longer. He covers Sora's body with his own.

"Roxas?" he whispers, and removes the gag. "Roxas, please. Smile for me."

Sora is deathly still, his eyes the only part of him in motion. He gazes at Axel's face and Axel is hopeful because there is emotion in the welling tears.

"My name," the boy says, voice gruff after so many cries, "is Sora."

Axel jerks away, hope dousing like a light. He pulls himself to his knees and scuttles away, tripping over the robe he had thrown back up and the remainder of Sora's clothes. The trip sends him into a tumble and he falls back against the wall, gasping, panting, staring at the body that isn't Roxas.

"Roxas," he calls, holding his breath.

"My name is Sora!" the boy screams, struggling against his binding, the keening sound awake in the air again. "My name is Sora, my name is Sora, I'm not Roxas! My name is Sora!"

"No," Axel murmurs. "Roxas," He begins a slow chant. "Roxas, Roxas, Roxas."

Sora lifts his head and the rage in his eyes makes Axel want to grab his Chakams and get ready for a fight.

"My name is Sora. I will never smile for you."

A moment for remembrance.

Roxas kisses him first.

It's a complete surprise but at the same time not.

They are sitting beneath the same tree with sun behind them this time. Axel is masticating his sea-salt ice cream and Roxas is merely toying with his, licking here and there in a dance that has Axel struggling to keep his hands to himself.

"Stop that," Axel says once he has finished his and tossed the stick away. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?"

Roxas smiles at him, the sad smile he has begun to wear of late, ever since the dreams started. Axel knows what images of an island and the girl mean, but he is not going to tell Roxas this. He has advised his young friend to keep the dreams to himself, but he will say no more. If Xemnas finds out he'll take Roxas away.

Greed, Axel thinks, still staring at Roxas' mouth, is something that will get him killed.

Roxas notices him staring and turns away, blushing. Axel looks away, too, cursing his courage – lack of it – and is opening his mouth to suggest they go beat up Demyx for training purposes when Roxas kisses him.

He tastes sweet, even though the ice cream is mostly salt. Or maybe it's just the feeling that is swimming through Axel's body and making his hair spurt flames and the tree they are sitting under to catch fire. Just as Axel is moving his arms to get a better grip, Roxas jerks away.

"Uh?" Axel stammers, brilliantly.

"Oh," Roxas says. "Oh."

They both stare at each other. Axel can't get words out, his arms still frozen to pull Roxas closer and his lips slightly parted. Mind having failed him, he points wordlessly up at the tree, which is going up in flames.

"Oh. Oh."

Roxas is a lot of things, but he isn't stupid and after a hesitant second he approaches Axel again.

"Axel," he says, softly.

"Shut up," Axel says, regaining words as he grabs Roxas' neck and pulls him closer so they can kiss again – properly this time.

Some time later they are sitting curled around each other under the burnt remains of the tree, Roxas' head rest on Axel's chest. Axel is playing with the blond hair while he attempts to understand what has just happened. Roxas kissed him – Roxas kissed him.

"I've been wanting to do that," Roxas says suddenly. "For a long time."

Axel tightens his arm around Roxas chest, pulls slightly so he can tip Roxas' face to his and kisses him again.

"Me too," Axel says, resting their foreheads together. "I think… I…"

And he wants to say I love you but he doesn't know the meaning of the words but it's the right thing to say. He wants to say that he would die protecting him, or he was so lonely before Roxas came, or how he thinks he'll just live now because Roxas is here. He wants to tell him about the day they met, how Axel felt when those crystalline eyes were looking at him. He should tell him how he doesn't feel empty anymore and he thinks he won't ever again, as long as Roxas doesn't leave.

But Axel does not know the meaning of I love you because he doesn't have a heart and can't really feel. It's just that Roxas makes him feel as if he does have one, but Axel doesn't know how to tell him that.

Heads still resting together, he says simply, "I'm glad you're here."