THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

Force

When someone grabbed you with serious force, you fought for your life.

So when Roxas flailed in his captors arms, swinging his legs and fist at some intangible force (without hitting anything in real life); the intruder laughed himself silly.

Roxas stopped flailing and blushed in the others arms.

"You need to stop breaking into my house."

"I'll stop doing it, when you stop letting me stay."

A soft, immediately comfortable silence ensued where Roxas let himself be hugged to the others chest tightly, simply because he had wanted to be tightly hugged to the others chest all day.

"Ass.", he found himself murmuring fondly. He buried his face into the others neck, smelling, feeling, and holding the other boy as tightly as he was being held himself.

Softly, "'k' noise before the 's' noise. 'K-s'. 'x'. Ax-el. Ax-el. Axel."

"Asshole?"

He watched the redhead pretend to be offended through drooping eyes, smiling at his animated gestures, and faux-disapproval. He cuddled farther into the long flailing arms, and let the others voice wash over him.

"Are you falling asleep on me?"

The blond replied in a playfully flippant tone,"Are you done?".

Axel grinned at the sleepy blond in his arms, heart hammering loudly in his ears.

He then dropped his head down to hover over the blonds, narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips as he did so. Roxas loved how nothing was ever really serious with Axel. Axel was a funny, and light-hearted kind of guy.

The older boy leaned in, slowly, threateningly. Roxas grin uncontrollably widened the smaller the space between their faces became. He half-heartedly tried to create distance between them, even when not so surprisingly, distance was the last thing he wanted with Axel.

"If I was done, would I still be talking, Roxas?" He asked. Roxas smiled up to his boyfriend adoringly.

"But you never stop talking, do you?", and his pretty little lips twisted into something sassy and mischievous, that Axel really liked. Their blood pumped a little quicker.

His green eyes were on Roxas lips before anything else,"I-I'll stop talking now then.", and he covered the boys lips with his own.

Roxas snickered into his mouth and pressed back eagerly. He felt so good, so sweet, and Roxas forgot to breathe again.

They kept pressing against each other; with their hot hands, and their red noses, their long feet, and their tingling mouths. Axel felt like home to Roxas. Axel felt like warmth, and reciprocation, and love.

They never pulled away, sometimes they never did on rare evenings like these. Their lips however did eventually have to part reluctantly, if only to breathe; there was no other reason they would pull away.

For a long time Roxas did nothing but appreciatively stared upon the others features. A long enough time that he flushed with embarrassment when the redhead finally noticed his dreamy gaze.

Axel shook with mirth, making Roxas, of course, grin himself.

In the interest of staying awake to further enjoy the redheads company, he prepared them both a meal that would look as though a very hungry person single-handedly ate lunch- and not two ravenous teenage boys after snogging on the couch.

The larger boy set the wide salad bowl down upon the end table, and crawled back on the couch to lay his head on the blonds lap. He smiled up at the blond, and Roxas smiled down at him, wishing only that this didn't have to stop.

Axel sighed through his nose, wishing the same things himself as he relished the dainty fingers that ran along his scalp fondly. The soft, caring, languidly caressing hands in his hair melted out all the tension of medical school. Axel kept it long exclusively for this reason, and nothing else.

"How was school?"

Roxas blinked in mild surprise, and continued caressing the others scalp.

"Oh, it was... boring." He said. Axel knew exactly what the blond meant. They both laughed.

"Boring enough to spend another day with me?" He asked, hopefully.

The blond chuckled,"I've already spent every day this week with you Lea." Roxas loved the redheads middle name. It was sweet, and charming. Like Axel. "I had to lie to them both that I had been with the other the whole time."

Axel smiled wanly, and then, like everyone else today, his smile faded into the troubled, longing frown that made Roxas want to look away. He didn't.

"Remind me why you do this again?" He whispered.

Axel knew why already. For everyone else, he would angrily tell them that they already knew why. But with Axel; he felt no less obligated now than the first time he was asked to reply with more or less the same words as the first time.

"Because as long as I date her, my mother will be satisfied that I'm busy. That I'm not in trouble. That I'm not dating you, or Reno, who apparently won't give me the same opportunities in life that having a girl my age, who looks almost exactly like me, will. And if I do date you, she'll ship me off to a business minded boarding school in London that won't let me."

"I'd fly to London", Axel joked. Roxas rolled his eyes, stroking his hair.

"You have med school here. You worked too hard to risk that just to see me in London."

It never did feel real coming out his mouth. Not until he had first met Namine; and all her politeness, and unsure mumbling, and introverted blushes. He realized only then; that his mother wanted him to be like her. Unhappy, unsure, and constantly conforming to an image that- no matter how beautiful and aesthetically pleasing to look at; was still only as two dimensional and temporary as the frame you put it in.

No teenagers in modern day had to deal with threats of being shipped to other countries for small offense like having a boyfriend, or bad grades, or partying...

Roxas wondered if he assumed too much of his mothers views though. Roxas was still unsure if Axel's 'delinquent' appearance bothered her, or if Axel's apparent state of 'male' did. She had never said. He had once assumed it was Axel's age, but his mother had said nothing for it or against it then either. She had explained that Namine was a suitable partner- and nothing else.

"I still don't get why you care." He would always at least try to convince his boyfriend that there were more options than the ones he'd taken. He pressed his lips against the blonds stomach and said, "You will be eighteen in just a few months. That's not that long."

"Exactly. It's not that long. And I care about you. So if staying in the states means I don't have to spend a few weeks in plaid shorts and black knee socks I think it's worth it." he paused in his caresses to kiss the other slowly. "As I have said many times before..."

The eldest boy sighed, stroking the smaller face, and staring into the wide blue orbs earnestly staring back at him. He'd do anything for this blond. Even wear plaid shorts and black knee socks.

"Yeah. I know. And I keep saying you should live with me. That you shouldn't bother with this. That it's only one school year, and we could always wait for you to come back.'"

" And then I say 'I don't want to wait, I wanna stay here with you.'"

"And as always, I ask 'why do we have to hurt two people who genuinely love you to do it?'"

"And I say...", but a cool layer of indifference had already frozen the redheads eyes away from his. He decided to give up trying to defend himself to the only person he'd ever care to. He didn't want Axel mad at him. Axel, was the person with the most reason to be.

He leaned his head down on the others face; rubbing his nose, his cheeks, his lips against the redheads. He felt so good to be around. So good to be beside. Nothing was worth losing this.

Namine, however sweet, was some odd projection of his mothers that she would have to get over when he was eighteen. Reno was a more complicated projection, whom could grant him a lot of money and strings- that he didn't want. Money and strings paled next to the love and longevity Axel promised him, whispered to him, kissed to him.

Reno, in most angles, even strongly resembled Axel. But he simply wasn't Axel. Reno was... infatuated with him. Axel was in love. Roxas was in love.

Roxas had not lifted his head and hands from the redheads face as he pondered this. He was still nuzzling, and kissing the other as his hands rubbed and held the redheads face close to his.

Through the small space in his arms that lit the redheads eyes, Roxas made out the glint of easy forgiveness that relaxed them both back into the sweetness that was alone time.

The blond smiled softly, and did not berate the butterflies in his stomach for fluttering. They never listened anyway.

The remaining hours of their Thursday afternoon were spent talking, laughing, touching, and watching old re-runs of shows they had already watched.

Almost too quickly, it was nighttime.

From his place on Roxas bed, Axel asked,"Why is your mom not home yet? Every time a car drives by I keep looking at the window thinking I should book it now before it's too late."

The blond snickered, and wetly smooched the redheads cheek, "She never tells me anything. She could be gone for a few more hours. Days. Hopefully a month... or five." he murmured the last bit to himself.

Axel sighed, eyes distant and dreamy, "Yeah that would be nice. I'd have you all to myself."

Roxas felt it prudent to say it now rather than later- or right before he'd have to go."I agreed to spend tomorrow with Namine."

The redhead sighed through his nose, but otherwise looked no different than he had seconds ago.

He found himself trying to smooth whatever abrasions his words had made with his next ones,"Just tomorrow. She was really desperate.", he justified.

The eldest boy did not respond immediately, but he smiled lightly, moving to lay a top the blond fully. Roxas smiled at the weight and heat of the others body.

Into the blonds neck, he murmured,"How is she anyway?"

Roxas knew that despite everything, Axel didn't hate the girl.

Axel had met her once or twice. Roxas had told her he was a childhood friend, whom his mom didn't want Roxas to be friends with. She had sweetly 'zipped' her mouth closed, promised to tell no one, and admitted that she liked Axel's 'badassery tattoos'. Axel simply could not find it in himself to dislike the girl after that.

"She's fine. She nearly hacked up a lung in class though. I think she may be coming down with something."

Axel frowned, "Is she okay?"

"Probably. But the news this evening was so crazy, a woman threw up on a reporter, and they said that the hospitals were literally packed-"

"Eh, that stuff is just there to scare you into buying vaccines. It's not dangerous, it's like every other flu, you get sick for a few days, and then it goes away.", at the blonds sidelong glance he went on." I'm in med school. I'd know."

Roxas wasn't really convinced, but he nodded indulgently.

"What was that about a woman puking on someone though?"

Roxas laughed as he explained the odd report to the other, laughing harder at the redheads reactions and commentary. When he finished, the tension of their previous conversation had dissipated into the lax content it always did.

He shifted under the larger boy, and brought his hands to rest a top his own. This was easily one of the funnest things to play with on Axel's long body. It was a sensitive place on the redhead; for his profession required he wear gloves for long periods of time. It left all the skin on his palms filled with lots of responsive nerves that Roxas loved to mess up.

He ran his nails down the others palm, and already he felt the others pulse quicken under his lips. The redheads body was pressed just so his neck was pressed against the blonds mouth. What better thing was there to do than bite down on it?

Axel's whole body flushed, and the little grunt that pushed past his lips was enough to heat the air between them.

His sharp green stare locked onto the blondes for one electrifying moment, and the smaller blushed under his gaze.

"What?"

He breathed out,"You know what.", and ran his hands, his lips, his tingly hair all over Roxas body. The blond was forgetting to breathe again.

Shakily,"Tell me."

Licking. Sucking. Biting. All on his neck, then his lips, then behind his ears, then under his shirt.

Roxas was all flushes and heat now. The butterflies were either swarming viciously or burning a painful death in his stomach. It had to be the latter; everything else was burning as well.

The larger boy pressed his tongue into the blondes navel, deeply, then lightly. The smallest of cries escaped the blond. Then he lapped, nibbled, and sucked the swirl of skin until it was red with the beginnings of a hickey. He smiled at the growing hardness pressed into his chest, and swirled his tongue even lower.

He was probably not the only one who had gone this far with Roxas. Roxas promised to never sleep with anyone else, but Axel honestly didn't care if he did. He had complete faith that no matter whom Roxas slept with, it was Axel he'd keep coming back to when he wanted more.

Roxas gazed down at him through his heavy lidded eyes, overwhelmed with the hot hands kneading his hips into submission, the hot mouth lapping just below his navel, the eyes locked onto his as he did so. Roxas didn't have a sensitive stomach. Axel was just that good.

He shuddered violently, and gulped in a few fistfuls of air; because he hadn't inhaled for awhile, and the pain was the only thing that reminded him to.

There was lots of pinching and pulling, and sucking on every thing that wanted it. Everything but what wanted it the most.

Those eyes reverently appreciated him for a few seconds more, and down he went, sliding the blonds boxers down with him along the way.

When your mouth is full, you breath through your nose. Axel didn't have to remember to do it. The guy was a natural.

Love was tiring in the best way sometimes. Limbs wrapped and tangled around limbs, lips lazily got in the last few nibbles and smooches before they were too tired to move as well, and eventually, you allowed yourself to cool down in the night time air and fall asleep. Eventually.

'-stay inside!-'

A pale hand slammed the snooze button, effectively cutting off the radio, before it rolled back into the best torso in the world. He was perfectly content to fall back to sleep, wrapped in Axels arms, pressed to Axels lips, and dreaming of a world where he never had to be with anyone he didn't want to.

Five minutes would be okay.

He snuggled closer and closed his eyes.

CLANK!

He brought the covers over both their heads.

CRASH!

His face scrunched in worry, ears perking. Someone was wheezing. Someone was outside.

The blond was normally more cautious; but his sleep addled mind only thought of all the least threatening reasons someone could be up in the earlier hours of the morning, knocking down things and coughing. It didn't have to mean anything more than an early riser, or an insomniac had a cold- but he opened the door anyway.

There was a woman on the opposite side of the street. She stood at it's corner, back ominously turned from both him and the road. There was broken glass all around her, trash, and naturally the trash bin as well.

He surveyed the street; they were alone.

A car whizzed by in the distance, and he cursed himself for forgetting to check the time. People drove by Crenshaw's Suburbia at all hours of the day, but it must have been early for no one to physically be outside yet. No one but the woman. The street was as silent as it was seemingly empty.

"Miss?"

Now that he was just a touch more awake, he felt more unsure about bothering this woman. He slowly stepped off his patio onto the sidewalk. From here he could see little specks of silver- or trash- in her otherwise dark gray hair.

An old woman couldn't possibly want to mug him this early in the morning.

"Are you okay, Ma'am?"

Very slowly, very remotely, very nearly stumbling along the way; she turned around.

She stared, not at, but through Roxas. He could not describe her gaze in any other way but vacant. She was dirty, and disheveled, and easily too old to be outside so early. She had to be sick. Roxas did not think to take his phone.

She shook, her whole body shook, and she brought her shaking hand to her mouth- to vomit, to cough, to yawn- he could not see. There was something in her hand.

He squinted hard, attempting to discern what unintelligible black mass she held to her face. Then it squirmed, it moved- and it 'mewed'.

His face blanched, his eyes widened, and he moved to stop her.

"NO-!"

Another car zipped by, it's engine overwhelming his desperate plea. He stumbled away from the street, as it rushed past and when he next looked toward the corner the woman was gone.

His mind replayed the last six seconds of his life, and his stomach began to churn unpleasantly.

Roxas wasn't sure if he'd seen what just happened. He wasn't sure if it was truly as much of a threat to him as it felt like. He was not sure if it would mean anything for his or the well being of the people he loved.

What he did know was that every intuitive flag in his body was telling him to act now. And he would listen.

Axel was just walking into the dining room when Roxas rushed in, slamming, and locking the door behind him.

He stretched his body, groggily calling after the blond, "Roxas?"

The bedroom door slammed against the wall, and the last bit of sleep on the redheads brain was beginning to lift in concern.

He laid his hands on the door frame of the others room, watching the blond throw open drawers, and boxes, pulling out clothes. Roxas was shaking.

Lowly, "Why are you shaking? What happened?"

A quiet sniffle, "We need to leave."

He laughed uneasily. He wasn't expecting that. "Why?"

The smaller teen began stuffing the clothes into bags and rummaging the closet for goodness knew what.

"It's not safe here, we need to go. I don't care where, we just need to go somewhere safe-"

That was more than Axel had expected to hear at five in the morning. Roxas was either frightened and confused, or legitimately disturbed. Either way, the vagueness of his reasoning wasn't helping him to understand why they weren't safe, and had to leave.

He moved to stand before the blond, stopping the other before he could begin stuffing another bag. The smaller boy paused, though not without some fidgeting.

"Roxas. Slow down." He swallowed. "Your mom isn't back. It's five in the morning. Where are we suppose to go?"

The blond surprised him with his prompt answer, "To your apartment."

Incredulous felt like too small of a word for what he felt watching the blond toss a stuffed backpack upon the mattress and begin to pack a new one.

The redhead calmly reminded him,"My apartment is two hours away."

"We'll drive. Take my mom's car. You know how to drive, right?"

And Roxas was already zipping up and tossing that duffel as well. He pulled on a pair of fitted jeans and began on his shoes.

"Well, yeah, but..."

Roxas was a lot of things, and spontaneously reckless was not often one of them. Axel didn't want Roxas to get in trouble. He was still in school; what happens when one of his teachers call looking for him, and his mother assumes the worse?

"Good. I packed your clothes. Let's go."

The redhead stared. Softly, "Why isn't it safe here, Roxas?"

He opened his mouth to reply, and choked on his words. He had forgotten to breathe again- and that didn't feel good right now.

For a brief moment he nearly hyperventilated to make up for how long he'd been holding in his breath. In an attempt to suck in all the oxygen his lungs had been deprived of, he only dried and burned his nostrils from the force of his inhalations.

Axel quickly dropped to the floor beside him, and held the younger boy to his chest until he regained his composure.

When he had, the blond tried again, "Axel, please...", and he faced the other straight on.

A ring of pink lined his eyes, and his cheeks and nose were tinted a rosy red. His eyes pleaded with the redhead.

"Just trust me right now. I'm scared."

The redhead nodded. He grabbed his shirt from off the floor and got dressed.

"I put the keys in your jacket did you have them?"

"Of course-" Axels paused, his eyes widening. "Oh my god, Roxas, I lost the keys."

Blue eyes bugged unbelievably- and the redhead burst into a fit of giggles.

"Hehe. Sorry, they're in my pocket. Thought I'd try to make you laugh."

Roxas rolled his eyes,"Why would that make me laugh?"

But the taller of the two was too busy snickering to answer, and the blond reluctantly laughed himself- if only at the others giggling and pink face. He was so cute.

The redhead noticed the appreciative looks the blond was sending him and blushed- and then he yelled as he was abruptly pulled back and pinned against the car.

"Get the fuck off me!", he yelled. This attacker was one strong old woman.

"Stay here!", and into the house Roxas went.

The redhead struggled with trying not to hurt her, but also not be snogged- or licked, or bitten- by someone's drunk grandma.

He turned his head away from the woman. "Roxas!", he called.

His grip lightened, and the drunkard narrowly missed his jaw. Her mouth was chomping, her eyes were wide, and they look completely unaware of what was going on. It was incongruous with her otherwise aggressive behavior.

The front door swung open, and out ran his boyfriend and lover; shovel in hand.

The redhead shouted, "She keeps trying to bite me! And her eyes; their fucking white!"

Roxas frowned, " Well she's old."

The white-eyed assailant turned around, poised to attack, and ran at the blond.

When something attacked you; you fought back.

The rounded end of the shovel collided with the side of her head in an audible 'thwap'.

She fell back to the ground and she didn't move again.

Roxas swallowed. His eyes darted all around him- to the woman, to Axel's also shocked gaze, to the bloodied garden tool in his hands.

"Oh, fuck...", he whispered. His hands slackened and the shovel fell to the ground. He moved his empty hands to cover his mouth instead.

Axel popped open the trunk. Leaving town was sounding more and more reasonable as the night went on.

Roxas bent down beside the woman, shaking her unconscious form. She wasn't breathing.

"She's not breathing, is she okay?"

Axel hefted one of their bags in and said, "I think she won't attack us again."

"I wasn't trying to kill her!"

"It was just a smack to the head, she'll be fine, I'm sure.", Axel wasn't sure at all actually; but Roxas needed to hear that she was okay. So she was.

The older boy walked around to the front of the vehicle, retrieved the fallen shovel, and tossed it back to the other. The blond caught it swiftly from his place on the ground, and began to voice some of his many fears aloud.

"What if someone finds her and notices we're gone. It's going to look like we planned this."

"She attacked us, no one saw us, and I think we'll be okay.", and he walked back to close the trunk.

"Who's going to believe an old lady attacked us, Axel!"

"I don't know. Let's go."

Axel was ready to leave. His boyfriend ran back into the house at five in the morning on the brink of tears and ready to leave town- and now an old woman had assaulted him and they'd gone and possibly killed someones grandmother.

"Check her pulse."

"What? Roxas-"

"Just do it, check her pulse!", and his hands wrapped around the shovel nervously. At the redheads flat look, "I wanna make sure she's okay!"

He sighed through his nose, and eyed the blond reproachfully for a number of seconds. Finally, he rolled his eyes, and knelt down beside the unconscious woman's body. Roxas watched on nervously.

"Well?"

Axel did not respond. He stayed very still, fingers poised over all her pulse points. The redheads face was unreadable.

"Ax-"

"Gimme a minute, Rox."

The medical student pressed his ear to her chest, then his hands to her chest. Roxas waited; eyes flicking between the redheads stern gaze and the old woman's empty white eyes. Axel pulled back.

Finally, "Yeah. She's okay. Let's go."

A sigh of relief escaped him then. He brushed himself off, and approached the car door. Axel hopped up from his crouched stance, and went to open his car door as well.

The grass behind them rustled.

Roxas sighed in relief, "I'm so sor-", he yelped as she lunged at him.

He threw her back to the ground forcefully, and angrily he yelled, "What the hell is wrong with you!?"

She gave no response, and once again, she was getting up.

She lunged again.

The shovel was yanked from Roxas hands, and in the next few seconds the woman was smacked to the ground with it's wider end of it. Hard.

Roxas turned to gauge the redheads expression. What was he doing?

Up the shovel went.

"Axel no-!"

And down it went again. And again. And again.

The woman's persistent groans of frustration sounded with each impact- then every other impact. The noises began to cease all together- but the redhead did not stop until the crunches of skull and bone became the squishes of tendon and flesh.

They both stood in stunned silence when he was done. The older boy covered in splatters of blood and sweat- the younger filled with fear. They stared down at what was surely a corpse now, until the redhead regained his voice.

"Get in the car."

Roxas crumbled,"What...the- fuck!" His nerves were awry, his eyes were blurry, and his breath was coming out in uneven spurts. Tears fell, and he was just so afraid.

"Get in the car now, Roxas."

The blond screamed,"She was still alive-!"

The redhead screamed louder,"Get in the fucking car, Roxas!"

Stunned into silence, the younger closed his mouth abruptly. He took one last glance at the dead woman (one last frightened glance) before finally obeying the older boy. He rushed to open his door, and slammed it behind him.

Outside the car, the redhead dropped the shovel to hold his knees as he dry heaved on his empty stomach. His hands were shaking violently. He was in shock.

Of course he was in shock, he thought to himself. He killed someone. He brutally beat an old woman who had aggressively assaulted him and his boyfriend to death. Why didn't she just listen? What was wrong with her? Was she high? Was she on drugs? Was she sick?

It didn't matter. Leaving town may not fix what had just happened, but it made the most sense to do right now. In the forefront of his mind he told himself it was because Roxas wanted him to. But somewhere in the back, Axel knew it was because he was scared too.

He swallowed thickly, regained his breath, and rushed to get in the car as well.

He locked the doors.

I like how this is better than what I had initially written. I wish there was a way to add another chapter after this without having to completely reupload it, or completely rearrange it. Sigh. Oh wellz. Either way, thanks for reading. Reviews are nice. Follows, favs, and subs are encouraging as well.