Don’t pretend you feel,
It turns your words to plastic.
Don’t pretend that this is real,
It’s all make-believe.
- “Make-believe” by The Birthday Massacre



Axel gazed quietly at the limp figure slouched in his arms. Roxas’ breathing was becoming more labored, and the young boy gasped, feverishly drawing in another large quantity of air.  

Axel would have to hurry.

The younger Nobody’s body lay uncommonly still, save for the erratic movement of his chest as he breathed in broken gulps, and the slight vibrations caused by the pain pulsing through him.  Blood was already seeping out in a steady stream from the wound embedded deep in his chest, located just below the spot where his non-existent heart should have been.  Despite the dark color of Roxas’s jacket that prevented any blood stains from becoming noticeable, Axel could still feel the warm fluid slip between his fingers as it traveled down Roxas’s side to where his arms were wrapped around Roxas’s torso and legs, cradling him like an infant.

Roxas had saved his life.

It had happened all too fast: black shapes appearing out of nowhere, the subsequential darkness, flashes of light sparking as cold steel ripped through the demonic forms, a horrific shriek of pain---and there Roxas lay, exhausted and bleeding on the hard street, but not without exultant victory scrawled across his face.

“Axel…” The boy shifted weakly in the older Nobody’s grasp.

Axel forced his aching legs to move even faster.  The portal of darkness would have been much faster, and he longed to summon it, but  it was definitely out of the question.  Roxas, for some odd reason or another, had never really gotten used to the swirling blackness.  It took all of the boy’s strength to just keep from retching violently the moment they stepped back out into the normal world.

“I don’t…want…to disappear.”  Small hands entwined themselves in the folds of Axel’s jacket as slowly-opening blue eyes desperately searched for traces of  reassurance in the red-head’s features.

“You’ll be fine….just fine.”  Axel tried to keep his tone light, but it didn’t help to stifle his increasing panic of how cold the blonde’s temperature was becoming.  If he lost Roxas, he wouldn’t know what to do with the rest of his non-existence.  And the feeling of being hopelessly empty inside would return to suffocate him even worse than before…

Empty.

The word left a harsh bitterness on his tongue as his mouth softly formed its syllables.


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Axel sat alone, staring placidly at the lukewarm sunset as the last rays of sun disappeared beneath the horizon.  Only a few days had passed since Roxas’s departure from the Organization, but Axel already felt as if his best friend had been gone for months.  Total chaos had ensued in The World That Never Was, as Xemnas and the last few remaining members debated on where they should begin searching for their precious keyblade master.  Everyone, that is, except Axel.

Roxas had hurt him, more deeply than anything he had ever before experienced in his short existence.  All that he wished now was to completely erase the painful memories of the blonde-haired boy that were swelling up inside of him, tearing his empty chest to shreds.   Even if he had to take drastic measures and incinerate himself to dispel the raging hurt he felt, he would do it.  At least physical pain was much more bearable than the current emotional agony he was not supposed to feel.

Yet Axel could still feel a slight desperation for the young keyblade master.  Ever since he discovered Roxas in a remote section of Twilight Town,  Axel had been drawn to the boy and became close friends with him.   Every day they spent with each other only increased his fondness for his protégé, and for once, Axel felt like he really had a heart.

And the same Roxas was the one who smashed it into bits.