Betwixt and Between is a dumping ground for drabbles and short one-shots, the proof of existence for some of those plot bunnies that demand to be written but never develop into something strong enough to stand on its own. There will be a variety of different pairings, most of them will probably be inspired by songs, it will be updated sporadically and randomly, probably four or five in a row for two weeks and then nothing for months. These are cheesy, cliche, not particularly well written or edited. Most of them are one shot deals written in an hour or so, just to kill the damn bouncing bunnies so I can move on to bigger things. Mostly it's just something for you to read if you get bored. Enjoy =)

Things That Belong to Me: an iPhone with all these songs on it, a baby stuffed tiger named Roxy, black leather gloves.

Things That Don't Belong to Me: Any and all of these characters, any and all of these songs, any and all of these lyrics, any and all of these settings. They belong to people much richer, luckier, and more powerful than myself.

Title: Heat
Characters: Axel/Roxas
Song: None

"Hey Axel?"

"Hmm?" Axel glanced up from the sticky sea salt ice cream dripping down his leather glove, his green eyes meeting Roxas' without even having to search for them. Roxas shifted his gaze quickly, watching the sugary blue pool in the folds of Axel's glove.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You just did, doofus. Twice." Axel snorted. He turned back towards his ruined treat and sighed heavily, dropping the remains onto the wall next to him. He set to work peeling the mushy glove from his thin fingers, and Roxas stared, his retort dying on his lips. He had never seen the other Nobody's skin, save his neck and face, and the slow reveal of the pale, smooth flesh from wrist to fingertip was doing odd things to the depths of his stomach.

"Roxas?"

"Huh?" Roxas shook his head with a sharp jerk, snapping his gaze away from the redhead's bare hands. Axel was watching him with a raised eyebrow, one corner of his lip lifted in an amused smirk. Roxas felt the heat burning across his cheekbones and ducked his head quickly, his eyes fixed on his ice cream. It wasn't nearly as melted as Axel's had been; the Flurry of Dancing Flames' ice cream always melted twice as fast as his.

"Didn't you have a question? Geez man, I thought your zombie days were done."

Roxas shrugged, hiding his face so the older boy couldn't see his screwed-up nose and cheeks as he struggled to remember the burning question he'd been dying to ask barely a minute before. He glanced surreptitiously at Axel's face, the redhead frowning as he scrubbed the sticky blue from his fingers. With a frustrated huff the Nobody popped his entire finger in his mouth and sucked, and Roxas very nearly exploded. The tattoos on the high, now-prominent cheekbones twinkled at him.

And then he remembered his question.

"Why did you get those tattoos?"

Axel froze and turned to face the younger Nobody, finger sliding from between his lips with a wet noise that made Roxas want to whimper. The redhead cocked his head to the side and studied his partner carefully. Roxas couldn't keep his eyes off the pale, glistening finger, but Axel seemed to have forgotten about the appendage entirely. He simply stared at the blond, who could feel the heat of his green green eyes even though he was consciously looking anywhere but the redhead's face.

"What?" Roxas finally snapped, defensive. A small part of him acknowledged that this may have been a particularly personal question, but that had never stopped Axel from asking Roxas thousands of things he never would have imagined talking about with someone else.

"Nobody's ever asked me about them before."

Axel was still staring. Roxas shoved his ice cream in his mouth, desperate for something to do with his hands. This left him nothing to look at, though, and he found his gaze wandering back to the long, pale fingers resting on the redhead's knee.

"They're not tattoos, Roxas. I didn't get them by choice."

"If they're not tattoos then what are they?" Roxas tore his eyes from Axel's lap and looked instead at his face, studying the symmetrical, tear-shaped marks on either side of Axel's nose.

"Burns, Rox. They're burn marks."

"How could you be burned, Axel? You're the Flurry of Dancing Flames, you are the fire. How can you burn yourself?"

Axel stretched his still-naked hand towards Roxas, who held his ground and tried his best not to flinch as he followed the foreign limb until it was no longer in his line of vision. The older boy had curled his fingers around Roxas' neck, the palm of his hand flat against Roxas' skin, and Roxas hissed in surprise at the heat suddenly pressed against his skin. It was just on this side of bearable, just at the threshold of being too painful to maintain contact.

The taller Nobody slid his fingers slowly down the blonde's exposed skin, skin licking down his neck and over his collarbone. The trail of fire burned Roxas' skin; he didn't understand the sharp shiver that ran down his spine as Axel's nails scratched against his collarbone before lifting away from his flushed chest.

"I am fire, Roxas. Every part of me burns. The first time I had to fight a Heartless, the first time I ever summoned the chakrams…I was just a kid, like you. I could barely hold it together…and after the thing melted away, after the chakrams had seared themselves to my fingers so badly that I couldn't let go of them, I cried like I was still Lea, still Somebody."

Roxas didn't move, his entire body hanging on every word that fell from Axel's (fire hot) lips. The redhead had never spoken so openly before, no matter how many prying questions he had expected Roxas to answer. Roxas hadn't even known his Somebody's name was Lea.

"So they're actually...I mean, they're shaped like…but why would they…"

"Do you really think someone consumed by fire could produce liquid tears, Rox? Come on, you're not that dim. Flames. Tiny, searing, tear shaped flames. They landed on my cheeks just once, and let me tell you…I got over crying pretty quickly after that." Axel laughed humorlessly, turning his head back towards the sunset. Roxas noticed, for the first time, that the skin of the marks was slightly indented, as though branded into the older boy's flesh.

He placed his ice cream stick carefully on the wall beside him and peeled his gloves quietly from his fingers, tugging them off with his teeth. Roxas placed his comparably cold hands on either side of the redhead's jaw, cupping the burning skin in his fingers as he turned the older boy's face back towards him. Axel was entirely silent, green eyes burning into blue.

Roxas leaned forward slowly, pressing his ice-cream-cold, slightly-blue-stained lips first to one scar, then the next.

"I'm sorry you were hurt, Axel."

Axel watched him go with an expression most closely resembling a gaping codfish, one hand pressed to his cheek. For the first time since he'd gotten them, the scars didn't burn.