Axel's there. Always.

He's there from the start, teaching Roxas how to talk again. That deep and teasing but knowledgeable voice easing him back into being alive.

It's my name then your name then extra time to wake up then the mission.

It's sunset and the sun leaving but it's still warm out and his body is doing things on its own, following that red red hair and sitting next to him and taking the sky blue thing. It's chilled, he can feel the cold coming off it through his glove. But it's very good.

They've been here before? Has Axel been with him always? Roxas thinks that the answer is yes.

Sometimes, Axel isn't here.

Most times he is, waiting or calling or kidnapping or dragging or meeting Roxas on the tower that's unripe tangerine orange and way high up. Axel tells him not to sit forward too much, and with the sacrifice of an ice cream bar Roxas learns what gravity does to things that are way high up. So he sits back and closer to Axel, just in case.

Axel left.

To do something. Roxas doesn't remember what because it's that mouth and the voice and that bigger-than-him body so he nods and sits close and doesn't say too much and waits for that –his- red to be back where it belongs.

It's not the same when he comes back cuz there's Xion and Axel should talk to him because it's always been that way. He doesn't know about sharing, cuz the other members are mean and Axel doesn't share him with anyone else. But Xion is cute, Axel says, and she's quiet like he is so they get along just fine, their shared link to the keyblade is enough to ease the part of his mind that didn't like the faceless smile that he was first introduced to.

It's always Axel.

It's Axel that's there when Roxas uses all his energy on magic. It's that red that fills his eyes along with the tears when Axel explains he's not dying, it's just the flu. It's Axel he goes to when his room is too bright because the taller male can talk him into closing his eyes and just trying. It's Axel that gentle as anything takes him in his arms and lets him cry himself out when he hasn't used his keyblade enough and all that light energy is stuck in his brain and it hurts so bad.

It's that red and that green and that deep voice that follows him into his dreams. That red he sees when he throbs in his underwear and that voice that rings in his mind when it's all fuzzy and some tears form after he's done.

It's Axel he goes to.

It's that green he latches onto, nervous voice trying to hint at those feelings he gets, but he doesn't say who and he doesn't say what he does about it and he doesn't mention how long those feelings have been there. It's the heart he feels beat when Axel smiles, and it's the nervous, half hopeful smile that slides off his face when Axel talks about women, and when he gives Roxas that just-for-him look but says Xion's name. Roxas denies, and it makes Axel laugh.

Axel's laughing at him.

This time, this night, he doesn't go to Axel when he can't make the tears stop.

It's Axel he walks away from.

It's that voice that isn't teasing or intoxicating or laughing. It's deep; not the sound, but the words. It's what Roxas has been told is 'the last straw' when Axel says "They'll kill you,", and not "Don't go" or "Stay with me" or "I'll come with you" or "What can I do". He says nothing that tells Roxas that he's important to Axel, that says redhead spends more time thinking about him than just what it takes for the sun to sink.

It's none of these thoughts at the end though. It's red he sees, but that green burns brighter, shines through the watering of his eyes in response to the intense heat. It isn't that deep voice in his ears, it's the other boy's, memories surfacing and competing to be heard over the gross shtick of his melted rubber shoes to that very white tile.

There's one thing Axel gave him though, that comes to him in the very end. It's that warmth, that bigger-than-him safety, those arms he hid in and the still calmness in the air and in his heart after a promise of "It's alright" and "I'll stay until it's over" and "We'll meet again."

It's over. He says it out loud to himself, a goodbye to memories of black clothes and white halls, to the sunset, the red of hair and the orange of Twilight Town and the yellow of light, and to the friends he didn't really make.

And Axel isn't here to hear him say his last words. No one is.