No matter how many deaths that I die,
I will never forget.
No matter how many lives I live,
I will never regret.

Crash, Crash, Burn. Let it all burn.~

~Hurricane, 30 Seconds to Mars

A/N: The fic revolves around the lyrics of the song. You probably won't get the full effect unless you listen to it, so hey, hit up youtube.

Let's meet again, in the next life.

Dying hurts, and really, Sora's eyes are too blue.

I'll be waiting.

The pain stops.

-Restarts.

Sweat tickles as it dries, cooling against the curve of his spine, black dirt clinging tight to his wrists and fingers like a costly glove. An explosion echoes somewhere nearby and the sound rattles his bones. Debris rains down around them, pelting them with dirt and bones and chunks of flesh. The air is too hot, too clammy, thick with the scent of rotting meat and his fingers shake, makes him fumble and drop the extra bullets so they clatter across the dirt. One of them rolls to a stop at the heel of Isa's boot, bumping off of it and back towards Axel again. Axel chokes on his own hysterics, avoids his friend's blank gaze and the gaping, raw hole in his belly and thinks There's no place like home, Toto, but I've lost my ruby slippers.

He's dead, they're all dead, this mission has gone to hell and he thinks that he's probably the only one left- the only one still bothering to live-

Someone is shuffling across the clearing; blond hair, blue eyes, red jacket that sets alarm bells echoing through the almost empty cavern of his skull. He's a boy, just a boy, but he's wearing red and when Axel gropes for his gun, he remembers that he's out of bullets. The kid is staggering, tripping over corpses and squinting through the dust and when blue eyes finally meet green Axel thinks, confused, why do I know him?

He doesn't see, hear, or feel the explosion; just breathes Roxa-

He's awake, too awake, can't stop staring at his ceiling- drawing shapes in the shadows to pass the time. The rain pounds on the window like it's trying to break it and beyond that, Axel thinks he might be able to hear gunfire.

Where did you go? Where did you go? Where did you go?

Roxas.

The window shatters inward, but it isn't rain, it's bullets-

"Heart beat, a heart beat, I need a... heart beat, a heart beat..."

The drone of the heart monitor is too loud in the quiet of the ambulance and Roxas' fingers trip, tangle in the cords and wires. He wonders why he's panicking.

"Call it, Roxas."

He takes a deep breath, holds it, let's it hiss out through his teeth like smoke and carefully doesn't look at the man bleeding out on the stretcher beneath him.

"John Doe, time of death 8:13 PM. Saturday, June 30th 2004."

The red hair is almost the same shade as the blood smeared into it, pale skin bruised and broken and there's something familiar-

There's a new kid in town, he hears. Short and far too pretty for country life, too much attitude stuffed in that tiny package, they say, and Axel pretends not to notice when their curiosity turns poisonous. Freak, unnatural, and perverse are the words of the week, and Axel avoids the dustier parts of town, just in case. He knows temptation, knows the familiar curl of heat, the shame that comes with that first moment you catch yourself looking at the curl of your best friend's smile too intently. He's too used to stroking his thumbs along the slope of a woman's breast and feigning interest, doesn't want to see this new kid, doesn't want to feel that curl of temptationinterestheat.

He never meets him, but when he finds the body- dusty and broken and fragile along the side of the road, the stark jolt of recognition is like a punch to the chest.

Too late.

"Tell me," he whispers, the scarred ridge of the kid's ear hot under his lips, "would you kill to save a life?" He presses the glock into pale, shaking fingers and tries not to hate his boss for sticking him with the task of corrupting the fucking youth.

The kid shakes his head, once, twice- sends a spray of short blond hair out to lick at Axel's cheek and Axel knows he's lying.

He changes tactics, moving to the undamaged ear. The kid quivers and Axel skims a hand down his side, feels sharp ribs, each individual gap, each smooth burn, and hates himself, just a little bit. "What about" he breathes, sliding his fingertips up beneath a ragged shirt, "to prove," skates his palms down down down and under, "that you're right?"

The kid takes the gun and offers his name. Axel remembers it, but by tomorrow it won't matter, because the kid will already be dead.

The riot doesn't go as planned. It ends with his hands wrapped around some fifteen year old's bony wrist, trying to tug him to safety, gunfire raining down around them. It ends with the kid hissing, "C'mon, Axel" and him wondering when he'd mentioned his name.

It ends in fire and a hand still clasped tightly in his.

Crash, crash, burn.

The pills go down too easy and it isn't until Axel sees the frantic doctor, those golden bedhead curls and worried blue eyes, that he realizes he's made a huge mistake. He laughs and laughs and laughs and pulls the blonde, pulls Roxas close to him, whispers into his ear, "Let it all burn."

He is twelve and just starting to hate the robes, just starting to tire of this whole church thing that his parents have forced him into, except, now there's this new priest. Young. Pretty in a way that makes Lea stare in awe whenever he walks by. He looks like a sculpture, pretty and chiseled and beautiful.

So Lea sticks around, deals with the robes just so he can be close enough.

When Lea is fifteen he moves out of his house, dyes his hair a bright fire engine red and gets a pair of teardrops tattooed across his cheeks. Changes his name.

Roxas doesn't even bat an eye when he shows up at the confessional at three in the morning, just smiles and nods, listens as Lea- as Axel confesses to all those years that he'd been too busy staring at Roxas' ass to properly listen to the Homily, how he'd wondered day after day what Roxas would look like stretched across the altar, moaning his name. Roxas had listened, nodded with a benevolent smile stretched tight across his lips and ordered three Hail Marys and an Our Father for Axel's sins. And then he'd gotten to his feet, blue eyes dark and lead Axel past the empty pews.

Our father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name-

As it turned out, bending Roxas over the altar- listening to him whine, fucking him slowly open with his tongue and then pushing in was probably the best thing that had ever happened to Axel.

At least until the doors had clattered open and one of the Sister's had screamed.

-Where is your God? Where is your God? Where is your God?-

"Do you really want me?" he whispers, feels the cherry-sweet burst of pain behind his ribs. Roxas is shaking his head, clenching his hands into short hair and snarling in helpless confusion. "I need, I need, I need," he's hissing, confused and still tripping on the drugs Xigbar had slipped them earlier.

"I need a heartbeat," Roxas breathes, expression going bright with memory before the drugs catch hold. Glazed, now. He starts pacing again, stumbling back and forth across their empty apartment muttering "You know I gotta leave, I can't stay. I know I gotta go, I can't stay. Axel."

Axel closes his eyes, curls his fingers into the worn fabric of his ratty old couch and doesn't let himself watch Roxas walk out the door.

"Why aren't we allowed to live lies?" he breathes, voice trembling up his throat. The empty apartment doesn't answer back.

This ladybug is too red, he thinks, prods at it with the bitten edge of his nail until it flutters its wings in agitation and shuffles further along the blade of grass. Beside him, Larxene laughs and nudges him with one booted foot. "You stoned motherfucker, stop gawking at the bugs and watch your boy in action."

She chuckles under her breath, mutters something that sounds like God fucking dammit and digs the heel of one of her shiny, new pumps into the ground like she's attempting to shish-kabob a worm. Idly, he wonders why the hell she'd worn heels to a skatepark.

But she's right. Bugs are boring and Roxas isn't. He shifts to prop himself up on two elbows, turning his gaze away from the the wonders of insect life and towards the concrete palace of the skate park.

Roxas, as always, is beautiful. He's using the red board today, the stylized chakrams glittering red-black-white in the sun and Axel feels a briefly irrational sense of pride because he remembers the way the brush had stroked over the wood- the paint wet and glistening and messy, getting all over his hands. It clung to his knuckles and wrists, occasionally transferred to his nose or cheek and Roxas had asked him for days why he was covered in paint. Axel had just smirked, amused and secretive and said, "You'll see." And three days later, Roxas had.

Olette is sitting on the half pipe, lounging there with a book on her knees and a pen in hand. Every couple of seconds she reaches down and scribbles something into the margin of the book, some theory or correction, or something and for a moment Axel thinks about going to join her. Ultimately, he decides against it because after all, the half pipe is very, very far away.

Roxas grins over at him, sunshine and nicotine, and later, he will wish that he'd made that thirty foot journey, that itty bitty climb up, anything to have spent a little bit more time-

Later, there will be an accident. Later, Axel will wake up to fifteen missed calls and nine increasingly frantic messages and he'll think Oh god, I should have been there. Later, Roxas will die, and it will be too late again.

In this life, there is no such thing as Roxas. There is only Sora and the rumor that Sora should have had a twin. Axel dies when he's twenty-three, still wondering why it feels like there's something missing-

The rain is like an orchestra against the surface of the lake, each drop sparking a ripple- each ripple spreading outward, wider and wider to mesh and mix with other ripples, other droplets. If Axel stares long enough, he thinks he might just be able to hear the breaking of the crescendo. Across the lake, there's a family of ducks huddling beneath the crowded, too bare winter branches of a yew. As he watches, the littlest one ventures out of the makeshift shelter, inches quietly into the downpour and quacks in distress when it finally realizes why it was beneath the tree to begin with.

A broken, half-hysterical chuckle comes unbidden to his lips and he lets it slip out, looks away from the ducks and the bittersweet symphony that is the lake. Up, skyward and through drooping red spikes. Thunder claps overhead and all Axel can think is God, I wish I'd used waterproof today.

The park bench is flaking, flecks sticking to the wet palms of his hand, his jeans, his arms. It's itchy, the paint, and he flicks each piece away from his chilled skin with shaking fingers and tries not to lament his miserable life. He tugs a pack of cigarettes loose, tries to light one, and gives up once the cigarette has gone bloated with water. His makeup is running into his eyes, making his vision go blurry and he thinks that it's probably bleeding into his tattoos. It probably looks ridiculous, but really, he doesn't much care. Somewhere out there, there is a boy. A boy that Axel remembers, a boy that's all radiation and black, black coats and Axel thinks, fuck, fuck, fuck, I have to find him.

The lake plays on, the storm sparking electricity through the skies and-

"We keep doing this wrong, don't we?"

The boy is sliding onto the bench beside him, polyester shirts and a threadbare smile and Axel wants to reach over and-

Well, do that.

The boy's lips are cold, wet from the rain and he tastes like cinnamon and coffee; like memories, missed chances and new horizons. When the boy's hand comes up to tangle in the hair at his temple, Axel thinks with a shock, Roxas.

Roxas pulls away and his eyes are still shut. Dark lashes quiver against pale cheeks, collecting raindrops, and Axel remembers what it means to think something is beautiful. Eyes still shut, Roxas murmurs, "Hey Axel. Let's do it right this time."

Axel can only nod his agreement.

I want our story to go on and on and on-