Work Text:
They’re fighting again.
A similar stage, a familiar script: Axel’s preparing for his mission, Saix makes a clipped comment that Axel should really just ignore, but the barbed-edged words only serve to widen the fissure between them, and Axel can’t help but to push back, throw gasoline on the fire. Axel’s up in Saix’s face, snarling at him, and Saix is holding his ground, amber eyes narrowed, a cool calm in the face of Axel’s fury.
“It’s my job to tell you what to expect on missions,” Saix says, voice dropping in level. “Stop being such a child.”
Axel scoffs, throws his shoulders back in defiance. The rational side of him knows that Saix is right, that Saix is only going over the warnings about this particular mission because it’s more dangerous than the ordinary, run-of-the-mill heartless elimination. But of course Saix had to add a little snide commentary of his own, and of course Axel couldn’t let it go, and here he is, looking for excuses to fight the one man he once made the center of his world.
Tragic, really, but he does nothing to stop their world from falling off its axis.
“And I’m sure it’s your job to remind me to - how did you say it? ‘Pay attention for once?’ Eat shit, Saix,” Axel spits.
Saix briefly, subtly crinkles his nose in threat, leading to a chorus of hushed murmurs behind them. Demyx and Xigbar are frequent spectators to their bickering, and Axel’s fairly convinced that they’re running a betting pool; he doesn’t have to turn around to know that they’re watching from the comfort of the sofa.
“Watch your tone,” Saix says, danger dripping from his lips, eyes flashing an unnatural gold, a warning. “If you get hurt - ”
Tendrils of fire weave around his fingers as a swell of not-emotion rises in his chest, burning him from the inside out like magma trying to reach the surface. “Spare me the fucking act. You don’t care if I get hurt, you wouldn’t even care if I died, and we both know it.”
It’s dramatic and over the top, and it’s apparently the last straw for Saix. Summoned claymore in hand, Saix prowls closer, the X on his face growing fat and jagged, the pupils in his eyes nearly invisible. It’s the first time Axel has managed to make Saix nearly beserk-out, and he bites back the brief feeling of something (regret) and bares his teeth instead.
“Get out,” Saix hisses, a wolfish growl, “while you have the chance.”
Axel doesn’t bother answering. He creates a portal, throws Saix the middle finger over his shoulder, and disappears to the sound of Xigbar and Demyx whistling.
--
Halfway through the battle, Axel thinks that maybe, just maybe, Saix was right.
He’s out of potions, and the Heartless is swinging punches like it has stamina of gold, wearing Axel down with every dodge he makes. Hooked claws slash up his coat, catching skin and spilling blood, and suddenly there’s three of them?
Didn’t Saix say something about it multiplying?
---
Time passes - maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours - and Axel finally takes down the insidious beast. Energy fails him, and there’s blood spilling from his lips and down his arms as he collapses in the backstreet alley of Twilight Town, with no one to witness his near-demise other than a passing stray cat. The buildings around him blur in a haze of color as he summons his dwindling energy to create a portal back home, and drags his broken body through it.
The dark shadow of travel, then the stark, blinding white of home, and the blank walls have never been prettier, never been more comforting. Axel allows his eyes to close and his body to relax at long last.
There’s voices around him, as indiscernible as the buzzing of flies, and he thinks he hears someone saying his name, but he can’t be sure. Cracking his eyes open, he’s met with two different figures in black cloaks, but it’s too hard to determine facial features when he feels like he’s bleeding out, not just in body but in soul.
Only when there’s a familiar, harsh growl and flash of blue does Axel manage a half-smile. I know you.
Axel’s vision can’t properly focus on Saix’s face - the edge of concern in Saix’s eyes must be a trick of the light (everything is so bright, feels like freedom, feels like redemption), same with the urgency in his voice (potions and hurry and what were you think you absolute idiot). A laugh bubbles from his chest, or maybe just blood, and Axel tries, fails to lick it away.
Don’t you dare die , he hears. He feels warm, caught ablaze without flames, and if this is what dying feels like, he’s not sure why he hasn’t tried to do it sooner.
“Saix,” Axel slurs. “Almost didn’t get a chance to tell you.”
There’s a flurry of movement around him, shadows creeping into the light, and Axel tries to focus on the blue and gold in front of him, allows all else to fall to the wayside, just as it always should have been between them, before they somehow lost their way.
“Almost forgot,” Axel says again, because this is important, he needs Saix to know this in case this is the end, “to tell you-”
Because despite all their anger, all their fights, all the knives they throw in each other’s faces and backs, there’s still that one, indisputable truth.
-that I’ve been in love with you since we were kids.
He’s not sure if he said that in his head or out loud.
There’s no time to wonder, because the blues and gold fade, and suddenly, all that remains is darkness.
---
When Axel comes to, he’s aware of two things: he’s lying on something soft, and his head hurts like hell.
Groaning, he blinks his eyes open to confirm that yes, he is curled up on his side in his bed, just as he suspected. His body aches in places he didn’t even know he had , but he doesn’t taste blood anymore, and his core being doesn’t feel in danger of withering away. Progress, he supposes.
He’s only conscious for a few minutes before a portal appears in the middle of his room, with Saix emerging. Axel doesn’t move, just watches as Saix closes the portal and stares at him with the same cold anger he bears during their arguments. Saix clenches his fists, and here it comes, Axel laments, the scolding of a century.
“Why is nothing easy with you?”
Axel blinks, caught off-guard. Saix looks tired , and there’s frustration in his tone, yes, but also something more personal, something closer to defeat.
He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what Saix wants to hear, what can make this right.
He cracks a slight smile in spite of himself instead. “Because then I wouldn’t be me, I guess.”
Saix snorts, a dragon puffing smoke from its nostrils, as he turns away to glare at one of the walls.
“You don’t have to check on me, you know.”
“I know.”
There it is again - two quiet words carrying such a tired, heavy weight.
He can see it in Saix’s eyes when he turns back. He can feel it in his own chest, in the lump that forms in his throat, words that desperately need to be said but cannot be formed.
I don’t know what happened to us.
Without thinking twice, Axel shifts backward in his bed, grimacing at the pain, and lifts his arm up in invitation. Saix eyes the space Axel has created like it’s something dangerous.
Isa would always flop next to Lea. Saix, however, hesitates.
“I can’t stay,” Saix says.
Axel can read between the lines - Saix hasn’t been able to stay, in any capacity, in a very long time.
That overwhelming non-emotion clutches his throat, threatens to choke him out, and Axel can barely manage to speak, “Just for a little while?”
Don’t make me beg you.
Maybe Saix can sense the underlying desperation, because a few seconds later moves forward, one slow step after another, until he delicately sits on the edge of Axel’s bed. Another moment later, and Saix rests on his back, exhaling a heavy, heavy sigh like he’s been holding it in for years.
Maybe he has.
Axel shuffles closer, throws an arm across Saix’s chest and presses his face into his coat, inhaling the familiar scent of leather and something distinctively Saix. Closing his eyes, he allows the silence to take over as he holds on tightly, like this will somehow be enough to save themselves from each other.
Just before sleep takes over, he thinks he can feel a hand rest on top of his.
(Saix is gone by the time he wakes, and Axel almost wonders if he dreamed it.)