I'll Keep Your Memory Vague

This won't break your heart
But I just think it could
Cause I haven't tried as hard as I should
To separate you from everything I do
But I would never want to come between us two

Axel walked down the hallway of Castle Oblivion that led to the bedrooms, unconsciously counting the number of doors he'd walked past.

Six… Seven…

He passed straight by door number eight and kept walking.

Nine… Ten…

He stopped at the final door. It wasn't labeled in any way besides the small roman numerals on the center of the wood, indicating the occupant. XIII.

He leaned against the wall directly across from this door, staring at the number as if he were silently commanding the occupant to come out and talk to him.

Two hours later, Demyx appeared through the door labeled IX and noticed the redhead. "Axel, what are you doing…?" He asked before noticing the other man's location. He stopped walking toward him and shook his head slowly.

"He's not coming back, Axel. He won't walk out of that door."

Axel glared at the blonde hair that reminded him so much of the younger man he definitely was not waiting for. "I don't expect him to! I can look at whatever I damn well please, Demyx, now mind your own goddamn business!"

The blonde sighed. "You're not going to get over him if you don't try to get away from things that remind you of him."

Axel was silent for a few moments. "If he does come back…" He began. "I don't want to hate him… I don't want me to be what comes between us."

Demyx walked over to his friend and shook his head. "Superior's going to get mad if you keep pining after him like this. Roxas is a traitor to Organization XIII."

"I know." Axel sighed. "But I can't give up on him."

"Try a bit harder. An unhappy Xemnas doesn't help any of us."

Axel nodded, his gaze returning to the small golden numbers of his best friend. I won't give up on him. He thought determinedly.

He's like a lost puppy. This would break Roxas's heart… if he had one. Demyx thought sadly as he walked down the hallway, away from Axel.

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I'll keep your memory vague
So you won't feel bad about me
I'll say the things that you said
Sometimes so it reminds me

Axel was in the city training with his chakrams. It took a great deal of effort not to remember his former partner, and there was something about defending your life from Heartless that made you forget the partner that had once done this very action with you and…

"Damn it!" Axel shouted as he threw a flaming chakram and wiped out four Neoshadows. He jumped to the top of the flight of stairs at Memory Skyscraper, chuckling to himself.

"Maybe I should just let them finish me off. Nobody would miss me." He quoted Roxas, letting the memory of their last encounter as friends take him over completely.

After a few seconds he opened his eyes again, noticing that he was surrounded by Heartless once again.

"Well, you're not remembering me. I'll avoid remembering you, too. You have a conscience, you can feel emotions. This way you won't feel guilty for forgetting me."

With this new resolve, Axel launched himself into the sea of Heartless before him and wiped out every last one. He wasn't taking his frustrations out on them, of course not. He couldn't feel anything to be able to. No, he was forgetting Roxas. Just like everyone had been telling him to.

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Now I'm thinking back
To what I said before
I hope your heart won't have to hurt anymore
Cause it's really not that sad from here
Because the moments I can feel you near
They keep you close to me my dear
And if they ever become too clear...

"That's not true… I would."

Axel laid on his bed, thinking of when his best friend had left him to do whatever self-serving act that would make him feel as though he knew the truth. He knew how difficult it was for Roxas to leave the Organization, mainly him and Demyx.

The mullethawked blonde would never have picked up on the fact, but Axel knew. Roxas had never turned around. The shorter blonde was picky about facing people when speaking to them and took most of his sensory information from sight, following closely with hearing. Relying solely on the second was unheard of. It had been highly difficult for the youngest Nobody to leave. His voice was more distant than usual, deliberately blocking off the emotions he had due to his Somebody still being alive.

Roxas's hearing was almost more perfect than his sight. He had heard Axel's comment, and still walked away. There was no doubt in the redhead's mind that he was feeling horrible about his decision, about forcing the others into being ordered to destroy him on sight. He'd accepted his fate the moment he'd left The World That Never Was. Accepted oblivion, perhaps even embraced it. Sure, it was suicide, but he'd rather feel everything or nothing at all.

"You made your decision. The Roxas I know is long gone." He repeated a phrase he'd used only once before, when Roxas had lost his memory not long before.

If he couldn't have Roxas as he was now, he would remember all the good times they'd had. When they'd stolen Marluxia's prized rose collection, replaced Zexion's current reading list with porn, tainted Larxene's hair spray with blue dye…

"I don't regret knowing you, Roxas." He whispered to his ceiling, knocking his boots together in rhythm to some long-forgotten song. He had those memories; that was proof enough for him that they were real, they could feel something at the very least. "I hope the end justifies the means, that you're finally happy."

He would remember; that would be enough, just keeping Roxas's memory close to him. Sometimes it got too real, however, and he would sit in room XIII until Demyx came to collect him and make sure he didn't get in trouble for being there.

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Now you've gone away
Don't worry it's ok
That you're gone away
Further than yesterday
But you'll never leave these scenes
My mind replays

Axel sat up, breathing heavily. A hand reached over and felt the other side of his bed, two highly different emotions rejoicing and groaning inwardly when they felt the cold sheets.

It had been six months; most of the other Organization members had forgotten the blonde almost entirely, and the ones who hadn't were growing ever more furious that he hadn't faded yet. In that respect, Axel supposed it was good that Roxas was gone, heading even further away in his goal to find his answers.

The same hand he'd used to check if another presence was in bed with him reached up and pulled at his face, rousing him further from the dream in which Roxas was with him like in the old days, the dream that had seemed so real…

The memories weren't fading. The further Roxas got from the Organization, the more Axel dreamt of the blonde. His memory just wasn't leaving him alone.

"I guess it's alright." Axel mumbled to himself before he flopped back down and buried his head in his pillow, falling back asleep to the memories of the times he'd spent with the Key of Destiny.

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"Watch this."

Axel had jumped forward and attacked his former allies, wiping the sea of Nobodies entirely from the area. He knew the consequences; what he didn't know was why he'd done it. Maybe he wanted to help the one Roxas was looking for at any cost, even his own existence. Maybe he was tired of remembering the blonde.

"He made me feel… like I had a heart."

He recounted his thoughts to Sora, a subconscious reaction to the want to have Roxas know why he was fading, that he did care about him, that the blonde had gotten him to think about what was truly important… standing up for what you believed in, getting answers, fully understanding your existence.

There was one thing crossing his mind as he was fading away, one unresolved issue that had yet to be solved as he watched the brunette with the same face as his blonde above him with eyes much too teary for the passing of someone who he'd only met once, even if that person had saved his life. Some strange part of him had thought Roxas would unexplainably appear one last time, and perhaps this was the fulfillment of that. Even still, Sora was not Roxas, and this principle guided Axel's final thoughts.

Where in the world have you gone now?