kingdom hearts | after the war
Kingdom Hearts | Axel/Roxas | 2300 words | AU | beta'd by kokanshu.
You thought the kink meme was over? You thought wrong! I took a hideously long time with all the subsequent rewrites, but after four failed attempts and three drafts, here it is. Because even in a smutfest, nothing can ever be just porn.
Prompt was cleaning up/bandaging of wounds after a battle; bonus points for licking blood. Check tags for warnings. Thanks to kokanshu for the challenge and beta.
After the War
When Axel woke up, the first thing he saw was Roxas' silhouette against the sky, and the first thing he smelled was blood.
“What-?” he asked, mostly slurred, and Roxas came sharply into focus, craning down to peer into his eyes. He looked ragged in an attractive sort of way, like something recently desecrated, and his hands on Axel's brow were gentle. There was mud and worse on his camo gear, but he appeared relatively unharmed, except for terminally dirt-splattered hair and circles beneath his eyes. The twin dog tags glinted from under his military parka in the dim light.
“You passed out,” he said quietly, and then, almost as an afterthought, “how do you feel?”
“I did not,” said Axel, and then, “fine.” He tried to look around, but Roxas' eyes were riveting, holding him in place. From the corners of his vision, there was a vague impression of trees. “Where are we?”
“Away from the battlefield,” Roxas said. “A couple of miles. I hauled you.”
No wonder his shoulders drooped like that. “Who won, then?”
Roxas looked at him as if Axel had just asked the dumbest question on earth, which, yeah, okay, maybe he sort of had. “Nobody.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They lay in terse silence for a moment, and then Roxas retreated, leaving in his wake a pretty skyline of clouds and dark forest leaves. Axel amused himself trying to guess the time of day, but could only conclude they had passed post-meridiem: the sky was an indecipherable grey and his mind was too scattered to be of much use.
When Roxas returned, he had a wet cloth in hand and a grim expression on his face. “I'm going to clean your wounds,” he said, and at the tone of his voice something clicked in Axel's brain-the smell of blood, the dizziness-he remembered pain, tearing through his sides and belly, long gashes like the claws of some great beast. As if in reminder, a sudden flash of agony stabbed straight through his ribs, leaving him reeling and gasping for air.
“What-” he choked, reflexively drawing into himself, seeing red at the corners of his vision. Roxas was there in an instant, holding him down and commanding: breathe. His tone was edged with steel, bullet-sharp; Axel felt himself obey due to sheer habit, body responding to battlefield orders: he heaved, choked, and inhaled.
The air burned going down, but when he opened his eyes Roxas was a familiar sight in khaki and dirty gold, craning over him. With that came ease, or at least oxygen; he shifted minutely, so as not to aggravate anything, and felt rough fabric at his back, making his spine and shoulderblades prickle.
When he looked down, still dizzy with pain, Axel realized he was shirtless, lying on his military-issue jacket with belt and pants undone around his hips, and that his torso was adorned with three sickening gashes the length of his clavicle, all open and freely bleeding.
“We have to avoid infection,” Roxas said, sounding far away; “your jacket is filthy, and the pants were getting in the way. I was just going to start cleaning. We don't have disinfectant, though.”
“No medical tent,” Axel muttered; an echo of a memory, though he didn't remember from where. Shellshock welled up like the remnants of a bad hangover, sick and numbing from inside. He knew the feeling, and tried to fight it as best he knew how. Looking away was a good start. “This shit's not mine, no way.”
“The blood's yours, Axel. I've got to clean it up.”
“Lies,” he closed his eyes, tried breathing again. “Wicked lies.”
“Hold still.”
He knew what had to be done, soonest and quickest and best. Axel grimaced, but inertia was an imminent danger and there was no Get Out Of Gangrene Free card. Knowing his luck, he'd go bankrupt in the next round, anyway. He breathed again, steadying.
“Just get on with it, then; the damn thing's clashing with my hair.”
It is mildly embarrassing to note that the first time Roxas touched down with the wet wadded cloth Axel hissed like a girl, eyes widening in panic. The fabric was rough, strips torn from his own filthy shirt; the bare nerve-endings certainly didn't take kindly to contact and just-pain, pain like a motherfucker-
“Nonono, it's fine,” he gasped when he could speak again, having viciously shoved Roxas' hand away. “Tell anyone else about this and you're fucking done for, god-”
Roxas shot him a shut-your-crap glare and leaned in again, lips pursed. Axel gritted his teeth, except the second time was just as bad the first, and so was the third, and by the fourth he actually keened and lashed out, narrowly missing Roxas' face.
“Shit,” he said, and “fuck,” because this much pain meant there must be some shrapnel inside somewhere and there wasn't a medical tent, not for miles. “Fuck, Rox, I can't, it's just too rough and it's not helping, I just-”
“Quiet.”
He jerked as if slapped, shooting Roxas a sharp look inbetween shivers. His caretaker looked mildly irked, as he did when concentrating: brows drawn together in two gracefully sweeping lines, a sick white under the mud and filth. With this vision before him Axel breathed in as deep as he could manage, sweating from pain and blood loss, but mostly managed to keep it together. He shut up and tried not act too antsy, which was a feat, considering he had a procession of minor chasms in his torso. Then he waited for the word.
Except Roxas didn't say anything, he just leaned down, closer and closer, until his face was inches away from the skin-and just as Axel was about to break his own rule and say something devastatingly witty just to prove his voice wasn't shaking, Roxas opened his mouth and dipped down and licked.
This time he did lash out, but for entirely different reasons. “Pardon, what the fuck,” he wanted to say, mostly stammer, but the words stuck in his craw when Roxas withdrew, lapped up the blood without blinking, and leaned back in again like a hungry cat.
“Disinfecting,” he murmured when he'd licked his lips clean for the second time and Axel was a trembling heap next to him. “Cloth's no good, we need something softer. Now stop moving.”
“Easier said then done,” Axel managed to gasp out, lying flat on his back and watching Roxas arch over him, one hand resting firmly on his thigh and lapping at his blood like he'd paid good money for it. “God, where did you even-auuugh fuck-”
“It's not particularly sanitary,” Roxas noted, “but it's better than doing nothing.” He licked again, right on the ridge where healthy flesh met bloody muscle. “No good surviving the war if you snuff it right after.”
“Careful,” Axel managed in response, voice faint. Roxas moved to the second gash up, tongue flat, and the sight was morbidly fascinating, besides making his skin tingle with goosebumps. He tried to stare up, concentrate on the oak tree right in front of him, but then Roxas ran his tongue over the bloodied dip in his ribcage and made this noise, like a cartographer discovering a new valley, and-oh, oh hell, he'd signed himself up for something completely unplanned.
When Roxas next looked up, he had blood on his chin and lips and the tip of his nose. Axel was more than slightly half-mad, shivering in the jacket and fisting his hands in the fabric. His skin was wet with saliva, shining with it, but the blood kept welling up.
“Now the wounds,” Roxas said, sounding unfazed, and at first Axel thought he heard him incorrectly, except Roxas' hand clenched down on his thigh hard, trapping him like a tiger held down prey. His other hand was a steady pressure on Axel's chest, tracing absent circles around his nipple, and Axel was about to venture a nervous statement of some sort when Roxas thumbed him expertly and bent to lick right across the open bleeding muscles.
Axel screamed.
“Shut up shut up,” Roxas muttered, breath gusting over the wounds, it hurt, god it hurt so bad, but Roxas' nails were scraping over his chest and it was doing terrible things to his judgement. They can't have been the only ones to survive, had to maintain low profile-but Axel felt his dog tags cut into his neck, cold against the skin like Roxas' fingers twisting his nipple; he had no air and let out sound instead.
By the second gash he'd torn the jacket, trying to writhe away from under Roxas' iron grip. He never begged, but he made the most awful sounds, until Roxas finally let out a grunt of frustration and shifted away, moving deftly to sit on Axel's thighs; he curved over the wounds like an archway dripping blood and shoved his hand down Axel's pants instead.
For such a small guy, Roxas definitely knew how to throw his weight around. Axel thrust into his palm and bled into his mouth and moaned as the pain transformed into something terrifying and new. It was red and burning and Roxas did that thing with his fingers to the base of Axel's cock-fuck, fuck-he couldn't decide whether he was panting or sobbing.
Then Roxas was turning his head, craning this way and that, until finally-“I think I can see the shrapnel.” He kissed Axel's belly, somewhere around his navel, where the third and largest gash cut into his skin like a scythe. Now that the blood was mostly gone, Axel would see the tiny shards of metal, sticking up at odd angles and looking sinister.
“Get it out,” he groaned, and Roxas nodded minutely, not uncompassionate. His eyelashes formed a beautiful flared curve, slanting downwards as he studied the area, and when his lips parted Axel held his breath, unable to look at it or away.
The first touch was almost a kiss, Roxas' lips stained reddish-brown, and then his tongue snaked out, pressing against the muscles and past them-writhing into the cleft caused by the shrapnel, probing and pushing. It looked like he was eating from the wound, mouthing at it as his hand worked Axel tightly, blood covering the lower half of his face.
Axel shut his eyes and tried to focus on his dick, but it was impossible to separate the pleasure and the pain anymore; he thrust into Roxas' hand and his hips moved in tandem, pushing into Roxas' face, forcing his tongue further in. He could feel the metal digging sharp, the maddening burn of it-then Roxas' teeth closed around the shard and he moved back (slowly, slowly, much much much too slowly when every centimetre was a fight for freedom, god). He couldn't decide whether it felt like aeons or a second-but then Roxas finally straightened, wiping blood from his eyes and spitting the shrapnel out on to the grass.
The minute he was gone Axel mewled, literally mewled, pained and craving and desperate for touch. Then Roxas dipped back in, tongue forcing itself forward until he was deep enough to bite at the next piece. The sensation struck like thunder; his cock was throbbing, slick and flushed in Roxas' hand.
It was hot and grotesque and straight from the deepest circle of hell. Too much, too goddamn slow; it felt like, it felt-but by the third shard, Axel's mind had shut down and refused to comprehend.
By the fourth and final one, he'd run out of sounds to make, throat scraped raw and flayed. This one was deeper than the others; Roxas practically shoved his face into the wound, and when he finally got it, Axel bit straight through his lip in one sharp spasm. There was blood everywhere: on his pants, his chest, Roxas' head and shoulders, the whole world fading to a sick red haze.
Roxas spat out the last metal shard, then crawled up and kissed Axel, licking away the gore. Axel's every nerve was screaming murder; insensate, drowning from all sides. His mouth was flooded with the taste of copper and saliva and Roxas, eternal as the war, throbbing through his veins, his brain, inside and outside and welling from his body-
“Roxas-Rox-” Axel gasped into his mouth, slick and wet; he thrust into Roxas' hand and swallowed the taste and came to the pulsing of his blood.
*
“We're alive,” was the next thing anyone said; it was Axel, hours after the incident. He'd passed out and woken up again, to discover his wounds bandaged and Roxas standing watch. His jacket, having served as strips of fabric, was ruined beyond repair. The same could nearly be said for Roxas' face, speckled with errant splatters of blood which had escaped the initial clean-up. His lips were even redder now, and there were two stripes curving across his cheeks, a liquid reminder of Axel's tattoo. It was strangely becoming.
Everything was deathly quiet in the aftermath, as though the world had withdrawn to a secret place in order to heal. Privately, Axel sympathized with the sensation. It felt as though everything was muted, happening very far away; he hurt, but dimly, as if his body had outworn its sensory capabilities and was now having a time-out. No response echoed back through the trees. They were alone.
“We're alive,” Roxas echoed eventually, perhaps in late agreement. He turned to look at Axel, eyes flicking down to check the blood flow, but was otherwise still. Twilight bathed his skin in cerise and deep blue. Axel looked at him, and felt something stir in the back of his brain: a sort of worn-down, quiet peace.
“What now?”
“We need a medical tent.”
“Not at the moment. What now?”
Roxas shrugged. “We'll figure something out.”
Axel contemplated this, and concluded that yes, they probably would. They always did. That was what happened after a war, after all: you licked your wounds and moved on.
All characters © their respective owners; I claim no right nor profit.
You thought the kink meme was over? You thought wrong! I took a hideously long time with all the subsequent rewrites, but after four failed attempts and three drafts, here it is. Because even in a smutfest, nothing can ever be just porn.
Prompt was cleaning up/bandaging of wounds after a battle; bonus points for licking blood. Check tags for warnings. Thanks to kokanshu for the challenge and beta.
After the War
When Axel woke up, the first thing he saw was Roxas' silhouette against the sky, and the first thing he smelled was blood.
“What-?” he asked, mostly slurred, and Roxas came sharply into focus, craning down to peer into his eyes. He looked ragged in an attractive sort of way, like something recently desecrated, and his hands on Axel's brow were gentle. There was mud and worse on his camo gear, but he appeared relatively unharmed, except for terminally dirt-splattered hair and circles beneath his eyes. The twin dog tags glinted from under his military parka in the dim light.
“You passed out,” he said quietly, and then, almost as an afterthought, “how do you feel?”
“I did not,” said Axel, and then, “fine.” He tried to look around, but Roxas' eyes were riveting, holding him in place. From the corners of his vision, there was a vague impression of trees. “Where are we?”
“Away from the battlefield,” Roxas said. “A couple of miles. I hauled you.”
No wonder his shoulders drooped like that. “Who won, then?”
Roxas looked at him as if Axel had just asked the dumbest question on earth, which, yeah, okay, maybe he sort of had. “Nobody.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They lay in terse silence for a moment, and then Roxas retreated, leaving in his wake a pretty skyline of clouds and dark forest leaves. Axel amused himself trying to guess the time of day, but could only conclude they had passed post-meridiem: the sky was an indecipherable grey and his mind was too scattered to be of much use.
When Roxas returned, he had a wet cloth in hand and a grim expression on his face. “I'm going to clean your wounds,” he said, and at the tone of his voice something clicked in Axel's brain-the smell of blood, the dizziness-he remembered pain, tearing through his sides and belly, long gashes like the claws of some great beast. As if in reminder, a sudden flash of agony stabbed straight through his ribs, leaving him reeling and gasping for air.
“What-” he choked, reflexively drawing into himself, seeing red at the corners of his vision. Roxas was there in an instant, holding him down and commanding: breathe. His tone was edged with steel, bullet-sharp; Axel felt himself obey due to sheer habit, body responding to battlefield orders: he heaved, choked, and inhaled.
The air burned going down, but when he opened his eyes Roxas was a familiar sight in khaki and dirty gold, craning over him. With that came ease, or at least oxygen; he shifted minutely, so as not to aggravate anything, and felt rough fabric at his back, making his spine and shoulderblades prickle.
When he looked down, still dizzy with pain, Axel realized he was shirtless, lying on his military-issue jacket with belt and pants undone around his hips, and that his torso was adorned with three sickening gashes the length of his clavicle, all open and freely bleeding.
“We have to avoid infection,” Roxas said, sounding far away; “your jacket is filthy, and the pants were getting in the way. I was just going to start cleaning. We don't have disinfectant, though.”
“No medical tent,” Axel muttered; an echo of a memory, though he didn't remember from where. Shellshock welled up like the remnants of a bad hangover, sick and numbing from inside. He knew the feeling, and tried to fight it as best he knew how. Looking away was a good start. “This shit's not mine, no way.”
“The blood's yours, Axel. I've got to clean it up.”
“Lies,” he closed his eyes, tried breathing again. “Wicked lies.”
“Hold still.”
He knew what had to be done, soonest and quickest and best. Axel grimaced, but inertia was an imminent danger and there was no Get Out Of Gangrene Free card. Knowing his luck, he'd go bankrupt in the next round, anyway. He breathed again, steadying.
“Just get on with it, then; the damn thing's clashing with my hair.”
It is mildly embarrassing to note that the first time Roxas touched down with the wet wadded cloth Axel hissed like a girl, eyes widening in panic. The fabric was rough, strips torn from his own filthy shirt; the bare nerve-endings certainly didn't take kindly to contact and just-pain, pain like a motherfucker-
“Nonono, it's fine,” he gasped when he could speak again, having viciously shoved Roxas' hand away. “Tell anyone else about this and you're fucking done for, god-”
Roxas shot him a shut-your-crap glare and leaned in again, lips pursed. Axel gritted his teeth, except the second time was just as bad the first, and so was the third, and by the fourth he actually keened and lashed out, narrowly missing Roxas' face.
“Shit,” he said, and “fuck,” because this much pain meant there must be some shrapnel inside somewhere and there wasn't a medical tent, not for miles. “Fuck, Rox, I can't, it's just too rough and it's not helping, I just-”
“Quiet.”
He jerked as if slapped, shooting Roxas a sharp look inbetween shivers. His caretaker looked mildly irked, as he did when concentrating: brows drawn together in two gracefully sweeping lines, a sick white under the mud and filth. With this vision before him Axel breathed in as deep as he could manage, sweating from pain and blood loss, but mostly managed to keep it together. He shut up and tried not act too antsy, which was a feat, considering he had a procession of minor chasms in his torso. Then he waited for the word.
Except Roxas didn't say anything, he just leaned down, closer and closer, until his face was inches away from the skin-and just as Axel was about to break his own rule and say something devastatingly witty just to prove his voice wasn't shaking, Roxas opened his mouth and dipped down and licked.
This time he did lash out, but for entirely different reasons. “Pardon, what the fuck,” he wanted to say, mostly stammer, but the words stuck in his craw when Roxas withdrew, lapped up the blood without blinking, and leaned back in again like a hungry cat.
“Disinfecting,” he murmured when he'd licked his lips clean for the second time and Axel was a trembling heap next to him. “Cloth's no good, we need something softer. Now stop moving.”
“Easier said then done,” Axel managed to gasp out, lying flat on his back and watching Roxas arch over him, one hand resting firmly on his thigh and lapping at his blood like he'd paid good money for it. “God, where did you even-auuugh fuck-”
“It's not particularly sanitary,” Roxas noted, “but it's better than doing nothing.” He licked again, right on the ridge where healthy flesh met bloody muscle. “No good surviving the war if you snuff it right after.”
“Careful,” Axel managed in response, voice faint. Roxas moved to the second gash up, tongue flat, and the sight was morbidly fascinating, besides making his skin tingle with goosebumps. He tried to stare up, concentrate on the oak tree right in front of him, but then Roxas ran his tongue over the bloodied dip in his ribcage and made this noise, like a cartographer discovering a new valley, and-oh, oh hell, he'd signed himself up for something completely unplanned.
When Roxas next looked up, he had blood on his chin and lips and the tip of his nose. Axel was more than slightly half-mad, shivering in the jacket and fisting his hands in the fabric. His skin was wet with saliva, shining with it, but the blood kept welling up.
“Now the wounds,” Roxas said, sounding unfazed, and at first Axel thought he heard him incorrectly, except Roxas' hand clenched down on his thigh hard, trapping him like a tiger held down prey. His other hand was a steady pressure on Axel's chest, tracing absent circles around his nipple, and Axel was about to venture a nervous statement of some sort when Roxas thumbed him expertly and bent to lick right across the open bleeding muscles.
Axel screamed.
“Shut up shut up,” Roxas muttered, breath gusting over the wounds, it hurt, god it hurt so bad, but Roxas' nails were scraping over his chest and it was doing terrible things to his judgement. They can't have been the only ones to survive, had to maintain low profile-but Axel felt his dog tags cut into his neck, cold against the skin like Roxas' fingers twisting his nipple; he had no air and let out sound instead.
By the second gash he'd torn the jacket, trying to writhe away from under Roxas' iron grip. He never begged, but he made the most awful sounds, until Roxas finally let out a grunt of frustration and shifted away, moving deftly to sit on Axel's thighs; he curved over the wounds like an archway dripping blood and shoved his hand down Axel's pants instead.
For such a small guy, Roxas definitely knew how to throw his weight around. Axel thrust into his palm and bled into his mouth and moaned as the pain transformed into something terrifying and new. It was red and burning and Roxas did that thing with his fingers to the base of Axel's cock-fuck, fuck-he couldn't decide whether he was panting or sobbing.
Then Roxas was turning his head, craning this way and that, until finally-“I think I can see the shrapnel.” He kissed Axel's belly, somewhere around his navel, where the third and largest gash cut into his skin like a scythe. Now that the blood was mostly gone, Axel would see the tiny shards of metal, sticking up at odd angles and looking sinister.
“Get it out,” he groaned, and Roxas nodded minutely, not uncompassionate. His eyelashes formed a beautiful flared curve, slanting downwards as he studied the area, and when his lips parted Axel held his breath, unable to look at it or away.
The first touch was almost a kiss, Roxas' lips stained reddish-brown, and then his tongue snaked out, pressing against the muscles and past them-writhing into the cleft caused by the shrapnel, probing and pushing. It looked like he was eating from the wound, mouthing at it as his hand worked Axel tightly, blood covering the lower half of his face.
Axel shut his eyes and tried to focus on his dick, but it was impossible to separate the pleasure and the pain anymore; he thrust into Roxas' hand and his hips moved in tandem, pushing into Roxas' face, forcing his tongue further in. He could feel the metal digging sharp, the maddening burn of it-then Roxas' teeth closed around the shard and he moved back (slowly, slowly, much much much too slowly when every centimetre was a fight for freedom, god). He couldn't decide whether it felt like aeons or a second-but then Roxas finally straightened, wiping blood from his eyes and spitting the shrapnel out on to the grass.
The minute he was gone Axel mewled, literally mewled, pained and craving and desperate for touch. Then Roxas dipped back in, tongue forcing itself forward until he was deep enough to bite at the next piece. The sensation struck like thunder; his cock was throbbing, slick and flushed in Roxas' hand.
It was hot and grotesque and straight from the deepest circle of hell. Too much, too goddamn slow; it felt like, it felt-but by the third shard, Axel's mind had shut down and refused to comprehend.
By the fourth and final one, he'd run out of sounds to make, throat scraped raw and flayed. This one was deeper than the others; Roxas practically shoved his face into the wound, and when he finally got it, Axel bit straight through his lip in one sharp spasm. There was blood everywhere: on his pants, his chest, Roxas' head and shoulders, the whole world fading to a sick red haze.
Roxas spat out the last metal shard, then crawled up and kissed Axel, licking away the gore. Axel's every nerve was screaming murder; insensate, drowning from all sides. His mouth was flooded with the taste of copper and saliva and Roxas, eternal as the war, throbbing through his veins, his brain, inside and outside and welling from his body-
“Roxas-Rox-” Axel gasped into his mouth, slick and wet; he thrust into Roxas' hand and swallowed the taste and came to the pulsing of his blood.
*
“We're alive,” was the next thing anyone said; it was Axel, hours after the incident. He'd passed out and woken up again, to discover his wounds bandaged and Roxas standing watch. His jacket, having served as strips of fabric, was ruined beyond repair. The same could nearly be said for Roxas' face, speckled with errant splatters of blood which had escaped the initial clean-up. His lips were even redder now, and there were two stripes curving across his cheeks, a liquid reminder of Axel's tattoo. It was strangely becoming.
Everything was deathly quiet in the aftermath, as though the world had withdrawn to a secret place in order to heal. Privately, Axel sympathized with the sensation. It felt as though everything was muted, happening very far away; he hurt, but dimly, as if his body had outworn its sensory capabilities and was now having a time-out. No response echoed back through the trees. They were alone.
“We're alive,” Roxas echoed eventually, perhaps in late agreement. He turned to look at Axel, eyes flicking down to check the blood flow, but was otherwise still. Twilight bathed his skin in cerise and deep blue. Axel looked at him, and felt something stir in the back of his brain: a sort of worn-down, quiet peace.
“What now?”
“We need a medical tent.”
“Not at the moment. What now?”
Roxas shrugged. “We'll figure something out.”
Axel contemplated this, and concluded that yes, they probably would. They always did. That was what happened after a war, after all: you licked your wounds and moved on.
All characters © their respective owners; I claim no right nor profit.