Entry o7. live fast, die young
Title: live fast, die young
Entry Number: 07
Author: Callunavulgari
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Rating: PG-13
Genre: post-apocalyptic, zombies
Spoiler Warnings: None.
Word Count: 1184
Once upon a time, the world ended. Except not really.
Once upon a time, reality became a horror movie, the dead started walking, and nothing was every the same.
But isn't that how these tales always go?
.
“On your six, Rox,” Axel says, voice tinny and staticky in Roxas' ear. He doesn’t even check, just fires in that direction with the spare pistol Xigbar had insisted he’d need. (“For when you lose one of those cute little swords of yours, kid,” he’d said, miming double pistols and sending him a wink.) There’s the tell-tale thud of a zombie dropping.
“Nice shot, blondie,” Axel murmurs, all but dancing over to him, movements inhumanly graceful. He’d been a dancer, before, or so Roxas was told. That might have been Demyx fucking with him though.
Roxas snorts and plunges his sword-now broken and jagged-into a zombies eye socket. It groans a little and drops, easy as you please.
.
Roxas doesn’t remember his life before. This is apparently an anomaly, because even Axel remembers bits and pieces of his previous life, before the dead started walking.
Roxas just has an endless haze of gray, an abyss where memory should be.
He doesn’t know if he should have a family, a brother, a sister, a lover. He has no idea. All he remembers is waking up in a too bright room and blinking at the overhead light. The cot he was strapped to. The surgical equipment.
After that is a bit blank too, but whatever.
Then there was Axel, grinning and taking him off to see glowy red sunsets after their missions, whispering, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
The clock tower they frequent is a huge, hulking monstrosity. At one point it was probably all shiny and new-people probably looked at it and thought, damn, now that’s a gorgeous sight, all sparkling copper lit up by the light of the setting sun.
Now it’s just another decaying structure-washed out and pale where it once was vibrant.
It’s a hassle to get up to their spot, because it seems no matter how well they lock up after they leave, the zombies always end up getting in. But it’s a nice spot, a spot that Roxas had blinked awake to, really awake, not that in between crap.
“You’re kind of a zombie yourself,” Axel had grinned over at him and that was… not right. He’d said as much, and Axel had laughed and laughed.
.
The Organization’s headquarters is very gray, not quite homey at all.
Roxas’ room is the exact color of stone and alabaster, but his window overlooks the ruined city below. Sometimes he likes to keep it open, inhaling the constant earthy scent of rain, because fuck the moans and the screams he can sometimes hear, it’s just nice to not feel trapped.
He doesn’t know when he starts going to Axel’s room instead, or why, really. The room itself is just as monochrome as Roxas’, but there’s something different about it. Maybe it’s the way that Axel himself shimmers, washed out but still vibrant around the edges, like an old painting just starting to feel the effects of time.
The first time he’d done it, just shown up at some ridiculous time of night like he wasn’t sure what he was doing, Axel had given him a weird look, but invited him in anyway.
“The bed isn’t really big enough for two,” he’d said, eying the single bed dubiously. Roxas was short and kind of small in general, but Axel was all long, bony limbs, like a skeleton stretched too thin.
They’d made it work anyway, squeezing in until there was virtually no space between them.
Roxas didn’t mind. He didn’t remember that personal space was supposed to be a thing, and if Axel minded, he never said.
.
“Sunset’s pretty today,” Axel remarks, legs swinging out over the immense drop below them.
Roxas nods.
It really is.
.
The Organization itself is a task force designed to eradicate the undead and take back the earth for the few humans that are left. They’re trained, or so Roxas is told, specially for the task. He may not remember the training, but the proof is in the way his reflexes kick in before his brain even registers a threat-pivoting and back-flipping and parrying blows. The instinct keeps him safe, helps him avoid becoming zombie chow, so he doesn’t question it much.
.
The first time Axel kisses him is after a close call-not with a zombie, but with the edge of a building. Roxas is too busy stabbing and dodging to realize how close to the edge he is and nearly goes over.
Axel’s the one who yanks him back up, snarling about how stupid he is even as he dispatches the last zombie with a twirl of his chakrams. Then, he whirls Roxas around, and kisses him-long, hard, and brutal-too much emotion packed into one kiss.
When they separate, they stare at each other for a moment, and don’t kiss again for almost a year.
The second time, Roxas kisses Axel, because his friend is stupid and somehow hasn’t noticed the boner that ends up pressed to the small of his back every goddamn morning.
Sex is a thing that eventually happens too, awkward at first until they get the hang of each other’s bodies. They learn each other like their bodies are weapons, pleasure blurring together like blood and rain.
They’re partners-the best of partners, and knowing each other so intimately is an advantage to have in the field, when they’re outrunning monsters with snapping teeth.
.
Namine, Roxas learns of when he’s been with the Organization for three years. An AI, apparently, designed to make zombies forget what they are-rewriting and rewiring their brains until they’re almost human again.
It’s an accident, finding out about her.
“Is it weird that I’m more upset at the fact that all this time, I could have gotten bitten and not had to worry about it so much?” he asks Axel, staring out at the sunset. He still can’t see through the illusion, because to him, his skin looks human-intact-not rotten.
Axel sees him looking. “I don’t think the illusion thing works like that. Pretty sure that the surgeries they performed on us made us at least human in appearance. The illusion is so you don’t notice that your heart’s not beating.”
“But how is our blood flowing then?”
Axel shrugs.
.
Leaving the Organization isn’t really a conscious decision on his part. He just wakes up one day, wrapped around Axel, and thinks that today’s the day he should leave.
“You leave and the Organization will destroy you,” Axel hisses, later, when they’re in an alleyway covered in gore. Roxas has just gotten his first bite, and is staring at it-the way the skin bruises around the wound.
“Let them try,” he snorts, starting off in the direction he’s mostly sure leads out of the city. He turns back to Axel, raising an eyebrow.
“Well?” he asks. “Aren’t you coming?”
Entry Number: 07
Author: Callunavulgari
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Rating: PG-13
Genre: post-apocalyptic, zombies
Spoiler Warnings: None.
Word Count: 1184
Once upon a time, the world ended. Except not really.
Once upon a time, reality became a horror movie, the dead started walking, and nothing was every the same.
But isn't that how these tales always go?
.
“On your six, Rox,” Axel says, voice tinny and staticky in Roxas' ear. He doesn’t even check, just fires in that direction with the spare pistol Xigbar had insisted he’d need. (“For when you lose one of those cute little swords of yours, kid,” he’d said, miming double pistols and sending him a wink.) There’s the tell-tale thud of a zombie dropping.
“Nice shot, blondie,” Axel murmurs, all but dancing over to him, movements inhumanly graceful. He’d been a dancer, before, or so Roxas was told. That might have been Demyx fucking with him though.
Roxas snorts and plunges his sword-now broken and jagged-into a zombies eye socket. It groans a little and drops, easy as you please.
.
Roxas doesn’t remember his life before. This is apparently an anomaly, because even Axel remembers bits and pieces of his previous life, before the dead started walking.
Roxas just has an endless haze of gray, an abyss where memory should be.
He doesn’t know if he should have a family, a brother, a sister, a lover. He has no idea. All he remembers is waking up in a too bright room and blinking at the overhead light. The cot he was strapped to. The surgical equipment.
After that is a bit blank too, but whatever.
Then there was Axel, grinning and taking him off to see glowy red sunsets after their missions, whispering, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
The clock tower they frequent is a huge, hulking monstrosity. At one point it was probably all shiny and new-people probably looked at it and thought, damn, now that’s a gorgeous sight, all sparkling copper lit up by the light of the setting sun.
Now it’s just another decaying structure-washed out and pale where it once was vibrant.
It’s a hassle to get up to their spot, because it seems no matter how well they lock up after they leave, the zombies always end up getting in. But it’s a nice spot, a spot that Roxas had blinked awake to, really awake, not that in between crap.
“You’re kind of a zombie yourself,” Axel had grinned over at him and that was… not right. He’d said as much, and Axel had laughed and laughed.
.
The Organization’s headquarters is very gray, not quite homey at all.
Roxas’ room is the exact color of stone and alabaster, but his window overlooks the ruined city below. Sometimes he likes to keep it open, inhaling the constant earthy scent of rain, because fuck the moans and the screams he can sometimes hear, it’s just nice to not feel trapped.
He doesn’t know when he starts going to Axel’s room instead, or why, really. The room itself is just as monochrome as Roxas’, but there’s something different about it. Maybe it’s the way that Axel himself shimmers, washed out but still vibrant around the edges, like an old painting just starting to feel the effects of time.
The first time he’d done it, just shown up at some ridiculous time of night like he wasn’t sure what he was doing, Axel had given him a weird look, but invited him in anyway.
“The bed isn’t really big enough for two,” he’d said, eying the single bed dubiously. Roxas was short and kind of small in general, but Axel was all long, bony limbs, like a skeleton stretched too thin.
They’d made it work anyway, squeezing in until there was virtually no space between them.
Roxas didn’t mind. He didn’t remember that personal space was supposed to be a thing, and if Axel minded, he never said.
.
“Sunset’s pretty today,” Axel remarks, legs swinging out over the immense drop below them.
Roxas nods.
It really is.
.
The Organization itself is a task force designed to eradicate the undead and take back the earth for the few humans that are left. They’re trained, or so Roxas is told, specially for the task. He may not remember the training, but the proof is in the way his reflexes kick in before his brain even registers a threat-pivoting and back-flipping and parrying blows. The instinct keeps him safe, helps him avoid becoming zombie chow, so he doesn’t question it much.
.
The first time Axel kisses him is after a close call-not with a zombie, but with the edge of a building. Roxas is too busy stabbing and dodging to realize how close to the edge he is and nearly goes over.
Axel’s the one who yanks him back up, snarling about how stupid he is even as he dispatches the last zombie with a twirl of his chakrams. Then, he whirls Roxas around, and kisses him-long, hard, and brutal-too much emotion packed into one kiss.
When they separate, they stare at each other for a moment, and don’t kiss again for almost a year.
The second time, Roxas kisses Axel, because his friend is stupid and somehow hasn’t noticed the boner that ends up pressed to the small of his back every goddamn morning.
Sex is a thing that eventually happens too, awkward at first until they get the hang of each other’s bodies. They learn each other like their bodies are weapons, pleasure blurring together like blood and rain.
They’re partners-the best of partners, and knowing each other so intimately is an advantage to have in the field, when they’re outrunning monsters with snapping teeth.
.
Namine, Roxas learns of when he’s been with the Organization for three years. An AI, apparently, designed to make zombies forget what they are-rewriting and rewiring their brains until they’re almost human again.
It’s an accident, finding out about her.
“Is it weird that I’m more upset at the fact that all this time, I could have gotten bitten and not had to worry about it so much?” he asks Axel, staring out at the sunset. He still can’t see through the illusion, because to him, his skin looks human-intact-not rotten.
Axel sees him looking. “I don’t think the illusion thing works like that. Pretty sure that the surgeries they performed on us made us at least human in appearance. The illusion is so you don’t notice that your heart’s not beating.”
“But how is our blood flowing then?”
Axel shrugs.
.
Leaving the Organization isn’t really a conscious decision on his part. He just wakes up one day, wrapped around Axel, and thinks that today’s the day he should leave.
“You leave and the Organization will destroy you,” Axel hisses, later, when they’re in an alleyway covered in gore. Roxas has just gotten his first bite, and is staring at it-the way the skin bruises around the wound.
“Let them try,” he snorts, starting off in the direction he’s mostly sure leads out of the city. He turns back to Axel, raising an eyebrow.
“Well?” he asks. “Aren’t you coming?”