Glycerin [The Alphabet Meme, 7/26]
Title: Glycerin
Pairing: Axel x Roxas
Rating: M
Words: 2,100~
Beta: The lovely darthvair_65
Disclaimer: I don't own an Axel, or a Roxas, or a 20th floor apartment.
Warnings: Horror, gore, very brief mentions of sexy times between boys, character death.
A/N: Happy Hallowe'en, fandom! I realize that I'm a whole two days late, but for beginning this at 4:30 in the morning on the 31st, I'd say it's pretty good. Especially considering my 8/13 day contribution was over a month late XD Thank you so so so much to my lovely Jen, who read this right before going to bed two days in a row to beta it for me, and for dealing with the windows.
Axel’s had to line the windows and doorways in his home with salt and glycerin. The glycerin kept the salt line from breaking when he stumbled around in the night, drunken from lack of sleep and thirsty, face itchy from crying.
The salt kept Roxas out.
Roxas was never something Axel thought he’d be actively trying to keep out, but since he died Roxas had become a lot less pleasing to be around.
The first time, the day after Roxas’ sudden death (an aneurism, they’d told him at the hospital, just a tiny little blood clot in Roxas’ brain and then he was gone), Axel was crushed and hollowed out from grief and crying. He was dreaming of Roxas, of pushing inside and licking his neck and kissing the small of his back, pink lips parted and tiny moans slipping from between them, like Roxas always did at the beginning, not wanting to be too loud, still scared of his sexuality.
When he woke up, hard as a rock and ready to cry again, he realized that there were familiar hands, albeit cold hands, slithering across his body, one palm warmed by Axel’s flesh, pumping him hard and fast.
Axel’s eyes flew open, dead blue eyes looking up at him through dark, patchy lashes, cataracts blooming with cloudy white and pupils distended. White teeth bit at greying lips, flesh coming apart in his mouth as he smirked at Axel’s astonished face.
“You look surprised, Axel. Miss me?” he asked, voice raw and torn, forcing it’s way through vocal chords limp with death. This thing was a mockery of Roxas’ beauty, took his angles and his height and the soft, rounded curls of his hair and ruined them, smashed them into bits and set fire to the remains and there you had the thing that was currently rubbing a chaffing, clammy palm across his chest, up his neck to touch his face.
Axel broke out of his horrified daze, breaking away from Roxas, kicking out at him and connecting with something hard. He’d half expected his flailing, sleep-disoriented limbs to go through, to make the macabre mirage in front of him swirl and fall away. Instead, it furrowed it’s brows and gave him a furious glare, the one that Roxas saved for him when he was well and truly pissed off, and disappeared. Just flickered out of existence, eyes blazing and mouth set hard.
Axel sat up, shuffled back in his bed, pressed his back to the wall. He sat there, staring around him in horror, jumping at every tiny noise, until the sun had risen enough for him to feel safe. When his feet touched the cool floor he pulled them back, face pulling, toes covered in a dark, cold substance.
He looked and saw two muddy footprints, exactly where Roxas had been standing. Axel gagged and ran for the bathroom, retching and shaking and absolutely terrified.
That night he’d come home from work armed with bottles of sweet glycerin and boxes of salt. He lined every doorway, every window ledge, hands shaking and wiping away tears with his forearms. The floor in his apartment was gritty under his sock clad feet, but he didn’t care. He felt a semblance of safety, surrounded in orderly lines of white salt.
Axel slept with the window open. He ran hot, and he didn’t like to wake up in twisted, sweaty sheets.
Axel woke up that night to a low whispering outside his open window, twenty stories above ground.
“Axel, let me in, baby.” Roxas’ voice. It was smoother than the night before, getting used to using his dead throat, the breath wasn’t rattling in his lungs anymore. Axel’s eyes were wide, not even remotely asleep, limbs shaking.
“Axel, c’mon, love, let me in. It’s cold out here, Ax, just let me come inside.” Axel shook his head quietly, shutting his eyes tight against the words, as if it would make them go away. His voice was getting louder, words getting more and more impatient.
A sudden bang had Axel jolting, pulling himself upright and huddling in the corner of his bed, back against the wall.
“I know you’re awake in there, Axel, just let me in! Let me the fuck in, Axel, you stupid fucker, let me in right now!” Roxas was screaming now, cold, grey fists pounding at the window. Axel jumped with every word, every resounding bang against the double paned glass, every angry snarl. He could shut the window. He lived in the city, in a new complex; the windows were sound proofed against the sounds of the city. It would help, he wouldn’t hear Roxas’ voice.
Axel began to reach out for the window and froze in place. Closing the window would mean opening the curtain. Opening the curtain would bring him face to face with blue eyes slowly turning to milk, limpid blond hair curling around the rotting flesh of his face.
Axel couldn’t force himself to look.
He spent the rest of the night curled up in his bed, wrapped up in his duvet like it could save him, listening to Roxas screaming directly outside his window.
The moment the sun peeked over the horizon, Roxas was gone. Axel leapt up, slammed and locked the window, and wrapped himself in his blanket, arms around his pillow and weeping as if his heart was breaking.
Axel slept on and off until his alarm went off. He stumbled around the apartment, falling into the shower and rushing out the door to work. He barely made it through the day, half asleep and jumping at every noise in the office.
Axel made it home after a long day at work, slowly forcing himself up the stairs and cursing the elevator for breaking down on that particular day. He was passed by several people heading up the stairs, followed by some others, but soon he found himself alone.
His eyes darted everywhere, jumping at noises and looking around himself almost maniacally. He rolled his eyes even as he jumped, chastising himself for being so weak, so scared.
Another noise, look behind himself, all clear-
Roxas was standing at the top of the stairs.
Axel stopped dead, staring up at him. The smell reached his nostrils in a moment, and he forced back a dry heave, covering his face with his hands. The hollows of his eyes were black, skin almost yellow under the florescent lighting of the stairwell. His jeans were dark with liquid, but Axel couldn’t tell if it was blood or water or liquid from decomposition. Axel’s heart was pumping, beating fast, hands sweating and shaking.
“Axel,” he said, and his voice echoed through the stairwell, seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. “You didn’t let me in.” Axel swallowed, mouth dry. Roxas took a step down towards him, head tilting, cloudy eyes wide.
“I-” Axel couldn’t speak. His mouth opened and closed, stepping backwards and nearly falling down the stairs.
“Are you scared of me?” Roxas asked, grinning and splitting his lips, coagulated blood dripping into his mouth and down his chin. “Come up here so I can kiss you.” Axel took another step back, bumped into something cool and solid in a viscous way. He turned and stumbled back, falling against the stairs, as Roxas walked toward him on the landing.
“Don’t you want your kiss?” Roxas asked, and Axel scrambled up the steps, long legs taking them two at a time, nearly mowing Roxas over on the next landing. He yelped, jumped from his outstretched hand, bolting for the door of his floor. He fought with his keys, pulling his house key from the mess of them on the keychain.
Lights flickered at the end of the hall, going out with a pop.
Axel looked up, saw Roxas standing there, eyes flashing in the dark, slowly walking forward.
Another set of lights flickered and died.
Axel’s hands shook as he fought with the key, shoving it into the slot and jerking it sideways, trying to turn it. The key stuck.
Another pop, another set of lights out. Axel looked up, and Roxas was so much closer, smiling that awful, bloodstained grin and reaching for him. A maggot crawled from under his hair, climbing into his nostril, and Roxas’ grim smile just widened, splitting his bottom lip completely.
The key turned. Axel fell into his apartment, slammed his door on Roxas infuriated screech, dropping his bag and grabbing for the glycerin and salt he kept on a table by the door. He poured it sloppily, Roxas banging on the door outside and shrieking.
When he finished pouring the salt, there was a final angry cry, and Roxas was gone.
Axel slumped to the floor, catching his breath, slowing his violently beating heart. He crawled to his bedroom, redoing the line of salt and glycerin at his bedroom door when he slogged through the crumbling salt, pulling his suit and tie off. He collapsed into his bed, shaking hard, curling into himself and squeezing his eyes shut.
Eventually, the terror wore off and exhaustion pulled at him, lulling him into an uneasy sleep that slowly pulled him deeper and deeper.
He was awoken in the middle of the night by harsh pounding on his window and city light filtering in from outside. He stiffened, pulling his blanket over his head, fighting not to cry and scream at himself.
When he’d fallen asleep, he forgot to shut the curtains.
Axel could hear that Roxas was screaming at him, but couldn’t hear much between the bashing on the windows and the fact that the windows were soundproof. He curled around himself under the duvet, clinging to it like it would save his life, like a child hiding beneath their covers because if they can’t see the monster, the monster obviously can’t see them.
He jolted up when he heard the glass starting to crack from the strain. He saw a thick fissure in the glass, covered in blood and bits of greying flesh and blond hair. Roxas was directly outside the window, face screwed up in fury, mouth wide from shouting. He had blood trickling down his forehead, parts of his cheeks were sloughing off, showing his rotting teeth through the holes.
Axel whimpered, looking at Roxas’ rage, watching him throw himself against the glass, bleeding and swearing and screaming his name. Roxas stopped, palms pressed against the glass, staring in with cloudy blue eyes, blood dripping into his eyelashes. He was getting worse, grey skin peeling and falling off in clumps, stomach bloated and looking ready to burst. He stared at Axel, pressed against he bloody, cracked window, with sad eyes, as if his anger had been Axel’s imagination. Roxas said his name again, quietly, Axel could only see his mouth shaping it.
Roxas gently kissed the glass, eyes wide open and staring into Axel’s, and then he flickered from existence. Axel sat in shock, the only sound in the suddenly silent room his ragged breathing.
Axel felt like he could cry, the lump in his throat growing, but he didn’t. He sat staring at the gore dripping from the glass until the lump in his throat was displaced by a sudden gag, and he was running for the bathroom, shaking hands gripping the cold, porcelain edge of the toilet as he emptied the meager contents of his stomach. He washed his mouth out with water, walked slowly on shaky legs, grabbed the curtains with tight fists and ripped them closed, hiding the gory splatters across his window.
He collapsed into his bed, wrapped around himself and determined to fall asleep. He heard something tear, heard wet things fall to the floor, liquid draining. When he whipped around, there was Roxas, standing in the middle of the room. His bloated stomach had split, spilling rotting entrails, liquified and frothing insides across the wood floors. The smell was revolting, permeating the room immediately. Roxas walked forward slowly, sneakers sliding through his own guts and looking into Axel’s wide, terrified eyes and smirking. Axel’s mind went to the salt, mind racing that no, no, he can’t be in here, I lined all of the entry ways, I-
His thoughts stuttered to an abrupt halt when he saw the long line of salt spilled to the floor, pushed away from the window by the curtains, by the swiftness with which they were shut.
“The thing about glycerin, Axel,” Roxas drawled, coming closer, bringing a sweet, metallic stench with him that had vomit rising in Axel’s throat again, “is that it dries.”
Pairing: Axel x Roxas
Rating: M
Words: 2,100~
Beta: The lovely darthvair_65
Disclaimer: I don't own an Axel, or a Roxas, or a 20th floor apartment.
Warnings: Horror, gore, very brief mentions of sexy times between boys, character death.
A/N: Happy Hallowe'en, fandom! I realize that I'm a whole two days late, but for beginning this at 4:30 in the morning on the 31st, I'd say it's pretty good. Especially considering my 8/13 day contribution was over a month late XD Thank you so so so much to my lovely Jen, who read this right before going to bed two days in a row to beta it for me, and for dealing with the windows.
Axel’s had to line the windows and doorways in his home with salt and glycerin. The glycerin kept the salt line from breaking when he stumbled around in the night, drunken from lack of sleep and thirsty, face itchy from crying.
The salt kept Roxas out.
Roxas was never something Axel thought he’d be actively trying to keep out, but since he died Roxas had become a lot less pleasing to be around.
The first time, the day after Roxas’ sudden death (an aneurism, they’d told him at the hospital, just a tiny little blood clot in Roxas’ brain and then he was gone), Axel was crushed and hollowed out from grief and crying. He was dreaming of Roxas, of pushing inside and licking his neck and kissing the small of his back, pink lips parted and tiny moans slipping from between them, like Roxas always did at the beginning, not wanting to be too loud, still scared of his sexuality.
When he woke up, hard as a rock and ready to cry again, he realized that there were familiar hands, albeit cold hands, slithering across his body, one palm warmed by Axel’s flesh, pumping him hard and fast.
Axel’s eyes flew open, dead blue eyes looking up at him through dark, patchy lashes, cataracts blooming with cloudy white and pupils distended. White teeth bit at greying lips, flesh coming apart in his mouth as he smirked at Axel’s astonished face.
“You look surprised, Axel. Miss me?” he asked, voice raw and torn, forcing it’s way through vocal chords limp with death. This thing was a mockery of Roxas’ beauty, took his angles and his height and the soft, rounded curls of his hair and ruined them, smashed them into bits and set fire to the remains and there you had the thing that was currently rubbing a chaffing, clammy palm across his chest, up his neck to touch his face.
Axel broke out of his horrified daze, breaking away from Roxas, kicking out at him and connecting with something hard. He’d half expected his flailing, sleep-disoriented limbs to go through, to make the macabre mirage in front of him swirl and fall away. Instead, it furrowed it’s brows and gave him a furious glare, the one that Roxas saved for him when he was well and truly pissed off, and disappeared. Just flickered out of existence, eyes blazing and mouth set hard.
Axel sat up, shuffled back in his bed, pressed his back to the wall. He sat there, staring around him in horror, jumping at every tiny noise, until the sun had risen enough for him to feel safe. When his feet touched the cool floor he pulled them back, face pulling, toes covered in a dark, cold substance.
He looked and saw two muddy footprints, exactly where Roxas had been standing. Axel gagged and ran for the bathroom, retching and shaking and absolutely terrified.
That night he’d come home from work armed with bottles of sweet glycerin and boxes of salt. He lined every doorway, every window ledge, hands shaking and wiping away tears with his forearms. The floor in his apartment was gritty under his sock clad feet, but he didn’t care. He felt a semblance of safety, surrounded in orderly lines of white salt.
Axel slept with the window open. He ran hot, and he didn’t like to wake up in twisted, sweaty sheets.
Axel woke up that night to a low whispering outside his open window, twenty stories above ground.
“Axel, let me in, baby.” Roxas’ voice. It was smoother than the night before, getting used to using his dead throat, the breath wasn’t rattling in his lungs anymore. Axel’s eyes were wide, not even remotely asleep, limbs shaking.
“Axel, c’mon, love, let me in. It’s cold out here, Ax, just let me come inside.” Axel shook his head quietly, shutting his eyes tight against the words, as if it would make them go away. His voice was getting louder, words getting more and more impatient.
A sudden bang had Axel jolting, pulling himself upright and huddling in the corner of his bed, back against the wall.
“I know you’re awake in there, Axel, just let me in! Let me the fuck in, Axel, you stupid fucker, let me in right now!” Roxas was screaming now, cold, grey fists pounding at the window. Axel jumped with every word, every resounding bang against the double paned glass, every angry snarl. He could shut the window. He lived in the city, in a new complex; the windows were sound proofed against the sounds of the city. It would help, he wouldn’t hear Roxas’ voice.
Axel began to reach out for the window and froze in place. Closing the window would mean opening the curtain. Opening the curtain would bring him face to face with blue eyes slowly turning to milk, limpid blond hair curling around the rotting flesh of his face.
Axel couldn’t force himself to look.
He spent the rest of the night curled up in his bed, wrapped up in his duvet like it could save him, listening to Roxas screaming directly outside his window.
The moment the sun peeked over the horizon, Roxas was gone. Axel leapt up, slammed and locked the window, and wrapped himself in his blanket, arms around his pillow and weeping as if his heart was breaking.
Axel slept on and off until his alarm went off. He stumbled around the apartment, falling into the shower and rushing out the door to work. He barely made it through the day, half asleep and jumping at every noise in the office.
Axel made it home after a long day at work, slowly forcing himself up the stairs and cursing the elevator for breaking down on that particular day. He was passed by several people heading up the stairs, followed by some others, but soon he found himself alone.
His eyes darted everywhere, jumping at noises and looking around himself almost maniacally. He rolled his eyes even as he jumped, chastising himself for being so weak, so scared.
Another noise, look behind himself, all clear-
Roxas was standing at the top of the stairs.
Axel stopped dead, staring up at him. The smell reached his nostrils in a moment, and he forced back a dry heave, covering his face with his hands. The hollows of his eyes were black, skin almost yellow under the florescent lighting of the stairwell. His jeans were dark with liquid, but Axel couldn’t tell if it was blood or water or liquid from decomposition. Axel’s heart was pumping, beating fast, hands sweating and shaking.
“Axel,” he said, and his voice echoed through the stairwell, seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. “You didn’t let me in.” Axel swallowed, mouth dry. Roxas took a step down towards him, head tilting, cloudy eyes wide.
“I-” Axel couldn’t speak. His mouth opened and closed, stepping backwards and nearly falling down the stairs.
“Are you scared of me?” Roxas asked, grinning and splitting his lips, coagulated blood dripping into his mouth and down his chin. “Come up here so I can kiss you.” Axel took another step back, bumped into something cool and solid in a viscous way. He turned and stumbled back, falling against the stairs, as Roxas walked toward him on the landing.
“Don’t you want your kiss?” Roxas asked, and Axel scrambled up the steps, long legs taking them two at a time, nearly mowing Roxas over on the next landing. He yelped, jumped from his outstretched hand, bolting for the door of his floor. He fought with his keys, pulling his house key from the mess of them on the keychain.
Lights flickered at the end of the hall, going out with a pop.
Axel looked up, saw Roxas standing there, eyes flashing in the dark, slowly walking forward.
Another set of lights flickered and died.
Axel’s hands shook as he fought with the key, shoving it into the slot and jerking it sideways, trying to turn it. The key stuck.
Another pop, another set of lights out. Axel looked up, and Roxas was so much closer, smiling that awful, bloodstained grin and reaching for him. A maggot crawled from under his hair, climbing into his nostril, and Roxas’ grim smile just widened, splitting his bottom lip completely.
The key turned. Axel fell into his apartment, slammed his door on Roxas infuriated screech, dropping his bag and grabbing for the glycerin and salt he kept on a table by the door. He poured it sloppily, Roxas banging on the door outside and shrieking.
When he finished pouring the salt, there was a final angry cry, and Roxas was gone.
Axel slumped to the floor, catching his breath, slowing his violently beating heart. He crawled to his bedroom, redoing the line of salt and glycerin at his bedroom door when he slogged through the crumbling salt, pulling his suit and tie off. He collapsed into his bed, shaking hard, curling into himself and squeezing his eyes shut.
Eventually, the terror wore off and exhaustion pulled at him, lulling him into an uneasy sleep that slowly pulled him deeper and deeper.
He was awoken in the middle of the night by harsh pounding on his window and city light filtering in from outside. He stiffened, pulling his blanket over his head, fighting not to cry and scream at himself.
When he’d fallen asleep, he forgot to shut the curtains.
Axel could hear that Roxas was screaming at him, but couldn’t hear much between the bashing on the windows and the fact that the windows were soundproof. He curled around himself under the duvet, clinging to it like it would save his life, like a child hiding beneath their covers because if they can’t see the monster, the monster obviously can’t see them.
He jolted up when he heard the glass starting to crack from the strain. He saw a thick fissure in the glass, covered in blood and bits of greying flesh and blond hair. Roxas was directly outside the window, face screwed up in fury, mouth wide from shouting. He had blood trickling down his forehead, parts of his cheeks were sloughing off, showing his rotting teeth through the holes.
Axel whimpered, looking at Roxas’ rage, watching him throw himself against the glass, bleeding and swearing and screaming his name. Roxas stopped, palms pressed against the glass, staring in with cloudy blue eyes, blood dripping into his eyelashes. He was getting worse, grey skin peeling and falling off in clumps, stomach bloated and looking ready to burst. He stared at Axel, pressed against he bloody, cracked window, with sad eyes, as if his anger had been Axel’s imagination. Roxas said his name again, quietly, Axel could only see his mouth shaping it.
Roxas gently kissed the glass, eyes wide open and staring into Axel’s, and then he flickered from existence. Axel sat in shock, the only sound in the suddenly silent room his ragged breathing.
Axel felt like he could cry, the lump in his throat growing, but he didn’t. He sat staring at the gore dripping from the glass until the lump in his throat was displaced by a sudden gag, and he was running for the bathroom, shaking hands gripping the cold, porcelain edge of the toilet as he emptied the meager contents of his stomach. He washed his mouth out with water, walked slowly on shaky legs, grabbed the curtains with tight fists and ripped them closed, hiding the gory splatters across his window.
He collapsed into his bed, wrapped around himself and determined to fall asleep. He heard something tear, heard wet things fall to the floor, liquid draining. When he whipped around, there was Roxas, standing in the middle of the room. His bloated stomach had split, spilling rotting entrails, liquified and frothing insides across the wood floors. The smell was revolting, permeating the room immediately. Roxas walked forward slowly, sneakers sliding through his own guts and looking into Axel’s wide, terrified eyes and smirking. Axel’s mind went to the salt, mind racing that no, no, he can’t be in here, I lined all of the entry ways, I-
His thoughts stuttered to an abrupt halt when he saw the long line of salt spilled to the floor, pushed away from the window by the curtains, by the swiftness with which they were shut.
“The thing about glycerin, Axel,” Roxas drawled, coming closer, bringing a sweet, metallic stench with him that had vomit rising in Axel’s throat again, “is that it dries.”