He couldn’t believe that Roxas had never licked a lollipop clean of its glaze or sunk his teeth in chewy and tooth-decaying caramel squares before in his life, as short as it had been so far. The boy’s obvious love for salty ice cream was apparent by now, even though Axel frowned upon it — yes, salt was supposed to be a vital ingredient in ice cream, but the stuff was overkill. It was time to reveal what real candy was all about. He kept his description about these tongue-pleasing delights poetic, because Roxas had a fancy for staring at his mouth when he talked. A big, possibly obsessed fancy for his mouth.

“Never Was is too gloomy for candy,” said Axel, letting the tip of his tongue slid along his sharp teeth. Roxas was watching again, his eyes almost like that of a prowling cat. “Let’s take a trip.”

“And where do you propose we go to get these treats?” Roxas stretched lazily on the bed, knowing all the ways to curve his torso that could get Axel to agree to anything.

Axel simply took his hand and one jump into the darkness brought them in the fog of Halloween Town.

The boy’s lack of memories made him curious about everything, which made his outfit more inspiring than necessary. The contrasting black and white fabric was alluring, and Axel was not one to complain about deep red gloves and boots. There was plenty of bare skin around the belly and neck, which was only fair; now Axel could stare at Roxas’ collarbone while Roxas stared at his teeth. Not that he could blame him for that — being a vampire in this world had its perks.

“You’re a…” he started, and then he snapped his mouth shut.

“That’s right,” Axel replied, dragging his tongue over even sharper teeth. He kept his lips in an inviting smile. “Haven’t had a chance to try it out, though.”

Roxas seemed to contemplate his tone and wiggling eyebrows for a moment, and then turned around and walked without knowing where he was going. “Let’s get these sugar delights you keep talking about and then we’ll talk.”

“Sure thing, shortcake,” and he earned a kick in the knee for that.

They found the town square and Axel had never seen Roxas’ eyes get quite so big at the scenery. The black and orange lights dimmed the shadows around his eager gaze and made his pupils glow. The world’s famous holiday was only a week away, and there were cauldrons everywhere already bursting with colorfully wrapped squares and packages. The screeching music of old violins and bats set something beautiful in the picture, although he did not have enough heartstrings left to smile wickedly to it. At least it got Roxas to stop staring at his mouth, if briefly.

Roxas grabbed his hand before he could begin to explain the history of Halloween and where pumpkins came from.

“That one,” Roxas said eagerly, pointing to a cauldron with golden candy. “This one first.”

Pushing his way past the bizarre townsfolk, he dug his hands into the cauldron and pulled out twelve pieces of candy; Axel took only one, knowing that his body could only handle so much sugar in one night, and that the more candy Roxas had, the sweeter his veins would become. Roxas covered the entire square quickly, picking out his twelve for him and one for Axel, until all cauldrons had been visited by his eager touch. Axel watched the spectacle with a sleek smile, his shiny fangs — shiny as the candy wrappings — peeking out just enough for the boy to see.

Soon their pockets were filled with baker’s dozens of rainbow-wrapped candy. Axel escorted them to the woods that just barely let the moon’s light through. He rather liked the sight of Roxas’ dark form handling bright pieces of tongue-pleasing delights between his fingers. Roxas, trying to look professional about it, calmly unwrapped his first prize and popped it between deep red lips. The darkness could not mask his bright expression (or his bright eyes, or his bright demeanor, or his bright everything that Axel was convinced separated the boy from the rest of them). His teeth split the chewy rectangle into squares, and then into triangles, and then they were gone past his tongue.

“Let me,” said Axel, grabbing Roxas’ wrist before a different treat could be devoured. Axel unwrapped the next victim, slowly so that Roxas would notice his sharp fingers free the candy. He held it between his index finger and thumb, and Roxas opened his mouth obediently.

He teased him first, of course, dragging the circular candy over the boy’s bottom lip. Roxas moved his gaze to his friend’s pointy teeth, silently asking for something, until Axel placed the candy perfectly on the tip of his tongue. Roxas surprised him by quickly snapping his lips shut and sucking on both the treat and Axel’s finger.

“I’ll need that back,” Axel joked, and then with a shiny glint of his teeth, “or else.”

It was undeniable now; Roxas definitely had a thing for his mouth, seeing as how much energy he was putting into his tongue. Selfish as he was, Axel figured it would not be too grand of a sacrifice to give what the boy wanted. He licked one fang just to be sure, and Roxas’ eyes gleamed even brighter despite the lack of moonlight.

He hooked his sharp finger behind Roxas’ front teeth and drew him forward. Roxas looked appalled briefly, but simply shuddered when Axel leaned down to graze his teeth on Roxas’ bare neck. The pulse was there, throbbing, beating, and surely this proved that Number Thirteen had the unluckiest luck of them all.

Axel reached in his pocket to pick out his own pieces of delights. He placed one between his treacherous teeth, letting Roxas reach up to bite on the other end. Then their lips met, with Roxas’ tongue scraping harshly against Axel’s fangs. Axel pulled away once the candy was devoured and showed another toothy grin when he heard the quick pants coming from the other. At some point in the kiss, he had backed Roxas into a tree, leaving his sugar-sweet friend trapped and breathless.

This was fun, he decided, now that he could bring his bloodlust to good use. Axel slapped a hot tongue on Roxas’ neck and slid over his quivering tendons and pumping veins. The boy gasped and arched and writhed in his grasp; candy-sweet breaths came out in frosty puffs as the moon rose higher. Axel felt Roxas’ hips jerk against his own. A big, obsessed fancy, indeed.

He continued to let his tongue moisten the side of Roxas’ neck, just enough for smoothing and softening the surface for a cleaner bite. Axel looked back into the moon-bright eyes, always loving how they looked when Roxas’ excitement took control over his reasoned thoughts. The longer he waited to pierce the sugary skin, the more frustrated those eyes began to shine, promising all sorts of misfortunes and freezing hells if he did not hurry up.

He licked his fangs one last time before plunging into the flesh, digging in eagerly like Roxas’ hands in the candy cauldrons.

Roxas’ moan was sweeter than anything his senses could experience and know; the boy’s hips ground deeply into his, arousal obviously prominent now, icing-like breaths coming faster as Axel’s fangs broke flesh and veins. Vessels broke under the sharp teeth and deeper and deeper they plunged until they hit the pulsing mark. Axel latched himself onto Roxas’ neck tightly and sucked the sugar-saturated blood as hard as he could. Roxas thrashed, twitched, fragile moans coming from his throat as his voice gradually went fainter, his hands gripping Axel’s shoulders. He could feel it: Axel’s long teeth buried so far in his flesh and his pulse going in a frenzy as his blood was quickly drunken by a sharp tongue.

He was now reduced to shuddering gasps as his arousal reached its peak; Roxas attempted to squeeze Axel’s shoulders, weakly asking for more touches, more licking, more tongue-pleasing delights, more.

Axel seemed to feel the weak squeezes and moved one hand around Roxas’ waist and the other over Roxas’ naval. One finger circled his belly’s soft skin, causing the boy to arch away from the tickling sensation but deeper into Axel’s bite. Then the fingers drew his shirt up to his armpits, revealing his chest to the moonlight. Axel pressed him closer against the tree and used both hands to tweak his nipples into maddening hardness. Then he let them go for Roxas to jerk against the cold air’s touch upon them. The boy was simply shaking now, his voice almost sucked up dry, head lolled to the side to expose more of his neck, and eyes even brighter. Blood was beginning to seep along his gums and between his teeth.

It would be unfortunate to kill the boy, obviously, and Axel’s instincts told him that he would have to stop his feast soon. He worked quickly to undo their pants and bring the undersides of their erections together, lifting Roxas’s hips so that they could thrust against each other. Roxas shuddered at the contact and draped his arms around Axel’s neck, again, wanting more.

It wasn’t until Axel scraped his bottom teeth on the pulsing skin that Roxas finally decided that obtained as much as he could handle. He took one hand away from Axel’s neck to grasp their erections blindly with a sweaty, cold palm. It only took a few pumps to bring his hand into a quick, rugged pace, jerking them off together as fast as he could despite how fuzzy his vision was becoming. Axel gave a few more hard sucks of the sugary blood and felt Roxas’ moan vibrate the muscles in his neck.

He released the sweet neck with a gasp; there was blood running down his chin and he was horny as hell. He slammed his lips back onto Roxas’ open mouth, mixing blood and saliva as he thrust against Roxas’ sticky, always curious hand. Finally, the boy bit him back on his bloody bottom lip, and he saw nothing but bright blue eyes as he came all over Roxas’ belly.

It took him several moments to recover, but Roxas was more than content to lick up the blood on their faces. The puncture holes were still bleeding, and he sighed when Axel kissed each one gently. The boy was impossible to satisfy completely, but perhaps the blood loss he suffered would slow him down for a while. Naturally, Roxas slumped in his arms, dizzy and ready for nothing more except a long nap.

“How much candy do we have left?” Roxas asked, eyes lidded. Axel tried not to let the “we” instead of the usual “I” stretch his imaginary heartstrings too much.

“Exactly a baker’s dozen,” he replied into his friend’s ear. Axel fixed their pants and pulled down Roxas’ shirt, his fingers catching traces of come.

He licked it off in front of Roxas, who watched as attentively as he could before passing out. He did manage, however, to kiss Axel’s stained chin and mumble out one last sentence before closing his candy-bright eyes.

“Thirteen’s an unlucky number; you take one of them and then we’ll never worry about anything again.”

Axel did as he told, the candy tasting too sweet on his bloodied tongue, too sweet as Roxas’ blank words, which he almost wanted to believe.