The Ruse

Embrace me

Surround me

As the rush comes

"Axel, will you please tell me where we're going?" Roxas sounded impatient, but Axel was able to detect an underlying note of excitement in his tone. "You know that surprises bother the crap out of me."

"Oh, quit your bitching," Axel teased. "Few things in life are expected, so it looks like you've gone through seventeen years of surprises without constant complaining."

"Hey," Roxas pointed an accusing finger at Axel from the passenger seat in the redhead's car. "It's eighteen years today, so you have to stop calling me a teenager or a minor. It ends now!" His voice had slowly escalated to emphasize his point.

Axel made a left turn into a residential community that Roxas had never seen before. He shot Axel a quizzical look, but Axel clarified.

"We're only passing through. I need to pick up... something from Demyx." He had nearly spoiled his plans, but he saved himself at the last moment. He stopped at a stop sign to check for traffic, but continued to drive onward.

"So," Roxas started, his mind working to think of anything that Axel might have planned for his birthday. "Would this something have anything to do with my birthday surprise?" He tried to sound nonchalant, but he somehow came off as coy. How did that happen? Roxas asked himself.

Axel snorted despite himself. "No. Why would you think that? It's not always about you, Rox." Crap. Utter crap. Anything that Axel did was for his Roxy.

Granted, they were best friends, and yes, the friendship was rather forced upon the blond in the beginning, but he eventually gave in and befriended the redhead in return. Of course, this had all happened "Forever ago," as Axel would put it.

As the years passed and the bonds of friendship grew stronger and tighter, Axel had started to feel something grow within him. Naturally, it was in the figurative sense, but Axel felt the presence as if it were a solid mass of happiness and affection. He, to put it simply, had fallen in love with his best friend in the whole world. Axel deeply cared for Roxas to begin with, but his own feelings took him by surprise. He was not unhappy with his heart's choice, but he did not know if the object of his affection would return the feelings. Axel wasn't even completely sure that Roxas was gay. But the redhead had repeatedly pushed those thoughts away, not willing to think of what would happen if Roxas were to find out or reject him.

Needless to say, Axel had waited over a year to finally vocalize his feelings, but for good reason. Axel had passed into the glory of adulthood a few years before. A relationship with a minor was illegal and highly taboo, so he had opted to wait until Roxas' eighteenth. And he was scared shitless. Sure, he looked like his usual, slightly neurotic self (his life was mostly directed by his odd affection for fire), but he was a bumbling, hormonal teenage girl on the inside.

Roxas looked out the passenger window at the setting sun, still trying to fathom what Axel was up to. He hoped that it wasn't a surprise party. It wasn't that he didn't like the company of others, he just didn't enjoy being the center of attention. He preferred to blend in or be on the side lines with those he cared about.

Axel suddenly stopped the car (it was only a sudden action to Roxas, who was lost in thought) at the curb of a small, clean-cut house, which Roxas inferred was Demyx's abode.

Axel unbuckled his seatbelt and made to get out of the car, but instead turned to Roxas and said "Hey, when I come out and whistle to you, will you please close your eyes? What I'll be carrying is part of your surprise."

"But you said that it―"

"No, don't start with me," Axel warned with a sly smile. "Just please close your eyes when I whistle. It'll be worth your while, okay?" He winked as a way of sealing his promise. Roxas rolled his eyes in return and crossed his arms over his chest. Axel muttered a quick "Thanks," and hurried to the front door, not even bothering to knock as he let himself in.

Roxas waited roughly two or three minutes until he heard a loud whistle, which must have been Axel.

The blond covered his eyes with his palms, like a small child, to mock Axel's request, but instantly peeped through his fingers at the sound of the car's trunk closing and the driver's door opening.

The redhead leaned down to eye Roxas, supporting himself with one hand on the roof of his car. "Did you peek?" he questioned, resting his free hand on his left hip. He thought that it gave him a little power...

"No, I didn't peek," Roxas simply stated.

Axel replied with an equally simple "Well good." He climbed into the car and closed the door. While fastening his seat buckle, he looked at Roxas to see him beaming of all things. As far as Axel knew, Roxas was only this happy in special circumstances, and Axel knew practically everything about his Roxas.

"Not to sound like the emotion police, but why are you so happy? Did something good happen today?" Axel chuckled at his own joke, even though it was nowhere near funny. If Axel's jokes were Antarctica, then funny must have been hiding in Greenland.

Roxas chuckled at his horrible joke as well, shaking his head to rid it of the unworthy comedy. "I don't know. All of a sudden, I just realized that my best friend has planned some spectacular surprise for my eighteenth birthday, despite the fact that I didn't do shit for him when he turned eighteen a few years ago. And he's done the best job of keeping that surprise from me, because I have no clue what he's done." He laughed at his own lack of knowledge on the situation.

"Roxas," Axel smiled. "First, you did give me something for my birthday." He tapped the small triangle tattoo on his left cheek, reminding Roxas that he had paid for Axel's first tattoos. "Secondly, you know that you can talk to me instead of about me, right?"

The slightly disgruntled blond shoved his redhead counterpart to the side. "Just drive, alright?"

Axel was still a giddy mess inside. He had treated Roxas to a meal at his favorite diner (Roxas was a simple guy. He did not need fancy meals and lavish furnishings to enjoy a dinner with a friend.) and was walking with him back to the car, playing out the entire scenario of how he'd confess. The "gift" in the trunk was only a sham; he had an envelope containing a written confession of what he felt tucked away in the pocket of his coat, which he would let Roxas read when he arrived back at his apartment (Which Roxas inhabited too. Axel was lucky that the walls were not thin, otherwise his dreams would have revealed his feelings at a much earlier date.).

"Ax, it's kind of cold. Can I cuddle up to you?" Roxas had no hidden agenda. The angelic blond was honestly cold, and only in search of a friendly side to cling to for heat. The hormonal teenage girl started to swoon, but Axel kept his face in check, pulling Roxas close. Roxas looked up at the way the small tattoos stretched when Axel smiled, and couldn't help smiling himself.

Maybe... maybe Roxas felt something other than friendship for Axel? No, he couldn't. It was impossible. Roxas was straight... right? Oh no, now he was doubting his sexuality. Come to think of it, I've never been nearly as happy with a girl as I have been with Axel. Maybe... maybe I am gay?

Roxas lived with Axel after moving out of his parent's home when he was sixteen. There was nothing wrong with his parents. In fact, they were great people that Roxas loved very much. Roxas just wanted, no, needed some change. So he moved in with Axel, who was already nineteen at that point. It was not awkward or strained. It felt just like home.

Roxas' parents had moved to Florida to retire early. They were rather wealthy. Roxas' father was a CEO of a publishing company, his mother working for the internal revenue service. Between the two of them, they made a healthy amount of legal money. They loved Roxas and wanted to use his time for mostly schoolwork, so they sent him money on a weekly basis. This eliminated the need for a job. In fact, they sent Axel money too, because they loved him as a son as well. Secretly, they knew that Axel was in love with Roxas. They were not dense people, so they knew that Roxas would love Axel back one day. It was their way of saying "You're gay and that's okay! You're here, you're queer, and we're used to it! You take it, and so can we!"

So Roxas was brought back to more pressing matters than his parents. He might be gay. For his roommate. For his best friend. For the guy that was a mere centimeter away. I have to be going insane. How does something like this just pop up in a matter of seconds?!

Roxas, still doubting himself, decided to test his hypothesis. He snuggled closer to Axel and wrapped his arm around the muscular waist. Axel made a warm noise in the back of his throat. That noise was beautiful. He wanted to hear more of it. I wonder what he'd sound like while--

Axel had stopped walking, efficiently derailing Roxas' train of thought. He pulled Roxas to face him and grasped his chilly hands in his own warm ones. "Roxas," he whispered. "I... I need to tell you something."

Wait, what? HE needs to tell me something?!

Juliana Morgan was, in many aspects, average. Nothing special, nothing unique, nothing out of the norm. Tonight, though, her lady friends from the office had convinced her to let loose and join them for a night of drinks. Sadly, Juliana was socially awkward. She ended up having one (or six) too many, and left the bar looking (and smelling) rather ruffled.

Muttering about ignorant bartenders that do not know a thing, she climbed into her car and started to drive. Nowhere in particular, just away from the bar.

She turned (rather sloppily) onto a street that was littered with few people. A mop of bright red spikes caught her gaze as she began to swerve. Luckily, she swerved too far to the right and hit a scaffold. It's good that I can still drive well! was the last thing she remembered before a metal support from the scaffold broke through her windshield and sent her into unconsciousness. The car alarm and the airbags never went off.

Eyes locked, cerulean boring into malachite, Axel was about to confess.

"Roxas, you have to understand, I've been holding this in for a long time." His voice was low, designed to keep others from eavesdropping. Too bad there was nobody else around. "I... I... Roxas, I lo―"

He was interrupted by Roxas pulling him backwards. In a split second, Axel observed a car impact with the scaffolding that they stood near and a metal beam come down to hit his Roxas.

Close enough to reach out and touch Roxas, he felt a million miles away. He blinked, wishing that this sight would disappear. It remained. His Roxas, his beautiful Roxas, was bleeding on the sidewalk.

A man walking his dog on the opposite side of the street had witnessed the entire crash scene unfold, and had a cell phone in hand calling an ambulance.

Axel dropped to his knees, fingers brushing at the growing puddle of blood near Roxas' scalp.

"No."

It was quiet at first, barely enough for the speaker to hear themselves. But the volume slowly grew, until Axel was heavily sobbing, tears mixing and forcing themselves upon his repeated cries of "No."

There's a coldness in the air

But I don't care

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts II. If I did, I'd make Rai stop saying "y'know." Forever.

And I do not own Motorcycle or As The Rush Comes either.

Well. This is my first posted fanfiction. I have written and drafted others, but they sucked. Seriously, I do not know what I was thinking. It's like looking at pictures of yourself from ten years ago and thinking about how big of an idiot you looked. Or how dumb you looked posing for the camera like that.

I got the idea at about five in the morning one day while I was toasting and English muffin and looking for the honey. I though I should write a fic about Roxas in a coma and Axel going nuts while Rox is out! I even had the scene where Axel is confessing his love to an unconscious Roxas in the hospital, and Axel starts shaking him and screaming at him to wake up. Then he's sobbing on the blond, weakly pleading to not leave him alone. It was pretty heart wrenching to imagine something so real, but I knew that I had to write that.

I told my (unofficial) beta about my idea, and she said that she wanted to write something like that too (I unofficially beta for her in return). She didn't want to steal my idea, though, so I gave her formal permission to write a coma-fic. Be sure to check out TheKabbageKat so you can read her coma-fic too.

Anyway, you've already done the reading part of the phrase, so I'd appreciate it if you would review as well. I mean, you don't have to, since there's no way for me to punish you if you don't, but it'd make me happier knowing that people have things to say about my writing.

Well, hope you enjoyed the first chapter.