Motion Sick
A/N Re-written because bad writing is bad. Cringe-worthy. Why did people follow this story?
WARNING- This story contains gay boys doing drugs while listening to crap music and touching butts. Out of character a lot, if that bothers you, leave.
I don't own shit.
Chapter Beginning
Roxas wasn't a morning person, to the extent of visibly shuddering at the idea of waking up before eleven o' clock. There stood a typical morning routine, however, because sleeping in would never be in the cards, no matter how many times he'd wish for a winning lottery ticket and free time. After hitting the snooze button some five times, the blonde would eventually roll off the couch and fumble around the small apartment living room for clothes (often ending up in a hoodie and tight jeans that probably hadn't been washed for a while). He'd then decide how he was going to spend the day while stumbling out the door; work or school. Try to make the school bus and sit through countless lectures, or fight through a train ride nauseous and then do heavy-lifting in warehouses for more money than he'd get anywhere else. Or in the progressing situation, miss the bus and be forced to take the train to school regardless.
The air was damp and the sound of Roxas' sneakers smacking against wet pavement went unnoticed by the yellow blur leaving him behind once again without a care. It was his fault, really, but that didn't make his unsuccessful chase after the vehicle any less embarrassing, nor did it get him anywhere. Options ran out, and missing too many days of school in a row without a word from his guardian would raise enough suspicion to make phone calls. Calloused hands shoved into his pockets in search of any money he could use to get him to school at some reasonable time. It was definitely scrounging, but the bit of spare change was enough to pay for a ticket to the death trap that would surely end his pathetic existence with crushing metal and a killer headache.
Following the hoard of college students and business men with his fingers crossed that his terrible motion sickness wouldn't act up or that the train would explode in a freak accident and he wouldn't make it out alive, Roxas stepped onto the crowded train car with no available seats. Crowded enough for Roxas to be stuck staring out of the door window as the trees outside began to move until they formed into a green and brown blur. His knuckles turned white around the bar and his eyes slipped shut; the jackhammer began drilling through his skull and into his grey matter, pushing aside any thought that wasn't about the pain his body was succumbing to. Knots forming in his stomach threatened to force up a mixture of food and bile from the pit of his stomach, and while his body was fighting the initial instinct to curl into a ball until the pressure in his temples subsided, he became vaguely aware of a hand on his back and a voice speaking relatively close to his ear.
"You sick? Gonna throw up?"
That was exactly what Roxas was going to do. He was bracing himself for the imminent stream of puke that was about to spew from his mouth onto a train full of people going at high speeds, and then proceed to die from the embarrassment. Breathy words exited his mouth instead of the expected chunks of yesterday's dinner. "Too fast."
The hand on his back disappeared, and gigantic headphones appeared on his head with obnoxious beats blaring while something was slid into the pocket of his hoodie and arm wrapped around his shoulders.
Roxas leaned into them casually, as if they weren't a stranger and as if Roxas didn't look like he'd be caught fishing through restaurant trash or vandalizing public property. Common sense told him this was stupid, but he chose to disregard it, because the need to puke wasn't considerably as strong as it was when his nose wasn't pressed into someone's shoulder; the guy was burning up in the very literal sense, but the heat radiating off of him seemed to calm the pounding in Roxas' brain and suppress the bile slowly beginning to creep up and burn his esophagus, so he didn't think too much on it.
When the train eventually slowed enough to stop at the platform, the arm around Roxas yanked him off of the stranger and pushed him through the open doors stumbling, headphones and all; by the time it sped off again, the flood gates had opened and Roxas was emptying his guts into the foliage.
Roxas was late, even after running four blocks to school. Well, almost-jogging; as fast as anyone could travel with a subsiding migraine and a stomach emptied into the bushes.
It wasn't until he was searching for a pen to sign himself in at the tired-looking secretary's desk that he noticed the piece of paper accompanying the iPod in left in his pocket by the stranger. The blonde pulled it out and scrutinized its authenticity for a good minute, because it couldn't be a phone number. A phone number that, by process of elimination, most likely belonged to whoever it was that hugged him on a train in order to stop him from projectile vomiting on everyone. He slipped it back into his pocket, going back to printing his name neatly on the sign-in sheet, and by the time Roxas was making his way to the back of his English class, he worked up enough guts to text it.
Why do I have your number?
Yes, be as blunt and rude as you possibly can. Smart thinking.
Well I'm going to need my iPod back at some point.
He mentally berated himself for not figuring that one out sooner.
You just carry your number around on pre written pieces of paper?
Naturally.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
Why?
Why not?
So you just give me your iPod and number, and expect me to give it back? You're pretty trusting.
Well I trust in your good looks and mine, and the things they can do together. So I guess I am.
But I didn't see your looks so why would I feel compelled to do anything?
Because now you're curious.
Roxas' stomach churned for the second time that morning, because he really was curious.
Lunch was a mixing pot that was too small for the ingredients, and Roxas knew better than to risk his life for a half-cooked burger. Instead he spent the five minutes it took for the entire student body to form a ridiculous line in the cafeteria walking to the school parking lot, where his lifetime friend would be waiting in an old beat-up van with arms open and enough food to feed an army like he was every day. The dirty blonde made it his personal business to force meals down Roxas' throat, completely convinced he'd never spend the money to feed himself.
Hayner was shoving food into his hands as soon as he yanked open the heavy door and crossed his legs Indian style on the stained carpet floor. The back seats were removed the day Hayner took it home, and Roxas couldn't count how many summers he'd slept away in it.
"You haven't been in a while." Roxas pointedly ignored the underlying question of "Why are you working so much lately?"
"Where's my lesbian girlfriend?"
"Somewhere else." Hayner's answer was final enough for Roxas not to bother asking anymore; she was MIA, gallivanting throughout the countryside without a fuck to give for the poor. He rolled his eyes and began tearing apart a sandwich with his teeth, checking his phone every once and a while for a text from the stranger whose headphones now hung around his neck and whose iPod he was carrying around in his pocket.
"Ya texting a girl or something?" Hayner strained to see whatever it was Roxas was doing on his cheap ten dollar phone as Roxas pressed to screen into his chest. "And what makes you think I am?"
Hayner smirked a little and prodded Roxas' cheek with his finger. "You're smiling."
Was he? Roxas hadn't noticed; his eyes rolled again and a middle finger was presented in front of his ever-prying companion's face.
"So do I know her?" He asked, smacking the hand out of his line of sight and moving closer with intrigue that Roxas faulted for the constant annoyance he had around Hayner.
"I met him on the train. He helped me out." A blonde eyebrow arched at him, either questioning how it was Roxas managed to converse with another human without allowing his bitterness to suffocate them, or why he was stupid enough to give a complete stranger his number; neither of which technically happened.
The opposing van door was yanked open, and the brunette tomboy Roxas had been spitting for distance and arm wrestling with since elementary school climbed into the van with the kind of grace that could only be found in a bear shot in the ass with a tranquilizer.
"What's up?" Olette's green eyes were too big for her face and clashed horribly with the orange outfits she sported on a regular basis; her body was almost as straight as a line, and Roxas couldn't remember the last time she bothered wearing any form of makeup. Not that any of that really mattered, because while Roxas over-analyzed the facts, his middle school self's boner was well concealed underneath his superhero backpack.
"Roxas is being mysterious and stupid, mostly stupid, but there's a slight chance he may have had an actual encounter with someone that isn't us today, and apparently it went well enough for him to get a number." Now Olette was the one raising a brow.
"Lies and slander. Roxas, don't let Hayner mess with your big, bad reputation."
"Fuck you both, I'm not a bad person. I'm tolerant of you lot, that's gotta count for something."
"We're not saying you're a bad person, you just either blatantly turn your back on anyone trying to talk with you, or take a moment of your precious time to hate them to death." She shrugged. "You lack people skills, or rather, the patience to actually use them."
Roxas' nose scrunched at Olette's explanation. As much as it pained him to admit, even to himself, she was mostly right. He'd never been too skilled at holding conversations with people he didn't have an interest in, and his all-around demeanor held an air of general dislike for all living creatures; Roxas getting someone's phone number after talking to them was about as far-fetched as Ricky Martin knocking on his door and asking to use the toilet.
A small hand suddenly combed through his hair, and he'd probably have flinched at the contact if it hadn't belonged to the one person in the world who'd ever be able to make Roxas comfortable in his own skin. Blue eyes travelled up and there she was, in all of her five-foot two, blue-eyed, blonde glory; kneeling in front of him with half of a sandwich hanging out of her mouth in the most attractive way possible and a halo hovering over her, she ruffled his untamable locks of bedhead with a smirk. After pulling ham and cheese on white out of her pie hole, she spoke like angels sang.
"Hayner and Olette can go fuck themselves with splintering wood; we have each other, baby blues."
"The world can suck our collective reproductive parts; Namine Pratt and Roxas Strife make the best tag team of all time." Spandex cheetah print leggings crawled into Roxas' lap, giving him a nice close-up of the rest of her sandwich being pushed into her mouth and purposefully chewed loudly in order to piss off the other set of tits (if you could even call them that) across from them. He could never understand why it was Namine had a raging hatred for Olette, but he knew it was a kind of underground fire that leaked poisonous gas into rooms until it gradually suffocated everyone to death.
"Maybe you could buy some class with all that money you're sitting on." Olette probably didn't hate Namine nearly as much as Namine hated her, mostly because it'd take years of pent-up aggression to muster that amount of diamond-studded resentment, but there were still knives in eyes whenever Olette saw her.
A finely penciled brow raised and Namine swallowed her food. "Maybe you could learn some tact from that English teacher you're sleeping with."
"Ladies, ladies," Hayner interjected, once again able to speak after shrinking away the moment claws started to come out, "as much as I'd love to watch you two go at it in an angry, sexually frustrated way, the bell rang. Get out of my ride."
Teachers never said anything worthwhile to Roxas throughout the course of his life; no high school English teacher had ever brought out his intelligence with unconventional methods, and no Math teacher could ever hope to make sense, which was why he mostly let their words go through one ear and out the other. After a productive day of ignoring his surroundings completely, he came home drained from the mental exertion and flopped onto the couch that doubled as his sleeping quarters. Phone in hand, of course.
Meet me at a coffee shop.
Where?
It's on the main drag, hard to miss.
So you want me to skip school and wander around until I stumble upon a coffee shop I don't even know the name to?
That's exactly what I want you to do.
You're insane.
Insanity is in fashion.
Dream on.
Meeting someone he didn't know alone at a coffee shop he never heard of didn't sound like the smartest option, and his common sense was screaming at him to just pawn the iPod off and ignore the guy, but his curiosity would continue to be his ultimate undoing. Roxas was a serial killer victim waiting to happen, but he reckless enough to ignore reason and confident enough to think nothing of it.
Dream on.
Axel grinned at the screen.
"Alright, who are you texting? You haven't pointlessly ranted all day, and you turned down my invitation to go to Zex's. What the flying fairy fuck, Ax?" His silver-haired roommate was standing on the other side of their kitchen island, pretty blue eyes narrowed and arms crossed with enough sass to put an independent black woman to shame.
"Kid I met on the bullet this morning." Axel didn't bother looking up from his phone as he replied nonchalantly.
"How old?"
"Who cares?"
"Axel, as your best friend and the person who pays half of your rent, I strongly advise that you not hook up with minors."
"Riku, as your best friend and the person who pays the other half of our rent, I must point out that I am in fact not hooking up with anyone, other than that chic from 3B sometimes. No need to worry your pretty little bleached head, stop being so… responsible. You're acting like my mom, it's fucking weird."
"Axel, I you're forgetting that we were practically raised together; your mom is my mom. And if you don't plan on hooking up with anyone then why are you still texting them, twatface?"
"Because we're going out for coffee tomorrow." Riku's palm dragged across his face and a forced sigh left his mouth.
"Boy or girl?"
"Boy."
"I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here and say he's blonde."
Snort. "You know me so well."
"I spend a lot of time wishing I didn't."
"Golly gee willikers, Riku baby, I'm just so hurt. Look at how fucking hurt I am right now, come kiss it and make it better."
"You're so damn weird, I'll never understand; I thought I raised you better. Whatever, you can get your ass thrown in jail for fucking a minor, but don't expect me to help you out. I'm going to Zexion's now, are you coming or not?"
"We're the same age, dipshit."
"Are you coming or not?"