AN: Something a bit different. As a kid, I always hated the country, but over the years it's grown on me quite a bit.
Either way, thanks for reading, and please don't hesitate to let me know what you think! More to come soon, this is definitely not a one-shot.
Country kids know how to enjoy themselves.
This is what Roxas discovered underneath a shoddily-hung disco ball in the Mountain Creek YMCA, from beneath tense muscles and a city-boy-bored mask. This is what Roxas discovered, standing awkwardly in the middle of some kind of Friday night dance, something his grandmother had pushed him into attending.
He stood in the center of the room and looked around, trying to ignore the fact that the DJ, a kid with an iPod (did they have iPods here?), had decided to play completely undanceable music, trying to ignore the sweaty country kids bumping up against him, trying to ignore the cheesy streamers hung around the gym walls.
This is embarrassing, he thought, studying the kids against the wall, the kids somehow dancing, the kids behind the refreshments table – did that girl have pink hair? Did they have hair dye here?
Roxas's eyes flicked once again to a small group of kids on the wall. The tallest one could be seen nonchalantly slipping a lighter out of his pocket and waving it at his friends as he stepped backwards toward the door.
Finally, Roxas thought. Something I recognize. And he pushed through the country kids to the door. He may not have mustered good enough French to pass the class last year, but Roxas spoke Smoker very well, and he recognized the faint click, the brief burst of light, and then the tiny circular glow in the darkness of the alley behind the Y.
Approaching the tall boy, he shrugged his shoulders a little, brushed his hair out of his face, then thought about it and pushed it back across his eyes a little.
The taller boy turned his head as Roxas crunched toward him across crumbled, broken cement. He nodded a little, sucking in on his cigarette, then exhaled a long plume of smoke into the summer heat.
"Can I bum a smoke?" Roxas asked warily, hands dug deep into his pockets.
"You don't want to," the boy replied, taking another long drag. "You think you do, but you don't."
I guess they have crazies in the country too.
Roxas set his lips into a thin smile, stuck his hands further into his pockets, and turned to go back inside. "Right. Okay. Sorry to bother you, then. I'm just gonna go back inside now-"
"How desperate are you?"
Roxas blinked. "Excuse me?"
The boy simply laughed, staring unashamedly at Roxas with red-rimmed eyes and what looked like tattoos on his face.
"For a smoke? How desperate are you for a cigarette?"
Roxas fingered the half-full pack in his pocket, then shrugged. "I could use one," he replied.
"How bad do you want one?"
"Look, I didn't mean to come out here and bust up your party or something," Roxas began. "Just forget it."
Then the boy laughed again, and shoved Roxas's shoulder a little, and pulled his pack out of his rolled-up shirtsleeve.
"You think this is a party, you ain't seen nothin' yet," he murmured, shaking out a single cigarette and sticking it into his mouth alongside his own. Extracting the first one from his lips, he held the lit tip to the new one, lighting up like a practiced chainsmoker. After blowing out the first drag, he handed the cigarette to Roxas and stuck his own back into his mouth.
Roxas wasn't sure how he felt about anyone who didn't think he could light his own cigarette, but after a drag of what tasted like cardboard, he let the nicotine fix calm him down and leaned against the Y wall next to the other boy.
"So I'm assuming the reason I don't want this is because it tastes like shit," he said after a moment, meeting the country boy's eyes with a challenging stare.
"Mediums," the other boy replied, holding up the box. "But beggars can't be choosers, can they?"
"No sir," Roxas agreed. "But since I'm not a beggar…"
He pulled his own pack from his pocket, lighting up one of his own before discarding the borrowed cigarette.
The tall boy watched him for a second, then watched the cigarette on the ground slowly burn out. "Wasteful son-of-a-bitch," he muttered. Then, louder: "I guess you're one of those rich city fags then, huh?"
Roxas tensed, suddenly very aware of the distance between where he was standing against the wall and the front door around the other side of the building. He swallowed and said nothing.
"Yeah," the other boy said, nodding to himself as he stepped away from the wall. "You're a city boy. You know how I know you're a city boy?"
Roxas took a step off the wall as well, taking another long drag. "How do you know," he said quietly. "Is it because I know ain't isn't a word? Because I don't drag out my vowels and tawk lahk all y'all do? Better a city boy than a fucking redneck! You live in the town I visit my grandmother in. You have no fucking idea who you're dealing with. Look, don't fuck with me, okay?"
Then the country boy threw back his head and laughed, laughed good and hard and loud. His laugh echoed out across the alley, bouncing through the trees and the mosquitoes and the lightning-bugs into a night more stars than sky.
After he'd sufficiently laughed himself out of breath, he smiled genially at Roxas, pulled another cigarette from his pack and chain-lit it off his dying first. Taking a couple good puffs, he walked chest-first, chin up, toward Roxas.
"First off, shortstop," he began, standing awkwardly close to the shorter boy, so Roxas was forced to look up at him. "Maybe the hair threw you off, but my neck ain't red."
Roxas sneered, shoving the country boy away from him and making to head back around front. But before he could, the country boy had pressed him hard against the wall, gripping Roxas's arm uncomfortably tightly.
"I know you're a city boy because you wore cologne to a YMCA," he hissed. "I know you're a city boy because of your fucking hoodie, your fucking brand-new Nikes. And I know you're a little city fag because you smoke fucking Parliaments."
Suddenly in a little bit over his head, Roxas mustered all the strength he could find and thrust his untrapped arm into the best left hook he could manage from his position, catching the country boy off-guard and hitting him square in the eye.
Stumbling back, the tall boy let out another short bark of a laugh, then returned fire with his own, surprisingly powerful in Roxas's opinion, left hook. The pain broke through Roxas's temporary paralysis, and he tried again to fight back. Unfortunately, he was vastly mismatched in both strength and speed compared to the other boy, and he found himself on the ground faster than he could even recount, the redhead's sharp, hard fists slamming into his sides.
Country kids know how to fight. This is what Roxas learned, curling his arms around what he thought might have previously been his ribcage, trying to breathe in the alley behind the YMCA.
He kind of wondered if he was going to die. The pain was starting to disconnect, and he was sure he was going to pass out soon. And then Roxas saw an angel, upside down, walking toward him. He had never imagined an angel with a mullet, but now that he was seeing one, he wasn't going to argue with it.
"Axel?" said the angel, now hurrying toward Roxas in a pair of beat-up sneakers. "Axel, what the fuck!"
Roxas thought about talking to the angel, but he found a distinct lack of air in his lungs with which to make any noise, so instead he kind of coughed and gasped and writhed around. Now that the punches had stopped coming, the pain was starting to sink in again, and Roxas almost wished he had passed out so he could deal with it later.
The angel pushed the country boy out of the way and knelt beside Roxas, smacking him concernedly in the face. Roxas groaned and tried again to breathe, letting his eyes focus on a dirty white t-shirt, athletic shorts. Mullet. The angel was talking to him, he thought. Upon listening intently, he decided that what the angel was saying to him was: "Come on, asshole, focus your eyes already."
And he did.
"Theeere we go, that's right. How many fingers?"
Roxas blinked. "Eight," he said hoarsely.
"Four," the angel corrected him. "But that's a good start."
Behind the angel, Roxas could see the country boy smoking again, stretching his arms.
"He's trying to kill me," Roxas said, waving toward the country boy.
"Uh huh," the angel said. "I knew he was looking for a fight tonight. What's your name, city boy?"
"Roxas."
"Mmm." The angel nodded understandingly. "And you're not from around here, are you, Roxas?"
"From the capitol," Roxas muttered, exceedingly aware of a stitch in his side. His shoulder cracked as he started to push himself upright. "Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm the guy that just saved your life. Demyx Morgan. And the one I saved you from? Axel Brandt."
Roxas managed to pull himself to his feet, wincing as he went. "Yeah, okay. Goodbye."
He turned away, limping a little as he dragged himself toward the front of the building. It was about a mile walk uphill to the turnoff for his grandmother's house, but hell if he was going to call her up and ask her to drive down in the truck for him.
Be a fucking man, Roxas.
He could hear Demyx and Axel behind him, disembodied voices getting further and further away, and then nothing – complete silence on his way up the hill, with the exception of one passing truck going the opposite direction. He wondered if he was hemorrhaging. By the time he reached his grandmother's house, he was too tired to do anything but kick off his shoes and fall asleep on the couch.
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Roxas's grandmother had lost her enthusiasm for parenting long ago, around the time Roxas's father finally moved out of her house in his mid-twenties. Thus, when Roxas shuffled into the kitchen the following morning with a slight limp and a black eye, she saw no reason to comment one way or the other.
"Cereal's on top of the fridge," she said blithely, sipping her orange juice.
Roxas grunted vaguely in response before pulling down the box (Vitamin Fortified Soy-O's) and helping himself.
"How was the dance," she added eventually, watching the sullen teen eat over the edge of her newspaper.
Roxas snorted. "It was great, Grandma."
Assuming an air of grandmotherly ignorance, she let a wry smile creep across her face. "Meet any new friends?"
Roxas blinked, looking up from his bowl. "Yeah, Grandma," he said after a moment, "Yeah, I made lots of friends. Kids here are really friendly."
"Well!" she responded, smile growing. "Your optimism and effervescence must be contagious."
"Mm."
After a minute or so of silence, she continued, tucking a section of bone-white hair behind her ear.
"Well, seeing as you're here, I thought I might put your young muscle to work for me. There's a list on the counter of things I'd like you to pick up at Home Depot. I left you the cash too, of course. And it's not on the list, but you should pick up cat food on your way home. Chicken and rice formula. The big bag, since you can carry it. You can use the truck, of course."
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Roxas wandered the aisles of Home Depot, regarding the pipes and lumber with a practiced boredom. Most of what was on the list consisted of numbers, and his grandmother's request for various lengths of wood filled him with a sense of foreboding, a tell-tale sign of manual labor in his not-too-distant future. He was also fairly sure that the crumpled twenty she'd left him would not cover the cost of whatever he was buying, much less the cat food.
Taylor Swift jangled down from speakers high above, echoing through the aisle that Roxas found himself alone in with a number of ready-to-install doors. He idly played with the handle of the closest one; a dark, shiny, possibly fake wooden one with a run-of-the-mill stained glass window.
"Aren't you gone yet?"
The voice startled him, and he looked up to find the blond boy from the night before standing beside him with a curious expression.
"Demyx," he said, repeating the name he thought he remembered.
"Very good. Didn't even look at the nametag."
It was then that Roxas realized he was speaking to an employee of Home Depot. Demyx was wearing jeans and a white V-neck tee underneath the required orange apron, and in the light Roxas realized his hair wasn't quite so much mullet as spiked, rat-tailed fauxhawk. He had thin wrists and a sturdy build, work-hardened biceps and a genial smile.
Roxas held up the list. "I'm looking for a few things for my grandmother."
"Ahh, visiting granny. That explains it," Demyx said, plucking the list from Roxas's fingers.
"Explains what?"
"What a stylish little thing like you is doing in a town like this." Looking up, he made a face. "You're in the wrong aisle, my friend. And you got some kind of crafty grandmother. C'mon."
Gesturing for Roxas to follow him, he set off at a brisk pace toward the lumber section. He looked over his shoulder as they reached the correct aisle, appraising the shorter boy.
"You here all summer?"
Roxas nodded.
"On purpose or imprisoned?"
"I dunno if I'd use that word, but…"
"Imprisoned," Demyx concluded, nodding once before getting back to the list. He started to pull out a length of two-by-four, then glanced down at the list with a frown. "This is gonna be kind of a pricey purchase all together, you know that, right?"
"I have 20 bucks," Roxas replied, pulling the dying bill from his pocket.
Demyx raised his eyebrows, then pushed the lumber back into its rack and leaned against it, deep in thought.
"Do you know what she needs this stuff for?" he asked eventually.
Roxas shrugged. "The paint is for a dresser she has. It's white, and she wants it black. I dunno what all the wood is for, or any of the other… building stuff."
"Huh. Well, the good news is you can probably just use spraypaint for the dresser, it'll look better and you'll be less likely to fuck it up."
Demyx set out walking again, and Roxas hurried this time to keep up. After confirming the size of the dresser, Demyx tossed two cans of spraypaint to him in Midnight Gleam, then looked up inquisitively.
"What's your grandma's name?"
Roxas looked up from the spray cans. "Sylvia Jensen. Why?"
"Shit, really?"
Roxas found Demyx's incredulity mildly alarming. "You know her?"
"I lived next-door to her for years. Come to think of it, she did mention her grandson was coming. Wouldn't have expected someone like you, though."
Roxas was about to ask what he meant, but Demyx was already off, tossing packs of screws into his arms as he headed for the checkout.
"Listen, this stuff is on the house," he said firmly, scanning all the items up to a total of $17.59, which he proceeded to mark as an in-store cost. "And I can get you that wood for your 20 somewhere else after I'm off. Come back at 6:30, okay?"
"I can pay," Roxas mumbled, unsure of what was suddenly going on. "And I don't need to get her stuff from some… sketchy place, I dunno. I don't even know what she needs it for, but-"
"Don't worry about it," Demyx cut in. "She's gonna have you build her stairs for the back deck. She was gonna have me do it, but it never quite happened."
Roxas raised his eyebrows. "This really is a small town, huh?"
"The woman is practically my grandmother too. Seriously, don't worry about paying. That's why she only gave you a twenty," he laughed. "Sylvia rocks, so no one ever charges her full price for anything."
"Ah."
"Yeah," Demyx said, herding the items into a plastic bag. "It's kinda how we roll out in the boonies. We're nice here. Mostly," he added, looking meaningfully at Roxas's black eye.
Clearing his throat, Roxas reached for the bag. "Yeah. I'll just be going, then. I have to, um, I have to buy some cat food."
"6:30! Be here, we'll get your shit!" Demyx called after him, and Roxas gave a half-hearted wave as agreement on his way out the door.
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At 6:30 sharp, Roxas pulled up in the truck at Home Depot. The sun was melting across the mountains to the West like butter, and in the hazy light he spotted Demyx on the curb, eating what appeared to be raw rhubarb. He declined to share it, despite Demyx's strong urgings, and after Demyx had stuffed the last of it into his mouth, they headed back to the parked truck.
"I can give you directions or I can drive your truck, your choice," Demyx said, slinging his apron over his shoulder.
Roxas shrugged. "You can drive." He tossed Demyx the keys and headed for the passenger's side, shaking out a cigarette as he walked.
"Don't smoke in Sylvia's car," Demyx warned, and Roxas rolled his eyes.
"I think it'll be fine, the windows are open."
Demyx locked the doors, fixing an accusatory glare on Roxas's yet-unlit cigarette until the shorter boy sighed and shoved it pack into the pack.
"Fuck! Fine. Unlock the fucking door already!"
"Chill out, princess. You're not on your own turf here, or have you forgotten already?"
"My car."
"Sylvia's car," Demyx corrected him, starting the engine. "Man, I like you, but you could really use an attitude adjustment."
"S'why I'm here," Roxas muttered, staring with disinterest out the window.
Demyx snorted. "Yeah, you and Axel are gonna get along great."
"Excuse me?"
"I said, you and Axel are gonna get along great."
"Oh, yeah, because I'm just jumping out of my fucking shoes to see that homophobic toolbox again."
"Hoo-ee! This boy don't know how to talk!" Demyx grinned, shaking his head as Roxas groaned. "I'm sorry, does that make you uncomfortable? 'Cause that ain't even the start of it! I could go on for a while, buddy."
"I-"
"Boy, you's uglier than homemade sin! You ain't worth the gunpowder it'd take to blow you away!"
Roxas snorted. "Homemade sin? As opposed to what, mass produced sin?"
"Incest," Demyx replied, laughing at the face Roxas made. "Gnarly, right?"
Roxas nodded, staring out the window as Demyx turned the radio to a country station. Turning back, he studied the other boy carefully, trying to figure him out. He seemed older somehow, and yet he'd been at the Y dance the night before, hadn't he? It was only the beginning of summer, but he was already developing a tan, and his hair was so bizarre – Roxas couldn't place him.
"What are you, anyway?" he asked after a moment. Demyx looked over questioningly. "I mean, you're so normal one second, and then you slip into this weird country shit the next, and then back to normal."
"I guess that depends on your definition of normal, doesn't it?" Demyx laughed, then turned the music up. "I was born and raised out here, but I've done some traveling. I lived in New York for a couple years when I was younger. With my aunt."
He paused, slowing the truck to turn onto a gravel road. "You can ask me why sometime when you know me better. Believe it or not, living in a rural area does not a stupid person make, so you'd be better off if you'd throw out your preconceived notion that everyone out here is a moronic hillbilly."
"Yeah, not everyone, just people like your friend."
Demyx shook his head, glancing over at Roxas. "Axel's not even from around here, not originally. He was just messin' with you last night, he moved down from Vancouver a few years back."
"Look, country or no country, he attacked me because he suspected I might be gay."
"Nah," Demyx replied, and when Roxas started to protest, he held up a hand to silence him. "No, no, listen to me. Axel didn't beat you up because you're gay, he didn't beat you up because you tried to play some weird little game with him about his cigarettes, he beat you up because he found out yesterday that his sister had a baby three weeks ago and nobody told him."
"Oh, okay, it all makes sense now. I attack strangers too when I feel out of the loop," Roxas said sarcastically, glaring out the window. After a few seconds of listening to the music, he turned back to see Demyx watching the road.
"Look," Demyx said eventually. "You don't know the half of it. Most of the people I know out here are more complicated than anyone I ever met in New York. Ah-ah-ah, wait a second, I'm not done! I'm not saying everyone is any one way or another, I'm just saying, I dunno, don't judge a book by its cover."
"How old are you, anyway?" Roxas asked, changing the subject.
"Me?"
"Uh, no, all the other people in the car. Yeah, you."
Demyx grinned again, looking sideways at Roxas while he navigated the gravel road. "Man, you just met me and you're already givin' me a hard time! You are… more like Axel than you realize. I can already tell this summer's gonna be good."
Roxas said nothing, waiting for an answer to his question.
"Don't get me wrong," Demyx continued. "I like you, or I wouldn't be sitting here right now. Just sayin'. And to answer your question, I'm 18."
"Going into senior year?"
"Sure am. Finally," he added. "And yourself?"
"Same. I'm about to be 18."
"Oh yeah? When's your birthday?"
Roxas hesitated, tempted to lie. "October," he said finally, giving up.
"Not exactly coming right up," Demyx said, snickering. "What'd, you skip a grade or something?"
Roxas nodded.
"Yeah," Demyx said, pulling the truck up next to a surprisingly large house. "I'm gonna be 19 in July. Repeated a grade."
"Ah."
They both got out of the car, and Roxas took the opportunity to light up the cigarette he'd been craving all afternoon. It was nearly dark out, and as they approached a pile of lumber beside the house, the porch light turned on.
Roxas was observing the wood when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around just in time to see the malefactor behind his black eye sauntering slowly over, hands in the pockets of his dark jeans and black hoodie hanging unzipped off an otherwise bare, pale chest. Eyeing Roxas's cigarette, his face broke into a sardonic smirk.
"Careful with that thing, or you'll burn down the whole forest, city boy."