I'm pretty excited about this fic. It's proving to be really fun to write already, so I'm getting pretty fueled up to write more. AkuRoku songfic based on "Jesus of Suburbia" off of Green Day's "American Idiot" album. May take some inspiration from the "American Idiot" Broadway musical as well. There will be some switching between perspectives, mainly Axel and Roxas but this may include other characters.
Please let me know what you think!
Chapter One
None of the Above
"I'm the son of rage and love
The Jesus of Suburbia
The bible of none of the above
On a steady diet of
Soda Pop and Ritalin
No one ever died for my
Sins in hell
As far as I can tell
At least the ones that I got away with
And there's nothing wrong with me
This is how I'm supposed to be
In a land of make believe
That don't believe in me."
A load of fucking shitheads, the lot of them. No matter what the fuck I did, it was always fucking wrong. But why the hell would anything be right? I'm just a bastard child with shit aspirations and shit luck. Even though I really did have valid points, even though I was smarter than them…did any of that matter?
Of course not. Nothing mattered in this shithole. But go fucking figure.
"Axel! Get your ass down here!"
And once again I'm the problem.
I roll my eyes as I yank myself off my bed and uncaringly plodded down the stairs, laying eyes on the bitch in chief herself, also known as my mother.
She glared at me like I was the scum of the earth, because of course everything was my fucking fault. God, she was so full of herself.
"What the hell is this?" she asked in that reprimanding parenting tone.
I looked over at the sink she was angry at, filled to the brim with dirty dishes and rotting food scraps. I scoffed.
"You blind? It's a sink."
"You know what I mean, you little smart ass!"
I looked her in the eyes. "It's not my problem, that's what it is. I don't eat in this house, there's no need for me to clean up after you."
I ambled out the door, ignoring my mother's curses and other oh-so-eloquent slurs. I needed some goddamn space.
I went with my go to chill out spot: the public bathroom at the old neighborhood playground. No one went there with their kids anymore thanks to parenting via iPads, so I knew I could be alone. I went inside and leaned on the wall, pulled out a cigarette from my pack and my lighter and lit it up, taking a long drag from it. I knew they'd kill me, but I'd probably kill myself quicker without them, so it was worth it.
The more I thought about my mother's logic, the less sense it made. Who did she think she was? Going around making demands when I didn't do shit to her. I didn't ask to be brought into this world, and she didn't abort my ass, so she can't complain.
That's all everyone seems to do lately. Everyone's got an opinion and society says everyone's entitled to them. So all people do is keep complaining about how their opinion is right and how society needs to change. Bunch of noise and bullshit. Since everyone's entitled to an opinion, here's mine: everyone should just suck it up and deal with it.
I sighed, my cigarette all too quickly burned down to the butt. That seemed to happen a lot. I take one puff, then I'm lost in my head that never seems to shut up until I'm out of nicotine to inhale.
I gazed lazily around the grungy bathroom, reading but not really registering the long-forgotten graffiti left on the stalls. Most of it was pointless, a lot of doodles of inappropriate and stupid shit, some people declaring they were there at one point or another, and some sarcastic comments on either of those.
One bit in particular actually caught my attention. It was stupid, it was just some crap written in someone's chicken scratch handwriting. But for whatever reason…
"'To live and not to breathe is to die in tragedy', huh?" I read uninterestedly. "Someone thinks they're a fucking poet."
I hated people like that. That's another thing: everyone tries to be a philosopher nowadays. Leave that crap to people with a fucking degree. They're pretentious, but at least they know what they're talking about. Or at least as much as someone can know about that kind of shit.
I shook my head; when the hell did I get so preachy?
My phone vibrated in my back pocket, knocking me out of my little inner rant session. I pulled it out to find a text from some chick I hooked up with a few months ago. How she got my number I'll never know. I read through the text several times, knowing it was clearly just a pathetic excuse to meet up so she could try and get me in bed again.
This is what my life had turned into: I'd come home from my part-time gig at some retail hellhole and try and chill out, my mother would yell and flip out, I'd leave to go smoke, and someone would contact me to hook up. I was that acquaintance you kept around for a party and a quick fuck, but that was about it. Any worthwhile part of my personality had been completely destroyed at that point, I was pretty sure. Whether it was because my brain cells drowned in alcohol or my emotions gave up from constantly being abused, something broke whatever I used to be. But then again, what else was new?
Deciding I could stand to blow off some steam and not think for a few hours, I dialed what's-her-face and set up a meeting outside some café she wouldn't shut up about. I put my phone back in my pocket and sighed, kicking off the wall and walking past the rusted door frame.
I couldn't seem to shake off this negative feeling that had been following me around. I mean, sure, I usually felt a little paranoid, probably no thanks to Demyx always coming over and smoking weed in my room. I'd gotten second hand high quite a few times, and I didn't deal with it too well.
But this felt different. It seemed more like premonition or something. But I guess I should leave speculation as that.
"Roxas? Roxas? Dude, you listening?"
I looked up at Demyx, once again getting high on my bed. I was probably messed up too by the amount of smoke in the room. I set my textbook back on my desk, deeming it pretty useless at this point.
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention," I apologized.
He sighed. "Honestly, man…you've been thinking waaaaay too much."
"I can't help it. Especially when you're hot boxing my room."
Demyx grinned at me. "You secretly like it."
I shook my head, laughing a little. "Yeah, 'cause I like you killing my brain cells."
He laughed in his usual loud and boisterous way, flopping back on my bed. He took one last drag of his blunt before putting it out in his ashtray that seemed to be a constant companion. At least he only smoked weed and not anything worse.
"So, what were you trying to tell me, Dem?"
"Oh, right! You should skip class tomorrow with me."
I frowned a little. "I've got a paper due."
"So?"
I let out a long exhale. "What did you have in mind?"
Demyx perked up, knowing he had me right where he wanted me. God, I was too much of a pushover…
"I was thinking we could take an early vacation and go on a little road trip."
I reflexively looked away to try and hide my enthusiasm at the possibility. Unlike my brother who'd travelled around a lot for swimming competitions, I had barely been out of my hometown in my 16 years of life, so I was ready to jump at any opportunity to explore. And Demyx was clearly dangling that in front of me like catnip in front of a kitten.
"Where to?" I asked, trying to feign disinterest.
"I was thinking San Francisco."
I had to use all my self-control to keep from showing my excitement. Living in Phoenix, Arizona, I was just close enough and far enough from the West Coast for it to be torture. I'd only been to San Diego once for a week during summer vacation, and I was dying to go back.
"Come on, you know you wanna," Demyx tempted. "Good food, cute girls, hot guys…the beach…"
And there it was: my ultimate weakness. I was too obsessed with the beach. Even if I wasn't allowed to swim, just the thought of lying in the sand with the sound of the waves crashing in the background sounded like the closest thing to perfection I could imagine.
"Roxas?"
I laughed a little, knowing I had been defeated.
"Alright, alright, you got me. Let's go."