Author's Note: This is an anticipated three-shot piece. After the emotional shitstorm that was completing Bereaved, I felt like I needed to write something a little less heavy on the angst (so, naturally, I go ahead and start writing Time Will Tell…because the 9/11 terrorist attacks are totally lighter fare on the traumatized-for-life scale…um, holy shit, nevermind). I also just went on a ski trip, so behold, an AkuRoku fluff piece set on a ski resort. Life imitates art much?
I had to listen to so much happy poppy music to get through this, guys (think: Carly Rae Jepson's "Turn Me Up", "Hurt So Good", "I Really Like You", RAC, Matthew Koma's "Cheap Sunglasses", and boat-freaking-loads of Owl City). My usual fare just wasn't gonna cut it for this one.
Rating: T. Warnings for language and sexual innuendos and situations. You can probably handle it.
Also, I swear on all that is holy and family-friendly Disney, Roxas is going to remain alive, well, and in one emotionally healthy piece throughout this story. Let's see if the same can be said for Axel by the time Roxas is through with him. ;)
Of all the places a group of gay guys could choose to visit to help cheer him up and keep his mind distracted from the general shittiness of recent relationship-related woes, Utah would not have even cracked Axel's top ten. It wasn't exactly a bastion of social progressiveness, after all.
Yet here they were, thirty minutes outside of Salt Lake City, dumping luggage and oversized ski bags in the living area of the resort rental that'd be their living space for the next handful of days. Two couples, a pink-haired player going solo while his latest boyfriend soaked up the sun in Cabo, and one mopey, newly single redhead, plus three bedrooms, equated to five full days of not just myriad attempts at being cheered up but also just as many opportunities for Axel to get to see Demyx and Zexion, and Cloud and Leon, in multiple over-the-top PDA scenarios.
Personally, he wasn't really in the mood to see his schoolmates sucking face for the entirety of his spring break, or to observe Marluxia picking up overnight playthings while extolling the virtues of open relationships every damn chance he got.
If they'd all just left him alone to brood back in the dorms for a week, he'd have been fine.
It didn't help that he hated snow and cold with a fiery, burning passion. Give him sunny SoCal weather over this fluffy white bullshit any day of the fucking week. Seriously.
"Dude. Look at the sweet view."
Dutifully, Axel looked up and over at Demyx while simultaneously sliding his bag off one shoulder. Just over $100 for ski and boot rentals hadn't been terrible. Neither had the cost of the flight or the resort rental after being split six ways. It was still money he'd rather have spent on something else. Maybe on a cruise, or a week on some South Pacific island beach.
Or, you know, drinking himself into oblivion. It was hard enough to be pretty newly out, without having the first guy you were head over heels with deciding that, after nearly a year of blissful monogamy, he'd rather keep things more "casual" when that had just been a code-word for "I'm already sleeping around and thought I should let you retroactively know."
"There's a little blond doing some bomb-ass tricks on that ice rink down below. He's kind of cute."
Axel sucked in a breath, schooled his expression into one of neutrality, and took a glance out the floor-to-ceiling window where Demyx was pointing. Even if he was in a shitty mood, it didn't mean he needed to ruin the entire week for everyone else.
"Cute," Axel echoed, his tone subtly flat, not really looking.
Behind him, Cloud and Leon were already in one of the rental's bedrooms, calling dibs.
"The mountains are quite scenic…" Zexion's voice held a note of doubt. Of everyone in their traveling group, he had been the least enthused about their chosen vacation choice. Apart from Axel, obviously. It made sense. Zexion wasn't all that athletically inclined. He was more at home in museums, with historical walking tours being the pinnacle of his interest in exercising. In fact, Axel couldn't honestly imagine the slate-haired scholar suited up on the summit of some ski slope. At all. That image alone almost made the trip a little more amusing and enjoyable, more worthwhile for him to have to endure.
Almost.
"We'll find alternate ways of keeping ourselves occupied, dahhling," Marluxia trilled behind them. "Manicures and mojitos sound like a wonderful place to start."
Zexion only made it halfway through a roll of his eyes before Demyx grabbed him into a crushing, one-armed side hug. "Don't be modest, Mar. We all know you kill on skis. And Zex is so totally going skiing with us. That's the whole point of this trip, isn't it?"
"I thought the point was to cheer Axel up," Zexion replied dryly.
"By skiing, duh! He won't be able to cry when he's focusing on not killing himself going down a black diamond!"
This time, Zexion did get a full eye roll in. "Only because it's so cold the tears would freeze straight onto his face. It's a basic rule of science."
"Enough, guys," Axel cut in, starting to feel as exasperated as Zexion looked. "I'm not gonna cry. I'm a grown-ass man, for godssake."
Both Demyx and Zexion looked skeptical.
Axel felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned, regarding Marluxia's close proximity with a healthy level of defensiveness. The pink haired college senior just raised his eyebrows apparently intending to convey innocence in response. "Looks like we're going to be roommates for this trip," he said, tone casual. "Assuming these two lovebirds don't get into a fight beyond this petty-bickering-slash-blatant-display-of-verbal-foreplay." Nearby, Zexion's expression transformed from one of surprise to an embarrassed flush in about two seconds flat. Demyx just stuck his tongue out, hefted his bag back onto one shoulder, and nudged his boyfriend into the second bedroom with his free elbow.
Axel nodded slowly, tried not to sigh as he allowed Marluxia to pull him toward the remaining room.
"C'mon, lover-boy. Let's see if we got the set of double beds we requested. Otherwise," Marluxia waggled his eyebrows suggestively, "you and I will be getting to know each other even more intimately on this trip than we first thought."
o - o
Demyx had promised, practically sworn, that they'd start out easy with a few green circle runs, probably more for Zexion's benefit than his own. Apparently uninterested in starting off slow, Cloud and Leon had hopped a lift toward one of the more advanced hills for their first descent.
Axel, at least, had skied before as a kid. It was kind of a given if you'd grown up in the Midwest where it snowed for six months out of every year. Zexion, on the other hand, had never ventured far beyond his Southern California roots, not even to attend university. At least Axel had the benefit of some past experience.
There was a reason he'd gotten the hell out of Iowa the moment he'd had the opportunity though. Cold was miserable, a bigger bitch than even his ex. The breakup was still fresh enough that thinking petty thoughts like this made him feel a little better. But only just a very little.
So, easy hills it was for the first few runs. Sure.
Or so Demyx had claimed.
"Demyx, this…" Zexion said, eyeing the hill Demyx had chosen with increasing alarm. "This is not a bunny hill."
The only one of them with a snowboard, Demyx balanced with practiced ease on the one foot he already had strapped in, gliding along toward the edge of the hill, before bending to secure his other foot to the bindings on his board.
"Who said anything about bunny hills?" he asked, expression suspiciously innocent. "I'm pretty sure this resort doesn't even have any."
"Wha—" Zexion spluttered, before making a visible effort to compose himself. "You said—"
"I said we'd be doing an easier run," Demyx interjected. "as in, if you take a tumble, you're not gonna break your cute little neck. I mean, probably."
Zexion shot him a withering look.
"We can go slow," Axel offered, giving the snow next to his ski an experimental poke with one pole. "It's not like I've done this for over a decade either."
"Yes, well. At least you're not completely new at this. I may very well be heading toward great bodily injury in a matter of moments." Zexion took a delicate sniff, nose up, then began coughing, apparently unprepared for the choking iciness of the chill mountain air.
Standing upright, Demyx lifted one side of his snowboard by shifting his weight, then the other, while very blatantly ignoring Zexion's last comment. "All set here. Good to go, Mar?"
Nearby, Marluxia adjusted his ski goggles, then nodded without a word.
Almost in unison, he and Demyx set off, over the slight dip from the level area at the top of the ridge and onto the hill's first noticeable decline. Axel hesitated a moment, shooting a glance at Zexion who seemed to be steeling himself as though about to commence with a session of voluntary but wholly avoidable physical torture. Below them, Demyx and Marluxia were weaving back and forth between one another with practiced fluidity.
Fuckers, Axel thought. This was going to be embarrassing as hell.
Sighing into the fleecy warmth of his scarf, Axel pushed off a split second after Zexion finally decided to begin.
Less than thirty comically unbalanced seconds later, they were both down, Axel on one side, legs and skis splayed awkwardly in the air above his body, Zexion flat on his back, having snapped both skis off from his boots in the process.
"Motherfu—"
Through his helmet, Axel heard the muffled sounds of a frustrated Zexion mouthing a curse. Axel was pretty sure it was the first time he'd heard the mild-mannered student swear since meeting him all the way back in freshman year.
"You guys okay?" Demyx called from a handful of yards further down. Although he couldn't hear it, the look on Marluxia's face implied that he was having a laugh at both of their expenses.
Axel glanced over at Zexion who nodded, a grim look etching a severe expression across his features.
Slowly, Axel used his ski poles to right himself, then quirked his head, trying to figure out how to get to Zexion about ten feet above him, let alone retrieve his skis which were even further up the hill. At least Zexion had had the presence of mind to hold onto his poles, which he still seemed to have in a semi-desperate death grip.
A snowboarder appeared above them, slowing his descending pace to bend over to retrieve first one ski and then the other, before grinding to an easy stop right by the pair of them.
"You okay, man? That looked like a hella hard fall, yo."
Zexion looked up, his cheeks two splotches of red surrounding the paler skin on the rest of his face. At least it was cold enough that his coloring could just as easily be taken as chill as embarrassment, Axel thought as he carefully made his way up to Zexion.
The slate-haired man nodded, then took Axel's offered hand, standing unsteadily even just in his ski boots. "I'm terrible at this." The words were muttered under his breath.
"We all gotta start somewhere if we wanna get good though, right?" the boarder said, tone good-natured.
"If," Zexion uttered, voice deadpan.
The boarder merely grinned in response, then placed the skis he'd retrieved at Zexion's feet. "One at a time, yo. Lean on us both if you need the support."
Axel could tell leaning against a veritable stranger was just about the exact opposite of what Zexion wanted to do right now, but the moment he put more than a light amount of weight on Axel, the redhead found himself slipping downward, barely managing to check his own balance.
Zexion grudgingly took the boarder's offer of a second hand.
If not for the additional stability, he might have fallen again when his foot slipped out of the ski binding. The boarder was strong, however, and with Axel's help, they eventually got Zexion back into both skis.
"You're gonna want to go more sideways instead of aiming straight down," the boarder said. "Back and forth, figure out how to stop at a reasonable speed 'til ya get the hang of things."
"Thanks for your help," Axel called, as the boarder zipped off, doing just about the opposite of what he'd just advised the duo to practice. In a matter of seconds, he'd hit such a fast speed, Axel couldn't help but feel this particular hill had just been a warmup for him.
"And here I thought you had a monopoly on red hair dye."
Axel turned, expression confused. "Come again?"
From his one visible eye, Zexion shot Axel a look of surprise. "Did you seriously not see his hair?"
Axel shook his head. He'd been more focused on helping Zexion right himself.
"I really am the only one who pays attention to anything," Zexion said, tone mildly exasperated as he took an experimental push sideways as instructed, then pressed his outside ski into the snow hard in an attempt to stop. He almost overshot, upper body jerking backward before he was able to check his balance enough to save himself. Carefully, Axel copied the movement, stopping just about as incompetently, but miraculously also remaining on his feet.
Below them, Demyx whooped, raising his oversized, gloved hands into the air triumphantly as Zexion and Axel slowly made their way down to the other two in their group. Marluxia only partially managed to hide a bored yawn behind one of his pink gloved hands.
By the end of their first run, Axel felt he was finally getting the hang of the back and forth skiing motion enough to add some speed into the mix. Zexion, on the other hand, fell multiple times, each just as dramatically as the first, necessitating several more stops before they made it down.
After his final fall before they returned to the lift line, Zexion managed to bite his tongue as his butt connected with the hard-packed snow beneath him. Demyx slowed, bending over to offer him some help up. "You'll get the hang of it, cutie. Just give it some time."
Axel watched as Zexion allowed himself to be pulled up once more.
"Why anyone would subject themselves to such pain on a voluntary basis continues to escape my understanding," Zexion griped, including a dramatic sigh for good measure.
Funny, Axel thought as he tried to kick off some of the snow that had accumulated on one ski, I could say pretty much the same thing about relationships.
o - o
They met up with Cloud and Leon for lunch at one of the resort's restaurant lodges. Despite his increasing proficiency, Axel's group had only managed to make it down two more "easy" runs since he and Zexion had both wiped out the first few times. Just when Axel had thought he'd gotten the hang of maneuvering his skis, he'd managed to hit a patch of unexpectedly icy snow and down he'd gone again.
Axel wasn't sure if he was having fun, necessarily, but one thing was certain - he hadn't had a whole lot of time to dwell on his angsty feelings over the past two hours. He'd been way too busy trying to ensure he didn't break his damn neck. And they hadn't even gotten close to considering skiing down black diamond hills yet.
Cloud and Leon, on the other hand…
"Dude, I am so trying that hill before we leave," he heard Demyx say as Axel forced himself to pay attention to the conversation going on around him. "I mean, the thing's called Glory Hole."
Next to him, Zexion choked on a french fry and began hacking to clear his throat. As Demyx turned and slapped him hard on the back a few times with a nonchalant "careful, babe," Axel noted that the moisture creeping out the sides of Zexion's watering eyes didn't seem to be freezing to his face, as he'd claimed earlier. So much for basic rules of science.
Or maybe it really was just that warm out, he thought. Going down hills wasn't that bad with the wind whipping directly into his face, and brittle sprays of icy snow against his cheeks if he got too close to Demyx and Marluxia who were usually right in front of him, checking back to ensure he and Zexion hadn't wiped out once again. It was waiting in line at the lifts that was more on the hellish side of things. Axel never thought he'd hate the feeling of the sun beating directly down on him, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. When he was already sweaty from the physical exertion of the simple act of skiing itself and also happened to be outfitted in full-out winter gear, he guessed it made sense. The effect involved practically boiling in his ski jacket. It certainly never got warm enough during winters in the Midwest for this to happen, while engaging in exercise or otherwise.
Cloud looked skyward at Demyx's comment. "We're how old now, Dem?"
"Old enough to know what a glory hole actually is!" Demyx chirped, unfazed. Across the table, Leon hid a smile as he reached for the plastic cup of beer in front of him.
"You should definitely join us," Leon said, returning to the original topic. "Some of the more advanced hills are near the snowboard-restricted runs too, if you want to give those a try."
"That'd be amazeballs," Demyx said, bouncing on the picnic table's bench a little before shooting a guilty look Zexion's way. "I mean, maybe. I'm probably gonna stay with Zex 'til he's a little more comfortable on the green slopes."
Zexion waved him off. "You can go with them. I think I'm done for the day."
Demyx opened his mouth, looked like he was about to protest, but Zexion continued speaking before he could say anything.
"It's really fine. My legs are burning, and I think I'm just going to have more problems staying upright the more fatigued I get. I can try again tomorrow."
"You could always stick with us," Marluxia offered, before taking a bite into his buffalo burger. Axel nodded in agreement, mostly just to show he was actually still listening.
"Axel is picking this up much more quickly than I am," Zexion pointed out. "Go try some harder hills while I rest. I can join you again on that green …monstrosity… another day."
"You're sure?" Demyx looked concerned, maybe worried that his boyfriend wasn't having fun.
"I am." Zexion popped another fry into his mouth, this time chewing very deliberately before swallowing. "I can look around the shops in the village square near our rental. It's certainly pleasant enough outside to take a walk and get my feet back under me."
"Or go skating on that little rink in the center of the square!" Demyx suggested brightly.
Zexion pursed his lips. "Because that'd be so much easier than skiing, I'm sure."
"I can take you to some intermediate hills while Dem tries out the harder stuff with those two," Marluxia said to Axel, inclining his head toward Cloud and Leon. "We'd all be taking the same lift for the first half anyway before splitting up."
Axel nodded. He was feeling exhausted, not used to the strain the restrictive ski boots were putting on his calves and quad muscles, but he was just as curious to see if he could handle steeper, more challenging slopes now that he had his feet more under him after a morning of the easier stuff.
Another upside? Higher altitude meant less chance of direct sunlight making him completely burst into flames the first day into this Demyx-imposed vacation. Apparently he could see the bright side of things once in awhile.
o - o
If there was one thing Axel had learned in the ninety minutes since lunch, it was that green circle slopes had absolutely nothing on blue squares. Thank fucking god that steeper hills meant longer trips on the ski lift back up; he definitely needed the extra rest for his aching, exhausted legs to recover from each prior downhill assault. He was beginning to think Zexion was even more of a genius than he already seemed to be, having had the presence of mind to opt out early on.
Axel wasn't feeble in the slightest, but he was certain he'd never used so many different leg muscles before in his entire life. He seriously had no idea how Cloud and Leon had managed one advanced hill, let alone three quarters of a full day's worth of them.
Marluxia too seemed to be having very little difficulty, stopping only when he reached more level areas of each run to look back up and locate Axel before taking off again.
"You'll get used to it," he'd assured his friend. "It's just timing and balance. And sometimes a little bit of luck."
As much as Axel had wanted to offer a snarky comment in response, Marluxia's words were slowly becoming reality as the day wore on. His legs were getting more fatigued with each run, but Axel was also finding himself becoming more competent at slowing or stopping when he needed a rest, of taking advantage of more level parts of the run to rest his legs while gliding on flats.
The sun was still an utter bitch in the lift lines though, which were getting increasingly longer with more people showing up to ski as the day wore on.
"One last hill for me, then I'm out," Axel said to Marluxia as he ground to a halt at the bottom of the slope they'd just skied down. He eyed the line with overt disdain.
Marluxia nodded, picking up one foot and then the other as he stroked his way to the back of the line. Not confident mimicking the movement wouldn't land him flat on his face, Axel stabbed both poles into the snow in front of him, pulling himself along by the strength of his arms.
"The singles line is a lot shorter," Marluxia called. "Let's do that. If we end up on different chairs, we can meet at the top."
Axel nodded to indicate he'd heard, then slid into the referenced line immediately behind his friend. Anything to get away from the sun as quickly as possible was fine by him.
To his right, larger groups got in line, waiting to be called up toward the chairs by resort employees. Marluxia ended up the sixth with a group of four from the next lane over and one person immediately in front of him in the single line. As he took his seat in the lift chair, he turned back and waved a ski pole at Axel.
"Five?" a resort employee asked the group in the line adjacent to Axel's. Receiving confirmation, the resort worker beckoned to Axel, indicating he should take the final spot on the far right.
This would be a really shitty time to lose his balance and fall off the lift, Axel figured, as he got into place and eyed the approaching chair.
Thankfully, he appeared to have gotten the hang of it by now, lowering himself into place without incident a split second before the lift began its languid ascent up and away from lower ground.
"Bar down," a voice called. Axel moved his skis out of the way of the descending safety bar, sliding them to one side before settling them onto the footrest that appeared below.
"Hey! It's you again." Axel turned at the sound of a semi-familiar voice, took in the snowboarder who had been Zexion's savior earlier in the day.
Well, how about that? The guy did have a pretty impressive mane of red hair, just as Zexion had noted.
"Looks like you're movin' up in the world if you're on this lift, huh?"
Axel nodded in response. The lowest level slope this particular lift dropped off at was an intermediate blue.
"Good to hear," the guy said. "But you seem to be down one unenthusiastic ski buddy, yo."
"He called it a day," Axel said. "I'm apparently a bigger glutton for punishment."
The snowboarder laughed, swinging his legs below him. The lift chair swayed gently with the action.
"Be careful, will you," the man to Axel's immediate left said. Axel noted wisps of silvery hair peeking out from underneath the guy's helmet as he momentarily took in this newest speaker.
The redhead ignored his companion, eyes still fixed on Axel. "Where are ya from?"
"LA," Axel said, looking down momentarily to push some excess snow off one of his skis with an outstretched poll. "What about you guys?" Not all of them had to respond if they didn't feel like it, he figured, stealing a glance at the guy who'd just rebuked the red-haired snowboarder.
"Me and Riku here," the guy said, sliding his arm over his neighbor's shoulders and squeezing slightly, despite Riku's responding grimace, "flew out from San Francisco."
"And we came from Montreal." A voice, accent endearingly airy, chimed in as a young man leaned over the safety bar to offer a friendly wave Axel's way.
Despite the chilly air at their steadily increasing altitude, Axel felt his neck heat up at the sight of the second speaker. Bright blue eyes looked out from under a mess of light blond hair, his small but pert lips upturned in a friendly smile. He sat between a boy with darker hair but similar features on one side and a petite, blonde girl on the other. And, aside from the girl, Axel noticed he was the only other person on the lift who was in skis.
"Yeah, fuckin' Canada," the red-haired guy said, "Some of us have been operating on a hella long distance relationship type of setup outside of these little snowboarding excursions. It kinda blows."
Long distance …relationships? Axel quickly assessed the gender demographics of the people sharing the lift chair. Besides him, it was four guys and just one girl. It wasn't hard to come to some quick conclusions as a result.
And…well, he wasn't quite sure why the realization caused him such disappointment. It wasn't like he'd agreed to go on this trip with the hope of meeting anyone, or even getting laid. He wasn't Marluxia-level slutty here.
Still, there was no denying a certain level of dissatisfaction as a result of the redhead's words. The blond was definitely cute. It figured the only guys he ended up being physically attracted to were either straight or unavailable.
Or option three: utterly disingenuous, cheating whorebags.
And just like that, Axel was back to feeling abso-fucking-lutely awful. That hadn't taken long.
"Bar up!" the girl called as the lift's drop-off came into view. Axel moved his skis off the footrest and watched the metal frame lift back into place above their heads.
"What's your name, yo?"
Was it so much to ask that he just be left in peace for the last minute of this ride? Axel forcibly swallowed the acerbic response. Just because someone else was probably getting way more action than him didn't mean he needed to be a dick to a virtual stranger. Especially not one who'd been nice enough to help Zexion after his first fall.
"Axel," he answered, voice flat, emotionless.
The response he received was an entirely unexpected laugh.
"That's really fucking coincidental, huh?" The man reached out a hand and tousled the blond boy's hair affectionately.
Feeling an embarrassing mix of jealousy and confusion surge through him, Axel looked away, fixing his eyes on the approaching drop-off. He still wasn't comfortable enough on skis not to have to devote some level of concentration to gliding off and away from the chair on these things.
Marluxia was waiting off to one side, eyes on his friend as Axel checked his balance and coasted toward him. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw the group he'd just shared the lift chair with angle their way to a stop nearby, the girl waiting, skis perfectly parallel to one another, as her male companions secured their free feet into their snowboard bindings.
Then they were off, gliding past Axel and Marluxia in the direction of a black diamond hill. "Nice to meet you, man," the redhead said as he zipped on past. It took Axel a moment longer to realize he'd only gotten one of their names during the entirety of the lift ride. And it hadn't even been the redhead that he'd actually been talking to.
Or the blond…
Marluxia eyed the departing group, then turned back to Axel.
"Some of them were kind of cute. I'd do Silver in a heartbeat."
Axel shot Marluxia a lightly exasperated look, which only resulted in a foxy returned grin, before his friend pushed off and began his descent down the hill, Axel following closely behind. Pink hair whipping wildly around his face, Marluxia twisted his head back toward Axel, grin still firmly in place, expression subtly ribald.
"I'm just saying, darlin'…"