warnings: violence, faggotry
nudity
(x)
"You'll regret this."
Axel sneered from his spot on the ground, blood splattered against his nose. The rusty liquid bubbling forth. With the back of his palm he smeared it further across his face and spat on the cement beside him. Blood mixed with his saliva and I didn't feel any tiny bit of remorse for the pain he felt, emotions burning deep into my irises I could feel every particle making up my cornea. Nothing barred me from telling him exactly how I felt through another punch.
Instead of resisting like the first four punches, Axel grinned, his front tooth chipped from when I took his fiery locks in my fists and smashsmashsmashed his face into the concrete. Sympathy scrapped up from my toes, into my knees and told my hips the memories as it traced along the stomach, past the pectorals to my throat where it imploded, leaving too much residue for me to breath. Tears were lining my eyes but I promised myself that I wouldn't cry.
I wouldn't cry as I licked my wounds while I tried to ignore my pride getting ebbed by my flimsy emotions. By my urges to hold on, I kicked him in the stomach, pacing around him in a circle. Tigers always needed to know what they were up against before pouncing.
"You do care, I know you do." Axel's eyes were pleading. Through the dampness and the limp of his neck. How he wasn't fighting back and the pain emitted from his right cheek, from the little cushion to the violent assault, personally against his mouth.
Pausing for a moment, my hips swayed a little, my indecision with it. Balancing my punch-drunk feeling, arms limp, I couldn't even say anything.
Reasoning behind this: the only thing I cared about was the fact that my knuckles were a bit sore and my headache was subduing.
When I woke up from the punching, my brain was dreaming. Amnesiac behavior that wasn't permanent. A temporary state of disarray whilst the anarchist and chaotic rioters of my brain settled down.
I knew I punched him just as well as I knew Missus Olette Sanders bakes a fresh loaf of bread every Friday for her mother who visits on Saturday morning, red handbag, gaudy jewelry, and sequins. Plastic furniture covers that get tears in it, that's what Olette and her mother were. Trying hard to not fall apart at the seams and holding up a relationship that was quite frankly, superficial but Olette managed. She had a perfect family because she's a mom now; if she didn't manage I would have-. I would have done something, you bet I would.
My neighbors were all creative people, interesting and like paintings. Oil pastel ebbed onto thick canvas paper, they all had stories. At a glance one would say they were just quaint city folk, calmly living out their lives on perfectionist lawns and stone siding. Two and a half children and every one of them a statistic set out on a piece of paper specifically divided up by age, race and gender. Overturned blankets and smiling children, they still told stories.
Personally, I never heard them myself. Axel tells me things, things of how Saïx, a revered man who lives two doors down, on the other side of Missus Sanders, has moments where he snaps.
Inside his brain is a twig holding onto the dam that is his river of insanity and once the pressure goes up he goes crazy. His dedicated wife, Xemnas, tries so hard to keep him inside during those times but once; back in '98, he stole Maleficent's dog and stabbed it with a letter opener. Sometimes, while I'm curled up in that chair he makes me sit in, all of the cushion and colors of the fluorescent armchair allow me to believe the absurdity. Dipping my toes in his vivid imagination, it allows me to dream too. Flowing right into, around and even past Kairi whose fashion is interchangeable with the word ridiculous, and whose parents paid for everything. Her dad; a nice fancy man who doesn't like the morning newspapers but rather the evening news. Mornings don't seem like something that someone would want to wake up with the bad things in the world. He's lucky that he can ignore it. Her mother; a shallow woman who stays at home and obsesses about soap operas, has had several affairs since Kairi was born.
My eyes swivel around from the cement walls, the insulation squeezing out at the top, to Axel on the ground. Insulation squeezing out the top.
Axel's bloody face reminded me a lot like the paint tub that Sora Who Lives Across The Street dropped just yesterday all over his now stained lawn.
Sora Who Lives Across The Street has a perfect smile because he got braces in eleventh grade and just recently wanted to repaint his perfect picket fence. The pearly whites of his lawn were faded from white and the home-owners association demanded he prevent the scraggily appearance. Rushing down to the hardware store, he came back on Monday with three canisters filled with paint and some paint rollers. His best friend who was probably more than a best friend spent three days helping him, clad in dorky overalls, splattering a nice layer of white paint against the wooden panels.
Sora smiled like he was having fun while I glared and sneered like Axel who was trying to struggle against the floor, the restraints on his wrists leaving red marks, a bracelet of pain.
Using my heel to snap against his chin roughly, I felt the bones under the toe of my sneakers, jaw curving down and up and poking out. It didn't really hurt him but he looked back up at me like someone insulted his mother. His nails were bleeding crescents and the red mop on his head that Axel referred to as hair matched everything on his body. True human essence showing and revealing, I swore for a brief moment as his jaw cracked a little, Axel was going to break down and stop struggling.
I'd be able to push him into submission like my pounding headache which flared up again as I stared into his acid-green eyes. The unnaturalness of them trickled down across the tiny face-triangles down past the sideways river of blood. Face distorting, mouth opened and bloody he let out a choked sob.
"Why?"
His agony silenced. It was a legit question even if Axel threw me the most incredulous look. As if, somewhere in the confines of my thought-box, I'd be able to conjure up an answer fit to retort to my own question. Axel squirmed again, his wrists probably throbbing, his heartbeat racing and if I were him the only thing going through my brain would be "I'm fucked now."
Axel thought I had the decency to tie someone up, knock them out and then allow them food and water and necessities of that sort. He thought his precious little dolly wouldn't feel any sign of demise whilst being pampered and beaten.
Everyone was broken and bruised it was just in different degrees that you have to judge it in. So say if a child was molested at a young age; instant starting-point of disorder and chaos. Or if a teenager was ignored by their parents and found salvation in marijuana. If the devil's lettuce offered a prayer of hope. As if their broken life doesn't ascertain to anything. Are they too at the level of the molested child?
Just because there is a high level of people concentrated in this world, people are forced into realizing that no one is perfect. No ones problems matter. Even though those two cases are lost, even though a marriage crumbled and a lover is saved, there is some degree of broken; however, that doesn't mean anything.
In fact, being broken doesn't even matter.
What matters is how damn sore my toenails are feeling. Curling in the rubber soles, desiring for more destruction. Desire to burn the world down holding up its rubbery dildo and fuck the brains out of a lesbian.
Cue the lapse; cue Axel on hold, putting up a face short of happiness now. Part of my brain was screaming while he was talking, and I missed the question. Looking down from my five foot six, I'm scared of him.
We both know, Axel and I, see, he knows as much as I know that I have every intention on leaving him down here to rot. He knows I want to be out of his grasp. What he doesn't know is that I'm going to use his money and with my small amount of clothing, I am going to go do some laundry at the Laundromat down about a mile.
It's weird; someone would probably tell me in a stern tone fit of a disciplinary parent, and "Gosh Roxas. Turn this guy in!" as soon as I got out, but there is a dilemma.
With a loud slap of skin to skin contact my index-finger knuckle kissed violently against the bridge of his nose, sweat gurgling from the thick layer of fat known as our skin. Every pocket of Golgi bodies and ribosome all realizing there was a danger and the end was near.
My brain lapsed for a moment and I could imagine a city under siege. The great princess known as Axel's heart getting crushed under the pressure of holding this entire façade up. Beside the eloquent heart that buzzed faster when Roxas was in sight, was Axel's brain. All-knowing and calm, the brain was solemnly telling the citizenship known as the superior Two Part Hydrogen, One Part Oxygen. Every bit of plasma and red blood cell, T Cells and the bacteria known for keeping us alive, requesting to be saved from the war against Roxas. Roxas wasn't happy with Axel. That's why they kept throwing Trojan Horse after Horse because they wanted their queen back; they wanted Roxas's love.
Axel never answered my question; part of me forgot it to begin with. Adrenaline pumping through the rage of my hamstring extended to my heel to my foot. Axel didn't even know what he was up against, mainly because not even I knew what I was putting against him.
"W-why?"
My voice cracked. Spinal cord arcing, my back hit the wall and I curled down onto the floor. Axel adjusted his lanky, curled body so he could see me, the rope tied around the center pillar allowing him enough leverage so his eyes could stare into mine. So the blood and the guts on the flood would mean something.
Flickering across his irises, there it was.
The reason why we're here like this. The reason why for some reason I feel indebted so the reason why the snot and the tears and gushing out of my face at top speed and I'm curling deeper into my knees.
Yesterday was a humiliating day. Axel decided that the newspaper boy wasn't doing his job right. While he biked awkwardly, blonde, greasy hair that probably smelled like the ocean, stuck out haphazardly against the tiny bike helmet and he'd throw with the wrong arm the new story about how a little girl died getting the paper tangled in the mess of shrubbery Axel slightly bothered taking care of.
Needless to say, that above that shrubbery sat the window and me and we both watched and Tidus the Paper Boy ruin yet another contact with the outside world. From behind my theatre of the world, Axel had made a sound and exited the house, dragging something along with him. I didn't bother to look up from people waking up and a dog—probably Pluto—barking in the distance and the sun kissing phone lines and chimneys.
There Axel stood, naked in the lawn with the exception of his blood red boxer briefs he knew were my favorite. Digging the paper out of the shrub with a Mickey Mouse oven mitt. In his other hand, I couldn't see very well but Cid, a rambunctious grumpy old man hollered over the street, his thick southern accent trailing off like molasses.
"'Ey! Axel! What the hell're you doin'?"
Snapping his body upright to see who called his name, I could practically hear the smirk dragging over his lips. "Just, you know, getting the paper."
Cid's constantly perplexed look deepened. "In yer panties? An' 'ey! What the fuck is up with the goddamn umbrella?"
Axel grinned at this point. As if he had his punch line tucked under the curve of his penis which was really obvious in the briefs.
"This here is what Roxas fucked himself with last night, since, y'know, I had a lady friend." Cid balked and my ears burned but I didn't look up. Just adjusted my irises to see Cid staring at my head of blonde that was more of a honey than his platinum.
"I'm gonna use the hose to wash it off, just in case he decides to use it again." He then waved the umbrella around in a circle to his side and I could see speckles of blood dotting the vinyl.
"An' you'll let him!"
"I'm just messing with you! So gullible, Mister Highwind." Axel grinned and turned on the hose, drenching the material and washing off the blood. Even though that wasn't mine, I didn't know why it had blood on it.
I never questioned Axel. I don't think I was allowed, really. He'd invite women over; particularly this blonde bitch who sneered at me and laughed and I don't know her name. All I know is that she's a cunt and if she were down in the basement with Axel, I would have chained her up and beat the living daylights out of her.
"Hey, Roxas." Axel squirmed a little bit, my toes near his face. He coughed a little and splattered blood onto my sneakers.
"It's okay, we all…we all need this sometimes…?" His voice was questioning and for some reason my brain couldn't pull away from my mom and her wedding night. She looked simply stunning in her ivory dress, with lace and silk and sheer gorgeousness, I watched with pride knowing that that was my mom who every teenage boy in the audience got aroused about.
Her fiancé, a real swell guy who always put others before him looked fabulous too. The both of them, dripping with beauty and perfection. I'm just their whelp of a son who they sent away to get better. Far from perfect, it felt like I was reading a story with beautiful people.
As I sat in that stupid hospital bed next to Axel who rambled on an on about how his mom gave him a house right before she keeled over and he overdosed on Tylenol. He had the deed for it somewhere and it was all paid off. Once they released him, he had big plans of rushing off and living in that house; relishing in his early adult years.
"You can come too, you know. We could live together and it'd be reeeeal nice."
I didn't speak often while in the hospital. I didn't open up to my psychologist. I just sat and looked out the window. Naminé; a girl with hair that curled like violent fingers would join me and sit. She'd draw and draw and sometimes I was in her pictures; sometimes Axel. The one with both of us together dangled from the fridge in his new house.
Our new house.
Axel hovered over me one night. Storms flicked outside and the plastic band around my wrist caused for severe complications. "Let's leave tonight; we'll go to that house I talked about." He had a canvas bag stuffed with several things.
Whispering in a hushed tone, he feigned sleep when the nurse came by.
"Is it by the ocean?" My eyes glazed over and I think those were one of the only words I ever spoke to Axel. We don't talk much. We just coexist.
Chuckling lowly he nodded, cheeks flushed from the excitement and pre-adrenaline rush. "Nothing but water and beaches."
His eyes were stern and believable. Taking his hand in my, I carefully removed the IV from my arm, blood oozing and liquid dripping from the tube. The tangle of sheets provided no assistance but it didn't matter, we were standing on the edge of something amazing.
"I found a pathway during the day that isn't monitored so let's hurry, Roxas."
I don't even know why I believed him in the first place.
My throat burned as the smell of thick detergent bubbles churned inside the machine. I sat in the lime peel colored chair and watched it. Tha-thump, tha-thump and my whites mixed with his blacks. His good, my bad. I forgot why my parents sent me away.
They used to trim my toenails for me. I was thirteen and my mother sat me down with her future husband. The clothing in the washing machine went tha-thump. Still in my pajama bottoms, I forgot why I changed into them before I left. It like going out of your way to do something to make yourself look insane allows you the pleasure of a sliver of sanity. Or that was my belief at least. Because, hey, I wasn't the one who put plastic on furniture or had sequins on anything.
Soap gurgled up and behind the counter there was a girl chewing bubble gum. She had a pretty face, a gorgeous face. Although, thinking on it, I wouldn't go that far. She had a clear complexion. My skin was blotchy and red most of the time. She ignored me. Its okay though, when I walk out, the bell above the door will jingle and she'll look up for a moment and probably tell someone. She saw a boy with blotchy red skin and pajama pants.
"Roxas."
Axel chuckled as the blood dried. In the hamper I held his clothing and further still the insulation foamed up. The soap could have stopped at any time but the water ran clear afterwards. There was an old fashion shower in the downstairs bathroom, installed for tornado season when we had to lock ourselves in and peek up through the tiny window, staring with envy at Sora's picket fence.
Giving him bread I bought with his money, I fed it to him slowly. He chewed with a renewed sense of glory; it was an amazing feat considering he was still restrained, confided to the pillar. Cockiness and a nasally voice. His nose was going to heal wrong if it didn't get put back in place but I know if I untied him long enough to help him, he'd take advantage of me.
Closing my eyes, I imagined my father's face. He had a gun in the drawer of his dresser. The cherry chestnut wood easing under my fingers. Badly written novels held no importance and I could easily make out where the serial number was at one point. I placed a chunk of bread in his mouth.
Claustrophobic in the tiny laundry mat, the detergent scent dimmed and there was a dark-haired child sitting next to me, his hair in his face and a book sitting on his lap. I felt superior because I didn't need books to be smart. My intelligence, it came from the heart.
Changing my laundry to the dryer, I could feel the boy's desire to meet me in the eye. Or my desire to meet his. We were coming together and at times like these, I became a bit too attached. There were women with beautiful voices that just by an addiction, lost their urge to sing like an elegant song bird. My hair wasn't close enough to platinum, but at least it didn't have a hole in my throat.
"Your name?" A tinny, mechanical voice whirred behind me, the pale sky blue of the lines of dryers flashing and changing. The boy was on his knees, turned backwards in the chair and staring at me with one stoic eye.
"Roxas?"
It was a question because one can only question himself. Jesus walked on water for such reasons, I suppose. Perishable goods were too expensive and Christmas dinner ended abrupt on the fourteenth year of my existence. Mother looked like a woman on Lifetime and the turkey she had cooked got burned anyway. The foam just kept going tha-thump, tha-thump.
"Just scrub the blood away, baby." The periwinkle hair was fading into a deep scarlet, past the dusty pages of literature far beyond my years. Axel was in the bathtub and the sky blue of the shower curtain distracted my eyes to thinking about my unborn twin brother.
Someone once told me, we all were a twin at one point. I just punched him and he didn't get his chance at life. I'm sure he's better off. Applying loofa sponge to skin, we scrape away the memories this way. Axel was still restrained, even in the bathtub. I peeled his clothes away and he didn't even struggle when I retied him. For a split second, when I blinked. I forgot my name.
"I once knew this kid."
Axel's throat hurt, I could tell. Whether it be from my pain inflicted on him or just because his allergies were kicking up again. Upturning my line of vision, he knew I was listening. Clearing his throat, he was stripped of confidence. "I knew this kid and he was a spectacle."
Turning back into the main room of the basement, the basket of laundry was there. The white squares censoring the grays and the faded pinks. I left it in for too long. The boy with the hair and the book distracted me.
I pushed on his nose gently and he snarled. I broke it and his cheeks were swelling. We don't have any steaks so we can't apply any red meat to the wounds. He'll be alright. At least he doesn't have plastic furniture.
"He was a bit younger than you are now, but when I was a kid he was older than me. I looked up to him. He was so…"
I wrapped gauze bandages around his fore arms; there were bruises and scars forming. My mom's future husband hit me once for talking back. I'd like to say it didn't affect me at all or that I didn't deserve it but the world could have hardly glanced and the obviousness would be there.
"Superb."
My eyes swiveled to find Axel's acidic ones. He sometimes just said things and they hurt my chest. Not my heart of lungs or solar plexus. Just my chest. As a whole. Jealousy sewed seeds in my head and the devil was sure to reap of its benefits as malice gurgled up my esophagus, past the gums and teeth and that little dangly thing in the back of your throat. I puked at his feet, and in the mirror, I saw a reflection of a scraggly little boy with a taste of too much power.
Hardly registering the vomit rushing over his toes, Axel approached fast, roping the skeleton of his arms around my shoulders through the space between his chest and his restricted hands. A hug teeming with malicious desire. I groped his shoulder-blades under my finger pads. I never can seem to make out enough sense to tell Axel how I feel for him.
It's always a battle in a war zone long lost. The countries neighboring ours battled secretly and sunk my battleship. Despite all his shortcomings and my inability to withhold my pain, I really did like Axel.
(x)
Author's Note: It's been like, over a year now? I wrote this awhile ago on a whim and then just recently finished it. I'm planning on rewriting Touching the Skies of Jupiter, now.