LUCKY XIII
prompt: nijuukoo/nijuuni's beautimous akuroku month phone sex fanart (look it up, seriously, do it)
ratings/warnings: M for mature themes/content (Axel/Roxas)
also: about halfway through this, after years of writing kh fic without once giving in, i finally got "beautiful soul" stuck in my head and i'm not sure why. also, i apologize. this was really supposed to be a tiny little smut drabble ficlet thing. but it consumed my thoughts for like two blissful days and uh here's a one-shot.
"LUCKY XIII. Now connecting."
Click.
The slow drone of the line ringing was sort of like a judgmental stare. The silence knew. The silence knew everything. The silence was waiting for you to see this through, or back out to stop the all-knowing connection.
Again, click.
"Hey, baby, I've been waiting for your call all night..."
In the back pages of The Stranger. With the other questionable ads. Bathhouses. Massage huts. Drag shows. Naked mazes.
Get LUCKY XIII. No taboos. No restrictions. Chat live now! Get LUCKY tonight! Phone actors and fantasy artists.
Psych 101 last year was really the impetus for Roxas. Forty hours, they wanted him available each week. Forty hours' worth of phone calls that maybe endured thirty minutes each. Every now and again was the home stretch of an hour, and sometimes Mr. Xemnas offered bonuses in reward for managing that on a regular basis.
Dial 1-900-LUC-KY13 for Wild Child "V", Creamy Dreamy Hunk "Terra", or "The Golden Boy", our Blond And Blue-Eyed (And Willing To Try Anything)!
They advertised his hours as technically nine p.m. to four a.m., but the operator still connected callers upon specific request. He was one of LUCKY XIII's top performers, anyway. Maybe because the science of it was easy for him. Or maybe he just had a unique voice.
He had many different names—depending on the night, depending on the caller. He just sort of went with it. Sometimes he got to make up his own character. Other times, the caller told him who he'd be. College Bad Boy, Sniveling Catholic Schoolboy, Experienced Runaway.
Roxas liked trying to figure his clients out. It made it easier to give them what they wanted. What sort of romantic trauma hid behind Caller Number One's quivering sighs? What sort of disturbing, deep-rooted issues were at the core of Caller Number Two's dark and kind of violent role-plays? What was Caller Number Three tripping on tonight? Why did this one want his ego stroked and what made this masochist go crazy when Roxas groaned, "You're so dirty. You're so bad. What would your wife say if she knew..."
There were the creeps, of course. Hey, what's your real name? Can I have your personal number? Can I have your address? Can I have a picture? There were the old ones, which were probably the hardest to get through for Roxas, because they reminded him of his grandpa, and they reminded him of old Mr. Xehanort, and then he had to think of that video he'd seen once of turtles mid-coitus just to make the thoughts funny before the real feel of them swallowed him whole.
There were the cantankerous ones (which were usually the old guys, or the drunk guys). They were ridiculous. Roxas had never had to get so practiced at swallowing his laughter in gulps, not even when he'd been in high school and stoned too often with Hayner and Olette.
There were also, thankfully, the relatively normal-sounding ones, the ones with private fetishes too intimidating for them to live out skin on skin. The ones who understood it was a game of fantasy and played along guiltily, because there was no other outlet. They were simple like the regulars, because by now Roxas knew exactly how to work them.
There were the ones that barked out orders and grunted heavy into their phones, like they were committing murder and struggling one-handed to dispose of the body. They were the ones who more often than not seemed to conveniently neglect the realm of reality, like they really thought they'd dialed up some isolated and make-believe Cupid, factory-sealed just for them—not a real live human being part of the brilliant and elaborate schemes created for just such individuals, and those real live human beings were more than likely lounging about their living rooms in pajamas only half-paying attention to their fapping clients.
And then there was this regular who said his name was Axel.
Roxas always knew it was him by the way he answered his, "Hey, baby..." with a dry and cunning chuckle. If he wasn't well-acquainted with that chuckle after seven months of Axel's calls, then he was really terrible at what he did.
"Hey, what's up, kiddo? How was your day?" Axel always said, because Axel didn't come across blinded by illusions. Axel was one of the Normies. Axel seemed sane. Axel seemed cool. Axel never sounded ashamed. He never sounded afraid, or awkward. Axel knew what number he was dialing, and which artist he was requesting. He never wanted anything super kinky or even remotely scenario-based (he didn't even pretend Roxas was his boyfriend or anything—maybe, unless he was really good at staying cool and composed, which Roxas knew he was after listening to him come enough times), and when Roxas picked up and heard that confident smoker's drawl, it never failed to make him smile.
He'd work in the safeword then—"Good, I've been waiting for your call all day..." And maybe it was an act, and maybe it wasn't, and he told himself he felt horrible for getting lost in the sounds of Axel's moans, but really he didn't.
He liked Axel's voice.
He liked when Axel called. Which he tried not to think about, because what would that mean if he admitted it to himself? It was sort of like they were friends by now. Axel never made him feel exposed or taken advantage of. For everyone else, he was anything else. But for Axel, he was just...well, sort of himself.
He felt like he could be, anyway. He felt like he could be sarcastic and open instead of grossly typical or overly flirtatious, bottled sexy with customized come-ons and perfect lines laid on thick.
Oh God, yes... You make me so hard, I'm a bad boy, I just can't help myself... No, stop, it hurts, it hurts but you make me feel so good!
The operators would never know, anyway, that he told the truth once in a while. It got fucking exhausting trying to keep up with those ridiculous facades!
The operators knew nothing about his life. They'd think he was playing another character. Maybe he was College Bad Boy today, the rebellious trust fund baby party kid with rich parents who never loved him enough, whose jailbait sexual experimentation had moved off campus into the pants of older, classier men. Maybe Axel would think that, too. It wasn't like any sane self-respecting man would call a sex hotline and honestly believe the actor's stories, right?
So, for the most part, Roxas always told Axel the truth. And he always told him about his day when Axel asked.
Once a week.
He could expect Axel's call once a week, as a regular part of the natural world, and if it didn't ring through, then by God, the solar system had skidded askew and the apocalypse was surely upon them.
Roxas never asked, but he wondered about Axel's day, too. He wondered about Axel's life, actually. Like, did he have a girlfriend he was hiding this kinky infidelity from? Or a boyfriend? Or Jesus Christ, a wife and kids? Had that bitch Love spurned him in the past and left him feeling unworthy of real relationships? Where did he work? What had driven him to dial in in the first place? Curiosity? Loneliness? Wayward sexuality kept secret? A thing for anonymous sex without all the risk of casual sex? Mysterious Axel, the regular with the voice that gave Roxas the heated chills no matter how hard he tried to stay detached like on all the other calls.
Here, fold the laundry with the phone propped on the shoulder. Make some lunch, moaning down at a bowl of spaghetti. Try to do some homework while telling Handsome there on the other line just how thick he feels inside, and sometimes his roommate Sora wandered in and out of the periphery pretending to have sex with the air in time with his groans just to piss Roxas off—
So it was a given, then, that when Roxas heard Axel's voice in the middle of a busy downtown café, he almost had a heart attack.
He'd been sure he'd been mistaken.
He'd thought maybe he'd been losing it. He'd turned around from the counter and right into someone's elbow while Sora had urged him from the door to hurry, hurry, or he'd be late to the studio and being late as an intern was bad juju—and that someone's elbow had sent Roxas's coffee flying from his hands, splattering across his right leg and splashing down onto the floor.
"Oh—shit—I am so sorry!"
"Jesus!"
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, fine—"
"Let me buy you another coffee—"
The flash of heat from the coffee was the last worry on Roxas's mind. It was a businessman he'd run into, all charcoal slacks and pin-striped shirt, dark sweater thrown over one arm and a leather satchel slung across a slender frame with classy perfection, and some of Roxas's coffee had splattered across his nicely-shined shoes. A burst of red hair tied in a sloppy halfback offered a far too forgiving glance at a face like a model's, all appropriate angles, sultry eyes, flawless jawline.
"Seriously, are you all right? Did it burn you? Look, I'm really sorry. I was on my phone and I wasn't looking—"
It had dawned on Roxas in a single breath and it was like nothing else in the world existed for just a moment, just that instant, while the revelation unfolded itself in all its glory.
That voice.
Roxas knew that voice.
He'd just stood there stupidly, jaw dropped, eyes wide, as other customers skirted around them and a barista hurried to get a wet floor sign in place, and the stranger who'd knocked his coffee out of his hands was talking to him but Roxas wasn't registering the words anymore.
That voice.
That cool smooth tone, so perfect for confidence and sarcasm and gravelly teasing moans, just low enough to be respectable but not low enough to be intimidating, and God no, it couldn't be, couldn't be, that was too serendipitous for real life, and God, no, don't let it be so—auditory memory triggers—basic Hebbian theory—like hearing a song and suddenly going rigid with the resurrected feelings of an instant long ago—
A million alarms had gone off in Roxas's mind, shockwaves of panic pulsing through him. But the panic had died away buzzing in his fingertips as a new and terrifying rush altogether followed suit.
He'd thought oh God, how did he look? Why was he worried about how he looked? Did he look all right, though? Did his cowlicks betray him? Did he look like a dumb kid? Did he look like one of downtown's fine elite breed of mysteriously well-off young people? Did he look really stupid, standing there all butterflies and disbelief, in a damningly hipster sweater and half his jeans already getting stiff as the coffee dried into them?
And then that voice that Roxas knew had said, "I'm sorry, kiddo," and all of Roxas's fears had been confirmed.
Kiddo.
"Axel?" he'd sputtered, and immediately regretted it.
Fuckfuckfuck, shit like that was not supposed to happen. Not really. Not truly. It was a rom-com kind of fluke. A stroke of genius accident in its purest form. The knotting of cold shock had forged with a peculiar wave of relief because, you know, objectively, outside this horribly awkward happenstance, it was nice to know that some of his callers were normal people like he was a normal person, and existed in their own little states of normal persondom, and went to get coffee like normal people did.
But Jesus Christ, he was lucky. Axel was attractive—
All apology had flown from that attractive face. Fuckfuckfuck times infinity, it really was him, because he'd responded to the name. Axel's eyes had narrowed into a critical squint. Something like recognition sparked there, too, in the depths of green and hazel.
"Do I know you?" he'd husked, and Roxas's face was hot as hell because he could summon from memory strings of moans and horny words and breaths of wayward manly delight that rode out on that same voice once a week. Once a fucking week.
"No!" Roxas felt like he'd literally choked on the word. He'd turned on his heel and almost slipped in the spilled coffee, flailing for a second like a fucking idiot. And then he'd bolted.
He'd made it a block and a half up Union before Sora finally caught up with him.
"LUCKY XIII. Now connecting."
Click.
The phone.
It was ringing.
What the fuck time was it...?
Ringing.
Roxas wasn't sure he was all the way awake yet. In fact, there was a chance this was all a dream. He rolled over and squinted against the sunrise, fumbling for the alarm clock.
Seven thirty-five in the morning.
Who was calling at seven God awful thirty-five in the morning?
They'd hang up. Roxas wasn't required to answer at such an ugly hour. Maybe if he just covered his face with a pillow, they'd give up and call back again later. If it was bill collectors, they'd leave a message. He'd delete the message. If it was an emergency, they'd call Sora. And Sora would stumble in and rip the blankets off Roxas and get him moving, but that was a different story altogether—
Oh, it wasn't his cell phone.
The landline.
Still ringing.
Click.
"Hey, baby," Roxas purred, hoping the fact that he'd just been jerked out of some pleasant REM wasn't too thick in his voice. "Do you know what time it is, you baddie?"
There was a tiny chuckle. The voice on the other line was thin and maybe a tad bit more reserved than usual. "Ahh... Yeah, actually. I do. It's seven thirty-seven a.m."
Roxas's heart gave a small but understandably violent jump.
Like he'd stuck his finger in an electrical outlet, a spark of feeling surged through him. Too early. Too late? Everything was disorganized and foggy. His sleep had been interrupted. It was too much to ask for him to piece things together right now. But he knew that voice. And he was distinctly more awake now than he had been thirty seconds prior.
"You're late," he insisted, rolling over onto his back and throwing an arm over his eyes. It was a dark enough sunrise. It was raining already. Seattle was grand.
"Or am I early?"
"Ha, ha. I'm serious, though, it's past my…"
"Maybe this is a personal call."
Roxas let his arm drift off his forehead, dragged by its own limp weight one stuttering inch at a time. He opened his eyes again, just a little, just enough to frown up at the ceiling.
Jesus Christ, he was blushing. Maybe because the name rolled off his tongue way too easy.
"Axel... It's been three weeks since you last called me. Don't you like me anymore?"
On the other end of the call, there came a short, teasing laugh. Roxas relaxed. He knew what that laugh meant. It meant Axel could read right through the cavities-sweet quips, like Axel always read through the cavities-sweet quips.
But Roxas had been worried, actually.
He'd known another call from Axel was inevitable. He was a regular. Roxas had been a nervous wreck for days—at first, that is—because what were you supposed to do after a crazy accident like that, stumbling into one of the men, face-to-face, who called you to touch himself? How were you supposed to carry on business like usual when you knew what the other end of the line looked like?
But then he'd forgotten to worry about it, because there were still other callers. And there was also winter quarter's first real load of homework. And there was Reno, too, who was being a real jerk lately but Roxas didn't really have the energy to date casually, between University and work and hanging out with Sora (which tended to come before hanging out with anyone else, actually), and sitting out on the apartment balcony having a cigarette with his coffee and squinting down at Spring Street, and thinking fleetingly and randomly, "Why the hell hasn't my favorite regular called?"
He had, though. He'd finally called. And Roxas wasn't sure if he'd have the operator disconnect them or not.
"Are you at work?" Roxas whispered, struggling to quell his own nerves.
"I am."
"What are you wearing?"
"My work clothes."
"Hey, you're not playing fair."
"I told you, it's a personal call."
"I can tell you what I'm wearing..."
"That's not why I called."
Roxas's heart gave a sickening lurch. He tilted his head, squinting up at his ceiling like it had all the answers. He almost couldn't ask. He was a little afraid of the answer. Finally, he managed, "...Then why did you call?"
"Well," the voice on the other end husked out, and there was a funny tinny harshness to sounds and echoes over phone lines that just lent a shade of drama to everything said. "The other day, I was at Caffe Ladro. You know that place? On 1st and Union. I was getting a coffee after work. I ran into someone—spilled his coffee, actually—and I think that someone was you."
Roxas laid there in silence, eyes wide. There was no avoiding it. The anonymity was supposed to be a safe place. But the anonymity was gone. And he'd hoped Axel would have just carried on as usual, but alas, it was not so.
Roxas cleared his dry throat. Whatever, he just needed to keep it as professional as he could. He whispered, "I've been waiting for you to call for weeks..."
Safeword.
"Be real with me here," Axel argued.
"I'll be whatever you want me to be, Ax—"
"Look, I get that there's supposed to be this level of anonymity here," Axel husked. "And I'm not trying to throw you off or weird you out. It's just really been bugging me and I just needed to tell you. Because I know it was you. I think I'd know your voice by now. Especially when you say my name."
Jesus fuck—
Silence.
Roxas couldn't breathe for a second. His face was on fire. He couldn't shake the image of Axel in real life, and the knots in his stomach were a little giddy, actually. Professional. Professional. Except now he knew for a fact that his regular Axel was fucking cute. Axel was tall, and slim, and dark, and handsome, and as cool and quick in person as he was in tone of voice.
Okay, Roxas understood very well that that meant nothing. It did not rule out creep potential. Even handsome well-dressed men could be closet sadists, addicts, abusers, weirdoes. He was calling a sex hotline, anyway. But something—there was something that just rendered Roxas utterly irrational—like he was back in middle school and crushing hardcore, victim of his raging hormones. Hey, in all honesty, did anyone ever really grow out of that?
Professional. It wasn't his credit card getting charged, anyway.
"You don't want me calling anymore, do you? It's not okay now, right?"
"No," Roxas whispered. "That's not it..."
"He speaks!"
Roxas uttered a dry little laugh at Axel's bitterness. The anxious feeling had thickened in his throat. He didn't know why he was so nervous. "No..." he said again, and he meant it. He really meant it. "Well, it's a little weird, to put a face to your voice. But it's okay. Axel, you always make me happy when you call..."
They'd taught him to word things that way. You did this to me... He got it. It was empowering to certain parts of a person, especially the sort of person who dialed 900 numbers.
But the words had just spilled over, and they were real. He wasn't lying. He wasn't even bending the truth.
He never really had with Axel.
Caffe Ladro. He'd just been getting a damn coffee after work. Triple-shot soy chai. Christmas in a cup. Organic fresh-pressed espresso. Cute barista who drew him hearts in his latte foam and he always winked at her though he wasn't sure he had much to offer, at least not what she'd probably appreciate.
He'd been on his way out. He'd been fully immersed in thumbing through the e-mail on his work phone. He should have been watching where he was going, truth be told. But he hadn't been. And he'd run right into a little blond in distressed jeans and a sweatshirt that nipped at his knuckles, and he'd knocked his coffee all over the floor.
The office was quiet as death. It was a little unsettling. Axel swung around in his desk chair, clicking his ballpoint pen a few times.
"You still there, kiddo?" he asked. His hand hurt from clutching his cell phone so tight. He really needed to update it. He had a smart phone for work, anyway. His personal cell was beyond outdated by now. The boss's kids called him Grandpa because of it. Which really stung, you know, because he wasn't even halfway to thirty, and he liked to think of himself as a little hipper and a little sexier than Grandpa.
Why was it that he'd never felt dirtier than he did now, not even when he'd first dialed LUCKY XIII? But then again, who wouldn't feel dirty confessing to their preferred performer that they were well aware they'd run into them downtown in one of fate's infamous conspiracies of time and place? That they now had their actual image on hand, waiting to be filed away in the spank bank? Who would really want to make someone uncomfortable like that?
Axel had really considered never calling back. He'd felt a little bit monstrous, meeting the eyes that matched the voice he'd been jacking off to for months now. Christ, was the kid even eighteen? Was he one of those MSNBC Dateline kind of tragedies with a pimp waiting outside at the junction of 1st? Better yet, what did the kid think of his callers and imagine what that felt like, seeing someone whose emotions and desires you toyed with to keep them on the line long enough for a good chunk of cash?
It was a terrifying and somewhat sobering reality when the impersonal and the personal clashed.
On the other end of the call, there was the sound of a tiny uncertain breath. A sigh. Axel's skin crawled with it like it had really been there in his ear, hot and sweet.
"Yeah..."
"We can pretend it never happened," Axel swore. But it felt like saying the wrong thing on a date.
Then:
"...I don't want to." The voice was so honest and inviting. Either the kid was a damn good actor, or he meant it.
Axel scowled at the general mess on his work desk and clicked his pen a few more times. "I'm just saying, I wanna respect your comfort levels—and the ethics of your workplace—"
Laughter. Sweet, adorable laughter. Okay, so maybe that had sounded dumb. The ethics of your workplace.
"Baby, guys jack off to my voice. I'm over here counting my lucky stars that one of them is actually hot."
Axel snorted. He raked a hand through his hair, cradling his head in his fingertips for a moment to reclaim composure. "Yeah, well," he grumbled, "you're a lot cuter than the picture they show for you. So I guess we're even, right?"
"We are. Can I tell you what I'm wearing now?"
Axel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, smirking faintly. Routine. He didn't mind. It was probably hard to break. "Go for it, kiddo," he whispered, and he plucked the little blond with the oversized sweater and nice jeans from memory and waited for those layers to peel off and be replaced by new ones in his mind. Somewhere stories below, there was the sound of car horns blaring in the morning traffic. Shh, real world, go away.
Across the connection there floated a little laugh. Axel couldn't help but smile. It warmed him. He heard the muffled sounds of movement. Whisper of sheets. Rustle of bedding. He'd probably woken the poor kid up.
"I'm in my shorts. Boxer briefs." Alluring snap of the waistband. Axel grinned. That little shit. "And that's it."
Axel leaned forward in his chair, stabbing at his desk with his pen. One final click, ink staining his thumb. He'd been planning this one for a good week, now. He was determined. It was a crossroads, and for what, he wasn't sure, but he had to try it.
"Touch yourself," he said.
Roxas bristled. Delicious shock sparked through him, a little twitch of the knees and a jump of the heart.
"What?" he breathed.
"Touch yourself," Axel said again, a bit more serious this time. Softer, more heated. "After all these times I've called you, I want you to feel good. Bet no one's pulled that one. They probably just ask you to pee, or beg for mercy, or something."
Roxas threw back his head and laughed. He couldn't help it. Axel was spot-on. "And incest and cross-dressing and non-con, but..." he listed off, grinning up at his ceiling.
"Good." The satisfied smirk was loud in Axel's voice. "Touch yourself, and pretend it's me," Axel whispered, and there was a raw sort of intimacy there that left Roxas a little breathless. Nonetheless, he was relieved. The last thing he wanted was for one of his favorite regulars—sorry, his only favorite regular—to be caught up in some downtrodden sense of guilt and shame for an affair he otherwise enjoyed enough.
This was a safe haven for dirty thoughts and secret desires. It was like the things you did at night that you couldn't talk about after dawn. Today, he didn't want to wonder why someone as cute as Axel called LUCKY XIII. He didn't want to worry he was a closet freak. They both knew each other's faces and there was something exhilarating about that. Shallow? Sure. But they had the right, didn't they? Unethical? Maybe. The operators had no idea. Did it matter, though? The anonymity was gone, completely gone.
And Roxas was not upset.
"I'll run my fingers down your sides," Axel prompted, voice like fucking velvet on Roxas's ears. He could have been in the industry, too. Christ. What was a guy like him doing on a hotline, anyway? And he was at work, too! The lecher—the classy fucking pervert—
Roxas shifted his hips. Tiny little Foley, a well-crafted, "Ahh..." He hadn't told Axel he was wearing a shirt. He nudged it up a little with his wrist, cool morning air kissing his hipbones. His eyes drifted shut again. "God, you turn me on..."
Axel uttered a small chuckle like Roxas was pushing it a little. "Do I?" he husked. "What about when I slip my hand in your shorts?"
Roxas was fully prepared to pretend.
But he didn't.
Because it was more than likely just a kink, he told himself, even though he kind of wanted to believe Axel cared about him in some unexpectedly normal way. He was a little bit hard, truth be told. And he wanted to do something about it.
"I wish you were touching yourself, too," he lamented.
"I'm at work, kiddo. I can't have any fun right now." Axel's voice was a little curt. A little tight. Seemed like the sounds Roxas had made were getting to him. Could he tell they were real? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe everything was just back to normal. That was fine, too. Professional.
"Where do you work?"
"I agent children's books at Radiant Garden Lit. Fucked up, right?"
Roxas blushed. He wasn't sure why. He smiled. It felt giddy again. He curled his fingers around his cock and a tiny whimper tumbled out. Completely unbidden. Completely uncalled for. But he was really imagining it was Axel's hand, anyway. Now that he knew what Axel's hand looked like.
"Axel..." he whispered.
"What?" Axel sighed.
Roxas shifted, knees falling apart. The phone was sticky from his clammy fingertips. He murmured, "Call me Roxas."
Goddammit, he'd always been a rebel. Here he was, getting hard at his desk. Torturing himself.
And it was so good.
"Roxas..." Axel repeated. It felt rather shitty, actually, that for months he'd never even called "Blond And Blue-Eyed" by any name whatsoever. Was Roxas a fake name? More than likely. He found it hard to believe this kid was anything but conscious of protecting his own identity. He found it hard to believe, actually, that Roxas hadn't had Axel's number blocked or something after knowing he'd run into him in person. Could they block numbers? Axel had no fucking clue how the system worked. He found it hard to believe... Found it... Hard.
Mess of blond hair. Electrifying blue eyes. Petite in stature. Soft and boyish, post-pubescent blessings. And he'd just gawked at him in Caffe Ladro that day, like he'd seen a ghost. And thinking back on it now made Axel ache. The chance! How did shit like that even happen! The image had burned itself into his mind. Throw it down on the desk in front of him. Strip it of that too-big sweater, with the grinning zen sun and the hippie symbols and "Keep It Surreal", the sweater said, "Keep It Surreal". Well, this was surreal, and Axel sat back and let his imagination take the wheel, his demons riding shotgun with the road map.
Soft skin, hot skin, tight little body of young adult glory until hormones were finally out of flux and decided just what muscle went where, and desk jobs made it hard to keep it all toned. Just his shorts, he said, just wearing his shorts. Snap of the waistband. Maybe they were off-blue. Maybe they were striped. Maybe they were Hanes, riding his ass like perfection and clutching at his thighs just vaguely tight enough to accentuate how smooth and slender those legs were. Blond. Meant fine hair. Bulge in the front as Axel loomed down. Fuck the queries, fuck the manuscripts, kick all the papers off onto the floor as skinny knees sagged away to cradle Axel's hips and little bare toes curled on the edge of the desk. And those blue eyes lifted, wholly receptive, and yearning, and full of wanton passion, flutter of dark lashes and twitch of the pale throat around a nervous gasp—
"What are you gonna do to me next?" came Roxas's breathy plea over the phone, and Axel snapped out of it.
"Ah..." His mouth was dry. Fuck. How was it still so easy? Why couldn't the kid have been less perfect so he could have kicked this unorthodox joie de vivre? "Roxas, I'm not crazy. You know that, right?"
Roxas. Roxas...
Each time Axel spoke his name, a jolt of pleasure zipped through him. Roxas felt guilty for it. He hadn't meant to get turned on—it was just that—this was a completely unprecedented and unparalleled accident—and this certainly was not the new standard—it wasn't like he was going to jack off to any other caller—
"I know," Roxas whispered, hoping it was as reassuring as Axel needed it to be. "Normal people do this stuff, too, you know."
"Exactly." Axel's voice was firm. How was it that he could sound so bold and full of surety, and yet so in need of justifying himself at the same time? "That's just it. I'm hella normal. I'm a normal man, who lives in a normal bungalow, with a normal Yorkie, and normal furniture, and a normal roommate. I drink beer and smoke cigarettes. I have two ex-boyfriends and one ex-girlfriend. I still enjoy 'Calvin and Hobbs' when I'm hungover on Sunday morning. I don't have this shady secret self that revels in what society deems 'errant.' I have an admittedly normal sex life, you know. It just so happens that you've become part of it."
"Axel."
"What?"
"Shut up and touch me, geez!"
Axel guided him to take hold of his own cock. Roxas uttered a tiny satisfied sigh, back arching. To the rhythm of Axel's words, he moved his hand. Faster. Tighter. Move the thumb. Tease. Slow down. Imagine the stiff hot outline of Axel's sex, throbbing at the front of his pants, grinding down against his thigh—
"What about you?" Axel murmured, words dripping poisonous down Roxas's spine. His heart gave a gleeful flutter. He got goosebumps. "How normal are you, Rox?"
Rox.
Fuckfuckfuck, hips jumped. Goddammit, Axel, you charming son of a bitch. Why was he getting harder as Axel interrogated him? He was weird. Weird things really got to him.
What would Axel say if he knew Roxas was just a U-Dub sophomore with too much debt already, and arguments with his parents about stupid things like grandparents' funerals and family vacations and chosen college majors, and boyfriends instead of girlfriends, and how being a fantasy phone actor was vastly different from fucking strangers for money? What would Axel say if he knew Roxas really wasn't that great—he wasn't full of swag like Riku or overflowing with charisma like Sora, his first kiss had been with a girl but his first hand job had been from Hayner, and after that it was just one disastrous choice in guys after another, and his social life was sort of dead because if he wasn't at class, he was working while he lazed around the house in his pretty non-fantastic underwear like sex hotline actors actually did?
"Normal enough," Roxas gritted out. It was starting to get really hot, tangled up in his blankets like he was. "I..." Jesus Christ, was this how people felt when he talked dirty? His heels dug into the sheets. His hand moved down low, to all the sweet secret places he knew the best. "I—I don't know what you wanna hear, baby—I've had sex before, if that's what you're asking—"
"Ah, I figured that much out... You know too much to have just done research for the job."
Roxas knew when Axel was really feeling it. His words slowed down; his voice got heated and intent. His sentences all started with tiny sighs. He was a laidback fuck and Roxas loved it.
"Tell me about them," Roxas begged, a moan clawing up the back of his tongue. He tugged out of his shorts and slid a finger down between his thighs, prodding and prying through the thin cotton. A feverish chill rattled through him. Pretend. Zip of the fly. Toes curling. Axel's cock, how big was it? Penetration. Shudder. Gasping, ahh! Stomach in knots of lust and trust, back arching, deeper, gotta find the angle where it's not painful—
He heard Axel shift around, squeak of a chair maybe and then that telltale puff of breath against his telephone mouthpiece. "Who?"
"Your exes—" Roxas sputtered, forgetting to breathe for a second. Why did he care? Because he wanted to think about Axel and sex. That was all. Geez, what a plot twist. The phone sex junkie making the hotline actor squirm in his own fingertips.
"Why?" Roxas could hear the smirk in Axel's voice. "You like hearing that stuff? You're a little voyeur."
"My romantic conquests are far from interesting," Axel demurred, throwing his tie over his shoulder as he leaned back in his desk chair. "Really, I promise you—"
"You've had sex with a girl?"
Axel nodded. Oh wait, Roxas couldn't see that. His heart pounded somewhere just below his throat. "I have," he offered.
"A guy?"
"Two times a guy."
"Do you wanna fuck me, Axel?"
Axel's fingers twitched. Roxas's breath was raw and ragged over the phone line. Axel couldn't move. His pants were too tight across his own erection; the slightest shift of the hips was torture, fine slacks and thin shorts teasing the throb of lust.
"Hard," he husked in reply. "Right here on my desk."
Breathless snicker. "You're so dirty..."
"You still pretending it's me?"
"Unh... Yes...!"
A rosary of little sighs and choked sounds of delight fell through the line. Axel gripped his cell phone tighter. Was he crazy? He wanted so bad to believe it. He let himself believe it.
He'd done it.
"Blond And Blue-Eyed" had actually touched himself.
Axel knew. By now, if he wasn't familiar with his preferred performer's noises, it was a Goddamn shame. But those sounds of climax were new and unfamiliar.
Because they were real.
And if they were real, well, realistically, that meant something had sparked up there between them.
Silence.
Well, this was quite the interesting turn of events.
The morning wind had picked up. The rain slashed against the windows. The clouds had smudged out the sunrise like handprints on an art project.
Roxas's breath came in short bursts, fingers trembling with the exhausted triumph. His skin was itchy-hot. His hair was stuck to one side of his face. He didn't realize he was panting into the phone as he opened his fist and gawked at the tacky come strung between his fingers like he needed to force himself to look at what he'd done before wiping it all off on his blankets. One last jerk on the nerves by the receding pleasure. One last little twitch of the hips and throb of the muscles to remind him of the act.
"I want to buy you another coffee," Axel husked suddenly, and all the dizzy bliss of the comedown crystallized into a new shade of panic.
"Baby, you—"
"Stop. Just stop for a second. I know you actually did it, Roxas. Half a fucking year I've been jacking off to you, I think I can tell the difference between your fake orgasms and a real one."
Roxas couldn't breathe. His mouth was dry. He gawked out the window at the bruised morning sky and waited for Axel to go on. He'd never heard him sound more serious. He'd never heard any caller sound more serious, actually. Not even the ones that got really, really into their weird role-plays.
"Touch yourself," Roxas begged, clambering for normalcy. This was too intimate. This was too involved. This didn't feel like business. This felt like getting tangled up in something real he didn't know if he was prepared for. No, this couldn't be real. You weren't supposed to feel this breathless and head over heels about a client. That didn't happen. Not in real life. Not— "Please... I made a mess because of you. You know that? Hide it under your desk, sexy... Just do it, unzip your pants, grab—"
"Stop."
Roxas recoiled, mildly insulted.
"I said, I want to buy you another coffee." Axel's voice was resolute. Roxas could almost imagine his eyes, flashing and intense. He could hear the caged desire in the back of Axel's voice. The desperation. The carnal heat. The honesty.
It was unsafe. It was unprofessional. It was dangerous in a lot of other ways. Something deep in his chest ached and Roxas could feel the panic creeping at the sidelines of his thoughts. This was bad. This was like running with scissors. He wanted to go back to that day in Caffe Ladro and—
"Talk to you later, bad boy," Roxas whispered. "I have to go get cleaned up. Maybe next time after you make me make a mess, you can shower off with me... Hope I don't get distracted thinking about you and have to touch myself again..."
He disconnected the call.
"LUCKY XIII. Now connecting."
Click.
Click-click.
"I'm sorry, but your requested performer cannot be reached at this time."
"LUCKY XIII. Now connecting."
Click.
Click-click.
"I'm sorry, but your requested performer cannot be reached at this time."
"LUCKY XIII. Now connecting."
Click.
Click-click.
"I'm sorry, but your requested performer cannot be reached at this time. Would you like to try Terra, V, Luxxxord, or Dirty Mickey?"
"Fuck you."
The fog was in thick this morning.
"Morning!" the little blonde secretary chirped when Axel came in, hunched low in his coat and scowling around the top of his coffee. Yes, the fog was in thick for March, and so was the self-hatred and side order of remorse for the wild night he'd had with that little slut Jack Daniel's, who had been admittedly more worthwhile to Axel than the moderately attractive guy Demyx kept trying to set him up with.
Axel muttered something somewhat unintelligible in response. The secretary was able to decode it, thankfully. She called after him as he made his way to his office, "You have a Requested Materials e-mail, by the way!"
Axel threw his things down on his desk and glared at the computer for all its most recent wrongdoings (or the things he considered its most recent wrongdoings).
He kicked the button on the tower to turn it on. He waited. He waited for all the applications to load. It occurred to him that he was hungover and stupid, and then he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew his work phone, bringing up his e-mail there before the Internet even opened on his desktop.
13 New Unread Messages.
He scrolled through, scanning for the Requested Materials.
Subject: REQUESTED MATERIALS – CAFFE LADRO
Axel's heart jumped to his throat so fast, he almost choked on it. He opened the e-mail.
Hey, sexy.
It's Roxas.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. anyway, ladro today at 6 PM if you wanna buy me a coffee. Text me first. 206 338 7926
- "Blond & Blue-Eyed"
P.S. Roxas really is my name.
Axel tossed his phone down into a stack of papers, astounded.
He leaned back in his chair with a squeak of its hinges. He stared for a moment, somewhat in disbelief. And then he grinned.
He couldn't wipe the stupid smirk off his face no matter how much he shook his head, actually. The relief was as nerve-wracking as it was sweet. That little blond and blue-eyed shit!
He'd never imagined he'd honestly get lucky with a fucking 900 number.
But you know what?
He had.
end.