Author's Note: So here is a short fic I came up with while I was stacking shelves at work last night based on Katy Perry's song 'The One That Got Away' that I should not have started! Well not when I have my other Kingdom Hearts fic only a couple of chapters away from being finished and my Heroes fic no where near finished (that hasn't been discontinued by the way, that is going to be my December project after NaNoWriMo) Don't know how I feel about this one, writing wise, but I hope you enjoy anyway.
"Hey Roxas, guess who I saw the other day." Sora exclaimed suddenly diverting his attention from his girlfriend next to him to the blonde across the table. His twin brother looked up from his coffee, blushing slightly; he knew exactly where this statement was going.
"Who?" he asked, trying to sound disinterested. Roxas knew exactly who Sora was referring to but he didn't want to seem as if he cared (especially considering who was currently sitting next to him).
"Axel." Sora replied, grinning at him. Roxas took another sip from his coffee ignoring the look on the brunette's face and the butterflies that jumped to life in his stomach at the mention of the red-head's name.
"Isn't that your ex-boyfriend?" Alex (his current boyfriend) asked. Roxas nodded feeling slightly embarrassed
"Yeah." he replied, why did Sora have to bring up his ex in front of Alex. It was bad enough that he was bringing him up in front of Namine, who was best friends with Axel's younger sister Kairi, but to drag all that up while Alex was there. Also why did he have to bring it up when the four of them were having breakfast? Having been so close to each other growing up the twins had promised their mother once they moved out that they would meet up at least once a week for breakfast and as the years went on Roxas and Sora began bringing their other-halves with them, making the due a quartet.
"What actually happened between you two, you never told me." Alex stated. And there it was, the question that Alex had been asking for the last four and a half years and the question that Roxas really didn't want to answer. What had happened between him and Axel? Roxas sighed, now that Sora had brought it up and Alex had asked he felt he had to explain the whole story – it wasn't like he could back out when Sora and Namine pretty much knew everything, it would look like he was hiding something.
"It was a really long time ago." Roxas said putting his cup down, trying to back out of answering anyway.
"We've got time." Sora smirked at him. Roxas glared at him, he was enjoying this – bastard! Sora knew that Roxas had never told Alex about his relationship with Axel because he knew how painful and awkward it would have been.
When they had first got together Roxas hadn't told Alex anything about his relationship with Axel because he knew he would have gotten jealous. It wasn't that Alex was a particularly jealous person but Axel was Roxas' first love and the fact that their names were very similar (as his oh so charming twin brother had pointed out on numerous occasions) made it seem like Roxas hadn't moved on and that Alex was a rebound.
"Ok," Roxas said taking a deep breath. "it was the summer after high school when we first met. I was working in this little book store for a bit of extra money and one day Axel came in. He had just finished his A Levels and was looking some books for uni."
"So he's older than you?" Alex asked, even though he already knew that he and Axel were the same age, again fuelling the rebound idea.
"Yeah." Roxas continued. "It was your typical teen romance, we'd make out in his Mustang to Radiohead."
"I'd forgotten about the Mustang." Namine mused. "Didn't you two..."
"Yes." Roxas cut her off, he didn't really want to talk about loosing his virginity in the back of his ex's old car in front of his current boyfriend. "And on my eighteenth birthday we got matching tattoos. Axel got these ridiculous purple upside-down tear-drops underneath his eyes." he laughed at the memory. "I didn't want anything on my face so we decided we'd get Roman numerals on our hips; he got VIII, because we met in August, and I got XIII for the actual day we met."
"I had wondered what that originally meant." Alex muttered, sipping his coffee. Roxas felt a stab of guilt as he watched his boyfriend sullenly stab at a piece of bacon on his plate but he had been the one who had wanted to know. He'd probably asked because Sora and Namine were there and it would look suspicious if Roxas hadn't said anything.
"We used to steal his parents liquor and climb to the roof, talk about our future like we had a clue. We never planned that one day we wouldn't be together, but then you don't when you're that age. You always think your first relationship will last forever."
"Ahh to be young and naïve." Namine sang.
"He was like the Johnny Cash to my June Carter." Roxas continued. "We were never without each other, we'd made this pact that we'd be together forever." (And sometimes when Roxas missed Axel he put those old records on, although he'd never tell anyone.)
"So what happened?" Alex asked. Roxas knew it must be hard for him hearing about his first love but it was hard for Roxas talking about it – Axel had been his everything for such a long time, that wasn't something you just forgot.
"Just before I left for university we said that we'd come out to our parents and be a proper couple, we'd been together for a few years but they had just thought we were best friends. Well our parents were cool about it."
"Didn't Mum try to throw you a coming out party?" Sora asked, his twin nodded. Now that was a memory he really wished he could forget. Their mother had invited the whole family down for the weekend to celebrate her son's 'brand new life choice'. Roxas had secretly taken an extra shift at work to get out of having to listen to his grandmother complaining about never having great-grandchildren ('Sora's still straight, you know, Gran' he had told on numerous occasions) and his uncle 'jokingly' calling him a fairy.
"Axel's parent's weren't so happy; when they heard that I was gay they told Axel they didn't want him hanging around with me anymore. He told me that he wasn't going to tell them, he was in heaps of student debt and he couldn't afford to get disowned until he'd at least finished uni and found a job. We had a massive argument: I said I didn't want to lie anymore and he said he didn't want to say anything yet and if I couldn't handle that then I could just go. So I did. I went to uni on the other side of the country and he cut off all contact with me."
"I didn't realise he completely cut you off." Namine said, shocked. "So he literally...not even on your birthday?" Roxas shook his head.
"Nope. He deleted me on Facebook, stopped following me on Twitter, deleted my number, deleted my email and I never heard anything from him again."
"Wow, what a dick." Alex said taking Roxas' hand and giving it a small squeeze.
"It's fine, I did my pining."
"About a year's worth wasn't it?" Sora asked. Roxas rolled his eyes, Sora was always overly dramatic when it came to his relationship with Axel.
"It wasn't that long, seven or eight months." he stated.
"What made you stop?" Alex asked, he no longer seemed angry about the whole situation and now sounded concerned.
"I was talking to Namine one night; she was waiting for Sora to come home from work and I was trying to avoid writing an essay. She told me Kairi had said he'd had his tattoo removed and that he was singing in some blues bar down town with this blonde girl hanging off his arm. When we were together he said he always wanted to be a singer but he'd never actually be able to do it. Then I realised it was time to face the music." I was no longer his muse, Roxas thought.
"I went to see him once, actually." Namine revealed. "He's quite good."
"And a few months after that I met you and the rest you know." Roxas told Alex. Alex smiled at him and kissed his forehead softly. Roxas looked at his watch to distract himself from the awkwardness of the situation and finally realised the time. "Anyway we need to go to work, so we'll see you two later." Both he and Alex stood up.
"I'll grab the bill and meet you outside." Alex told him. "See you two." he said to Sora and Namine then went over to the counter to pay.
"Doesn't that make you feel so much better to get all of that off your chest." Sora grinned up at him.
"You're a dead man!" Roxas shot back and turned to leave.
"Love you too, little brother!" Sora called after him as Roxas stepped out into the cold October air. Sora was such an arse, he knew bringing up Axel would mean he would finally have to tell Alex the whole story. Roxas shook his head and wrapped his coat closer to his body as he waited for his boyfriend.
"Roxas?" came a voice from behind him; a voice he hadn't heard in years. His heart almost jumped out of his chest. He turned to the source of the voice and found himself looking into two acid green eyes, upside-down purple tear-drops underneath and a shock of red spikes above it.
"Hi Axel," he said flatly. "it's been a while."
"Yeah." Axel replied shuffling awkwardly.
"How have you been?" Roxas asked, did he even want to know the answer?
"Good, you?" Axel asked.
"Fine thanks." he replied. This was Roxas' first experience of running into a ex (he'd only ever been with Axel and Alex) and it was not an experience he wished to repeat – everything felt so awkward. Here was a man who he had been in love with for years. Axel had been his whole world during the time they were together; he had been his first love, his first kiss, his first...other things. Axel had been with him through so much and it had destroyed him when it ended.
"You look good." Axel said after a pause.
"Thanks."
"Don't look quite so skeletal anymore." Axel grinned and Roxas couldn't help but smile.
"I was thin, I wasn't skeletal!" he exclaimed.
"I could see your rib-cage, Rox, you were skeletal." Axel stated adamantly. Roxas shook his head, Axel always had to be right. "So I was wondering..." he started when he was cut off by the sound of the café door opening behind Roxas. The redhead felt his stomach drop as the man who came out of the café wrapped his arm round Roxas' shoulder and kissed him.
"Ready to go babe?" the man asked.
"Yeah." Roxas replied before turning back to Axel. "Axel this is my boyfriend Alex, Alex this is Axel."
"Pleased to meet you." Axel said extending his hand.
"Likewise, I've heard a lot about you." Alex said taking his hand. There was a moment of silence as Roxas watched his past and his present size each other up. A tiny part of him wondered if a fight would break out, the way the two were looking at each other.
"Anyway we'd better go or we'll be late for work." Roxas said, slipping his hand around Alex's waist. The action seemed to snap Alex out of his help stare with his boyfriend's previous lover. The two turned away from the redhead. "See you around, Axel."
"Hey," Axel called after them, Roxas turned to look back. "me and a couple of friends of mine are playing at Oblivion tonight if you fancy an evening of semi-entertainment."
"Sounds cool, maybe see you there." Roxas smiled and Axel watched him walk away.
"I'm home!" Alex called as he closed the door to the house he and Roxas shared. Work had been horrendous, filled with idiot customers shouting at him for other people's mistakes and arse-hole managers taking credit for his good work.
"Upstairs!" Roxas shouted over the faint sound of Johnny Cash coming from their bedroom. Alex kicked off his shoes and climbed the stairs. When he reached their bedroom he found Roxas sitting on the floor looking through an old shoebox filled with photographs, wristbands from gigs and other paraphernalia (Alex could have sworn he saw a small plastic Pikachu).
"What're doing?" he asked, sitting down behind the blonde and putting his arm around his middle. Roxas leaned his head back on Alex's shoulder.
"Just going through some old stuff." he sighed putting the photographs he had been flipping through down and turning the music off. "I guess I was feeling a little nostalgic."
"Running into Axel?" Alex asked. Roxas shrugged.
"Maybe but more than that talking about that time in my life." he stated. "I kind of miss being a carefree teenager sometimes."
"Yeah being a grown up does suck, doesn't it." Alex laughed, Roxas chuckled too. "So is this all 'you and Axel'?" he asked.
"No, actually." Roxas replied, much to Alex's surprise. "It used to be but now it's just me." He handed Alex a photo of himself, Sora, Namine and a black haired girl Alex didn't recognise. Sora was pulling a silly face and Roxas was flipping the photographer the 'v'. "That's Xion, Namine's cousin." he explained.
"I can see the family resemblance." Alex mused, they did look very similar. Roxas handed him another photo of himself, two other boys and a dark haired girl.
"That's me and my friends Hayner, Pence and Olette. We were in sixth-form together, we used to annoy our teachers so much that they eventually sent us to different classes. I was a bit of a trouble maker back then" Roxas explained.
"I bet you were." Alex laughed. Roxas pulled out a photograph that was folded up in the back corner of the box and opened it.
"This is the only photo I have left of me and Axel." he said. In the photo Axel had his arm around Roxas and they were both flashing their brand new tattoos to the camera, grinning widely. "I got rid of all the others when we broke up but I couldn't bring myself to get rid off this one." Roxas bit his lip, sadness overcoming him for a minute. Sensing this Alex changed the subject picking up a large bundle of photographs held together with a red elastic-band.
"So who are these ones of?" he ask.
"Have a look for yourself." Roxas replied smiling and folding up the photo of him and Axel and putting it back in the box. Alex began flipping through the pile, it was full of photos of him and Roxas from the last four and a half years; him and Roxas ice-skating (well Roxas ice-skating and him falling on his arse), him and Roxas on the beach and a number of him and Roxas drunk out of their minds. "I've been collecting those for a while." the blonde confessed.
"I can see." Alex chuckled and kissed his cheek.
"I know it was hard for you hearing about Axel," Roxas stated. "and I'm sorry it took me so long to tell you but it was such a long time ago that I'd sort of closed the door on that part of my life, if you'll pardon the cliché."
"It's ok, I understand talking about your first love is hard." Alex shrugged. Roxas smiled up at him, Alex pulled him tighter squeezing him into the hug. "So do you want to go to Oblivion tonight?" he asked after a pause.
"Nah, let's stay in and rent a film." Roxas grinned.
"Good plan."
"Hey Alex." the blonde said turning to face the man behind him.
"Yeah?"
"I love you." Roxas said.
"I love you too." Alex replied and kissed him. Roxas wrapped his arms around his boyfriend's neck as Alex began to pepper his jawline with butterfly kissed.
"Mmmm Axel." Roxas pretended to moan but laughter over took him when Alex looked up, one of his eyebrows raised.
"Not funny." he stated.
"Shut up you know I am." Roxas grinned and pulled Alex into another passionate kiss all thoughts of Axel completely forgotten.
Axel walked through the door of Oblivion's backstage area, he felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of him. Why had he thought that he and Roxas could just pick things up from where they left off? He had stupid to think that Roxas would still be waiting for him after all this time and he knew it. He went over to join the rest of him band. Demyx, who had been tuning his sitar looked up as the redhead flopped down on the sofa.
"You ok Ax?" he asked.
"Yeah, you look like you've seen a ghost." Zexion stated from his place behind the practice drum-kit, flicking his sheet of blue hair out of his eyes with one of his sticks.
"I just ran into Roxas," Axel stated, dropping his head into his hands. "and his new boyfriend." Demyx put his sitar down and went to sit next to his friend, slinging an arm round his shoulder and pulling him into a hug.
"Did you speak to him?" Riku asked, ignoring the bass guitar amp he had been fiddling with. Axel nodded. "What did you say."
"I told him we were going to be playing here tonight if he wanted to come." Axel stated. "I was going to ask him if he wanted to go and get a drink but then his boyfriend showed up."
"How did he look?" Demyx asked and Axel knew he wasn't talking about Alex.
"Really good." he chocked. "Still as gorgeous as ever but he's filled out and got more muscle, looks like he works out."
"What's his new boyfriend called?" Zexion asked.
"Alex."
"Inability to move on much." Riku muttered.
"Not from what Kairi says." Zexion retorted.
"What do you mean?" Demyx asked.
"Kairi told me Namine said that he had an extra 'X' added to that tattoo so it says 'XXIII', the day he met Alex. Apparently for a while he even considered getting it removed completely."
"I can't really blame him for that." Axel spoke up. "I told Kairi to tell Namine that I had mine removed, I knew it would get back to him." He pushed himself off the sofa and went over to the lean against the opposite wall, he didn't want to look at his friends right now. "I wish I had just told my parents to shove it, that I didn't need their money – I loved Roxas and he was all I needed to be happy." Axel could feel tears beginning to prick at the corners of his eyes.
For nearly ten years he had thought in the back of his mind that he never should have broken up with Roxas, he never should have let him go and certainly not the way that he did. He had acted like an utter coward. Roxas was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he let something so stupid as his parents approval dictate his relationship with him. It was only now, seeing him happy with someone else, that he realised the weight of his decision all those years ago.
"You can't go back Ax." Demyx said softly from beside him.
"I know." he whispered, he didn't trust himself to speak any louder for fear his voice would crack.
"I know it's hard Axel but listen." Zexion said. "All the money we've earned..."
"Which isn't very much." Riku interjected and Zexion shot him a dirty look.
"Ok all the money in the world couldn't buy you a time machine so that you could go back and change things."
"I just can't replace him." Axel sighed, finally finding his voice. "I should have told him what he meant to me." And now I'm paying the price for not, he thought. His friends looked at him, each wishing they could help or do something to cheer him up.
"Come on, we've got to go do sound-check." Demyx said after a few minutes. "You might feel better after shouting down a microphone for a bit." Axel nodded, hoping that the sandy-blonde was right.
"Hello Oblivion." Axel yelled into the microphone, the harsh lights of the club blinding him slightly as his friends took their places on stage behind him. He wished he could see into the crowd – he wanted to see if Roxas had come. Then again he didn't know if he could take the pain and carry on with the gig if he wasn't there. "We are The Nobodies." The crowd (which seemed to be mostly comprised of under-age girls) screamed loudly, the sound almost deafening them all.
"Here's a little cover to get you all warmed up." Demyx said grinning as Zexion began the drum beat.
As Axel sang all he could think about was Roxas. Memories from all those years ago flashed before his eyes and for a minute he was no longer on stage but transported back to the happiest time of his life. Once the chorus kicked in the harsh reality of the words flowing from his mouth hit him, like a sledge hammer.
"But in another life, I would be your girl
We'd keep all our promises it would be us against the world.
In another life, I would make you stay
So I don't have to say you were the one that got away."
Axel had made a lot of mistakes in his life but this time he had messed up well and truly; Roxas was, and always would be, the one that got away.
End Note: I did think about using Lea for Roxas' new boyfriend but I thought Alex would make it seem as if he was the one who couldn't move on more and I thought it would be a nice twist if it was actually Axel. Sorry if there were any Axel/Alex crossovers (hurray for mild dyslexia eh?) I think I managed to get them all. Thanks S-E :)