Title: So Maybe We Make a Deal

Pairings: AkuRoku, with other yaoi (and possibly straight) pairings later on.

Rating: T for cussing - you have been warned. Will be M in later chapters, because I am quite fascinated with writing lemons :)

Full Summary: Roxas Strife, after 18 years of living in a hell-hole, has finally left for the big city with Axel Lea, his best friend since Middle School. Will running away from his old life solve all his problems, or will he realize that his teenage dream will be shattered by those he is sharing it with?

Disclaimer: If I owned Kingdom Hearts, the video games would pretty much just be an XXX-rated game. But also one filled with fluff and sweetness and yaoi. But, alas! I do not own Kingdom Hearts. And neither do any of us other crazy yaoi fans, or else it would be an XXX-rated game. There's no denying it.

A/N: Hey guys :) So I'm gonna keep this note short - long story cut down to size, I wrote this for an English assignment, then decided to change the names, add a few cuss words, and turn it into an AkuRoku oneshot. I'm not sure if I will continue it, but if I do, I can promise that there will be drama, angst, fluff, yaoi, lemons, violence, and all that other wonderful shit that makes us flock to the yaoi stories time and time again :D

At least, that's my dream. We'll see. Enjoy!

"So maybe we make a deal?" I instantly knew what he proposed. Axel threw his burnt-out cigarette down onto the cracked street, his tall form barely illuminated by the lone yellow streetlight down at the intersection of 3rd and Oak roads. The light was haunting, flickering every so often – a harbinger throughout the nights of my teenage life as I sat on our rooftop or porch. A hesitant nod of my head, and Axel shook his with a smile. "Go in and get your stuff, then, Rox," he waved me off, using the nickname he'd given me since we met in junior high years ago.

Axel stood more or less my best friend, though we both knew I didn't talk much. Musings better left within my head. Axel epitomized the opposite of me – tall, lean, with striking red hair. I was short, firm, and bore a sandy blonde head. He lived better off, in terms of home-life; he had had a job for three years now, and lived in a small home just down the street. A home that endured my home-away-from home; a sanctuary. But it had been torn down for reasons unknown to me, and now the only harbor for me existed within Axel's car.

Turning around to face the hell I had been confined to since my mother left me to take care of my father, I let out a shaky breath from the winter air. The two-story house's shabby paintjob peeled in random places, and part of the roof looked just about ready to cave in. Footsteps sounded brisk throughout the quiet neighborhood walking up stone steps. A screen door opened. Behind that, a paneled door with some of the paint stripped off. Yelling. He always yelled, my father, especially when he had run out of alcohol for the night; which, thankfully, only lasted a while before he passed out from his hideous drunkenness.

"Where the fuck have you been?" He demanded from his crumbling throne. I didn't even bother to look in his direction, for the sight remained the same day and night: a supposedly invalid middle-aged man reclining on a torn chair before a small television set still hooked up to an antenna. Beer cans usually littered the ground around him.

I ignored the sight and his demands as I walked straight for the stairs leading up to the upstairs room – my room. My father's voice grew, but fear barely touched me; I knew he'd never leave his chair if he didn't absolutely have to. Slamming my blessed door behind me, hands quickly set to work. My room cluttered as messy as one might expect a newly-turned eighteen-year-old's to be. It was small enough to manage without much of a hassle to my daily life, consisting of a twin-sized bed, a nightstand, desk, and wardrobe. My school backpack, thrust into the air, rained school-loaned books and worn binders on the ground as I began to fill it with anything I could grab within reasonable time – a few shirts, underwear, jeans. A pair of shoes and some socks.

"You'd better get down here, you little shit!" I ignored my father, stuffing the little memorabilia I could find in my small room; a picture of my mother and a seven-year-old me at the city zoo. Another picture, of Axel and I, my hand outstretched to block the camera's view of me, standing in front of his – at the time – new car. Axel had a wicked grin on his face, and just the sight of it invigorated me with our plan to leave – our plan to get me away from this place.

As I closed my bedroom door, for the last time, and descended the stairs down towards my escape, I heard a noise that confused me with its foreignness. A hollow click alarmed the empty house that my father was rising from his crypt. I bolted for the door.

"Where do you think you're going, huh?" He demanded, his voice tugging at my spirit as I neared my escape. "You think you're gonna spend the night somewhere else tonight? Who do you think will give me my pills!" I narrowed my eyes, forcing them not to glance at that man.

"Figure it out."

Surprise took me when my father stopped his furious antics.

For the first time in a month, relieved washed over me when a cold wind blew across my face. I kicked the front door closed and leaned back against the screen door, sealing the man in his hell-hole. I stared at Axel. He had apparently heard the commotion from within, as he now stood a few steps away from his car and towards me.

"I'm guessing you don't have much of a choice now, huh?" He asked with his usual sarcastic smirk. I shrugged as I walked past him, his long legs striding close behind me, and opened the trunk to his car. My backpack fit easily, as it always had since we first met and started carpooling to school.

"I didn't have much of a choice anyway," I muttered. "This should've happened seven years ago. Just drive." Axel needed no further encouragement as he shifted the clutch into gear. The radio turned on to something, but I didn't care what it was, nor did I listen to it. My lack of sleep rendered me feeling as drunk as my father. The night whizzed past my window.

A hand shaking me gently on the shoulder brought me up. Blinking slowly, I remembered where I was, and who I was with. Where I was going. The interior of the car was dark as the highway around us was unlit, yet I could still make out Axel's red hair and his long-sleeved sweater. Rubbing my eyes with my hands brought me to sit up a bit in the seat.

"We've been driving for about three hours," his voice nonchalant and disturbingly casual, as always, as if running away was something he did constantly.

"Where are we?" I asked groggily, my vision still in a haze from my broken slumber.

"Why don't 'cha look for yourself?"

There in front of us, a way's away down the highway, reined a farm of lights. Tall, bright, small, multicolored – light, all congregated on the ground and in the air in the middle of the valley. Newport. The largest city within the area – approximately three hours from the small suburb neighborhoods I had been fated to all my life. Newport meant many things – but most of all, it meant opportunity. Opportunity, and a chance to find my mother. A chance to start my own life. My own life with Axel.

I couldn't take my eyes off of the skyscrapers rising from the desert valley. All my life, I knew that I would be coming to this place, with Axel, of all people. I knew it would happen, and I knew that it would happen tonight. Well, maybe even I didn't know all of that, but I at least know one thing. I had hoped.

"We made it," I breathed. No battle could have stood against the smile that crept onto my lips.

"We did," Axel nodded, his hand finding mine in the darkness.
"We did."

A/N: Please Review! :3