D: I have such ADD! It's not even funny! I cannot focus on one freaking thing for more than a month! Gaah! Anyway, enjoy the story :3
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters!
Warning: I guess beware of Axel's cursing, and the things that will inevitably go down!
I tapped my fingers along the outside of the old car, as it bumped down the road with the hills and music the car blared. Boxes jumbled in the back seats and my little sister was chattering away happily on her new iPhone. My father stared blankly at the dark paved road, still so new there hadn't been any lines painted on the strip of asphalt. The dashboard had dust blanketing it and maybe a few jellybeans from earlier road trips and maps because there were just some things my father didn't believe in; one of them being a GPS… but he bought my snob of a little sister an iPhone. I could see over the crest of the hill and there it was; huge iron gates closing in houses and my new neighborhood. I grit my teeth at the sickening sight, and opted for pretending to be texting on my crappy flip phone.
"Look Axel!" her whiny little voice echoed from the back seat and I turned to her. her brown roots were starting to show through and the red in her hair had bled out in what I hope was protest, my little sister having hair like me didn't settle well at all, and I sure as hell made that known. "We're going to be living in such a pretty neighborhood! Can't you see it!?" her finely manicured nails pressed up to the window as she pointed to the cookie-cutter houses. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and turned back to face the front.
"No. this is fucking ridiculous! Just like your hair, Kairi." I sneered out, receiving a hard thump to the back of my head from my father.
"Axel! Dammit! How many times do I have to tell you not to fucking curse in my damned car! And leave your fucking sister alone! If she wants red hair; fuck let her!" he barked angrily but there was a bit of a twinkle in his eye, telling me he regret letting her get it done.
"Yeah! Axel, just like dad said! Leave me alone! I love my hair!" why were little sisters so fucking annoying? I mean all the fucking time! Like damn!
"She looks up to you, Axel." My father cooed. Oh, that's one thing I loved about my father. He was slightly bi-polar, I was sure of it. he had a knack for switching moods and being so sarcastic no one other than me could pick up on it… he also swore like a sailor and so did I. He never really approved of me swearing like all hell, but I never actually gave a fuck to listen to him.
"That's disgusting." We both said at the same time, twisting up our faces in disgust, just as he pulled into a court and up the long drive way that was going to be our house. A single moving truck had made its home within the huge four car garage. That's all we had to fill of this massive house that bordered the lines between house and mansion. My father quickly turned off the car and sighed reaching for the pack of cigarettes sitting between us.
"No smoking in the house or car, Kai's allergic." I scolded jokingly watching the even more disgusted face Kairi made through the rearview mirror. My father thumped me again before he through the pack at me and stepped out of the car.
"That's why I don't smoke around either of you." He flicked his ponytail over his back and tilted his dark sunglasses over his eyes, concealing the shimmer in his blue eyes. "That means you too, Axel." He smiled taking a drag.
"Yeah yeah, what the fuck ever, old man." I stretched out my long legs and followed him in getting out of the car, leaving Kairi holding her breath in the back of the thing. I lit my own cancer stick and took a long relieved drag. It had been eight hours since we left our old apartment and headed off to this… this stuck up neighborhood. Seriously, it looked like a stick was shoved up the asses of the people who built this place. "Refined" my ass, my father was full of shit when it came to moving to Virginia. I was perfectly fine living in butt-fuck nowhere Georgia, in our rinky-dink apartment.
"Axel you shouldn't smoke, you'll get cancer." My father reprimanded, because he was just filled with lovely contradictions all the time.
"Yeah, and next you'll be telling me I should believe in abstinence and a good grade point average, and develop friends to spend time with." I laughed roughly around the smoke and he joined in, "I'm no Kairi." I jerked my thumb back at her and she glared, now blabbering to one of her equally annoying friends back in Georgia. We hadn't lived their long, maybe six months, and before that Florida, and before that New York, and before that Hawaii, and before that Kentucky, and before that Alaska, and before that California, and before that New Jersey, and before that it gets fuzzy but I think I was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Sometimes we bounced around with in the states, and sometimes we just moved all together; it all depended where my father's job took him. He wasn't in the military, but, 'it was something like that,' so I stopped asking where we were going and why. I never planted roots in any of the places we ever lived, because I knew without a doubt I would just be plucked from the ground and have to start all over again. Kairi wasn't like that though. She rooted, grew, and before anyone saw it coming, was blooming. I hated her for being able to do that. That's why she had that new iPhone and friends in every city and state we ever lived in. Whereas, I didn't bother to talk to anyone in any of those places, or bother keeping in touch after the long moves.
"Hey! She's my only girl! I have to keep her pure as long as possible! It's my job as her father." He flicked the butt to the ground and stomped it out with his foot, and I followed suit.
"I know what you mean." Sure Kairi was annoying as fuck, but that came with being a fifteen-year-old girl, and the sibling of me. I toughened her out somewhat over the years, and watched her grow, and I'd be damned if I ever found out someone hurt her… all my hard work would be such a fucking waste.
"Are you two done yet? My phone's dying! I'd like to charge it before it's too late!" her voice hummed through the air in the silent neighborhood. Silent… that's something new. Nowhere we ever lived was quiet, not even Alaska.
"Yeah, Kai, you can pick your room first. Any one that's upstairs! The one on the bottom floor is mine!" my father called back into the car as he made his way into the open garage to start unpacking.
"I call bullshit!" my arm shot up in the air, like a grade-schooler. "What the fuck is this nonsense! Like hell she's going to pick her damn room first!" I was about to take off after her into the house when my father gave me this look, and it sent chills down my spine very unpleasantly, it was a wicked grin one much like my own, but I suppose I did get it from him. "You have something better for me don't you?"
"tsk tsk tsk! I'm ashamed! You, my only son, thinks I would give him the short end of the stick." He grinned taking boxes out of the back of the truck. Each of them conveniently labeled into which room they were intended for. So I stood holding 'living room' in my arms as my father held 'kitchen,' "but there's a catch." He grinned as we made our way into the foyer of the house. The house smelt like no one ever lived in there, and the only thing I could see was the carpeted stair case that sort of twisted up to the top. It was more of a half spin in the stairs and those banisters… yeah I was so fucking going to slide down them when I unpacked everything.
"You're just saying that, so you won't feel bad for having a favorite." I walked further in the house to see it was almost completely furnished, and how I missed that at first glance I didn't even know. There was this little, well decent sized room actually, that just had shelves and a single desk with a computer already hooked up. A few books lined the shelves and pictures of Kairi and I when we actually got along. A few tasteless candles and other décor… much of the house was put together that way actually. I guess older people liked that stuff, but damn it was annoying me! So much young Axel! Fuck! On the opposite side of the house was the dining room. We were all tall, or destined to be tall in my family so the table had long legs and stool like chairs. The chandelier swayed with the cooling air flowing through the house, another thing I wasn't used to. The dining room easily flowed into the kitchen, and damn, it was so fucking huge. Even the fucking fridge was huge; I mean like you could have a fucking party in my kitchen no problem at all. Apartment kitchens barely fit all of one person in it at a time. My father left me then and slapped a box on the granite counter top. Granite. Fucking granite. I sneered at him before walking through the kitchen and hitching a left and stumbling into the living room, my desired location. Surround-sound hooked up to the ceiling, huge ass television on the wall within its casing trying to hide it as an abstract painting, and a real fire place under it. The swanky looking couches were arranged in away my father described as 'conversationally friendly' whatever the hell that meant. I didn't take too long in unpacking the throw-pillows and glass.
"I don't have favorites, so just stop with the grin. I can see it all the way from here!" he called heading back outside and returning quickly with a stack of boxes that looked almost too heavy to handle. "Your sister has five rooms to choose from," he called from behind the boxes, "and for your sake, you better hope she only sees four!" I didn't know what he meant so I just rolled my eyes and unpacked more of the boxes. One at a time we took everything out and put it in its spot. This is how he always did it. My father used to tell me when I was little that we did it this way, because if we just took all the boxes and placed them in the house, we'd end up living out of boxes for nine months, 'trust me.' Kairi came bounding down the steps, squealing happily. Dammit! If she got my fucking room I was going to be fucking pissed.
The only unpacking Kairi did that day was her own boxes she refused to let be put in the moving truck. She made several trips up and down those steps giggling happily every time, just to spite me. Dad refused to let me go up stairs to see what it looked like until I was finished with the down stairs. For some time we were all alone in that house, and it truly felt like we were alone, because not a single one of us were used to that kind of thing. This was by far the biggest home we ever had. The sun had set long before I had finished the last box up, and I stood popping my back and knuckles before striding over to my father's room where I thought he would be. He wasn't of course, because that would have been all too convenient for me. Although his room was nice and big, just like the rest of the house, but there was his own personal flair that made me shake my head as I closed the door and made my way to the front of the house and slink up the winding staircase.
"Oh daddy dearest!" I was on a mission as I stood at the top of the steps. I looked down one side of the hall to a pink room. The fuck. Why the hell was it pink? Did it come like that? Or did Kai painting in the last nine hours happen? Whatever I didn't care, I just wanted my room… and I didn't see it. He said it would be special and I'd fucking love it. He bragged about how stupendous it was the whole entire time and dammit if Reno lies to me one more time! I'm going to castrate him, my own father. The room next to Kairi was a simple room with eggshell walls, and fuck I also hated Kairi for correcting me every time I called them white. Nothing was in it other than a bean bag, and if the door was a little bit more open, I would have liked to see my Xbox hooked up already, and another huge ass television. Another door closed off the wall next to Kairi and that was a bedroom too; I so fucking hoped that that wasn't mine, because it was so fucking small looking compared to the rest of the house. Two bathrooms of decent size came back to back right in front of me where I stood gawking at the sheer size of my begrudged new home. Then a lone room on the opposite side of the hallway came into view. I had just stepped towards the room when the ceiling dropped down in front of me and out stepped my father's boots and worn down jeans.
"Axel! How nice of you to finish up!" he grinned still standing on the last step that didn't even touch the wooden floors. I stared at him as he held a box against his hip as he looked me over. "Care to take a peek at your new room." He winked stepping off the short stairs and jerking his thumb up to what I assumed was the attic.
"Oh hell yeah!" I clambered up the steps and before I knew it I was standing in the middle of the coolest fucking room I have ever seen. The floor was this really old wood that had lost its luster over the years. The walls were a dark grey, but you couldn't tell because they were covered in posters, cut out old photographs, records, CD's, letters from just about everywhere, inside jokes between the family, and posters signed by bands. They lined every single last spot on my wall and then there was this window with no curtains, and when I looked out, I could see everything, but before that I was staring right into the window of the mirroring attic's window with the curtains drawn. Someone lived up there too? My bed was behind the staircase and shoved back into the corner under the slanted ceiling. The sheets were just plain black, but it's simplicity amongst the chaos of my room was enough to make me feel like I was the luckiest fucking dude in the world. A single bulb swayed in the room and then suddenly I was aware that a, my father was in the room, and b, unlike the rest of the house there definitely was not a high ceiling.
"like it?" he tacked up one last photo by my bed before turning to look at me, his sun glasses sitting proudly on his equally crazy red hair.
"Like it? Fuck, Dad! This is amazing! I fucking love this room! As far away from Kai as possible and I bet you won't be able to hear a damned thing from down stairs! Whoo! I'm so fucking lucky I can't wait to break this fucker in!" I embraced him like the true men we were and he patted my back in response.
"Good because it took a fucking month to get this thing up to code, and livable. It was such a fucking pain in the ass to sneak out all of your damn posters and crap all the way out here, and this is what I spent the last six hours doing!" he cracked his wrists and stood to admire his work again, "just need to pick out your curtains, maybe blinds… you know." He shrugged pointing to the darkened starry sky.
"Yeah... man, dad, I really fucking love this." I felt five again, because that was the last time I had a room that felt like me, and that Axel was into dinosaurs and robots. I suddenly felt crestfallen, "s'gunna suck when we have to take it all down in a few months." That's right. In just a short time we would be up and moving again, and like a cycle the houses would get smaller and smaller and then out of nowhere huge again, because he would have saved up enough money to afford something that wasn't butt-fuck nowhere George apartments. I felt the need to start un-tacking and un-taping all of the junk that covered the walls and put it all back in their boxes, if I got attached moving again would be hard.
"Actually…" he had a guilty grin on his face, and I felt a little sick in the pit of my stomach. Was it weeks this time? "That won't be necessary." I looked at him incredulously, "I've talked it over with the higher-up, since you started high school, and well I finally won the battle! We don't have to move ever again." I could see his grin about to split open his face and it forced my lips to pull up into a smile that lasted half a second.
"Don't fuck with me, Dad, this shit's not funny." I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
"I'm being serious. I painstakingly waited for this house. In this neighborhood, for three years now! I fucking came out here every weekend for six months, I fucking studied my two children for the last year deciding what would be the best. I painted Kairi's room bubble gum pink! Because I've learned that's her favorite color. I did this to your room, because all of this means so damn much to you. I thought about it all. Where would you sleep, how would you sleep, if you got the chance to pick the color of an actual room, what would it be? What would you want to wake up to every morning, and when, what school is the best. Who has the best community, and to hell with it all! What could I do to get my only fucking son to open up and make friends! Actual friends! I'm not fucking with you Axel. Because you two are all I have left." He said the last part soft, placing his hand on my cheek, "so don't be afraid to plant some roots, grow some friends, and hey, even have more than a fuck-buddy… just not around Kai." He nudged me with his elbow before sliding down the ladder-step things, any further bonding was not going to happen that night.
"THANK'S DAD!" I called down to him pulling up the ladder-steps and letting it become part of my décor.
The sun was high in the sky the next day, and not even a cloud threatened to ruin it. If I thought I could clean out this car without a hazard suit, I was dead fucking wrong. After about sixteen years of road-trips and take out, she is not what she used to be. Kairi and my Father were inside 'cleaning' the house, and that left me to clean out the car. I can't even recall a time that cleaning the car had even been mentioned, so at first the idea seemed completely absurd, but unfortunately, Reno meant it. I wish I could say what type of car it was, but cars where never really my thing. I sat in the driver's seat with it pulled all the way back and my head tucked under the steering wheel. I felt like I could gag. What the hell was half that crap even doing under there? My father's socks had been trapped between the break and the car floor. Great, just fucking great! How the hell was I supposed to clean any of this? The corners of my lips curled down in distaste as I pulled the stiff cotton garment from its hiding place and chucking it into the trashcan I hauled from my huge ass back yard. Carefully moving my head back from under the steering wheel, I inspected the work I had done so far. The dashboard no longer was covered in sticky syrup of seven-year-old coke and jelly beans, melted to out-dated maps. The windows were free of fingerprints both new and old, but still there was a hell of a lot to do. Cheerios still needed to be vacuumed up from the little rugs under the seats. When's the last time anybody ever cleaned this damned thing? I sighed heavily stepping out of the vehicle and stretching out my body feeling my joints pop wonderfully.
"Ripped jeans, skin was showing; hot night wind was blowing. Where you think you're going baby?" I spun around to see where that ridiculous bubblegum pop music was coming from. A squeal met my ears before I could actually see anything beyond the shiny blue car parked in the long spindly asphalt that composed my neighbors' driveway. It looked exactly the same as my own house, and so did every other house in this dead end road, but that thumping sound and sickly sweet voice set us apart for a moment. If I wasn't allowed to play my music outside, for fear of upsetting the neighborhood with my 'obscene' lyrics, no one else should have gotten the right to play that awful garbage either, because that was truly offensive. "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number, so call me, maybe?" before I had the chance to see where the noise was actually coming from a cool mist of hose water drenched my entire shirt and hair.
"What the fuck is this?!" I tugged off the shirt in a rage, ready to punch the asshole that just sprayed me with a hose in the face. My naturally spiked red hair was starting to droop, and flat hair was not a good look on me. More giggling and a few shuffles of feet along with whispers came from the side of the car I couldn't see. I narrowed my acidic eyes at the sounds, hoping to burn the person responsible for my wet hair and naked chest. Suddenly a pair of pale arms were shoving out another small form out from their hiding place. The blonde figure turned and glared at the arms before flushing a pink. I crossed my arms over my chest in annoyance; I was just going to hate my neighbors, all of them, I could just tell, and the chorus of "I missed you so bad, I missed you so bad." Was not helping at all. The little blonde girl straightened out her blinding white summer dress, glaring back at whoever was behind the car, before combing her angel blonde hair over her shoulder.
"uhm… I'm sorry, about the uh… hose, my sister says I'm a klutz some times." Her voice was soft and wispy, and I was going to burn in hell for still being pissed off at someone so… feathery. "Please forgive us; we've never washed a car before." She sounded shy but she kept talking to me. No you're shiting me right? A girl like you in a neighborhood like this doesn't know how to wash a car, I would have never thought of that one. I rolled my eyes hoping she saw. Her baby blue eyes racked up and down my body and her face flushed again. Oh hell, she just fucking checked me out. And just like that every ounce of innocents I thought she might have had was gone.
"Shut-up, Nam, I've totally washed the cars with dad before! It's you who doesn't do any of it! You spend all your time drawing!" another voice called from behind the car. A girl with identical eyes stood. Her hair wasn't blonde in the slightest, and I couldn't discern if it was dyed that black or if it was natural. This girl's attitude was completely different from the blonde's.
"And that doesn't matter Xion! You said I just had to spray it down and then it would be all good! You didn't say anything about spraying innocent bystanders. I'm really sorry about that by the way." She looked at me apologetically and I found myself becoming less enraged as the song disappeared.
"It's cool. I guess. It was kind of hot out here anyway." Spring weather was always hot in Georgia but I expected Virginia to be cooler, so there I stood in tattered pants hanging off my hips and shirtless. And the anger bubbled up again when the two of them, who I realized must have been the same age as each other, erupted into another round of giggles and squealing with the start of another song the new looking car belted out. Fucking Justin Beiber, Fucking fans, what the hell was wrong with young teenage girls? I felt so damn lucky not to be a twelve year old boy any more; it must be tough for them to be compared to a guy who hadn't even hit puberty yet. But that was just biased. I clicked my tongue and ran my fingers through my thick main of hair, drawing a cigarette from my back pocket and lighting it, taking a drag.
"See, look what I told you, Nam, he'd be cool with it! Now we can go back to washing the car." The black bobbed haired girl poked the blonde in the side before handing her a bucket and a sponge as she stood staring at me with huge doe eyes. What. Was I supposed to step in and say, 'no need to wash a car, you lovely ladies deserve to be swept off your feet and spend a day with Axel,' yeah, because that's what I wanted to do with my life. Spend a whole afternoon full of screaming, squealing, not to be conceited, but, Axel crushing, barely thirteen-years-old, fan girls. Yep, exactly what I wanted to be doing. I busied myself with tapping my thumb on the filter and inhaling the smoke that floated up to my nostrils. "Hey, new neighbor, do you have a name?" and the way she asked that question made my insides squirm unhappily. I shook my hair out a little, watching the blonde squeeze the sponge and wrinkle her nose at the soapy liquid that oozed out of it, and the raven haired girl mouth the line, 'If I was your boyfriend, I'd never let you go. Keep you on my arm girl; you'd never be alone…'
"No." and with that I climbed back into the car stomped out the cigarette, and started vacuuming up old food and useless papers, not even caring if I was shirtless or not. After another poor attempt at rapping on Beiber's part, and trying to drown out the sound of sibling bickering with a vacuum cleaner, the car was clean enough by my standards to go inside and eat.
I was busy wiggling my hips happily with left over pizza hanging from my lips when our door bell rang. I was caught off guard with the sound as it echoed through the house before Kairi made her existence known, "Axel, Answer the Door! I'm busy!"
"Can't I'm Not decent!" I yelled with a mouth full of cheese and sausage, "DAD DOOR!" I yelled even though my shirt was right next to me and the door was only about twelve steps away.
"Lazy ass kids! Why the hell did I have you, if neither of you do the things I don't want to!" he yelled back emerging from the office like space right by the door. I watched him open it from my hiding place behind the stairs, knowing full well that if they looked past him, they would be looking at my shirtless self, even from the angle it would have looked more like I was completely naked. "hello." Oh that was Reno's big man voice he used with strangers and phone-calls.
"Hello, my daughter informed me that you are our new neighbors, and I wanted to come over and greet you." A stone faced man said, even though his voice was pleasant, he didn't look like he wanted to be there very much. His electric blue eyes and blonde hair was all I could really see from behind Reno's giant ass head. To the man's left, was the devil in a little girl's skin. Her white dress had been replaced by white skinny jeans and loose low cut shirt covered in pastel floral. Ew.
"Oh, that is very kind of you, my name is Reno Flynn." my father extended his hand in the formal way I've only seen him do at dinner parties.
"Oh I'm Cloud Strife, and this is my daughter Naminé." And they shook hands.
"Well nice to meet the two of you, my two children are floating around here somewhere, I'm sure of It. teenagers, you can never find them." he didn't bother to look for us, because he already knew where we were.
"You have children? Naminé didn't mention that, but the more the merrier, isn't that right Naminé?" the man's eyes wrinkled at the corners as he smiled. The small girl giggled innocently and nodded her head. That manipulative little bitch.
"It sure is daddy, Mr. Flynn, Would you and your family like to join us for dinner tomorrow night around six?" she smiled endearingly at my father, and then back at her's who just nodded his head in approval.
"We'd love too." He took the bait. I was going to fight with him later about this. But for now I had to keep my ground, and my hiding place. I was going to be forced to eat with her and her crazy sister.
She smiled again; "welcome to the neighborhood, then." her small form held out the very thing that would seal my fate and be my demise. A cherry pie.
I AM NOT INTENDING TO BASH ANYONE WHO LIKES THOSE SONGS MENTIONED IN THE ABOVE CONANT! They are Axel's opinions and goodness knows he has a lot of those XD
This Thing has been sitting on my desktop for two months now ._. and it's been eating me alive to just keep it all to myself, and once again I blame my ADD, for not fully devoting my time on my other two fanfictions still in progress. (if you happen to be reading those, I'm working on them. slowly but surely.) But other than that!
Review please! They speed up production time! Love you all for reading!
