Title: Heights
Author: Spaikd
Pairing: Axel/Roxas
Rating: M
Length: Oneshot, 4454 words
Genre: AU, Romance/Humor
Summary: Fifty loosely related snapshots of an everyday romance.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the KH franchise and profit nothing.
Notes:Thanks to code15 for being a beta-nazi for this one. 3
Smile
"Alright, whoa! You gotta stop doing that," the redhead laughed.
"Doing what?" Roxas chuckled back.
"That thing you do," Axel smirked and gestured towards his new flatmate's face, "Where you bite your lip a bit and smile and look down and then up again? Man, that's just too darn adorable! You'll have every girl's knickers twisted the first day of school if you don't stop doing it,"
"Girls...right," Roxas replied a bit dazedly and managed just in time to stop from biting his lip again.
Powder
"Yeah, okay, so it happened on the sixth grade. There had just been this huge nationwide campaign against drugs, so naturally all the tough kids were interested and the good kids all horrified. One of the goody two shoes, whose name shall not be mentioned *coughdefinitelywasn'tmecough*, informed the teachers about someone, whose name shall not be mentioned either *coughAxelcough*, selling suspicious white powder in small plastic bags in the school area. Teachers called the police and they came, howling sirens and handcuffs jingling, just to arrest the kid. Axel was found guilty of selling and possessing 300 grams of potato flour."
"I didn't mind the detention, but they made me return all the money as well," Axel bemoaned over his drink while Roxas laughed at Demyx's story so hard he nearly fell off the kitchen chair.
Loneliness
The bar was full to the brink, clientele consisting mostly of younger and older students. Music played so loud that people had to yell to be heard. Girls were filling the dance floor, cajoling boys to join them there with slow movements and swinging hips. Someone tried to drag Roxas down there as well, but he declined with an apologetic smile. Hayner was bragging off to some people Roxas couldn't recall ever talking to, Pence had gone home already, Olette was nowhere to be seen and he didn't really know what to talk about with the rest of Hayner's new schoolmates.
He'd called his two housemates 'lifeless nerds', but suddenly found himself wishing he'd spent the night playing videogames with Demyx and Axel in their flat.
Coffee
A pair of zombies emerged from their respective tombs, both with deathly pale faces and dark circles beneath their eyes. The smaller one let out a guttural groan that could be interpreted as a word for coffee, making Demyx feel slightly concerned for his own well-being, seeing how he was currently the one holding the coffeepot. He laid it carefully to the kitchen counter and backed quickly out of the way, watching the pair begin a brief scuffle for the last clean cups.
"Rough night, huh?" he dared to ask when both his housemates finally had a steaming cup of coffee in their hands.
"I fucking hate all-nighters," Roxas sighed over his cup, enjoying the smell of the life-resurrecting black liquid in his hands.
"I fucking hate the university," Axel chorused, gulping down his coffee, not caring how it burned his tongue and throat. He was past beyond the point of acknowledging minor injuries in his state of mental and physical exhaustion. Studying was not a laughing matter.
Jacket
It was far too large for Roxas, the lapels scuffing against the ground, but it was warm and smelled like the brand of tobacco Axel used. Roxas wasn't sure why but somehow it managed to make him feel better, even though he usually hated the smell of cigarettes.
Heels
"Whoo, check it out! I'm almost taller than Axel!"
"Demyx…"
"Just how do you walk on these things? Crazy!"
"Dem..."
"I feel like I'm balancing on a pair of nails. Don't your feet ever hurt? Mine does and I've only been wearing these, like, a minute!"
"Demyx, please take them off. Tifa will kill me if you break her favourite high-heels," Kairi sighed.
Lookalike
Red spikes bounced slightly as he strolled by. Every step was laced with such self-assurance that you could usually only find in an army consisting solely of supermodels. He was tall, thin and angular. He even had two symmetrical tattoos oneach side of his face. Roxas nearly walked into a lamp as he stared after the doppelganger passing by.
Reno gave the mini-version of Cloud a strange look as he passed the kid by. He knew he was smokin' hot, but it still wasn't normal for a person to walk into a lamp while staring at his oh-so-sexy mug. All sorts of weirdoes…
Dedicate
"To my two ver-ry best and beloved friends who currently reside in the same sweet apartment with me," Demyx crooned into the mike. "This one's for you."
"I swear to God I'm gonna kill him if he sings that fucking song again. In public," Roxas commented gloomily, making the redhead beside him snicker.
Rooftop
Axel and Demyx were cackling and howling like crazy at the moon. Saïx threw pebbles at them and snarled at the pair to shut up already, he'd been a kid back when he'd insisted on actually being a wolf in human form and they were embarrassing themselves more than him. Zexion told the man to calm down and offered him a popsicle, earning a few pebbles thrown at him as well. Roxas had no objections against popsicles, so he took the offering and just sat there licking it and enjoying the show.
It wasn't the Clock Tower in Twilight Town and the ice-cream tasted all wrong, but he enjoyed it anyway.
Skull
Roxas stared. There really was nothing else he could do in the situation.
"Ermh," Demyx tried speaking, but only managed the tiny embarrassed sound. He coughed to clear his throat. Axel fidgeted next to him, his robes rustling quietly as he shifted.
"There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this," Demyx managed to say: quite proud of how level his tone came out as. Seeing how he was currently wearing the kind of skirt mostly used by the natives of exotic tropical islands, managing the kind of tone was a true achievement.
"I have no doubt of it," Roxas replied in a state of horrified fascination. His eyes roamed over the two men and around the room.
"See I'm, um, in this class for cultural studies of, of native religions and cultures..."
Roxas nodded, wondering idly what they'd painted Axel's face and upper torso with.
"My group project is about Western African-"
"Is that thing real?" Roxas interrupted, pointing at one particularly anomalous item on the table. It stared back with rather hollow eye sockets and a stagnant grin. Demyx gave the owner of the item in question a look, but Axel just shrugged very unhelpfully.
Crush
There he was, hair tied to an awkward ponytail, far too tall and gangly to possibly look attractive at all. His nose was too sharp, chin too protruding, eyes just small slits of acid green and what the hell was the deal with his eyebrows anyway? Did he think shaping them like that looked cool? And the tattoos, for heaven's sake, they made him look like a circus clown. He was grinning mischievously and oh god his lips were so chapped it was disgusting.
So why, regardless of all the proves Roxas found for Axel being the single most unattractive person in the whole wide world, he still couldn't chase the butterflies out of his stomach whenever Axel smiled at him like that?
Plastic
Axel had always hated the smiles on the faces of news anchors, vocational counsellors, tutor students, social workers, cashiers, prep girls, anyone who smiled because they were forced to, not because they wanted to. Then one day when they stood in line in the bank, Axel shifting and huffing nervously like he did whenever he had to stay still in a place he didn't feel comfortable, Roxas elbowed him and muttered "Look at the cashier girl. What would you say she resembles?"
Axel peered at the woman behind the counter, a blonde with a fake smile and perfect chignon glued on top of her head. He shrugged and suggested "Barbie?"
"Look harder," Roxas smirked, still staring at the cashier, "Especially when she doesn't smile-"
"I thought the smile is required to be frozen on permanently."
"-She looks exactly like that robot woman from Terminator 3," Roxas continued, grinning. Axel peered at the girl behind the counter and they stared at her for the rest of the time the line took.
From then on Axel imagined that all the news anchors, vocational counsellors, tutor students, social workers, cashiers and prep girls were actually robots, and he never hated the plastic smile again.
Paints
"To finger-paint is not a sin," Demyx declared solemnly.
"Unless you're using non-water soluble paints on the doorway of my room," the owner of the said room snarled.
"These are non- water soluble?" Demyx asked innocently.
Roxas hit him on the head with the paint package.
Blue
And for a moment it's blue blue blue, blue sky blue sea everything blue for Roxas before he splashed in the water, sinking deep in the dark confines of the sea. He lets the darkness pull at his feet and arms and body for a long, slow moment, feeling like the calm depth is where he really belongs.
Noise
Funny how awkward silences could be so damn loud. Roxas tried desperately to rack his brain for something, anything, to say. How do you start an ordinary everyday conversation with a person you called at least dozen drunken calls, then asked the said person to come and take you home because you were too drunk to walk straight anymore, then at home tried to kiss the said person but failed because you couldn't even see straight at the point, talk about walking, then threw up on the person's shoes and passed out on the person's bed while left him cleaning the mess?
Moisture
"You think we might have overdone it?" Roxas asked, uncertainty making his voice quiver slightly.
"Naw, it's a greenhouse. Greenhouses are supposed to be humid," Axel declared, holding the hose confidently in his grip and a satisfied smile of a job well done playing on his lips.
Roxas eyed their handiwork, not all that convinced greenhouses were supposed to be humid enough to wade through.
"Uh, okay. But I'm not going to be the one taking all the responsibility if we just ruined Marluxia's gardening career."
Drink
Axel's fingers fumbled ineffectually on the table for a moment before he noticed Roxas calmly moving the glass further away. "Aw c'mon Rox, jus' one more," he blurred and reached at his friend's arm, tugging it futilely to make it release his possessions.
"Sorry, Ax, but I think you've had enough," the boy replied, emphasizing the name sarcastically even though he knew Axel would miss it in his current state.
Cabin
"Just take me anywhere, Rox, I don't care, I've been stuck in this bloody room doing nothing but counting math for hours and I think I'm gonna go all cabin fever soon if I don't get out like right now!"
Fingers
Axel's fingers were like a pianist's: long and slender. Roxas felt sort of stupid entwining his own short, stumpy fingers with the unconscious man's fingers, but at least once he was allowed to hold his hand without anyone asking awkward questions about his sexuality. He hoped Axel wouldn't wake up right then, finding him clinging to his hand like a lovesick puppy, and sort of did hope he would.
Rout
"This... this can't be happening!" Axel exclaimed, staring at his cards in despair.
"I kost. I lost everything. Everything!" Demyx wailed.
"Oh dear," Luxord accompanied. He stared at his own cars and smiled incredulously. "This is... quite unrealistic."
"Come on guys, it's not that bad," Sora grinned and shuffled the rest of the cards. "Another round?"
"Told you he has the best poker face in town," Roxas mumbled from the sidelines, flipping idly through a comic book. Axel raised his weeping eyes from the failed hand to the innocent grin on Sora's face. The expression on the boy's face hadn't budget even once during the two games they'd played. Not. Once.
"Oh I believe that now," Axel mumbled, wondering what other horrors must have lurked beneath that open smile all along.
Time
"We haven't got any," Axel panted, grabbing Roxas by his collar and dragging him along. "If professor Ansem catches us now we're gonna be in detention for the rest of the year, not necessarily excluding Christmas and the summer vacation!"
Drama
"So, how'd you like it?" Demyx asked earnestly, his face still covered in exotic make-up. Thank goodness he'd at least gotten rid of the damn bamboo skirt already.
"It was very..." Roxas fought to find the words, "Um, I thought it was supposed to be just your cultural studies project?"
"Oh yes, but people liked it so much we decided to make it a real play," Demyx beamed.
Arms
For one painful moment, Roxas imagined crawling between those arms and just staying there for the rest of the night, but forced himself away from the tempting offer of peace and walked out of the room without a glance back.
Return
"It's the ancient bond between man and nature. Yeah baby, I'm back!" the redhead howled, flames glinting in his eyes, a bottle of lighting fluid swaying dangerously in one hand and a pair of beef thongs in another.
"He always gets like that when we make barbeque outside," Demyx explained to slightly bewildered Roxas.
"Bring out the marshmallows!"
Hanging
"Axel, please do explain to me why there is a man with long hair and an eye patch hanging upside down outside my bedroom window."
"…"
Pearl
"Hey Rox, come check this out," Axel gestured to his friend and Roxas waded through the shallow water and peered at his open palm. In the midst of broken pieces of seashells laid a very tiny, very perfect round little pearl. Axel looked Roxas in the eyes and smiled in delight, the flicker of light on the water reflecting from both their eyes. "Cool, huh? This is my first time ever finding an actual pearl. Those are pretty rare, ain't they?"
"They are," Roxas smiled back, taking the pearl between his fingers to examine it. It was very small.
"Just don't drop it," Axel warned and Roxas placed it back in his palm.
"Take good care of it, Axel. Those are pretty rare."
New
Now this is new, Axel thought as he was being pressed against the mattress by a certain blonde overzealously lapping at his lips and neck and ears. Not that he was going to complain though; Axel was all for breaking the routine.
Answer
"It's an easy question," Roxas murmured, dragging his lips and tongue on Axel's thigh. Down, down, down towards his groin. He nipped the tender flesh and Axel shuddered. "Hands…" He drew his fingers softly up Axel's erection, "Or mouth," he exhaled hot air over the tip, lips not quite touching it.
"Uhm, geez Rox, I don't, um…" Roxas looked up with the kind of smouldering hot look in his eyes he usually reserved for Axel whenever the redhead had fucked something up. The man whimpered. "Both?"
Headphones
Axel had Roxas' headphones on and he was bopping his head up and down with the music, mouthing the lyrics quietly under his breath and making stupid expressions while he played an air guitar- dreadfully. Demyx would have keeled over in horror but Roxas was suddenly so endeared by the sight he just had to get over there and give the idiot a crushing hug.
Hat
"That was the single most traumatising moment of my entire life," Roxas stated, horror etched on his features.
"I'm going to go rinse my eyes. With acid," Axel contributed.
"What's going on? What happened?" Demyx asked, eyeing his two horrified housemates
"We saw professor Vexen dressed in a hat," Axel explained.
"Why, what's wrong with-"
"Nothing but a hat," Roxas clarified. Axel shuddered on the background.
"...Oh. Ew."
Public
"N-no, don't! We can't do this," Roxas hissed, smacking Axel's arm, "People will see us!"
"All the more reason. C'mon, isn't the situation at least bit exhilarating to you?
"You might get the kicks from things like this, but I don't!"
"Come on, Roxas," Axel beckoned, his eyes gleaming like a madman's, "Don't say you've never wanted to go moonlight skinny dipping!"
"Not when it means running naked through the whole damn camping area, no!"
Office
"Geez, I'm only working here for the summer," Roxas mumbled.
"Oh don't tell me you haven't got any fetishes," Axel purred, pulling Roxas closer by the tie around his neck.
Impression
Roxas sat on the toilet with his head in his hands. There was still cake in his hair and his sensible black tie had gone missing altogether, Axel observed as he leaned against the bathroom stall.
"C'mon, it's not that bad," he tried to comfort. Roxas merely grunted as a reply.
"So you had a little rundown with the catering cart? Accidents happen," Axel waved dismissively. Roxas missed the gesture, what with his hands still over his eyes apathetically. He just gave another grunt as a reply.
"Besides, it's not like it was the only cake of the party! Well okay, it was probably the biggest," he added as an afterthought.
Roxas moaned.
"You didn't even hit the head manager with it. Well, badly, anyway. His assistant took the most of it."
Roxas whimpered.
"Just think positively," Axel leaned to pat the boy cheerfully, though he took care to avoid all the spots covered with cake. "At least you left a real impression on them all!"
Air
"Baby, no, you can't do this to me! I need you baby, like, like fish!"
"Fish?" Roxas mouthed silently.
"Like fish needs water!" Demyx continued, giving Roxas a glare. "Like a drowning man needs-"
"Coconuts?" Axel suggested.
"Coco-what? No, oxygen! Drowning man needs oxygen!"
"Why coconuts?" Roxas wondered while Demyx kept crooning lame allegories on the phone. Axel shrugged.
"They float?"
Silence
It was in the noisy commotion of the airport that Roxas found the eye of the storm that was constantly raging in his head. So he wrapped the surprised redhead in his arms and kissed him without sparing a single thought to the masses of people around them.
Emergency
"This is an emergency!" Roxas panted, grabbing Axel by his collar.
"This is?" he blinked amusedly.
"Yes!" Roxas insisted, "I haven't been this horny since I saw Leon humping up Cloud in the gym's dressing room last month!"
"Okay, I understand the seriousness of the situation," Axel chuckled while he was being dragged to the nearest available flat surface for some serious sex.
Realization
I must honestly be in love with this guy, Axel thought sourly as he ploughed through the sleet to get Roxas some cough medicine.
Shadow
Sometimes Roxas still got the feeling he was just a watered down version of his brother. Where Sora laughed he smiled. Where Sora ran he walked. Where Sora fumed and yelled he just sulked and moped. But one thing there was where Roxas beat his brother incontrovertibly.
Axel caught the giggling brunette in a headlock and ruffled his hair affectionately. He let go and Sora shoved him, still laughing. Axel shoved him back, then jumped out of the way and it soon formulated into some sort of weird game of tag. Roxas stood on the sidelines all the way, watching the two ass around with a sour expression on his face. He wasn't even sure which one he was more jealous of, his long-missed older brother or his long-term love-interest. He decided he wanted to punch them both for being so wrapped around each other and ignoring him completely.
Sora could get slightly possessive. But boy, when Roxas got jealous, he got jealous with a force of thousand burning suns.
Nail
"Fsking frggin fskh ff fkh! Fkhh!" Roxas not-quite cursed, performing the age-old dance of 'I Just Hit My Own Finger with a Fucking Hammer and It Bloody Hurts'.
Kairi watched the blonde jump around in pain with a very unimpressed expression.
"You're not supposed to hit your own nail, you understand?" she rolled her eyes. And the guys couldn't let her use the tools because she might get hurt. Geez...
Envelope
Even though he was just as excited and nervous as Axel when the letter from the Medical School arrived, even though he cheered and smiled and said "Told you were fretting for nothing" as Axel laughed and spun him around… Roxas still felt like a piece of him had been torn off the moment Axel opened the envelope and grinned like he'd just won a goddamn lottery.
Saint
Yeah well, Roxas figured, he sort of had the right to sulk about it. Not that Axel noticed anything since he was already fast asleep. But he hadn't gotten laid for weeks, and when his long-distance boyfriend finally had the time to even see him face to face, he was too friggin' tired to actually do anything. So Roxas crossed his arms over his chest and listened to Axel's deep breaths in irritation. He was pretty sure if he'd write to the Pope he'd get a commendation or something for the sheer fortitude he showed by not jumping his death-tired boyfriend's bones.
Fall
"Ah! Ah! Nnnah!" Roxas panted vigorously, gasping and whimpering every time Axel pushed deeper inside him. His legs were bent on Axel's shoulders in a way that should have been uncomfortable but really wasn't, the position actually making the physical sensation for Roxas somewhere on the border of hurt and heavenly and oh oh oh God Axel, right there, Axel, Axel, Ax-
"Hey, you're going to fall off," Axel rasped and stopped, trying to fix their position on the bed. Roxas nearly had a seizure.
"Oh my fucking God who CARES? Keep GOING!"
Wound
Roxas gave Axel one last cold look over his shoulder before walking out of the house for good.
Ouch, Axel thought distantly, hand gripping the fabric over where his heart was. This one's not gonna heal easy, is it?
Knife
Xion pattered over to Axel, sitting charily next to young man. He was grinding his teeth together so hard she could hear the noise it made.
"If I could decide on it," he gritted, grasping the fabric of his shirt over where his heart was located, "I would carve this fucking organ out and throw it as far away as possible. Bloody useless thing, whatever good it has ever done to anybody?"
Xion patted his head and took a note of hiding all sharp kitchen appliances in the house.
Broken
Naminé had seen many broken people in her life, but so far she had not seen anyone as pitiful as Axel right then, sobbing hysterically against Demyx's shoulder on cold tiles of the bathroom floor.
Shareholder
"Can I buy stocks for this?" Reno tugged at Roxas' collar with a smirk. Roxas grimaced and tried to push the obtruding redhead off him.
"Sorry, but someone else already owns the majority," he replied, twisting off successfully. Reno caught him by his wrist and gave a conquering smile.
"Oh, I wouldn't need to own all of it, just have a little taste of the pie...chart," he smiled, tongue between his teeth. Roxas shivered slightly but yanked his arm free anyway with an angry glare. Reno's laughter followed him out of the doorway.
Identify
Roxas couldn't look as the white sheet was carefully pulled off the body, turning his gaze instead to the plain white walls of the mortuary. He calculated the distance to the sinks in the other end of the room, imagining he could smell the stink of burnt flesh even though the body had been kept in cold. He didn't turn even as Sora's grim voice spoke, words dropping heavy like cement in the silence of the room.
"Axel has green eyes. His are brown."
Roxas didn't turn but his shoulders sagged in sudden and oh so welcome relief.
Curtains
"What happened to our kitchen curtains?" Demyx cried out. Axel coughed discreetly and poked at Roxas' side with his elbow. Roxas frowned and poked him back. They had a brief yet surprisingly vicious silent struggle which one should come up with a suitable explanation for the torn textile hanging mournfully from the rack.
"The, um, vacuum cleaner got stuck in it," Roxas explained feebly. Demyx stared him with a sceptical look and Axel rolled his eyes.
"And Roxas tripped over the vacuum when he tried to untangle it," he added.
"Yeah 'cause Axel pushed me," he retorted, giving the redhead a glare.
"I was only trying to help!"
"If you two have started having sex again and are damaging the kitchen furniture in the process, please just say so," Demyx snapped and the pair at least had the decency to look ashamed. "Those were my curtains!"
Shower
"No- Axel- You- Ass!"
"Oh come on, don't be a bore," Axel laughed, dragging the struggling blonde into the bathroom. "Showering clothes on is said to be good for a relationship."
"Says who?" Roxas demanded to know, kicking as mightily as he could.
"Oh, I don't know, some sex therapist somewhere. Come shower with meee," Axel crooned in his boyfriend's ear.
"I don't see anything sexy in getting my pants wet, I'd rather- GYAK!"
"Too late!" Axel declared triumphantly, the rush of water almost –but not quite- drowning Roxas' vicious curses.
Launch
"Nnnhohgod," Roxas keened, clinging at Axel's neck with one hand and hips with the other. His wet jeans clung dangerously low, uncomfortably heavy with the saturation. Axel was pressed against his back, biting and kissing his neck while rubbing his nipples through the thin fabric of the wet shirt.
"Shower-sex wasn't that bad idea after all?" the redhead mumbled, capturing Roxas' earlobe gently with his teeth.
"Oh hell yes it is," Roxas moaned, "Aren't your pants heavy at all?"
"You don't know just how heavy," Axel rumbled, grabbing the front of Roxas' pants and grinding against his butt, both men moaning harshly at the sensation.
"Well, take them the fuck off?" Roxas suggested.
"Your wish, my command."
Shower- sex turned out to be quite a nice idea. Once rid of wet jeans, that is.
Height
"Why the hell you have to be so damned tall," Roxas grumbled, standing on the tip of his toes and hanging very undignified from the man's neck as Axel just laughed and refused to bend at all.