Prelude to the Act

by Juukai

Pre Not An Act. Axel goes to Roxas to try and talk to him about the feelings he has for him, but doesn't realize he's sick. A 'how pyro won shorty' story that is one of two that helps set up Not An Act. Rated for Axel's mouth, not content. Oneshot.

Prelude to the Act by Juukai

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, just the order the words are placed in and the idea behind them.

Kingdom Hearts 2 Oneshot, Au so no spoilers.

Pairing: AkuRoku, the relationship between Axel and Roxas before Not An Act.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

I decided to wait it out in Roxas's room. The blonde had been avoiding me ever since I'd confessed my feelings and had been rejected. I almost felt like I was being punished for the emotions that I had no control over, and it really wasn't fair.

Tidus, the kid that was roommate to Roxas, was ignoring me expertly while tapping away on his laptop, supposedly getting some assignment done. I really didn't know the dirty blonde Blitz player, but he couldn't have been too bad since he was the one that let me in the room and was allowing me to await Roxas's return silently on his bed.

I stifled a cough, thinking that it was just nerves that were making me want to break the silence. I tend to get that way, hence why I get along with Demyx more often than not; neither of us can take an awkward silence for long. Not that Tidus probably would have been able to tell, he had earphones on and I could hear soft traces of the kid's music from my spot on Roxy's bed. Growing completely bored with the situation, yet too nervous to actually do anything about it, which was completely unlike me, I turned to look out the window closest to me perch. The night was clear and beautiful over the sparse tree tops. Considering the time of year, it was probably cold and crisp out there, especially since it tended to cool down after a storm, and we had just had one the day may have made others feel it necessary to bundle up, but I wouldn't really have to. I tend to run a little hotter than others. Even so, I had to wear a light jacket, which was currently sitting in a crumpled heap next to me where I'd thrown it after twisting it every which way to keep my hands busy.

The door opened, making me look up sharply, my shoulders set in the determination to keep from shrinking back against the glare I knew was going to be coming. Roxy had an icy stare that could cut right through a guy.

It took a moment of setting his book bag down and closing the door before he looked up and noticed me. There was a single second of shock before there was the expected death glare.

"Axel, what are you doing here?" He asked, back as rigid as mine probably was at this point.

"I came to talk to you," I answered, giving him a dark look, "and since you seem to be avoiding me every other time I try to talk to you, I figured here would be my best bet."

He muttered something that sounded like giving Tidus a list of idiots not allowed in their room anymore before stepping a bit closer to me so that the conversation could be a bit more private. I at least had the decency to get off of his bed and stand straight, which probably helped my situation out none since it only reminded him how tall I was compared to him. That or he was just giving me a continuous glare now.

"I'm not avoiding you, Axel." He said with an agitated sigh. "I just haven't wanted to deal with you on top of all of the school work that's getting piled up since it's nearly the end of the semester."

I snorted. So much for being this kid's friend of how many years? Two or three? "I'm sorry that my drama has gotten in the way of your school life." I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning one hip against his desk. I really felt like sitting again, even on the floor up against the wood if I had to, but I wanted to get this done and over with. It was apparent it wasn't going to go my way, but like I said, I'd known the kid two or three years… I couldn't just ditch that without trying to do something just because I had to go be an idiot and develop feelings for him that were beyond friendship.

I got another sigh, and Roxy at least looked a little contrite, rubbing his temples. "You know I didn't mean it like that. I'm just wondering why you decided you had to tell me right when things are getting difficult in class because Finals are coming up."

"I've been pretty obvious about it for a month now, Roxy. Not my fault you are as dense as a rock." Was that a pout in my voice? Nope, couldn't be. I don't pout.

Roxas shrugged, plucking at his checkered wrist band in a way that indicated he wasn't exactly comfortable either. He didn't say anything though, looking off to the side instead, his mouth clamped shut tightly.

"Look, Roxas," I said after a good long silence that even had Tidus wriggling in his seat from the tension in the room, despite the fact that his music was still going loud and strong. "I don't want what I said to mess up our friendship, okay? I mean, seriously, how many years have we been buds? And we even went to the same college for the same exact thing. It would be really stupid to throw that away."

I got the slightest hint of one of his little half smiles that usually made my heart beat a little faster. "Your right… but I mean, Axel, it's going to be a little weird. You'll be putting more into things than I will."

I turned away then, hating to be reminded of that fact. "That'll be my problem then, not-"

"Even right now you're blushing, Ax, and you don't blush easy," he interrupted, stopping me in my tracks.

I blinked stupidly at him for a moment before frowning. "I'm not blushing."

He stepped forward, touching my check in a way that I could feel was a pure gesture of trying to prove himself right, nothing more. My clues where the incredulous look on his face and the fact that he touched me with the back of his hand, just like my mother used to when she was checking for a temperature. "Then why are your cheeks hot and pink, huh?" His voice was stubborn, and he rose an eyebrow at me.

I hadn't noticed until his freezing cold hand touched me. "Maybe because your hands are like ice, short stuff." My breathing picked up a little with him so close. My little crush was obviously escalating.

There was a strange look in those deep blue eyes of his. "Axel, my hands aren't that cold." He touched them to my arm, trying to show me that he was about as warm as he usually was. Which confused the heck out me.

"Then what…" I coughed again like earlier, but this time it was a little more heart- and lung, let me tell you- felt. Roxas's chair was currently M.I.A. was my guess when he pushed me to sit on the floor, putting his hand on my cheek again, and then my forehead. This time it felt kind of good.

"Jesus, Axel, you're on fire," he hissed, looking a little worried now.

"No flaming jokes," I murmured, for some reason trying joke around with him as I moved my hand up to rub my head. Maybe it was to lighten up his mood. I hated when he got all worried about me, just like he hated when I worried about him.

He slapped my hand away, glaring. "I'm not kidding. Your temperature's really high, even for you." He noticed that I was breathing a bit heavy, and scrambled up to go digging around in some of his drawers. "Demyx dragged you out to go play guitar in the rain again yesterday, didn't he?"

"Our responsible Demyx? He would never," I leaned back against his desk, using his distraction to feel my warm skin for myself. And frowned upon discovering that he was right.

" Great, you're delirious," he rolled his eyes, jabbing a thermometer in my mouth. "Under your tongue. You bite it, you by me a new one."

I would have made a cheeky remark about why he even had one, but my mouth was obviously otherwise occupied. Instead I just smirked a little, leaning my head back against his desk and closing my eyes. When the stupid thing beeped, he took it before I could even get a look at the read out.

"Shit… How did you not know you were getting sick with a temperature this high?" I didn't even open my eyes, I could just feel and hear his scowl.

"I just thought I was stressing over coming to see you," I answered ridiculously honestly. I was starting to feel a little light headed. Damn Roxy for pointing it out. I might not have even noticed if it wasn't for him, and then I wouldn't have subconsciously known to feel crappy. Yes, it was his fault. Not mine for playing in the rain. Nope, all his.

There was a moment of rustling fabric, and then I thought he might have opened and closed something like a closet or the little mini-fridge that he shared with Tidus. Then there was a freezing cold on my forehead. I flinched away from it at first, not liking the sudden chill in the least bit. I'm a pyro, heat is just naturally my thing. I like snow and all that winter time stuff as much as the next guy, but just regular cold could kiss my ass on its way to hell.

"Fuck, Roxy, warn a guy!" I growled, sending a glare up at him. It was unusual to have to look up at him, and it only made that light headed feeling a little worse.

"Stop whining, Axel." Tidus was looking over at us with a raised eyebrow, and I had the urge to stick my tongue out at him.

Instead Roxas just reminded him, "you're Blitz Ball meeting down in the main hall started two minutes ago."

That cleared the room faster than talking about gay sex in front of the dirty blonde, and it didn't even have him disappearing with a blush. It was kind of a shame, really. But at least we were alone.

"Going to take advantage of me while I'm vulnerable?" I joked again, now holding the compress a bit more firmly against my skin. It was starting to feel good now, with the initial shock gone.

"I swear, that mouth of yours never friggen closes," he muttered darkly, sending me a look to match. "Alright you idiot, let's get you back to your room so that I can be free to shove pills down your throat and then go yell at Demyx." He grabbed under one of my arms, preparing to help hoist me back up. Hey, I was skinny, but for my height that didn't mean I weighed any less than him.

"Aww, Rox, I didn't know you cared," I snickered, working my feet under me before he actually started to pull. I wasn't an invalid. Yet, anyway. I will admit that I ham it up and act like a complete wuss when I'm to the point where I actually admit I'm sick.

"Alright, on three Axel." He ordered firmly once he thought he had a good hold on my arm. "Three!" Unfortunately it wasn't good enough.

Things got a little fuzzy for a moment after I pushed myself up on three. I hadn't thought that it was going to work too well, but I thought that Roxy would help me get the leverage I needed in the beginning to get myself up all the way. Oh boy, was I wrong. I didn't remember the fall, hell I didn't remember ever hitting my full height, but apparently I got close, because I had gotten high enough that when I tipped forward I had enough momentum going to take us both down.

My head didn't appreciate that much, and a dull throbbing reverberated in my skull from the landing. I groaned, admittedly a little pitifully, reaching up to touch my head with hesitant fingers. I brushed the skin of Roxas's cheek in my attempt, and my eyes shot open. He was blinking up at me in shock (and maybe just a hint of annoyance). I froze, swallowing shallowly as we just stared at each other for a moment. At that point I was a little glad to have the fever. A, it put me in this position, and B, it covered up the blush that would have been staining my cheeks any other day.

"Axel," he said, almost whispered, after a moment, "you're kind of heavy."

Internally I yelled at him for ruining the mood. My brain to mouth functions seemed to be a little off, though, since I didn't say a word even as I slowly moved off of him. This time he put one of my arms around his shoulders and hooped the closest arm to me around my back and secured his hold almost on my hip. I turned to look at him, but he was stubbornly staring at the door.

"One more try and then I'm calling a hauling team to come and get you," he muttered, pushing harshly up to try and get our combined weight on our collective feet.

Surprisingly enough, it worked. I had another moment of dizziness like before, but he just bowed forward slightly to accommodate it and spared us from falling to the hard floor again. "Thanks, Roxy," I mumbled, walking as best as I could when I was sort of hunched over him like that as we made our way inch by agonizingly slow inch to my room. I was just thankful that I didn't live on a different floor. Stairs would have killed the both of us at that point, and the mocking would never cease.

Roxy kind of hurried us along, which was annoying. I was hunched over his short self and I had a fever, which both slowed me down. I reminded him of this, and he "accidently" kicked me when we were almost to my door.

"Be gentler with sick people," I whined, pulling my keys out of my pocket. I didn't have a roommate, so there was no use asking to be let in. I'd scared the last one away, and after that I'd just sprung for a single since Roxy was rooming with Tidus already and refused to switch, which ended up being a pretty good thing around my confession time.

"I'll show you how I really treat sick people in a minute if you don't hurry up and unlock the door." He did look like he was straining a little with me. I don't know why he was making me put so much weight on him; I was doing better with the whole standing thing now that we'd walked a little, but it was just so much easier not to argue. But I still took revenge in the form of taking my dear sweet time to get the lock undone and the door open.

"Jerk," he growled, kicking the door open even wider and leading me over to one of the beds in the room. I had a bunch of crap covering most of the one I didn't use, but I had a light blanket over it so nothing would stain the mattress very easily for me to get charged for. He dumped me, almost literally, on the one that had a mass of sheets and blankets on it (the one I use). I wasn't the cleanest guy in the world, and never have been. I opened my mouth to gripe at him about that, too, but his hand in my pocket stopped me. I froze completely as I felt him reaching around, and I'm pretty sure that there was a small explosion of heat in my cheeks. He was still refusing to look at me, though, and when he finally found what he was looking for, he quickly pulled his hand away. The weight of my phone in my pocket was gone, and I looked up at him to see him flipping it open and clicking a few of the buttons.

He finally put it to his ear and tapped his thigh impatiently as it rang.

"Reno?" Fuck. "It's Roxas. No, you're idiot of a son isn't in any serious trouble, but I need to know what place around here takes your insurance." There was a break in the talking here, and I could only imagine what my father was asking him. "Demyx took him out in the rain again to play their guitars, most likely. We had a pretty good storm yesterday, and that's usually what they do. Now he's got a pretty high fever and it sounds like he's probably getting a cough, too." This time when he paused I could almost hear dear ol' Dad speaking loudly into the phone. I fell back onto my bed, not really wanting to think about what I'd have to deal with next time he visited just for this.

Roxas wrote something down and hung up the phone not long after, and then he shoved some pill or another at me and left. I stared down at the disdainfull little things for a while and wondered at the chewing out Demyx was probably getting if he wasn't sick. But since Zexion should have been there, he probably would get saved at some point. His roommate never really let anyone get too mad at Demyx. Not in his presence, anyway. There was some coughing done while Foxy-Roxy was gone, but nothing too bad until I tried to take the pills and the water went down the wrong tube. I was really coughing after that, and, of friggen course, that's when the short blonde object of my affections walked back in. He glared for a moment, and I was internally hoping that it was more at the coughing than at me, and then sat down on the bed beside me. Albeit on the very edge of the bed, but it was on the bed with me, okay?

"I'm taking you to the doctors tomorrow." He said firmly, looking at the ground, or what was left of it with my dirty- and some clean sprinkled in- clothes strewn all over it. His hand stuck out at me suddenly, and I blinked at it for a moment.

"Uh… thanks, Rox…" Oh was I tempted to just slap his hand and call it a lazy high-five, except he would have then slapped me and I prefer to keep that from happening most days. Call me crazy. So instead I just stared at the hand.

With an agitated sigh he made it seem like I was too much of an idiot to understand what he was doing. "Axel, I don't have a car, remember? I drove here with you. So I need your keys so I can take you tomorrow."

I shrank back from him like he had slapped me. "You want my what?! I can't just give you the keys to my baby. Nope, not in this lifetime."

I then got his 'hell-to-pay' look. "Axel, hand them over or there will be hell to pay." See? Told ya. I know that look.

I reached in my pocket, glaring at the palm of his hand. "You scratch that new paint job, and I'll re-teach you the meaning behind those words."

He smirked. "If you're threatening me over the well being of your truck, you can't be too bad off. Now go to sleep."

After he left I stayed up for as long as my tired, hot (and no, that wasn't in the egotistical sense!) body would allow playing video games to spite the little piss ant. Which was a whole of thirty minutes. And then I zonked out until he came pounding on my door the next morning to wake me up. I could tell that little cough I had last night was a lot worse. It hurt a lot fucking worse today. He unlocked the door and let himself in, and it took me a minute to remember he had my keys, so that was indeed possible. He just looked at me, shook his head, and pulled me off towards the showers.

"If you wanna see me naked, Rox, you just gotta say so," I muttered, holding my head.

"Shut up, Axel," he growled, and if I wasn't seeing things I could have sworn for a minute there that his cheeks turned pink. He left to let me get clean on my own, only coming back in with clothes and a towel. Somehow he even managed to find some of the few clean clothes that I had left, which was miraculous. He was waiting out in the hall for me when I finally finished. He forced me to get my hair into some semblance of a maintainable mass by threatening that he would do it, even while I complained at him that I was ill and he needed to treat me better. He talked while I finished getting ready to go with necessities like my cell phone and wallet, and told me that Demyx was just fine being his bubbly self. Not so much as a sniffle. That little bastard.

He drove us to the doctor, and that quack poked and prodded me. And his stethoscope thingy was really fricken cold, which put even more points against him. Not even any of the nurses were hot to ease my suffering! Oh, how I hate doctors and their offices of hell… A cold hell, at that.

He gave me a prescription for some medicine or another, and Roxy delt with all the check out stuff. I went out and waited in my beautiful truck with its brand new paint job of beautiful flames with the heater turned up. In my defense, it was a little chilly out. Roxas even had his checkered jacket on. Which was weird, because it was only like… the middle of October. It wasn't supposed to get cold yet.

He finally came out, waving the prescription slip at me until I took it and started the car. He was frowning, which couldn't mean many good things for me. "What's with the look?" I have to admit that my throat was a little scratchy, so I'm sure it took him a second to hear me over the radio. Which is why I turned it off.

He glared at me for a moment, but I just stared back. Then he sighed and turned back to the road. We were driving now, off to go get my meds so I could act like a junky holed up in my room for a few days away from the general populace with no real good food. Well, that was Roxies plan, anyway. I was going to buy me plenty of bad-for-me food at the store to fix that.

"He thought we were a couple," he mumbled even lower than I had spoken.

It took me a second, but then I broke out into a pretty good laugh. Which really hurt my throat, by the way. But that didn't stop me. The blush that was forming on his cheeks and just how he was all pissed because of it and pouty was funny, even if it hurt a little to be A laughing and B have him so angry when that had been indeed what I was going to talk to him about last night.

"Shut up, Axel," he growled, jagging at my ribs with his elbow. "It's not funny."

I reigned myself in to a huge grin and kept quiet for the rest of the ride to the store. Roxas grumpily wandered off at some point on my way to the pharmacy, and I was chuckling when I placed the prescription. They said it would take roughly twenty minutes, so I wandered off into the store to get the previously mentioned junk food essentials. I was just paying the cashier with my meds in hand when Roxy finally found me again. He had a couple bags himself, but I shrugged and handed over my precious money with a grimace. They were charging me a freakin' fortune for the bottle of cough syrup that promised to be disgusting. It supposedly had something else in it to make the fever go and stay down, but I was past caring. I was feeling like crap for being out so long and spending money I knew I'd hear from Pops about.

I gotta say that those next few days sucked. I got worse before the nasty ass purple cough syrup started working, and it got to the point where for a day I couldn't even speak. Which was the worst part. All the comments I wanted to impart upon Demyx when the idiot came over to visit and when Roxas came to my room to brood and force feed me soup, which were what the bags from the store had been full of. I hated the stuff he picked out, but the warmth felt nice on my throat and he cared enough to get it for me and make sure I ate it.

It was when I could talk again that he started spending a little less time there. (Admittedly, it was because I picked on him for being all silent-emo before.) He still made me eat that gross soup, only now he had to listen to me whine about it, too.

"Axel, for the love of all that is holy, just shut up and eat." Roxas groaned finally on his latest visit with some warmth broth that wasn't so bad. It was chickeny and pretty tasty, actually.

I tipped the bowl and slurped the soup extra loud just to annoy him. I saw his eyebrows scrunch up in his agitation. With a sigh he stood up and took the plastic bowl from me. "I'll be back tonight with some more. At least you eat all of this kind."

"That's because this isn't that crap-in-a-can you were feeding me before. This is the grade A can stuff." I smirked, and as he went to walk away, I grabbed his wrist.

He looked down at my hand, then back at me. "What," he asked finally.

"Coming back later, right?" I asked him, just to make sure. Yeah, I picked on him, but make no mistake that I loved the attention, especially coming from him. I am usually an attention whore, which is why being an actor fits me so well, but it's always been different with him. Even before I realized my own crush one smile from him would mean more to me than all the lights and applause than any stage ever could.

He rose an eyebrow at me. "I told you I was, Ax."

I grinned, rubbing the back of my neck with the hand that wasn't holding his. (Got that right, I was still holding it. If he wasn't pulling away, neither was I!) "It's a date, then, Foxy Roxy."

He was completely still and quiet for a moment, and I was afraid that I'd pushed things a little too far or maybe made a mistake in saying that, considering the conversation we'd been having when he had to go ahead and make me realize I wasn't feeling so hot. Then a wicked smirk crossed his face. "Axel, I expect a date to mean you're spending money on me and you're wearing clothes other than those shirts Reno gets you for your birthday." I wasn't exactly sure how I should interpret that, and so he bent down to my level and whispered in my ear, "I'll be waiting for you in the courtyard on Friday, flamer."

I'm pretty sure I was blushing like a school girl, because he was cackling pretty evilly when he closed the door to my room. But I'm pretty sure I was smiling like an idiot, too. Who wouldn't? I had a date with a hot little blonde, and if that wasn't incentive to get over this damn cough or cold or whatever, then nothing was.

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After that Friday many more a date was planned and executed with perfection. And in less than a month we were happy together. He moved in with me in my dorm room, and life was amazing. We made many a plan for the summer, since we would both be going home to Twilight Town to see our families, to go and try to join one of the acting troupes in the town. Possibly even re-rent that old apartment I'd had before I left this year. And when we left, I took him with me when I got the apartment. I took him to my weekly family dinners Pops had made into a tradition when I'd moved out. I dragged him out on errands with me simply because I could.

I took him to visit my sister's, Ariel's, grave when I went to go pay my respects with Pops on her deathday, and we all shared a bottle of peach wine, which had been her favorite since the day Reno had declared the two of us old enough to drink in the house at 14 (as long as we didn't get drunk. He would have rather we drank where he could see us, since he knew that before long it was going to be some big game for teenagers to sneak out and do it anyway.) Rufus, Pops' boss, showed up a little after we did with some of her favorite food that we all had a little of before leaving the rest with the last bit of the wine leaning up against her tombstone. (We did this twice a year; on her birthday and on what we called her deathday. Just like we would do for anyone else in the family or any close friends we all had that would pass away.) I knew our biological mother would show up after we left to have her time alone. She never really tried to get in on the family time, since she'd only had us as a service to Reno.

Roxy and I talked about Ariel for the first time, even though I'd been friends with him for ages. She'd died when we were fifteen, and being the older brother that always protected her made her death hard for me. (I was only older by minutes… we were twins, but she had always let me pretend that I was a few years older, since I looked it when you put us side-by-side.) From potential boyfriends, from the little bitches in school, the monsters under her bed when we were little… I missed her so much in those first years that even when I was in a room full of people I could still feel alone. She'd died in a stupid accident, some idiot hadn't gated his yard or tied up his huge dog, and one day we walked by and it snapped… And then we were at the hospital. I'd gotten bitten too, but it would just leave a nasty little scar on my back. It had gotten her in the neck, nearly tearing her to ribbons while simultaneously nearly bleeding her out. Pops was seven kinds of torn up for years, and that was why he'd always been so determined that we be close, and why he'd always been so protective of me. He'd almost had a panic attack, in his own way, when I told him I wanted to move out, and then again when I told him that my school was going to be so far away. I had to promise to see him a lot, and that I'd come back on each anniversary to spend the weekend with him.

Those months at the school and the first one home with him were the happiest times in my life. Even Reno was surprised at how happy I was whenever we had those dinners that Rufus was showing up to more and more often. Guess both Pops and I were redheads that preferred blondes with blue eyes.

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