Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

A/N: I don't know. I was listening to Lady Gaga's Applause on repeat at 4AM. Kind of a self reflection of sorts, regarding my current situation in life? Listen to M83's Splendor to set the mood for this piece.

...This might quite possibly be the shittiest thing I've written for 8/13.

-x-

Nostalgia's For Geeks

-x-

Down by the docks is where we found ourselves.

We would lie underneath the waning moon that night as the crashing waves lapped the sides of the warm, cracked cement beneath our thighs. The rumble and rush of cars across the road overhead didn't bother us any. It provided background noise to the apathy that we shared together on that very night.

We stopped by a shitty corner store on our way over here. Axel said we should buy some beer to commemorate such a momentous, yet mundane occasion. He removed a can from the wrinkled, black plastic bag and cracked it open at the first sign of dusk. Foam rose over his fingers, spilling onto the top of the can and caked his hands in the lukewarm liquid. He quickly passed it off to me and I accepted it as he licked the foam off his fingers and reached for a can of his own. We sat in silence watching the sun dip below the horizon, partially obscured by the buildings in the distance.

"Betcha don't know why the sun sets red."

I looked up at the hazy, red sky, "Why don't you tell me for the fifteenth hundred time?"

"Cause the color red always travels the farthest."

"…Or you could simply say that longer wavelengths of light reach your eyes before the shorter wavelengths do. Hence, more red and orange than blue or green." I said.

Axel shrugged, "Who's trying to get technical with these things?"

We sipped on our beer as the sky slowly darkened around us and the overhead lights began to come on. Axel cracked open his second beer but didn't drink it just yet. I glanced behind me and then turned back to Axel.

"Just us tonight?"

"Demyx is currently on his way to Los Angeles with Larxene, Zexion is at that post graduation shindig with his parents, Saïx doesn't come back until next week and Marluxia is still away on his little illicit love trip with Mr. Mansex. Xion … well, I'll let you guess what she's doing right now."

The empty can felt heavy in my hands and the aching pit in the bottom of my stomach seemed to grow, "She's going through with it?"

"Says getting pregnant was the worst graduation present she could have ever gotten." Axel said.

"…Did you ever find out if it was yours for sure?"

He shrugged, laughing sardonically, "…As if, Roxas. Even if it was, it's not like I'd want the little bastard shit. Me? A father? Are you fucking kidding me?"

I glanced at Axel, "She ended up being more trouble than she's worth."

"Ironic for you to say when it was you that introduced the two of us to one another." Axel commented. He paused in thought for a minute, but then knocked his can against my empty one and shrugged, "But I'll drink to the truth."

"What did you ever see in her?"

Axel shrugged again, biting on the tab of the beer can, "Well we did start out as fuck buddies, you know? Thought we'd give the relationshit thing a try and it completely blew up in my face." He turned to me, "We really didn't have much luck in the way of love during college, did we, Rox? Haven't heard you mention anything about Naminé since spring break."

I shrugged, "I thought we already established that she's a lesbian. She just needed me to prove what we already suspected. Nothing special to report there."

"Loves a piece of shit anyway." Axel muttered, stretching his arms overhead and slowly reclined onto his back, "Who needs it?"

"I don't know. Some people think it's a necessity."

"Thanks, but I'm thinking I'm better off alone for awhile. Sick of dealing with all the stupid bullshit that interaction with the human race brings," He kicked his legs idly against the concrete, "Cept for you, Rox. You're legit."

"Because I hate the world just as much as you do?"

"Yeah, we've both got a classic case of teen angst in our twenties." Axel replied, gripping at his chest in mock agony, "A problem we children of the new millennium just can't seem to shake."

"Twenty-something angst." I laughed, "Sounds really stupid when you say it out loud. But, really. Is there a set age where you have to stop moping about how shitty life can be?"

Axel shrugged, "You're asking the wrong person."

"You spent your college years in a permanent cloud of smoke." I reminded him, "Aren't you supposed to be the philosophical one?"

"I only philosophized when I had some girl's mouth on my dick," He replied, reaching into the front pocket of his jean's to remove his pack of menthols. He banged the pack into his hand and then took one out.

Axel turned to me and offered me the pack but I declined. "You know I only roll my own."

"You're just so European and sophisticated, Roxas." He lit up, "I don't even know how I got you down here to drink cheap and shitty canned beer with me tonight."

"Nostalgia, maybe?"

"Nostalgia? Meh, who needs it." He laughed, "We came down here on the last night before our high school graduation, too… didn't we?"

"Yeah. Just you and I like the last time."

"What? Worried you'd have to compete with my attention if more people came along, Rox? I know how much you were hoping Saïx wouldn't show up." He sat up again, shaking my shoulder in amusement.

"Get real. We all know it's the other way around." I slapped his hand away and rolled my eyes, "You like stirring the pot when it comes to him. I think you get off on tormenting people and fucking with their heads."

"Most people." He answered, pulling on the cigarette, "We all know I'm not a nice person, Roxas. Why do you think we're friends? A relationship built on shared misanthropy is the best kind of friendship, don't you know?"

"Yeah, I know all right." I reached for another beer, "So, what are we going to do with ourselves now that we have two useless degrees and a combined debt over 60k under our belts?"

"Drink ourselves into oblivion and let our parents take care of the rest?"

"Sounds legit."

We lapsed into silence again, Axel smoking his cigarette and me sipping on my beer. The sun was almost completely submerged beneath the horizon and I felt a longing for something else tonight. I turned to Axel who had closed his eyes, letting the smoke drift languidly from his mouth.

"I did something stupid last weekend."

He was quiet, pulling the cigarette from between his lips and looked off into the distance, "More stupid than what happened last time before we graduated?"

"I went up to the old bridge at three in the morning, climbed over the ledge and thought about dropping down." I shrugged, "It wasn't even so much like I was depressed. I just wanted to feel like I was alive. That something still scared me. I don't know, it was stupid now that I think about it. Seemed like the greatest idea at the time, though. Scare yourself shitless so you feel like you're alive. How moronic."

Axel pulled another cigarette out of his pocket and lit up, "I fucked Saïx when I went to go visit him last weekend."

"Any reason for that besides the need to put your dick into everything that walks?"

He shrugged, throwing an arm over his eyes, "Cause I like to put my dick into everything that moves."

"You know he's in love with you?" I said, "Has been even before you and me ever broke up. …Maybe even longer before that."

He shrugged his shoulders again, "Think I don't know that? This isn't the first time we've done it either… but it's the first time I'm telling you about it." Axel fiddled around with his cigarette, "He was never subtle in his disapproval of you from the very beginning. I remember his borderline possession and obsession when it came to me… always waiting for his chance to get into my pants when I was more interested in getting into yours." Axel laughed, "Where do you think I got the black eye from?"

"…How long has this been going on for?"

"All throughout college. Mainly during freshman year when you stopped talking to me. Why do you think I transferred out to come down here and go to school with you halfway through sophomore year?" Axel turned to look at me, "You started talking to me and I was looking to win you back again."

"You broke up with me remember?"

"I know." Axel sighed, "Stupid move. Seventeen year old me was thinking with his dick back then, forgive me."

"You still think with your dick."

"I've gotten better at telling it to shut up."

We both went quiet, listening to the rushing of cars passing overhead and the cicadas chirping noisily in the trees in the park on the other side of the underpass. I set my can down on my side and stood up as I stretched my arms over my head.

"You really weren't trying to kill yourself again?" He asked.

"No." I said, "I've been out of therapy for three years now, Axel. I'm not that fucked up in the head anymore."

"I never thought you were crazy. Misunderstood, maybe."

"I know."

He pulled on his cigarette again, "…I was your breaking point, wasn't I?"

"…Axel."

"It's okay if you admit that I was. I did some fucked up shit back then… still doing it now."

I shrugged, "It's in the past now."

"Ah, the past." Axel got up and advanced toward me to stand at my side, "The past is supposed to shape the future, isn't that right?"

"I don't think we should be ruled by our past mistakes, though."

"Nah, that's dumb." Axel said, "I believe it serves as reminder of the stupidity that we put ourselves through … something to never go back to. It's like a permanent slap in the face to remind us that we should have never turned around and looked back to begin with."

"Okay, Mr. Purple Prose."

"I was trying to be insightful."

"I didn't need all the flowery language. I get the point."

The wind picked up between us, carrying the scent of the ocean with it. Axel discarded his cigarette into the water below and crossed his arms over his chest, "…It's always been the two of us against the world… hasn't it, Rox?"

"You can say that," I replied, "Even when I stopped talking to you, you still found your way back to me, didn't you?"

"Guess I did." Axel said, "Can't believe four years have passed by so fast, though. Where the hell has the time gone? Shit's changed, but I still feel the same."

"Aren't we supposed to feel like this?" I asked, "Comment on how much time has passed and we've supposedly changed, but everything is the same as it's always been? I mean, how its the same stupid shit we've been dealing with since high school and all that junk?"

"Guess so." Axel shrugged, "Tonight feel any different than it did when we graduated high school?"

"I'm four years older and I can drink." I shrugged, "Not much of a difference now is there?"

-x-

We crossed the bridge to the other part of the city, me walking along the raised railing before the ledge with Axel holding onto my hand to keep me steady. He'd discarded the rest of the beer into the sea, saying the fish could get drunk and have a party for us. He didn't feel like drinking anymore and neither did I.

"I did tell you before that I'm glad it's just the two of us tonight, right?"

"I think so." Axel responded. He turned to look at me, "Guess I could say the same."

"This coming from Mr. Extrovert?"

He shrugged, "I don't like crowds all the time."

I felt the urge to laugh for some reason, "Huh, that's surprising."

"And just why do you say that?" He asked, genuinely curious.

"Are you kidding me? I couldn't get near you without trying to fight my way through throngs of people first."

"That's cause you're short."

I yanked him so he and I both stumbled near the railing on the edge of the bridge, "Wanna say that again?"

"What are you going to do? Kill us?" He asked, looking amused.

"Maybe." I replied, "But that's just more debt our parents have to dig themselves out of when we're gone. Even if we drop down into the water, our bodies have to wash up on shore at one point, don't they?"

"Ha, yeah… guess you're right."

I stepped back onto the railing and Axel grabbed my hand so we could start walking again.

"What time is it?"

"Past eleven."

I placed another foot in front of the other.

"Time is moving too fast."

"Always does."

He took a drag of his cigarette again and I stopped us. He let my hand go; I turned around and stepped down off the railing.

"What are we doing, Axel?"

He shrugged, "I think this is what people would call living in the moment or some stupid shit."

"Okay, well, what's the moment I'm supposed to be remembering?"

"Standing on a bridge with me and looking cool while I smoke this cigarette like a badass."

"…There is seriously something wrong with how your mind works."

He laughed and reached for my arm so he could link us together, "Maybe, but I don't think you would have it any other way."

-x-

Axel rolled into the grass, throwing his hoodie up over his head to act as a barrier between him and the earth. I lied down on the ground next to him so I could stare up at the sky. The view was better on this side of the divide anyway. I pressed my hands into a triangle above me, connecting my thumbs and index fingers together to act as a funnel for whatever I wanted to focus on.

"It's like a scope."

"Huh?"

Axel lit up his fourth—(fifth?)—cigarette of the night and nodded toward my hands, "What you're doing. It's like your scoping out whatever you want to look at."

"Hm, maybe. But I don't know what you can find in the sky. It's a limitless abyss at night, unclouded ethereal light in the morning." I responded, "Juxtaposing sides to the extreme, how can anyone ever find meaning in something with so much contradiction?"

"…Why don't you tell me, Roxas?"

"I was asking you since you were saying I was 'scoping' things out."

Axel blew smoke out the side of his mouth and shrugged, "It's like what you just said. What the hell can I find in a limitless sky? There's no direction, right?"

"Yeah. I guess … you just launch yourself into the sky and hope that you end up in the right place in the end."

"…That's pretty dumb."

"At least you'd end somewhere, Axel."

"This conversation is dumb."

"You started it."

"You were the one looking at the sky through your hands."

"You were the one that chose to comment on it."

Axel sighed, turning away from me and looked up at the semi-star filled sky above us. Light pollution was a bitch at times, "Gods, Roxas. Really though. What are we supposed to do with ourselves now?"

"Whatever we want."

"Do you know how massive the world is? How much shit we can accomplish in the next twenty … thirty… forty years? Why is society trying to rush us into some fixed niche when the world is so expansive and the future is always changing?"

"Don't know. But, I'm not in a rush to go nowhere, though. Think I'll stick around in this city for awhile and see what comes my way. Not the greatest plan, but I figure it's something."

"Think you could find some room for me while you stick around doing this nothing?"

I turned to look at him, "Just because we graduated doesn't mean I'm getting rid of you."

"Aww, Roxas. How sweet."

I pushed myself up onto my elbows so I could look at the city on the other side of the water, "...Just know that whatever it is that we decide to do... we'll stick together this time. I don't want another summer like the one right after high school."

"...Rox."

I turned to look at him, "Can you promise me that at least? It doesn't matter what we are or where we are for that matter. I just ...I just want to make sure we still talk like we used to. ...That we don't drift away from one another. That our relationship doesn't become what it was three years ago. I don't want you to feel like you can't talk to be about things, I..."

"What would you do if I told you I was an idiot for doing what I did all those years ago and letting you get away from me? For fracturing our relationship in the way that I did?"

I shook my head, "We can't go back to that."

"What if I were to tell you that I still loved you despite everything that's happened? No matter how much time had passed?"

"...I would hope you find someone else to love besides me."

The silence between us was so thick I could hear the burn of the cigarette cutting a jagged line through the space between us. Singing the corners and burning away the fog that covered that uncertainties that existed between us that night. There was a thickness in my mind that wouldn't clear no matter how much I tried to pull it out.

"What if I were to tell you that's impossible?"

"...I would tell you that it wasn't."

"What if in ten years I still feel the same?"

"...I would tell you to search for someone else for another ten years."

I took a deep breath.

"What if you're lying on your death bed and finally ascended to those pearly white gates and I'm waiting there to take your hand and-"

"Axel."

"It could happen. The world works in mysterious ways."

I curled up, drawing my knees into my chest and turning my gaze out to the blackened water again.

"I'll wait for you, Roxas. No matter how long it takes. I'll wait for you until you're ready again."

"Don't rest your entire life on one person, Axel."

"Weren't you the one that just said you didn't want our relationship to end up how it was before? That you wanted us to talk again and be in contact with one another despite anything that might happen?"

"I didn't mean like that and you know it."

"Well." Axel began, sitting up, "I guess I'll just have to keep trying then."

"Axel."

"But, let's not think of that for now, huh?" He stood up, dusting the grass off of his jeans and extended a hand toward me, "The night's young, Rox. Let's not spend the night dreaming up our unforeseeable future."

"Where are we going to go?"

"Dunno, we've got a whole city to explore, don't we?" He pulled me to my feet, but didn't let go of my hand, "Long's your by my side, does it really matter at this point?"

I looked down at our interlocked hands and then up at his face illuminated by the glow of the overhead lamp post and cancer stick glowing in the corner of his mouth. Maybe we couldn't go back to what we used to be, but we were fine in our present. ...And that's what mattered the most.

"No. ...No it doesn't."

He tugged my hand and we were off again.

"Then let's go."