Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, or any characters, places, or items appearing in the Kingdom Hearts game series, and I do not receive payment for the use of these materials. I do not own any lyrics found in this fic and I do not receive payment for their use. If lyrics are used in any chapter, I will cite the artist to whom they belong at the end of the chapter.
Summary: Axel's the next Naked Cowboy, Roxas drives a hearse, Kairi's got issues, Sora has ADD, and Riku's just retarded. When love threatened the way things were, they didn't know what to do. At that age, safety was everything. Who had the guts to love?
Pairings: RikuSora, eventual AxelRoxas, some SaixKairi.
Genre: Humor/Romance
Rating: T for language.
Son of the Moon
Chapter one: 'I'm comin' out of my cage And I've been doing just fine'
~*~
"It's
funny how you just break down,
Waitin' on some sign.
I pull up
to the front of your driveway,
With magic soakin' my spine.
Can
you read my mind?"
—The Killers, "Read My Mind"
~*~
It was a cheerily cliché morning—the air was cool and crisp and it was still too early for the sun's rays to damage Roxas' tired, bloodshot eyes. He was sitting in his car in the student parking lot, staring absently into the Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand. The steam was wafting into his face.
It was too early. It was too god damn early.
Of the few cars currently in the school lot, Roxas' was definitely the most unique. And by unique, you know that every other student made fun of him for it—except his friends, minus Axel, who made fun of him anyway. The quasi-functional blond had a fine car—lots of space in back, side and rearview mirrors, a steering wheel, tires, and everything. Hell, he had a mini-fridge, rug, and a couch bolted down in the back. Other than a toilet, sink, and microwave, he could live in that car. But that wasn't the problem.
The problem was that Roxas drove a hearse.
Roxas drove an f—ing deathmobile.
Wherever he went, people expected there to be a dead body. This put a considerable cramp in his style.
That was the problem. That, and poor mileage.
That, and being utterly useless for driving friends—plural: friends—around.
But Roxas wasn't thinking about any of this—after all, he was currently steeped in the daily teenage morning stupor. He was vaguely aware of a low-flying airplane overhead. As the minutes passed, he slowly gained presence of mind and feeling returned to his body. Roxas could actually see what he was looking at, and then he realized that covering his windshield was a thick, opaque layer of mud.
Roxas stared—conscious, this time. What looked like a brush pressed against the window in a sweeping motion over the lower right corner. Someone was still painting more mud onto the glass. There were little gaps in the brown layer through which he could see bits of deep, fiery red.
"AXEL!!" The resounding shout spread across the parking lot, through the neighborhood, and into the sky—and you can bet that low-flying plane heard it, too.
The man he suspected was Axel froze, and then Roxas heard a thud onto the hood of his car, a tumble, and then a meatier thud onto the pavement.
Roxas got out of his car and sidled around to the other side. It was Axel. Even without the telltale hair, Roxas would have guessed it was him, because, as everyone acquainted with the Deathmobile Driver knew, the blond freak had ESPN. Hell, he had ESPN 2.
It was still too early for Roxas to realize that ESPN, 1 and 2, were television channels, not an ability to gain information by transcending the mortal senses.
But that was beside the point. Axel was lying on his side in the fetal position, moaning up a storm. There was a mud-slicked foam brush next to him and a bucket of mud on the hood. Roxas waited patiently; he had his coffee to occupy him. He sipped it with faintly sadistic satisfaction.
By the time Roxas was holding an empty cup, Axel had recovered. The redhead was lying on his back, staring up at his friend like a wide-eyed loon.
"Damn, Roxas, why'd you scare me like that?" Axel whined, feeling his head for lumps.
"WHY WERE YOU PAINTING MUD ON MY GOD DAMN WINDSHIELD!?"
Axel winced. He said, as though to apologize, "Well, if you hadn't jumped to conclusions so quickly, I would've painted the rest of it to match!"
The redhead grinned and hopped to his feet. He grabbed the brush and bucket.
"What the Hell, Axel?"
"Glee Club is having a car wash after school today to raise money. If the students' cars aren't dirty, they won't bother."
Axel was one of the senior, most active members of the Glee Club.
"So you're taking care of that problem for them, I see."
Roxas' face did not display the same cool rationality and general cheer that Axel's did—the blond's face read something more like 'I am the best friend of an ass-hat who looks like a burning tree.'
He sighed. "How much does it cost?"
"Five dollars, right here, right after school."
"Great."
Axel then turned and made for the car closest to Roxas', which was a blue Honda belonging to the class president, who also happened to be a member of the Glee Club. Roxas caught up to the fool. Axel grinned gleefully at him.
"My partner in crime?"
"It's bound to be funnier when it's someone else's car."
Axel set the bucket down on the hood of the blue Honda and fished around in his pocket. He tossed his car keys to the blond.
"I have more buckets and brushes in the trunk of my car. I'm running low and I wanna make this thing a chocolate frosted cake!"
Roxas obediently went and returned with the extra brush and bucket and began painting the side windows while Axel covered the windshields. They worked together in companionable silence, like two crusaders working to fulfill a sacred oath, then moved on the other four cars in the parking lot before anyone saw them. The redhead and the blond agreed to resume their noble work during their shared free period after lunch.
Hours after they parted, Roxas still wondered why Axel was wearing spurs.
Meanwhile, a certain female redhead was in the backstage of the school theater. She was messing with the sound effects and replacing the music tapes with audio recorded from porn...
(XXX)
Mrs. Barillo had two blessings in life: a natural gift for math of all sorts and a talent for teaching. Unfortunately, she chose to become a math teacher. Math teachers will almost never successfully transmit their passion for their subject to students because most of their students think math is boring, frustrating, or impossible, and the lucky math-minded few think math is uninteresting and straightforward.
Nice choice, Mrs. Barillo.
Sora was one of the lucky math-minded few. He was good at algebra, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry, and he liked punching out formulas and processes like a robot. In gym class, Sora's only blessing was swiftness and relative strength, but in math class he was a well-oiled machine.
Sora was not a nerd for four reasons. First, Sora did not play Dungeons & Dragons or Magic the Gathering. Second, he was cute. And he was friends with Riku, who was, like, an A+ cool. Sora, other than the intelligence thing, was relatively cool—a B or B-. However, by association, Sora was a B+. And that made him happy, because no one would give a swirly to a B+, nor would they lock him in his locker, tape him to a wall, or steal his book bag and throw it in the dumpster.
But being perpetually accompanied by someone of Riku's stature, coolness, and muscles also helped.
Sora was taking three advanced placement courses that year and was hoping for a nice scholarship from a place like Hikari University. (Author's Interjection: I love how all high school/college/university names in KH fanfics always seem to be something like Destiny, Hikari, or Kingdom.) He had reason to hope for such a scholarship because he was, somehow, apparently, a third Native American. He couldn't see it, his mother couldn't see it, and none of his friends could see it, minus Axel, who said he could see if when he turned his head to the side and squinted.
He was also good at drawing and was toying with the idea of becoming an architect. He hoped it paid well.
Sora glanced at Riku, who sat next to him in most of their classes together. His silver-haired friend was staring vacantly out the window. Riku was better than Sora at a number of things, like sports and earning the most coos from girls when shirtless. He was on the school soccer team and looked good running around a field. He was handsome and knew when to shut up. Riku was also intelligent, except for his massive brain farts, which usually averaged at five times a month.
Riku's greatest shame, probably, was his brain farts, although he rarely showed it. Fortunately, most of his moments of epic fail happened in relative privacy, usually in the presence of Sora, other close friends, or family. Otherwise, the school population's Riku-reverence would have taken a sharp nose-dive.
Riku was lucky in this respect. Sora also considered himself lucky, because he was apparently very chummy with Fate, who benefited Sora with front-row seats to many of Riku's moments of humiliation.
Like when Riku was doing laundry and put his jeans in the refrigerator. Or when Riku forgot which America he was in on the map. Or when last month, out of the blue, Riku forgot Sora's name—the guessing game that ensued lasted for over half an hour. Or when Riku, Riku's family, and Sora were at a Japanese restaurant for Riku's sixteenth birthday. The waitress' native language happened to be Japanese, so Riku cleverly asked for a beer in her language with a perfect accent. She was surprised but genuinely delighted; she kept asking, "Bidu desu ka? Bidu desu??" Unfortunately, Riku's brain took that moment to forget that hai meant yes and reverted to French— oui.
But there were the sad moments of public epic fail.
Riku
was standing in front of Sora in line to board the airplane to
France. About twelve other students plus faculty stood behind them;
they were leaving for the annual class trip to Europe. Riku was
wearing a dark, button down shirt through which you could see his
muscles, a pair of black slacks, and cool shoes. The man ahead
of him moved forward. Riku stepped up and the female ticket clerk
immediately blushed. She eyed him appreciatively. Riku, quite the
tease, winked and smiled at her. She practically gushed. She
swallowed, held out her hand, and said in a mostly normal-sounding
voice. "May I see your ticket, please?" Riku
reached into his pocket and pulled them out. However, before he
handed them to her, his face fell. His expression contorted in utter
despair and pre-apocolyptic panic. He started sobbing and
wailed,
And that was the highlight of Riku's first European experience. That poor employee was in tears.
(XXX)
It was fourth period, the first of Sora's two frees. He had it with Roxas and Kairi. Or, for the past four months, just Kairi, because fourth period was also Hayner's free, which usually meant that he and Roxas bunked off to some dark corner of the school and screwed around. So Sora was instead immersed with Kairi's plans for sabotaging the school play.
"Kairi, I'm still surprised that they let you be chief tech," Sora said over his U.S. History notebook.
"I told you, they haven't caught me yet. I'm not the only one that works on all the theater productions, and I don't do it every time," the slender redhead said, somewhat exasperated.
She leaned in close and whispered, "I only do that when Pence, Fuu, or both are on. Anyway, my vision for Romeo and Juliet this year is a dramatic comedy. I just wish I could persuade the actors to deviate from the script..."
Sora snorted. "Oh yeah, it's too bad that all the people who bother to memorize their lines and show up for practice are serious about their art."
"I've actually gotten Fuu to help me out a couple of times, but she's never on stage."
"Fuu's lights or something, right? How'd you get her to help you?"
"She's quiet, she likes my Saix, and she's a bit of a kink. And after seeing her photo, Saix didn't need to be persuaded for a threesome."
The brunet stared at his friend, wide-eyed. Kairi beamed. She fingered the silver ring on a silver chain around her neck. The band had a relatively simple design, but a sizable cut amethyst that was always glittering prettily. The stone matched her eyes.
"Did Saix get that for you?"
"Yes!" Kairi squealed, then composed herself and smirked. "He thinks I'm brilliant."
Saix was twenty one and in college. Kairi was seventeen and a junior, like Sora.
Sora glanced at the clock over the door to the cafeteria and grimace slightly. He shoved the U.S. History notebook into his backpack and pulled out his trigonometry text. He might as well finish something during his free.
(XXX)
Axel went looking for Roxas during lunch and found him making out with Hayner. As usual, Axel went all weird on Roxas after that—he alternated between grumpy, austere, and demanding the blond's attention. Then, during the free after lunch, Roxas caused his green-eyed friend to slip and fall face first onto a freshly mud-painted car.
Roxas escaped with his life then, but now it was gym, and he had gym with Axel.
The gym teacher, an ironically round, squat man of forty, told them to run laps, Roxas knew what was coming. And bolted. He sprinted for dear life on his little legs while he heard the enraged howls of the best friend and part-time freak that was Axel barreling after him. At this speed, if the redhead caught up to him, it would end in an agonizing slide and tumble across the sticky gym floor. If he was lucky, Roxas would have enough skin left intact for skin grafts.
Axel was screaming at him, drawing the attention of the entire gym class. Roxas did not want this attention, and he decided, right then, that he didn't want to die. So the next time he was close to the door, he sprinted into the hallway, and all the way into the front parking lot. His maneuvers confused Axel enough to give the blond the six seconds he needed to unlock his car door, wrench it open, hurl himself inside, and lock the door again.
In the darkness of his mud-encased car, he heard Axel swearing at him and felt the car shake as the redhead slammed his hands on the car body.
Roxas hugged his knees to his chest and turned on the radio to drown out Axel's voice. It worked to an extent. He could still hear Axel a bit over the guitar notes, drum solos, and lyrics.
'And
I just can't look, it's killing me
And taking
control—
Jealousy, turning saints into the sea…'
Roxas hunkered down in his car even all traces of Axel, other than the mud, disappeared. The blond couldn't drive with his car like this, anyway. Besides, for all he knew, that idiot was hiding under his car.
He groaned when the bell rang. He needed to get his clothes and change—he didn't want to go home in his reeking gym clothes, and who knew what Axel would do to his clothes?
But Roxas perked up when, suddenly, he saw the spray of a hose and a white towel wiping his front windshield. Well, he perked up until he saw Axel's glowering face behind that blessed towel.
When Roxas car was stripped of its luxurious mud mask, Roxas dared to roll down the window. Axel thrust his clothes through the opening. The blond grimaced; his clothes were soaked through, but he took them. A minute later, he heard the passenger door open as his friend slid into the other seat.
"You're driving me home," Axel stated, arms crossed, still frowning.
"Dude, you live four blocks away from the school. And you soaked my clothes."
"So? Put them on, already. You reek."
"They're soaked!"
Axel grabbed his wet clothes and tore off Roxas' gym shirt. He then tried to strip Roxas of his pants, but gave up after much scrambling, swearing, and a rather hard kick in the face. Not content with this, Axel leaped out of the car, with Roxas' keys and gym shirt.
So the blond had little choice now. He glanced around and saw Axel's back leaning against the rear of the car. Roxas quickly shimmied into the wet, squelchy shirt. His pants were still on the passenger seat. Soaking the leather. Roxas growled and tossed them into the back.
He rolled down the window again.
"All right, ya prick, come back."
If Axel noticed that Roxas was still wearing his gym pants, he didn't comment. His mood suddenly took a turn for he better. He grinned, hummed along with the music, and fiddled with things he shouldn't have fiddled with—like the gear shift, which sent them shooting backwards at thirty miles an hour on a, fortunately, vacant street. By the time the black Deathmobile pulled up to Axel's house, Roxas was just a little ticked off. He booted the redhead out of the car, flipped him off, and drove away.
Axel spat out some dirt, picked himself up, and dusted off his long black coat, smiling cheerily.
He hummed a few lines from the last song playing on the radio.
'But
it's just the price I pay,
Destiny is calling me;
Open up
my eager eyes,
'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside!'
(XXX)
Meanwhile, someone's ADD medication was wearing off. And that someone was Sora. He didn't have ADHD, so he didn't turn into a ball of spastic energy. However, he did get a bit silly and giggly after his medication lost its effect. And when Sora was silly, that made Kairi silly, and eventually the bug infected Riku, as well. But the silver-haired male enjoyed some resistance, so was able to finish up his homework at the kitchen table while Sora and Kairi ran around his house, screaming, and hitting each other with toilet plungers.
Luckily for Riku, he was just packing his books into his bag when the two loons found the sugar.
Somewhere along the line, Kairi lost her shirt, jacket, and shoes and Sora tossed his shirt but gained a pair of leather gloves pinned over his ears. Riku didn't know why, but he correctly guessed that, as usual, there was no reason.
For some reason, those two always seemed to get naked at Riku's house. Kairi would take something off, inspiring Sora to do the same, until they looked like two college students messing around at a frat party. Sora didn't usually undress unless Kairi was there, though, and that worried Riku slightly.
The brunet and the slender redhead were currently downing a bag of Skittles.
Sora wrapped his arm around Kairi's shoulders and went over to bother their elder best friend. Sora started tickling him—he knew the silver-haired male's weak spots: juncture between collarbone and side neck, armpits, middle of the spine, and knees. Kairi locked Riku's arms behind his back, laughing, as he struggled to kick himself free. He nearly fell out of his chair, and then the entire thing almost fell over, and Riku and Sora landed on the floor.
Riku took his momentary advantage to toss the younger male over his shoulder and hustle out to the backyard. Kairi followed, giggling, and only laughed harder as Sora screamed "Traitor!" repeatedly. He squirmed, but half-heartedly, because he didn't want a face full of splinters or gravel, and he was kind of afraid of heights. But he knew what was coming and could only scream when Riku threw him into the pool.
Sora resurfaced, spitting out the foul-tasting water.
"Argh, it went up my nose!" he whined. Riku smirked.
"Watch out, Riku!" Kairi screamed, and then he felt a jet of ice-cold water on his back. Riku yelped, spun, and leaped into the pool, where he was ambushed yet again.
The two boys wrestled in the water, beating each other with waves. Kairi went inside and returned with large, solar-powered ipod speakers.
"Hey, Riku," the redhead called, "Can Saix come over?"
"Yeah, sure!" he replied, then swerved to avoid Sora's grappling arms.
Within twenty minutes, the sugar high was in full force. Kairi exacerbated the problem by bringing out more candy and sodas. She made herself a Shirley Temple cocktail and danced to her music on the pool deck. When Saix showed up, he joined her, and threw them both into the pool when they got too hot under the sun. But they continued dancing in the water, then up the pool steps, and onto the tan, stone pool deck again. Saix was one of the few guys Riku or Sora knew who would dance with his girlfriend as long as she wanted, no matter who was watching.
'I
said he doesn't look a thing like Jesus,
But he talks like a
gentleman,
Like you imagined when you were young—
When you
were young!'
The speakers roared out infectious songs with beats that made them want to move and cast out lyrics that made their minds whirl. The fading sunlight made them feel like they knew exactly what the singer really meant when he wrote the words, and that always felt good. Their heartbeats matched the sharp-shooting notes of melodic guitars and the snare drum burrowed into their bones, where it forced them to move like they wanted to.
Eventually, the songs grew quieter, and that was fine because they were all coming down from their sugar high. Saix and Kairi were either making out and rolling around in the grass somewhere, or they were making out on one of the pool chaises. Riku didn't care. He and Sora were still in the pool and they weren't thinking about anyone else.
Riku was crouched in the water, supporting Sora's lower back with one hand so he could keep his head afloat. Riku's other hand was on his friend's left ankle. The brunet pressed his feet tight against Riku's hips, using him as an anchor so he wouldn't drift.
They did this sort of thing since they were kids, although less often now. But as the sunlight took on a faint, reddish hue and the speakers crooned out something mellow, Riku really, really didn't want to move.
He watched Sora turn his head sideways, then straight, and spit pool water out of his mouth like a fountain.
Riku didn't know what to do. He wanted more, but if he tried for more, he might be left with nothing. And even if rejection wasn't a possibility, there was a trembling feeling in his stomach—excitement, anticipation—at the thought of touching Sora. The feeling tickled him, and he liked it. He didn't want that to go away just yet.
(XXX)
That was chapter one. Reviews are loved! Thank you!
I've never heard of Saix/Kairi, but when I was in the middle of writing this, I liked the option. He seems sweet, though he's a berserker.
Titles and bands:
"I'm
comin' out of my cage / And I've been doing just fine"
"And
I just can't look, it's killing me / And taking control— /
Jealousy, turning saints into the sea"
"But it's just the
price I pay, / Destiny is calling me; / Open up my eager eyes, /
'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside" —"Mr
Brightside" by The
Killers. Hot
Fuss album.
"I said he doesn't look a thing like Jesus, / But he talks like a gentleman, / Like you imagined when you were young— / When you were young!" –"When You Were Young" by The Killers. Sam's Town album.