Note: I am looking for a decent title for this story.Thanks.
"Roxas!" Roxas cringed, his mother's voice was agitated, and there would be no chance of his getting out to see his friends, not if that voice was directed at him. "Roxas!!" He sighed and moved to the door of his bedroom.
"What mom?" Roxas called down to her, standing in the doorway.
"Where is your brother?" she asked, still yelling across the house, but that was common, the whole family was together maybe once a week, even if all of them were in the house at the same time five times as often as that.
"I don't know" he sighed, at least she wasn't upset at him. "Maybe he is in his room." 'Not likely,' Roxas thought, 'He would have responded himself by now.'
"No, he hasn't come home from school yet!" Roxas' mother's voice rose almost a full octave, proving she wasn't mad at her eldest son, just worried sick, even though it had only been 4 hours since school had gotten out.
"Then how am I supposed to know where he is?" Roxas responded, feeling vexed. A lot of people believe that twins know exactly what is going on with one another all the time, but Roxas knew better, for that matter he was glad they didn't know everything about one another, there were things he wanted to keep as his own secret. "What am I, my brother's keeper?"
"Roxas!?" His mother's voice cracked in indignation, and he knew that his name was being used to summon him, instead of just to get his attention. Sighing he descended the stairs and stopped at the bottom of the staircase. His mother was sitting on the couch, her reddish-brown hair slightly messy in its pigtail, while her bright blue eyes stared at him, wide with distress.
"Why ever did you say that Roxas?" she asked him, her voice mostly frightful and it was then that Roxas realized his mistake. His mother was pretty religious, you see, and as such she had quite a habit of parodying her life to biblical stories.
"What I meant, mother, was that dear, perfect Sora didn't tell me where he was going." Roxas knew that his voice was very sardonic, but didn't particularly care, he was sick of being made the evil twin just because of his mother's delusional personality.
"Don't call your brother that!" she snapped, and Roxas couldn't help the sadistic grin that graced his face, and only grew when he saw his mother shrink a little.
"Why not? Mother dear. After all, isn't it something you have always wanted to say?" He felt a cold joy at the way his mother sputtered and seemed to be trying to find an excuse or something, anything to say. "After all, anyone could see the Cain among these twins." He waved his arm in the direction of one of the living room walls, which held pictures of Roxas and Sora. They were both smiling and playing around in all of the pictures, often Sora over powering Roxas in one way or another.
Before Roxas even knew what he was doing eh had run out into the sunlight and almost straight into his twin.
"Roxas?! What is wrong?" Sora's soft face grew tight with concern when he saw Roxas close to tears. Roxas could help what he said next, but the acid of his word only burned more at the hole in his heart.
"So, the almighty, perfect Sora decides to talk to poor, pathetic little me!" Roxas barely saw the look of complete shock on his twins face before he was off running again. He ran so fast that he could only just hear Sora behind him shout out, "Mother! What did you say to Roxas?" which only served to drive more tears to Roxas' eyes.
Sora stood patently as his mother finished telling him what had happened before he got home and sighed as she ended. "Mom, there are a number of things I have to say." He started, steeling himself up for some of the things he finally had to say to her face. "First off, I don't see Roxas after school, he comes strait home, and I hang around and wait to spend at least a little time with Kairi. Second, I told you yesterday, and I left a note on the fridge, that I was going down to the beach with Kairi today." He pointed to the kitchen with the fridge and its note just visible from where they stood in the living room. "Third, you were being extremely unfair to Roxas, expecting him to know where I was; I bet you didn't even think to call anyone to find out. Finally, you need to stop acting like everything Roxas or I say or do that is like anything in the bible means we are going to act the exact same way the people in the bible did."
Sora gave his mother a slightly upset look, and waited for her response. He didn't like saying such harsh things, to anybody, but sometime they needed to be said, and if he was the only one who could he would have to.
"Sora, I, it is Roxas, he acts so jumpy all the time, like he is hiding something. He acts like he has done something wrong. What am I supposed to do, ignore that?" She said, pleading to her oldest son to understand, and side with her.
"You know mom, I don't know what you are supposed to do, but what you are doing is driving this family apart, I hope you know that." Sora went upstairs and put his back pack down in his room. He then set out to pack two bags, one with just a change of clothes, a towel and some shower stuff, the other he made sure had two changes of clothes and homework, and some more shower stuff. With both bags in hand he descended the stairs and announced "I need to work off some stress, I will be back later, I don't know when, so don't wait up for me." And Sora left.
Roxas could barely hold back his tears now, he was more than grateful to Demyx when the door opened just as he arrived to it, and hew as able to keep running into the next person behind the door. The lean, tall man had a slender, triangular face, with just enough flesh to it to keep it looking friendly, he also had the most beautiful green eyes ever, and a shock of bright red hair that, somehow, naturally kept a spiky appearance. Clinging there, to the front of Axel's shirt, Roxas began crying out his last hours frustration and pain, all the while tow pairs of arms and two bodies held him close, letting him feel protected and loved.
Sora could feel two pairs of eyes on his back, but ignored them, continuing to beat straw from the dummy with the two practice swords he had in hand. He knew they would wait for him to work off his energy before inviting them to talk about why he was so frustrated. Here Sora didn't feel as if he needed to wear any masks, after all these two knew every thing there was about him, they were his most trusted confidants, and Sora felt safe, and knew there were at least two people in the world that cared for the real him.
"You know Axel, sometimes I wish it wasn't like this." Roxas said, while lying on his back, looking up at the soft, pale blue ceiling.
"Like what?" Axel asked, looking over his shoulder, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Hiding, I hate it, I wish I could just tell the world." He stated, turning on to his side and wrapping his arms around Axel's waist, not minding that the sheet fell a bit lower, showing a good majority of his hip.
"Actually, if you really want to know, legally at sixteen you, Roxas, can leave home and not legally be made to go back. It can be a little complicated, but Axel and I could help you with it." Demyx offered from where he sat, on the floor right by the head of the bed.
Roxas smiled a little, Demyx wasn't his favorite person by far, in fact he got jealous of Demyx often, after all Demyx got to live with Axel. Yet Demyx never begrudged Roxas anything, not even when Axel game Roxas all the attention. Demyx was also more than willing to help Roxas when ever possible, the musician was so sweet Roxas couldn't really hate him.
"Thanks Demyx you are so sweet." Roxas said, leaning off the side of the bed to give Demyx a kiss on the forehead. Roxas thought for a moment before changing the subject. "Hey Demyx, do you always sit down there, or am I just taking your spot?"
"Why?" Demyx asked, turning around to look at Roxas, before getting a slight grin on his face. "Would you rather I was up there with you?"
"Are you sure that isn't what you want?" Roxas asked, giving Demyx's attempt to be sexy a chuckle. Demyx moved forward and gave Roxas a kiss and within moments Axel was there too and the three of them shared a kiss, and more, in a way on one else could.
"And she keeps treating Roxas like he can't do anything right, yet I can do no wrong, even when we are doing the same thing!" Sora sighed a he finished explaining the tense situation at his home. Leon set a coup of hot coco in front of Sora, and sat down in his chair, across the table from Sora, next to Cloud.
"Well," Cloud said, being the first to speak "That is a really unfair environment for both of you. Maybe you could try talking to your mom at a calmer time about it all."
"Yeah, that might help." Sora responded, his eyes on the drink in his mug.
"What else happened today?" Cloud asked, and when Sora's head snapped up with a questioning look on it he explained, "You only really get this worked up, and react so much when a lot has happened to you in a day. Only what happened to you at home wouldn't be enough to do that. So do you want to talk about it, or are you going to hide from it?"
Sora hung his head in defeat and reminded himself that is why he came here so often, to keep him true to himself. Cloud, and Leon, could read him as easily as a children's book, and they had a tendency to know just how to approach issues that were sensitive for him. Not that this issue was, if anything it was a well worn and callused issue, that the three of them had been over time and again.
"Kai-Kairi and I went down to the beach today, after school got out. I didn't really want to go, but Kairi kept begging me to take her to the beach, and I finally said I would. When we got down there I saw him there, he even came over and talked to us, I couldn't help it… after a bit I just had to leave. I mean, what if he noticed me looking at him, especially when he is only wearing swimming trunks."
"You bailed on Kairi, so you feel guilty for that, and then there is the usual result of seeing him? Is that what you are trying to say?" Leon stated, cutting to the heart of the matter, as he always tended to do. Sora didn't even try and explain anything, he just nodded, his head still hung as he seemed to search is drink for some solution from the heavens.
"I… I wish th-that we could go back, back before these little white lies and the big whole in my heart." He announced to no one in particular, but the hand on his shoulder and the other on his head told him that there were people who understood his wish.
Sora inhaled and steadied himself, before walking up to the door; it wasn't like he had never been here before, in fact he talked with Demyx often, mostly to help get Roxas out in time so that there mother didn't have another fit in the same day. He was nervous because this time he had to let Roxas know that he knew, he completely supported Roxas, if he didn't he might as well be a hypocrite, but there was no knowing how Roxas would act when he found out. He resigned himself to what he had to do; he reached out and knocked on the door. He heard Demyx's muffled call that he was coming and sighed, after all it would be easiest if Demyx was the one to answer the door.
"Hel-oh hi." Demyx said, smiling brightly when he saw Sora and Sora smiled in response. Demyx quickly noticed the backpack that Sora had and moved aside to let him into the house. Once Sora was inside he set the bag down lightly and turned to Demyx.
"I know that this is going to be hard on him, but I need to talk with Roxas." He stated plainly. Demyx looked at him searchingly for a moment before nodding and moving further into the house. A few moments later Demyx returned with a tall red head following him, whom Sora assumed would be Axel, and behind him was a very confused looking Roxas. The moment Roxas saw Sora he stopped and just stared at his twin, Sora could see thoughts, worries, fears, and even some anger running through Roxas' eyes.
"Roxas, I know you probably aren't going to want to come home right away, so I brought you some stuff. If you are staying here I will tell mom I know who you are staying with and tell her not to worry." Sora glanced at the red head who gave a nod to say that Roxas could stay with them. "Also I want you to know I have known about this for a while, and that I am glad one of us has the courage to live even a part of the life we want."