AN: Happy AkuRoku day, everyone! Wrote this for one of my best friends. 3
"Stop it, you know that's such a bad habit," his brother says, and Roxas pauses with the flat of his nail caught between his teeth.
They're a right mess, red and angry and chewed down to the quick, and of course he knows it's a bad habit. It's not a particularly new one, either, and his fingers are tipped with the jagged, uneven crescents of years of mistreatment.
"Whatever," he mutters, shoving his hands into the deep pockets of his hoodie. Sora shouldn't even be paying attention to something as extraneous as him biting his nails, anyway, not when he's supposed to be focusing on the road. He considers bringing it up, tossing him a quip about distracted driving, but it'll probably come out sounding like he's sulking, and that's unacceptable because then Sora will feel justified about berating him.
Instead, Roxas shifts until his feet are pressed against the car's dash, knees brought up high as he slouches in the car seat.
"If we get into a crash, you'll break your legs," Sora says, a bit too cheerfully for someone who's talking about serious, potentially maiming injuries.
Roxas rolls his eyes in response, but opts for cranking the volume dial on the radio up rather than responding verbally.
Music fills the car, and even Sora can't find it in him to commit to an argument as Bowie's voice belts out, I'll stick with you, baby, for a thousand years...
The thing is, Roxas loves his brother. Sora has always been a grounding force in his life, and they've gone through hell together. He'd jump in front of a bullet for Sora, sacrifice his everything in order to protect him.
But.
What he doesn't love is the fact that everyone seems to think that, because Sora and Roxas are twins, they should always be together because of some weird twin-bond. Sora's the more outgoing one, the one that people flock to because of his natural charm, and Roxas has absolutely no desire whatsoever to exist eternally as his brother's shadow.
They generally have a good relationship, but sometimes Roxas gives him a hard time, if only to remind himself of this fact.
"See you at four?" Sora asks once they've parked, and Roxas offers him a nod in return.
Thankfully, they have different majors, which means that their classes don't ever really intersect. Fortunately, the day passes by without incident, and Roxas leaves his last class for the day in a fairly upbeat mood. He has a few hours to kill before Sora's finished with his own classes, and because his brother is also his ride home, Roxas makes his way toward the library to waste some time.
The library's third floor is supposed to be the quiet floor of the facility, where students typically study for exams and spend the rest of their time having breakdowns due to the pressures of college education and crippling student debt.
Sinking down into one of the cozier-looking armchairs, Roxas considers the pros and cons of taking a nap until Sora's done for the day.
Is it socially acceptable to pass the fuck out in the middle of a university library? Surely the other students around him will be sympathetic to the plight of a sleep-deprived college student, but maybe there's some sort of social taboo regarding sleeping in a public area.
Whatever, Roxas thinks after a minimal amount of deliberation, tipping his head back on the plush headrest and letting his eyes slip closed. He's just about to doze off when someone clears their throat loudly, jerking him out of almost-sleep.
"Is that my shirt?" a voice asks from above him, and Roxas only opens his eyes in order to glare at whoever's speaking.
"I've never seen you before in my life," Roxas says, sizing up the overly large redhead looming over him, "so I'm inclined to go with no."
Because, seriously, he'd remember seeing a face like that. The guy's tall (which isn't really a feat, compared to his own height) but his eyes are a startling shade of green, and he's got two small tattoos just underneath them. He cuts an attractive figure, and Roxas raises an eyebrow at his direct approach. Maybe the question's a weird come-on, or something? He waits for the bad pick-up line, but it never comes.
"This is probably weird," the redhead starts, but then he's plopping down next to Roxas on the chair - which is definitely not made for two people - and pressing pale hands against Roxas's side, shoving his hoodie away from the fabric clinging to his body.
"What are you doing - " Roxas sputters, completely frozen from the redhead's bizarre actions, and almost immediately after feeling him up, the guy lets out a victorious noise.
"It is my shirt," he says triumphantly, and Roxas looks down to see him wiggling a finger through a very clear and present hole that's torn right along the bottom of the shirt. "Tore this baby hopping a chainlink fence in high school to grab a quick smoke."
Which means that Roxas is wearing some stranger's shirt, if said stranger's words are anything to go by. What the hell?
It all clicks together a second later, when Roxas remembers that he'd snagged the shirt from Sora's pile of clean laundry earlier that morning. The shirt wasn't one he'd recognized, a distressed, vintage grey one with with Ziggy Stardust's face screenprinted across the front, but he hadn't thought much of it at the time.
(At the time, all he'd really thought about was the fact that it was impossible to hate Bowie, and he'd considered stealing the shirt permanently after making the brilliant discovery of how the shirt was made of the softest fabric in the known universe as soon as he'd slipped it on.)
The question then, of course, is: how the fuck did Sora get this guy's shirt?
"How the fuck did my brother get your shirt?"
The thing is, Roxas loves his brother. And if this freakishly tall redhead has messed with him in some way, then he's fully prepared to go on the offensive. (Roxas pointedly ignores the thought that, if Sora had slept with him or something and taken his shirt, it was probably under consensual circumstances and any subsequent threats weren't really needed.)
Tall, hot redhead thinks about it for a moment, before his nose scrunches up in distaste and he says, lowly, "Kairi."
Which is a name that Roxas is quite familiar with, naturally. So, what, this dude slept with Kairi and snagged his shirt, and it somehow ended up in Sora's possession?
"She's mysister," the guy says quickly, eyes widening almost comically as he seems to follow the same train of thought as Roxas's. "Holy shit,gross. It's my favorite shirt, and mysteriously went missing a week ago, suspiciously right around the time she turned up at my place trying to mooch some free food."
"Okay," Roxas says slowly. Things are starting to make more sense, and there's a fair amount of relief coursing through him at the confirmation that Sora hasn't been - defiled by this guy, or whatever.
He's found Kairi's bras in their laundry, before, so it really isn't too far-fetched to consider that their clothes got mixed up with each another.
"So," the redhead drawls, and Roxas is suddenly reminded of the fact that they're squished together on a single chair, their thighs pressing up against each other. It's fairly intimate, and he tries to create as much space between them as possible. "Can I have my shirt back?"
"I'm not about to strip in the middle of the library to give you your shirt back, idiot," Roxas says, and he must be a bit too loud in his indignation, because a nearby student looks up from her laptop and shushes them loudly with a pointed glare.
"Oh, right." The redhead flashes him a brilliant smile, seemingly unfazed even after asking such a strange request. "By the way, name's Axel. You must be Roxas, if you're Sora's brother?"
Sora knows this guy? And never introduced them? Granted, Axel seems a bit… forward, and clearly has never heard the words personal space violation before in his life, but he's really attractive.
Maybe his brother doesn't love him back.
"Ugh," Roxas sighs, trying to sound more put-upon than he truly is at the moment. "You have a car? If you give me a ride home, I can change and give you your stupid shirt back."
"First of all," Axel says immediately, and somehow he's even closer to Roxas than he was when he first sat down, "nothing about Ziggy Stardust isstupid. Bowie's a goddamn legend, and I won't have you slandering his name like that, even if you are Sora's brother. Second of all, that's no problem. I can give you a ride."
Maybe it's a stupid call, asking a complete stranger for a ride home, but whatever. Uber's a thing, and people pay to climb into the cars of people they don't know, and besides. Sora trusts Kairi with his life, so her brother can't be that bad.
Roxas was horribly wrong - Axel is worse.
Apparently, Axel owns a motorcycle. It's a quality that Roxas initially finds attractive, and he's giddy with excitement as he first swings his leg over the side of the bike and presses his body closely against the redhead's back, but that's where it all goes downhill, really.
Axel drives like a goddamn demon.
He's never been more thankful that Axel had shot him a cocky smile and tossed his only helmet to him, because Roxas isn't positive that he's going to make it out alive even with the protective headgear. They tear down the road at what can't possibly be a legal speed, and his grip around Axel's strangely-thin waist tightens until he's fairly sure he's suffocating him.
Roxas's only saving grace is that Axel seems to have no problem understanding his screamed directions well enough to navigate through the busy streets to his apartment complex, and they weave in and out of traffic so often that at some point Roxas has to close his eyes and force the nausea rising in his stomach to abate. All he really wants to do is plant his feet firmly on the ground and chew on his nails until they're a bloody mess, because this is driving his anxiety up the wall.
When they finally stop in the parking lot of his apartment complex, Roxas finds himself thanking any deities who may or may not exist for allowing him to survive the trip. There's a definite rush of blood to his head as he dismounts the bike, and he turns on wobbly legs to shoot a withering glare at Axel.
"Holy shit."
"Pretty nice, right?" Axel says, his hair windblown from the ride and his grin toothy and wild.
"How have you not killed yourself yet?" he shouts. "You're a terrible driver!"
The redhead pouts. "Aw, you wound me. You have to admit it was fun."
"Fun," Roxas grits out disbelievingly. "Almost losing my life for no reason other than that you wanted to have some fun."
The fact that Axel is ridiculously hot does not make up for his horrendous driving skills, and Roxas doesn't wait for his response. He stomps up the stairs to his shared apartment with Sora and jabs a key aggressively into the lock. Once inside, he feels marginally better now that he's safely ensconced in the familiarity of his apartment and not speeding down the middle of the road on a metal deathtrap, and he lets out a sigh before calling out, "You want something to drink?"
"Beer would be great, if you've got any," Axel responds, and Roxas can see from the kitchen that he's familiarizing himself with their secondhand couch.
A quick peek in the fridge shows that they do have a few ciders stocked, and he grabs a few bottles. Usually he'd be annoyed by someone trying to bum some free alcohol off of him, but he's still shaken by the motorcycle near-death experience and can't be fucked to complain about it.
By the time he makes his way out of the kitchen, bottles in hand, he sees that Axel's figured out his TV. And has Netflix working, because some old movie's introduction credits are already rolling across the screen. Roxas presses the cold bottle against Axel's cheek, relishing the indignant noise the redhead makes before before he takes the cider from his grasp.
"I don't recall saying you could come over to watch a movie," Roxas says lightly as he plops down on the couch next to Axel, although his words hold no real weight.
"Come on," Axel says, taking a long pull from his bottle of cider. "You're not about to kick a guy out when Labyrinth ison, are you?"
Now that he looks at it, the movie does seem familiar. Jennifer Connelly dances across the screen, and Roxas sips from his bottle as the opening scene comes on. It's hard to go wrong with nostalgic classes, Roxas admits, and he settles into the couch to enjoy the film.
He doesn't mean to fall asleep, honestly. But he's a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, and by the time his bottle's empty and Sarah's confronting Sir Didymus about crossing the bridge, he feels himself drifting off. Axel's shoulder is surprisingly comfy despite how bony it is, radiating warmth, and Roxas leans his head a bit too heavily on it as the movie plays on.
In the end, Roxas' shirt - well,Axel's, technically - ends up on the ground.
It starts when Axel shifts slightly, and Roxas jolts awake from the motion.
"Shit," he mutters, once he comes to enough to recognize that he fell asleep on Axel's goddamn shoulder. "Sorry."
Axel's suspiciously quiet, and for the briefest of moments, Roxas hopes that Axel dozed off too and failed to to notice the fact that Roxas fell asleep on him.
No such luck, though, because when he turns his head he meets Axel's gaze head-on. The redhead is looking down at him, eyes oddly soft with some identifiable emotion, and Roxas can feel his cheeks burning with embarrassment.
"Sorry," he says again, sitting up and scooting as far away from the redhead as he possibly can. Apparently, Axel has no idea what personal space is, because he doesn't respond verbally, instead shifting his body in Roxas's direction and crawling over the couch to close the space between them.
"You know," he starts, and his voice is low as it sends a shot of warmth down into Roxas's stomach. "Usually I try to be satisfy my partners a bit more before letting them fall asleep."
He recognizes belatedly that Axel's words sound like a goddamned purr. Axel doesn't stop until he's grabbing Roxas by the shoulders and pushing him down into the couch's cushions, and even then, he's arching over Roxas's frame with a predatory glint in his eyes.
"Uh," Roxas says, at a loss for words, even as the redhead dips his head until their noses are almost touching. He doesn't press his advantage, though, just hovers directly over Roxas.
"Hello," Axel says, overly casual, and his breath is warm as it puffs against Roxas's skin.
And then Roxas can't take it anymore.
He leans up just enough to press their lips together, and it's like a switch has been flipped. The redhead surges into the kiss immediately, forcing Roxas's body deeper down into the couch cushions. Roxas retaliates by sliding his arms around Axel's upper body, pressing them together as closely as possible, and their tongues tangle together, wet and perfect.
"Take this off," Axel pulls away to murmur, tugging at the thick fabric of his hoodie. Roxas complies immediately, arching his back up to slip the jacket off of his shoulders. They're close enough that Roxas's chest bumps into Axel's as he moves, but Axel just grins down at him as he struggles to free his arms from the tangle of fabric.
Immediately, Axel's shoving his shirt up and past his shoulders. The air is chilly against Roxas's bare stomach, but Axel wastes no time in warming him back up as he leans down and presses hot, open-mouthed kisses along his newly-exposed flesh.
Axel's nips and licks feel incredible, and without his brain's express permission, Roxas lets out a breathy moan. It's fairly quiet, all things considered, but the redhead still pauses as soon as the noise hits the air, and Roxas feels embarrassed about it until Axel exhales out a quiet,"Fuck, Rox."
With a growl, he drags his teeth along the flat of Roxas's stomach before biting down a little too hard against the just of his hip. The sudden mixture of pleasure and pain is startling, and Roxas curses loudly at how it stings in the open air. It's not exactly unpleasant, though, and his words seem to satisfy the redhead, because Axel chuckles lowly before soothing the hurt with the flat of his tongue.
Roxas squirms under the attentions of Axel's mouth the lower he kisses, and he sucks a trail past the dip of his belly button. Through slitted eyes, Roxas watches as the redhead doesn't even bother pushing his pants entirely out of the way. His actions seem almost lazy as his long fingers unbutton Roxas's jeans and shove them out of the way just enough to pull his cock out from his underwear.
There's a white flash of teeth as Axel grins up at Roxas, and then he's swallowing him with the practiced ease of someone who is apparently verytalented at sucking dick. His hips jerk unsteadily at the incredible sensation, and his chewed up nails dig deep into the fabric of the sofa.
"Shit," Roxas hisses, and Axel hums some sort of response, which is almost too much because the vibrations of his throat send a full-bodied shiver rushing down Roxas's spine.
It doesn't take long, not with how fantastic the wet heat of Axel's mouth wrapped around the length of his cock, and his throat feels almost raw as a groan is ripped out of him.
Orgasm hits him hard, his back arching as his vision whites out, and he's a panting, writhing mess underneath Axel's actions. The redhead swallows like a goddamn pro as Roxas pulses in his mouth, and fuck, even that's undeniably attractive.
His heart is a racing mess, and his hip throbs something awful from the bite, but Axel's panting against his skin and the endorphins coursing through his veins make everything feel goddamn perfect seems to collapse on top of him, and it's only because of post-coital bliss that he's not extremely bothered by the heavy weight draping over his own.
When his heartbeat finally slows enough that he doesn't fear a heart attack in the near future, Roxas murmurs, "Mm, what about you?"
"Well, you're pretty fucking hot," Axel chuckles after amoment, shifting his hips against Roxas's meaningfully.
As soon as it clicks, Roxas thinks that only someone as cocky and overconfident as Axel could possibly feel no shame at coming in his fucking pants.
They're both spent, boneless limbs splayed haphazardly over the couch, and Axel nuzzles into his collarbone with a contented sigh. Time passes slowly after that, and after awhile Axel lets out a soft noise, somewhere between a sigh and a snore. Roxas trails a finger down the curve of his spine, humming quietly. Nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years...
(In the end, Axel forgets the Ziggy Stardust shirt at Roxas's place when he leaves, but it's a great excuse to come back another day.)