Warning:
The following contains mature themes such as rape, kidnapping, abuse, trauma, and paranoia and is full of violence, swearing, and sex. If you feel offended by topics such as these, don't read. If you don't like or can't handle intense gay rape/sex (I mean, this is AkuRoku...ish), don't read. If you say, "fuck it, Yuu is an awesome writer and to hell with whatever scarring subjects are in here; I'm reading!", well, then, be my guest. Read and review. Simple as that, m'kay? :]
This was originally going to be one really, really long one-shot. But I decided last minute to make it a multichaptered story just because I wanted to get something out after being dead for so long. Beware, Yuu-chan's a zombie! Om nom nom nom~
I would also like to thank JustSayNoToPants for being such a wonderful beta and for helping me greatly with the editing and grammar and all that jazz. I loved seeing her reactions to certain parts of the story and her encouragement just kept egging me on to finish this and make this my best story EVAAAR. And apparently, Axel with a Southern accent is jizz-in-my-pants worthy. XD
Disclaimer: The lyrics referenced in this are by Evans Blue who are awesome and really are jizz-in-my-pants worthy. And obviously, I don't own Kingdom Hearts. If I did, I would be God.
"Hey, kiddo. Somethin' botherin' ya?"
Words. Nothing more. Calm, chill, blunt; it was just casual conversation, after all.
"...A lot of things...stuff I can't really explain."
A response; soft, shy, afraid. Something about the look in those jade eyes sent ice coursing through the boy's veins. He didn't understand this sudden and irrational fear deep in his gut; it was just casual conversation, after all.
"Well, I have time. Wanna come in and talk about it?"
It was a kind gesture. Innocent. Gentle. Sweet. Open. Caring.
"...Okay."
[ s t a r t ]
stock-holm syn-dro-me [stak-ho(l)m]:
1. a psychological condition in which a hostage sympathizes, identifies, and bonds with their captor; a hostage who develops this condition will think positively of their captor and view lack of abuse as acts of kindness; in rare cases the hostage may feel sexually attracted to the abuser.
"Uuugh..."
A groan escaped from a pair of small, plump lips as a hand ran through messy and blond locks. If there was one thing Roxas Imogene hated, it was studying. No, wait - scratch that. It was studying for his god damned psychology class that he hated the most.
'Why did I even have to take this stupid class? I'm not going to major in psychology.'
Well, he supposed it was his own fault for not taking it before he graduated high school. And now, because of his past negligence, he was sitting here in the library of the college of his not choice, studying his ass off trying to learn about different types of emotional trauma left on victims of abuse, rape, bullying, neglect - whatever the hell existed in this fucked up world.
Bright cerulean orbs glanced at the digital clock hanging on a distant wall - it read 5:23 PM. A brief skim around the library told him that he was all alone, save for the elderly librarian with a bulging mole on her nose; tapping her desk with bony and horribly colored fingernails (turquoise did not become her) in an impatient rhythm. Exhaling with a horse-like noise from his lips vibrating, he closed the book and rose from his wooden chair. Feet shuffled across the tiled floor as he made his way to the librarian, book in hand. She scowled through purple-tinted eyeglasses, displeased with having her time wasted for the past three hours, stamped a little slip of paper before sticking it into the front cover of his copy of Psychology: A Study of Man's Darkest Nature, and shooed him out of there.
"Return it late and you will receive a hefty fine, Mr. Imogene," she grumbled as she locked the door behind them. It was obvious how badly she disliked the freshman and, lucky for her, the feeling was mutual.
'Yeah, well, fuck you, too.'
"I'll be sure to turn it in on time." Roxas made a grimace in an attempt to smile. "You have a good day, Mrs. Nesbutt." The librarian whipped her head around and gave him a piercing glare.
"I. Am Mrs. Nesbitt."
'Whatever.'
The blond walked away in the direction of a nearby bus stop, shrugging and tuning out whatever that crabby ol' librarian was ranting on about. Something about how you young whippersnappers don't respect yer elders and back in my day we used to get a good whippin' fer not callin' our elders by their proper names and blah, blah, blah. By the time he managed to leap past the bus doors just as they were about to shut, pay the required fine to ride, and sit down, he realized that "Mrs. Nesbutt's" bitching was the least of his problems.
The bus was a little dirty and it smelled pretty funky, though that could've been because of the weird homeless guy sitting across from him (how he paid to get on was a mystery). The boy pulled out his iPod and adjusted the large, bulky headphones that hung around his neck - his preferred type of listening device - atop his yellow little head and began to blast Evans Blue into his ears. His eyes wandered around, looking at whatever he could to avoid eye contact. When they snuck a glance at the smelly old dude, he caught a hidden grin...and his face wasn't the only hint at how happy this guy was to see him.
Roxas furrowed his eyebrows and twitched his lip. A groan of disgust vibrated in his throat and the instant it did, that creepy dude's smile and obvious libido dropped like flies. Apparently, he thought this kid was a girl; wouldn't have been the first time. When school was just starting, a bunch of senior boys approached him while he was grabbing his French and Literature textbooks from the bookstore and made a few advances. They snatched his schedule before he was able to protest; when he realized that they were grinning like damn idiots because he had their physical education class, he decided that a lesson couldn't possibly be better taught than full-out stripping in the locker room to show them exactly how wrong about his gender they were.
And so, he did.
Guess who the new faggot label in school belonged to?
When the bus stopped close enough to his neighborhood, Roxas hurried off to avoid any awkward exchanges between him and the creepy homeless dude. It wasn't ten seconds after his feet hit the concrete that his name was called.
"Yo, Roxas!"
The tiny blond turned in the direction of the older, manlier voice. A tall and lean body topped with full, fiery red and spiked up hair was a fairly short distance away. Roxas approached the man, who was dressed in sweatpants and a large Super Bowl XLIII tee, jogging in place.
"Hey, Mr. Alvah. Out on your afternoon jog?"
"Roxas, you've known me since you were a kid. You can call me Axel." He paused his movement to frown a little.
"Eh." The boy shrugged, trudging his way in the direction of his house. A scuffling of sneakers following him told Roxas that his neighbor would be joining him on his walk home.
"How was school? Kids still giving you shit?" he asked, panting lightly as he tried to catch his breath. Roxas' pace became slightly faster.
"Not as much, but my P.E. class is hell." He glanced down at the book in his hand. His walking partner muttered an "Oh, I see," before a silence lingered between them. It sent an air of awkwardness through the younger male, though it broke as they neared the older man's house.
"Oh! I just remembered - Roxas, I got a letter for you stuck in my mailbox," Mr. Alvah exclaimed in realization. The blond paused in his step and watched the redhead vanish into his house. For the entire twelve years Roxas and his family had lived in the house next to Mr. Alvah's, it never once changed (except around Halloween and Christmas time, naturally). It was just a simple, one-story house with a rustic red paint job. It wasn't run down; it was actually fairly nice and clean, especially when considering the type of behavior Mr. Alvah tended to demonstrate around the Imogene boys. The lawn was green, despite it being October, and neatly trimmed. A random lawn gnome with a guitar-esque instrument stood slouching off to the side a little by a tiny fountain which, for whatever reason, had a phrase imprinted in tiny lettering on the side.
What did it say? "Dance, water, dance!"?
"Ah, here ya go!" The man's voice brought Roxas out of his intense focus on trying to make out the text on the small lawn fountain. Mr. Alvah approached the boy, examining the unopened white envelope. He flipped it around in his hand before cooly handing it over to the boy with the envelope pinched between his middle and index fingers.
"There's no return address. Weird, don'tcha think?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow. Roxas looked down at the envelope and also found that the only things written on it were his name and address. His face fell slightly.
"Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Alvah." He nodded in gratitude before turning on his heel to exit the lawn. A large, rough hand gripped his shoulder, and he turned around to face the man's serious expression.
"Roxas...please. I want you to call me Axel." The boy blinked, unsure of what to say. He had always been taught to refer to adults by a Mr. or Mrs. followed by their last name; anything else surely would've been an insult. As such, he had only ever acknowledged their neighbor as "Mr. Alvah". Yet, lately, this man had been insisting that his younger blond neighbor call him by his first name. They'd known each other for twelve years now, so a little sense of familiarity was to be expected...right? It should be fine...
"...Okay, Axel." Calling him by name felt awkward, at least to Roxas. But Axel simply grinned brightly. Apparently, he didn't feel any of the awkwardness the boy did.
"Good. Tell Ven I said 'hi', m'kay?" Axel flicked his wrist in a good-bye as he turned to return indoors.
"'Kay." Roxas nodded, pausing for a moment to watch the man once again disappear inside his house. He glanced down at the mostly blank envelope in his hands. A chill ran down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The envelope was pretty full and it was obvious that all of the contents were about the size of flash cards.
'Not again...'
~ o ~
"Roxas! There you are! What took you so...long...?" the voice of a blond identical to Roxas in every way trailed off. A different pair of cerulean orbs - brighter and icier than Roxas' - observed the boy as he kicked his shoes off while shutting the front door.
"Hey, Ven," Roxas replied softly, not making eye contact. Roxas' big brother - his twin, older by ten minutes - cautiously approached him. A look of worry showed on his face.
"Where've ya been? Mom and I have been trying to call you," Ven inquired.
"My phone's dead, sorry. I need to charge it," Roxas replied bluntly, beginning to make his way down the hall toward his room.
"But where were you?" Ven projected his voice as his little brother grew further and further away.
"The library" was called back, quickly followed by the shutting of a door. Roxas stood there, listening and waiting for Ven to try to intrude and ask for more details. Footsteps did approach and they did pause in front of the other side of the door...but only briefly. They left just as hesitantly as they came. He would be left alone for now.
Roxas hurried to his bed, throwing his book bag unceremoniously off to the side, not really giving a damn about where it ended up. Bouncing onto his sheet-covered mattress, his legs folded together in a criss-cross fashion as his thumb worked at ripping the fold of the envelope. The contents were stuck, so he had to hold the envelope upside-down and smack the damn thing. They tumbled out and scattered across his bed. He froze the instant it became apparent that this particular "letter" contained nothing but pictures. Photos.
Of him.
There was one of him sitting in the Christmas Town Ice Cream shop just three blocks away, clearly visible in the store window as he was taking on the store's "ICE CREAM BEAT: EAT MOUNTAINS OF ICE CREAM! IF YOU'RE ABLE TO FINISH THE DESSERT DREAM, YOU GET IT FREE!" challenge; he was stepping onto the city bus to go to school in another; here he was walking home with Ven, the back of his brother's head facing the camera it was taken with - Roxas' was turned toward his brother, allowing the camera to capture his profile; the two were skateboarding and Ven was laughing just as Roxas was about to land face-first in the grass on the side of the concrete; he was dozing off in the middle of his math class; at the park with his girlfriend, Xion; sleeping in his bed; studying his psychology book in the librar-
Wait. That one just happened today!
'What the hell is going on?' The more he looked through these pictures, the more he realized just how unsafe his seemingly normal and routine life was becoming. Then he came upon the last photo. It made his stomach lurch.
He wanted to throw up.
He was just thirteen years old, sitting on his porch and eating sea-salt ice cream with his neighbor - with Axel, who was nineteen at the time. His mom had taken this photo. About a month ago he had come home to his mother panicking about losing some photos that "were right here, they were right here in this album!" He had managed to calm her down and assure her that they'd turn up again soon; deep down, however, he had this feeling that they weren't just simply "misplaced".
They had been coming back, one by one, in envelopes similar to this.
The day it happened, there were signs of someone rummaging around in his room, and the window was open (though he was sure he had locked up that morning?). There was one photo left behind on his bed, where he was just five years of age and dressed in a Woody costume, just coming back from his first house on his first night of trick-or-treating without his father (their parents had divorced when the boys were three). Ven, clad in a Buzz Lightyear get-up, was approaching from a short distance behind him. His bright eyes, then much larger due to his younger face and smaller head, were staring up at him. His mother had taken the picture suddenly and without warning, resulting in a rather startled and frightened expression.
Roxas was staring back at his younger, scared self.
Underneath the photo was a note.
"Hello. I'm your martyr; will you be my gangster?
Can you feel my trigger hand moving further down your back?
When you hide, hide inside that body -
but just remember that when I touch you,
The more you shake, the more you give away.
You're so endearing, so beautiful.
Well, I don't look like they do and
I don't love like they do, but
I don't hate like they do;
am I ever on your mind?"
They were lyrics from his favorite song.
He still didn't know how this person had known that. And now, it seemed like they knew everything about him. Over the course of that month, they kept sending photos of his various habits and antics throughout the day, which eventually began to disturb him. At first, he thought it was one of those seniors playing a cruel joke and so he didn't pay any mind to it. But then, the pictures began to grow creepier and creepier in the sense that they were growing more and more...personal; he once got a photo of himself sleeping when he was in nothing but a pair of boxers (it was summer and his room was unbearably hot). That meant that whoever this was...they were watching him sleep. He doubted that even those douche bags who attended his school would be sick enough to do that.
Oh. There was a note stuffed inside of this envelope, too.
"You're so endearing, so beautiful;
am I ever on your mind?"
It was exactly the same as the last four or five had been...was this guy trying to send him a message?
Roxas was snapped out of his thoughts when a sharp knock came rapping at his bedroom door. He didn't move except for the slight shakes his body gave off from being startled back into the real world.
"Roxas, Mom's working late again tonight."
'Oh. It's just Ven.'
"I was thinking we could order pizza. What d'ya want on it?" His muffled voice called in. To be honest, Roxas really wasn't all that hungry after opening his "letter"; actually, he still felt like throwing up because of it. But...
"I'll just have pepperoni and sausage," Roxas called back through his door. He heard Ven leave, talking to somebody - probably the pizza place over the phone.
Speaking of phones, Roxas suddenly remembered that his was still off. A hand dove into the front right pocket of his jeans, his body shifting to lean to the left in order to make room to do so. Upon feeling the plastic, his fingers curled around it and pulled it out of his pocket. His thumb flipped it open and held down the red "End" button until his screen turned white and the logo for his cell phone provider faded in and the "din-din-din-DIN-din" of the infamous T-Mobile jingle rang. A moment after the main menu appeared, he received a notification.
For five missed calls and eighty-three text messages.
One of the calls was from "Mom"; the rest were "Ven", on top of five text messages also from "Ven".
Every single text other than those five were from the same unknown number. This was exactly why he had turned his phone off. And as he scrolled through them...
"I love you."
"I love you."
"I love you."
"I love you."
This went on for the next thirty messages. Then...
"Oh god, I want you."
"I want to be inside you."
"I'm going to fuck you until you break."
"You'll love it when I fuck you."
"You'll scream and beg."
"I am going to break you."
"I'll make you suck me dry."
"I'll kiss you. I'll touch you. I'll FUCK you."
"I can't wait to taste you."
And these were the most mild of the messages. The boy's face sank further and further into horror as they became more crude and disgusting and vulgar and just plain sickening. A few had photos attached, one of which being a scanned version of the Halloween photo from when he was five (included was the message, "You're beautiful when you're scared."). Another was a bed in a dark room; there were handcuffs snapped onto each corner of the bedpost, a variety of colorful and long objects that he couldn't quite make out tossed around all over the bedsheet, belts, chains...things that told him, "I'm going to make sure you're in pain when I get my hands on you."
Bleep
'Oh, no...'
A new notification. Roxas nervously bit his lip, debating whether or not he should open it. His fingers twitched and his hands shook, his heart pounded against his ribcage with a deep ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump. He had two options: open it and confirm that it was what he thought it was and have a chance of being scared shitless and unable to sleep...or ignore it and risk being further harassed by unknown messages.
'Damned if I do and damned if I don't...'
He opened it.
"I'm going to get you."
He yelped and threw the phone in some random direction; he didn't care if it hit the god damned wall and shattered into a million pieces, just as long as it stayed the hell away from him. It did hit the wall, though the force only knocked the battery out instead of breaking it as he would've liked. He scrambled onto the floor, standing as he stared at the temporarily unusable device. His breathing was heavy, uneven, shaky, panicked. He had to tell somebody...anybody. Hell, he should have told somebody he could trust a long time ago.
But...he was afraid.
What if people stopped talking to him because they'd think he was weird for believing that some creep was stalking him, or that just knowing him would also put them in danger? He would lose all of the friends he tried to make since joining that damn college.
Oh, who was he kidding?
He didn't have a friend in Jesus Christ. If anything, the only people he could turn to by now were his mom and Ven. But his mom was always so stressed about work and trying to make ends meet to support the three of them...and if she found out her son was being stalked and harassed and threatened by some creep...oh, it'd just be too much. And he did have Ven...but Ven was one of those typical overly protective older brothers who will rush into things and, while their intentions are completely innocent, they'll make things worse. Plus, they were his family...he didn't want them to get involved. But then, where could he go?
No friends...no family...
...how about a neighbor? Maybe Axel could do something to help. He was a pretty big man - strong, tall, and the teardrop tattoos being on his face showed that he had some balls. He had this "big brother" sort of attitude around Roxas and Ven, and Ven sometimes had him over for dinner (followed by a few rounds of Nazi Zombies, of course). He really did seem to be a lot more familiar to Ven than Roxas would like to admit...occasionally Ven would call him by name when he was over. Roxas refused to call him anything other than "Mr. Alvah" as he felt it was disrespectful...but since he started called him "Axel", that meant he acknowledged him as maybe...a friend? He could turn to Axel, since he didn't have anybody else...right?
Maybe Axel could save him from this nightmare, if it came down to it...