Wishful Thinking - Chapter 1

Roxas did not move into an old house, and he did not move into a strange neighborhood; in fact, he didn't move anywhere at all. He still lived in the exact same apartment where he'd lived all fifteen years of his life, in quaint little Twilight Town, overlooking the sandlot where he'd played baseball as a kid. His room even still had the same star decorations his mom had run out to get for him when he'd had that phase at age seven where he was obsessed with outer space. The star curtains, the stars on the ceiling, even his star-patterned comforter, surrounded him with a comforting air of celestial grace. He had to admit he still kinda liked it, even though he'd outgrown the theme.

The point is, the supernatural managed to sniff him out anyway. Ordinary Roxas in his plain little town, with his run-of-the-mill parents, solid B grade average, nice girl he sort of liked, no, there was nothing extraordinary about Roxas in any way at all. He was brutally, painfully, even aggressively average. But who knows? Maybe that's what they were looking for.

Everything started on his first day of school. He was a junior in high school, fifteen years old and young for his grade- his birthday was at the end of December. Since he was an only child, his parents had pushed to get him in preschool as soon as they possibly could so his mother could go back to full-time work, and when they'd given him the tests he'd done all right, not good and not bad, so they shrugged their shoulders and let him in. He didn't mind being younger than everyone else. Twilight Town was too small to need to drive anywhere anyway, and the public transit was good, so it's not like he needed a driver's license, and even if he did need a car to get somewhere he could always bum a ride off Hayner.

Hayner was his best friend, practically since infancy. He was almost a full year older than Roxas even though they were in the same grade. They lived next door to each other. Their first week of kindergarten, they picked up Pence, an awkward, quiet kid who could get crazy in private and was surprisingly good at basketball despite being short and rotund. And finally, there was Olette.

Roxas was kind of in love with Olette. So was Hayner. The jury was out on Pence. It was a problem. The biggest problem plaguing Roxas's young mind, at that. Or at least it had been, up until the morning of his first day of his junior year in high school. By the end of the night, he would be desperately hoping for the calm familiarity of worrying about fighting over a girl who was your best friend with a guy who was your best friend. But of course, he had no way of knowing that.

His alarm went off at the usual time, and he dragged himself out of bed, staggering dully down the hallway. The apartment was small enough that there was only one bathroom, and school started before his parents' jobs, so he had to get up extra early to use the shower before they did. Like usual, he kept the shower water cool-to-lukewarm to shock himself just enough that he wouldn't fall asleep and hurt himself. Then he stepped out of the tub, wrapped a towel around his depressingly skinny hips, and sleepily reached for his toothbrush. But he didn't grab the cup with the toothbrushes.

Next to that cup was another cup, a smaller one. He squinted his eyes- his contacts weren't in yet. No, it wasn't a cup at all, it was a bottle. A rather small bottle, at that, and he wasn't sure who it belonged to. He assumed it must have been his mother's, 'cause really, who else's could it be? It was pretty, though. The glass was a deep ruby-rose color, semi-transparent, with a patterned inlay. He wondered what was inside it- maybe perfume? The top was corked.

He uncorked it.

Nothing was inside- it wasn't perfume or anything else. Just an empty bottle. Maybe it belonged to his grandmother or something, and his parents found it while cleaning and accidentally left it in the bathroom? His grandmother had died a few months before, and they were always finding weird knick-knacks that she'd left behind.

Roxas carefully stuck the cork back in the bottle, and put the tiny piece of glassware back on the sink. Well, maybe that wasn't the best place for it, since his dad would probably knock it over and break it while shaving, and if it was his grandmother's, it was definitely important. So, Roxas picked it up and carried it out with him, deposited it on his desk while he clothed himself, and promptly forgot about it. He was running late to meet Hayner, after all, and the two of them were always getting in trouble for missing bits of homeroom.

He grabbed a pop-tart on his way out the door as he tugged his jacket on and grabbed his backpack, kicking the door shut as he galloped out of the apartment and down the stairs into the street. Hayner was in one of the units in the building next door, and they always met on the sidewalk exactly halfway between so that they could walk to school together. Today was no different, and Hayner was standing on the sidewalk already with his own pop-tart clutched firmly in hand, waiting rather boredly for Roxas to show up.

"Dude, where have you been?" Hayner grumbled around a mouthful of pastry. He always got the strawberry with all the sprinkles, but Roxas preferred cinnamon sugar.

"What, would you rather I didn't shower?" Roxas bantered back, and the two walked the rest of the way to the school in comfortable silence, each enjoying his respective breakfast. The school was less than five blocks away, of course, so it's not like it took them that long to get there. With the number of years they'd been going to that dumphole, they didn't even have to pay attention to where they were going- their feet carried them there automatically. So, it was completely understandable that they missed the growing crowds the closer they got to their place of education, and it was completely understandable that they didn't notice the Twilight Town Channel 6 Local News crew until a reporter was directly in front of them, shoving a microphone in Hayner's face.

"Do you boys go to Twilight High?" she asked roughly and impatiently. She'd narrowed in on Hayner, of course- he was more masculine than Roxas, and by most objective standards better-looking, at least he thought so. Of course a random reporter would go after Hayner first. Wait, why was there even a reporter here in the first place?

"Yeah, why?" Hayner asked suspiciously, and Roxas spent a moment wondering if Hayner could read his mind before remembering the original question. Jackpot, the reporter's expression seemed to say- her eyes gleamed wildly and she waved to a cameraman. He shuffled over, bleary-eyed.

"How do you feel about what happened here last night?" she gushed. Hayner looked at Roxas. Roxas looked at Hayner. They both shrugged.

"What are you talking about, dude? Uh, ma'am?" Hayner finally asked. The microphone and camera were in his face, after all, so he should be doing the talking. The reporter herself sighed, and seemed to visibly deflate. Apparently, Hayner and Roxas were epic duds in her quest for journalistic greatness. Well, whatever.

"Cinderella Carlisle hung herself in the cafeteria last night," she said rather bluntly. Honestly, what if they'd been close friends with her or something? Dropping the news on them like that.

Wait.

What?

"Hanged," Roxas corrected automatically. That was all he could think of to say. Even during a tragedy, well, there was no excuse for bad grammar. He looked over at Hayner again, but his friend was unable to help him, too busy sputtering pathetically at the microphone while the reporter rolled her eyes. The cameraman, however, zoomed in further, as if Hayner's stunned expression was ratings gold. Finally, the two boys were rescued by Pence and Olette, running towards them from the other side of the throng. How could they possibly have not noticed all these people? Roxas suddenly felt faint.

"Hayner! Roxas!" Pence shouted. That broke Hayner out of his trance, and he gave the woman an angry scowl before allowing himself to be dragged away by Olette. Roxas followed, noticing much more than made him comfortable that no one grabbed his hand, even though he was in great distress. But somehow, now, as a complete unit, he felt much less uneasy than before. In any case, Pence and Olette had apparently been here a while, so maybe they could give up some answers.

The four of them didn't quite leave the school grounds, just the front door, leaving the reporters behind, now including several out-of-town crews. Once they were back behind the school where the crowds weren't so thick, they stopped running and curled up into a tight little huddle. Roxas had barely had time to process what he'd been told, but now that he did, well, he felt nauseous. Really nauseous.

"What happened?" he gasped, panting and dizzy and flushed.

"Apparently Cindy offed herself," Olette whispered. Even more coarse than the reporter, but for some reason when it was Olette, it was ok. "They found her dangling from those big lights in the cafeteria. It was all over the news this morning- didn't you guys check?"

"Uh, no, I don't usually watch the news before school," Hayner muttered. He looked sick, too. They all did. Teens were clumped all around them, just like their little group, twitchy and awkward, looking for all the world like when the sun came up they'd all freak out and scuttle away under the fridge.

"Well, anyway, school got cancelled. The whole place is a crime scene," Pence said, breaking the depressing silence by trying to be cheerful. It failed miserably, and soon he was dragged back down into the depths of misery, just like everyone else.

"At least she'll be remembered, right? Cindy Carlisle, the girl who got us all a day off school," Hayner said morbidly. "I think I only ever talked to her once, and it was to borrow a pencil. I don't even remember what class it was, and it may have been a completely different girl and I may just be remembering it wrong."

"She was in my science class. Most boring presentation on mitosis I've ever seen," Pence added sadly. Roxas had a sneaking suspicion that this was not how Cinderella Carlisle would want to be remembered. He knew next to nothing about her, of course, except that her parents had gone through a messy divorce a few years back, and the town being as small as it was, the drama had been all over the local newspapers. A couple years later her mom died and her dad remarried someone from out of town- again, all over the local newspapers. Not a lot happened in Twilight Town.

"We had gym together. She had Spider-man panties," Olette offered. That earned stares from the three boys. "What? They were cute! And I never had any other classes with her I don't think," she said defensively. Another long silence.

By this point word that school was cancelled had gotten around the schoolyard, and the awkward teenagers were beginning to disperse. The reporters were still there, of course, hawking every student they could get their hands on, but even they seemed to have lost their enthusiasm. Now that the excitement of the novel had passed- a suicide, right here in Twilight Town- well, now it was just kind of sad. The same kind of sad as when someone eats one bite of their dessert and then doesn't want the rest, but no one else can eat it because they already took a bite out of it. Just… what a waste.

"Well, there's nothing to do here," Pence finally said, completely dejected. "Want to get ice cream?"

"Hey, dude, it's barely 8 A.M. The ice cream place won't be open for hours," Hayner sighed.

"I, for one, am going home and going back to bed. You boys can do whatever you want," Olette declared, and she quit the scene with flying colors. She and Pence lived near each other, on the other side of the school from Hayner and Roxas, so it was a little weird she hadn't asked him to come with, but maybe she just wanted to be alone. Come to think of it, Roxas wanted to be alone, too. It wasn't every day that one of your classmates killed herself. If ever there was a day to just give up and go back to bed, well, today was it.

"Me too. Call me later and maybe we can do something. Bye guys." With that somewhat subdued farewell, Roxas turned, stuffed his hands into his oversized pockets, and shuffled his way back to his apartment. His parents wouldn't have left for work yet, they'd be asking why he was back home so soon. Unless they'd seen the news already, in which case he wouldn't have to explain it, which would be nice. Too tired to pull out his key, he leaned on the doorbell until his parents buzzed him up.

"Roxas?" his mom gasped when he slouched through the door. "What about school?"

"Turn on the TV," he sighed. "I'm going back to bed." He was done with the day. Maybe if he just went to sleep, this would all be some kind of terrible dream and he'd wake up again and no one would be dead and Olette would be in love with him and not Hayner and he'd have straight As and a Porsche. He just wished his life would just be normal. You know, normal plus a Porsche.

Unfortunately, his day was already slated to get a whole lot weirder.

Nothing seemed off at first. He went into his room, dumped his backpack in a corner, stretched out on his bed and closed his eyes. His head suddenly ached, and he thought it might be better to take some aspirin before trying to sleep. So, he opened his eyes and sat up.

"Good morning, sunshine." Roxas rubbed his tired face.

"Go away, dad," he mumbled.

"Dad? You wound me." The words were accompanied by a delicate sniff. Roxas froze. Come to think of it, that wasn't his dad's voice at all- it was higher and, well, nasally. The voice definitely belonged to a teenage boy of some kind, but it wasn't Hayner or Pence. At this point Roxas figured it would make the most sense to turn and see who was talking to him, so he did. And then he screamed.

It was a short scream, just enough to undermine his masculine dignity. For the person he was speaking to was, well, no one he'd ever seen before. He looked to be about Roxas's age, just as he'd guessed, so creepy old pervert was ruled out. In any case, he had bright red hair, and he was tall, but with a young face, which he seemed to be trying to hide with tattoos. Honestly, how much must that have hurt?

"Roxas? Is everything all right, honey? I saw on the news- that's terrible. Did you know her?" His mother's voice drifted from down the hall, apparently in reaction to the scream. But Roxas was too preoccupied to put his mother's concerns to rest.

"Who the hell are you?" he hissed. The red part of the red-head's red head was somehow sticking straight up in the air, and the hairs swished two and fro as he spoke, almost in time to the way he moved his head and waved his arms.

"I'm all of your wildest dreams come true, dearie," he whispered dramatically, following Roxas's lead with regards to speaking volume. He leaned in closer, and breathed into Roxas's ear.

"I grant wishes."

Roxas was stunned. He blinked slowly, his mouth hung open, he forgot to swallow and barely managed to stop a thick glob of drool from spilling down his jaw line. Grants… wishes? His heart actually skipped a beat. He had to take a moment to recover. All because he wasn't expecting such an outlandish response, he told himself. The sheer audacity of this guy. Hayner probably paid him, or something. Wouldn't be the first time.

"Bull," Roxas muttered back when he finally found his voice. "Who are you really?"

"Roxas? Roxas, are you ok?" Footsteps were pattering down the hallway. Roxas had about no seconds to come up with an excuse as to why there was a mysterious boy in his room who hadn't come through the front door with him. Come to think of it, how had this kid gotten inside? The window was still closed. As if he could read Roxas's thoughts, the newcomer smirked.

"Would I lie to you?" he grinned, showing all kinds of pointy teeth. The smile was kind of predatory- in any case, it was more than enough to make Roxas uncomfortable.

"Roxas?" His mother was knocking on the door. Roxas swallowed hard.

"Here, I'll prove it to you," the boy said, barely containing his glee. With that, he walked and planted himself directly in between Roxas and the door. Under absolutely no circumstances would his mother not be able to see him now.

"What are you doing!?" he asked desperately. The would-be wish-granter did nothing but smile.

"Standing here, minding my own business of course."

"C'mon, you need to-"

"Roxas!" At that moment, his mom opened the door.

Content to wait for his mother to demand an explanation, Roxas froze, looking at anything but the open doorway. He couldn't even see his mother, since his visitor was in the way, a bright smile on his face. Maybe he could explain to his mother what he was doing here. That could be his first wish, even, if he were telling the truth about the wishes. I wish you would explain to my mother and me what the hell is going on.

"Are you ok? Sweetie? I heard you yell. Honey, why won't you look at me?" Roxas dared a glance up at his mother, eyes wide and afraid. Secret boys in his room. He'd be grounded for life. And Mr. Red-Head didn't seem at all inclined to help him.

"Hi, mom," he said weakly. "I can explain."

"Oh, honey," she murmured. "You don't have to explain anything." And before Roxas knew what was happening, his mom had wrapped him in a tight and, well, motherly embrace. The kind of hug only a mother could give, and boy, did he need it this morning. He meekly wrapped his own arms around her waist in return. And then he realized.

She'd moved straight through his flame-haired guest. She couldn't see him at all. The red-head was laughing at him, though he was at least polite enough to stifle it with his hand. Otherwise it might have been rather distracting. Wait.

"Thanks, mom. I think I just want to go back to bed for now," Roxas said, a little too quickly. His mother broke the hug.

"Of course, Roxas. I have to leave for work now, but call if you need anything, ok? Or call Hayner. You shouldn't stay inside all day after what happened," she said worriedly, putting her palm against his forehead out of habit. Mr. Red-Head laughed harder, allowing a few giggles and snorts to escape from behind his knuckles. As soon as his mother was gone, Roxas scowled, full-force.

"What is your problem?" The laughter died.

"You're the only one who can see me. Or hear me," he said, as close to seriously as it appeared he was going to get. "I'm telling the truth. I grant wishes. You're my new master." He said that particular word with more than a little disdain. But the emotion was gone as soon as it had come, and the stranger jumped back into his abrasive conversation. "She's a nice lady. Did your mom say your name was Roxas?"

Roxas, meanwhile, was feeling quite dizzy, and had plopped back down onto his bed to recover his bearings. So much had happened in such a short period of time. Shower. Pop-tart. Cindy Carlisle killed herself. Newspeople attacked Hayner. He came home. Mom. Random dude appears from nowhere. Mom. Random dude still not going away. Claims to be some sort of genie. What where when why how?

"Why are you here? Why me?" he asked stupidly. It was as good a place to start as any.

"Do you wish for me to tell you that?" the boy asked with a wink. Roxas's scowl deepened.

"No, I don't," he grumbled. "I thought you'd just tell me. Isn't an explanation of the rules in the genie contract or something?" Mr. Red-Head looked hurt.

"Well, who knows, if you're going to talk to me like that," he sniffed. "Besides, I asked first."

"Asked what?"

"What your name is." He did? Roxas completely missed that. Oh well. He wouldn't be able to do much damage with just a name.

"Roxas." Apparently his name was unusual. The boy's eyebrows raised and his mouth shaped into a little "ooo" of interest. Roxas sort of hated his name, so he had no idea why anyone would get so excited about it.

"Interesting name," the boy gushed. "How do you spell it?" Honestly, what kind of question is that?

"Exactly like it sounds. R-O-X-A-S." The red-head followed the spelling, mouthing each letter with a tiny tap of the air punctuating each one. Maybe he had a passion for orthography. After a minute of feeling rather pleased with himself for his use of the word "orthography," Roxas realized that it may be impolite not to ask the genie for his name as well, assuming he had one.

"Do you have a name? Uh, I mean, what's your name?" He felt stupid for feeling stupid about the way he phrased a question directed towards someone who was probably a sugar-induced hallucination.

"I thought you'd never ask. Most people don't," he said bluntly, with not even a hint of sadness in his voice. "It's Axel. A-X-E-L," he finished as an afterthought, beaming.

"That's not how you spell axle," was the first thing out of Roxas's mouth. Axel glared at him.

"That's how I spell Axel." And that was the end of the conversation. Now that they were done talking and he'd calmed down a bit, Roxas took a long moment to take in a little more of Axel's appearance. He certainly didn't look like some kind of all-powerful genie. Sure, his clothes were a little odd, but he was only wearing normal jeans with a vest. The weirdest parts of his ensemble were the fact that he wasn't wearing any shoes, and that he wore gold earrings that dangled almost to his shoulders, and really, that wasn't saying much. He wouldn't have been out of place at a skanky indie concert.

That didn't explain why his mother wasn't able to see him, though. Not only had she not seen him, she had walked right through him. Clearly, something supernatural was going on. Roxas decided to try that age-old remedy of closing your eyes to see if your problem went away. So, he lay back onto his comfy pillow and closed his eyes. For several blissful moments, Axel didn't talk to him, and Roxas was convinced that he'd beaten out his subconscious trauma. Unfortunately, his celebration was somewhat premature.

"So, you're not going to wish for anything, then?" Axel asked boredly. Roxas groaned and opened his eyes. His sort-of genie was sitting cross-legged on his desk, balanced precariously on all of his carefully accumulated mess. "Usually people are wishing for stuff within the first second, you know? You're awfully boring."

"Maybe I just don't believe you're actually here," Roxas countered. "You didn't answer my question. Why me?" Axel pulled off the most dramatic eye-roll and sigh combination that he'd ever seen, but this time he was more cooperative.

"You opened my bottle, stupid." What!?

"Ok, I so did not," Roxas said quickly, not caring how childish he sounded. He was not, after all, the type to run around opening bottles all willy-nilly. He was careful about that sort of thing. And he would have noticed a bottle that housed a genie, wouldn't he?

"Uh, pretty sure you did. It's right there." Axel pointed, and there it was. The little rose-colored bottle he'd put on his desk. The one that had seemed so innocuous only an hour before. The one he thought belonged to his grandmother. The one that apparently belonged to Axel.

"I thought that was my grandmother's," he stammered.

"Maybe it was," Axel shrugged. "I've never granted any wishes to any old ladies, though." This was all just way too bizarre for Roxas to deal with. A hanging and a genie, all in one day? Andon top of that, Olette still didn't like him. His life sucked.

"Whatever," he muttered, and he rolled over and faced the wall. "I'm going to bed," he declared, as if that may make his new friend go away. Naps solved everything.

"It's not even nine o'clock in the morning," Axel supplied helpfully. Well, at least he could tell time. That may prove useful. "Are you sure you don't want to wish for anything before you fall asleep?"

"Absolutely positive. In fact, I hope that when I wake up, you'll be gone," Roxas grumbled, stuffing his head under his pillow and covering his ears. Just a hallucination, from exhaustion and stress- after he slept, Axel would be gone. Mind over matter. Mind over matter. But nothing could kick that sinking feeling deep in his gut that he wasn't mentally ill- that deep certainty that Axel was telling the truth.

"Ok, well. Think about it. You're stuck with me until you use them up."

And that horrifying thought was the very last one that occupied poor, ordinary Roxas's troubled mind as he tumbled off to sleep.

ZOMG, I get back from vacation and there's a new multi-chapter story? I really need to stop doing that. Anyway, I'm pretty excited for this concept. An ordinary Axel-as-a-genie fic... OR IS IT!?

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