Title: You Hold My Arms Down, 'Cause I've Been Bad
Pairing: Axel x Roxas
Rating: M
Warnings: Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, child abuse, terrible terrible language and finishing up with a porny cream puff.
A/N: Finally, after a lot of false starts and my brain trying to make this sad (again), we have come up with this. Which ends rather happily, in my express opinion. Hurp-a-derp. Prompt: Expectations, from the Alphabet Meme. Title from Metric's Monster Hospital.
Axel remembers the day that served as the fucked up beginning to his fucked up existence. He was five years old, digging through his Power Rangers backpack for his show-and-tell object and talking with his best friend about the newest episode of Pokémon.
He remembers the other children's confusion and delight, unsure of what it was but eager to learn, just like Axel. He especially remembers Roxas' eyes, wide and blue and full of wonder at what this new object could be. But the teacher was outraged, swiping it out of his hands and keeping it out of reach. Axel remembers protesting with Roxas at his side, still not knowing what it was, still unsure - but he was positive that his parents would be very upset with him if he didn't bring it home. He knew that they used it everyday, sometimes more, and was close to tears when the usually kind teacher whipped around to him, furious.
"Do you know what this is, Axel? Do you know what you've brought?" Axel shook his head, mumbled that it was his parents and he thought it looked cool, way cooler than his worn out Hot Wheels and Legos.
"This is a syringe, Axel. Only dirty drug addicts have these laying around."
After that day, the teacher didn't expect much from him. If he broke something on accident, he was scolded, or set on time out, or his privileges were taken away. If he couldn't read words out, she would roll her eyes and snap the correct pronunciation at him.
His parents continued to use syringes, every day after his father came home from work and his mother had fed him and Roxas an after-school snack. Axel wanted to know what they used them for, but was afraid to ask - he didn't want them to become angry, like his kindergarten teacher had. So instead, he and Roxas went outside and played with trucks in the dirt until the sun began to set and he walked his best friend halfway home, where his mother would meet the little blond and Axel would wave and run back home. It was always dark at home, the lights off and his parents talking and laughing in low voices. But when he walked in the door, he would be greeted with warms smiles and a hug from his father, who would then pick him up and sit him down at the kitchen table to eat dinner, which the others had already consumed. He would sit with a smile, listening to Axel talk about his day with Axel's mom in his lap.
When Axel was nine, he crept down the stairs after his bed time for a snack. His mom had forgotten to cook dinner - which she did every once in a while, if she was upset or angry in the day - so he went without. He wanted to get into his room, away from his parents and their friends and the syringes and sweet, choking smoke. Days like these had his mother talking down to him, her mouth drawn tight, and his father shrugging and kissing the crown of his head and sending him out of the room. Axel lay awake, stomach growling loudly, until late into the night, when he couldn't hear their laughter and coughing and talking.
That was when Axel saw his father, his head on his mother's stomach, lips as blue as his wide, wide eyes and his tongue lolling out of his mouth, thick and purple. He ran back up the stairs and didn't move from his bed until he could hear his mother start crying, until policemen and ambulances showed up at his house and took his father away.
His mother stopped making him after-school snacks, stopped packing his lunches, stopped waking him up with a cheerful 'Good morning' - stopped doing everything but putting the needle into her skin and laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling with glassy eyes. Any time she was lucid, she would glare at him and hit him and tell him to get out of her sight. Axel didn't know what had happened; he remembered when his mother was soft and beautiful and smelled like a forest after a thunderstorm. He remembered when she was something safe - he didn't know when she'd became something to hide from. And he didn't know what he missed the most: his father, or Roxas being allowed to come to his house every day after classes let out.
At school - where the teachers didn't expect much from him to begin with - they began expecting less and less. Axel began starting fights, yelling at teachers, throwing books and refusing to do any work. When they weren't upset and sending him to the office for punishment, they looked at him with pity. Axel wasn't sure what upset him more - their passiveness of his grades, their anger at his actions, or the way they looked at him like something forcibly torn apart and left for dead.
Axel figured out on his own what his mother was using the syringes for. He gave both them and his mother a wide berth, stealing money from her when she was passed out from the heroin coursing through her veins so he could buy Toaster Strudels and chips and Coke. He didn't know how she payed the bills - apparently his grandparents payed for those and the mortgage. He started going to the park with Roxas instead of to his house, and they'd run around the equipment and crawl through the small forest pretending to be wolves and gallop around the field playing Cowboys and Indians. He would walk Roxas to his mother and wave, like he always did, and she would wave back, asking him to come in and have dinner with them. Axel wouldn't - he saw the same pity in her eyes that he saw in the eyes of his teachers, though it was a shade warmer.
Things started going downhill when Axel and Roxas graduated to middle school, Axel getting in by the skin of his teeth. Roxas was made fun of for his 'girly' blond hair, his baby face, his short stature. Axel, however - he was automatically accepted into the group of badasses due to his attitude, his gangly frame, and his fire-engine red hair. He started sitting with them at lunch, bringing Roxas along and slinging an arm around his shoulder while telling the rest of the group how awesome the kid was. Axel expected them to see this and accept the blond immediately.
"What, this your boyfriend, Ax? You telling us that you're gay now, huh? 'Cause we don't let faggots hang out with us."
Axel stopped inviting Roxas to sit with them at lunch. By the time he'd turned thirteen, Roxas was a thing of the past in Axel's new life of cigarettes and weed and cutting class. Axel ran with an older group; he may not have been the very youngest, but he was close. A large number of his new friends went to the high school.
Every time he saw Roxas, his chest tightened a bit, heart quickening - but then he remembered Marluxia calling him a faggot, remembered Larxene cackling and hanging off his arm, and he turned away before anyone could follow his gaze.
One thing Axel can't remember, however, is when looking at Roxas started making his jeans tighter, or when he started thinking of him when he slid his hand into his boxers at night.
It didn't matter, though. He'd thought that if he put the thoughts away - maybe only taking them out when he had his hand tight around himself - that they would eventually go away.
Axel continued skipping class to smoke cigarettes, sitting along the fence and talking animatedly, hands waving and smoke creating trails in the air. When Axel was fifteen, he got sauced on cheap beer and whiskey and strong pot - and woke up with tattoos on his face. He went to school the next day, watching Saïx and Marluxia and Demyx splutter with laughter before swinging his fist at them. Two of the boys were out cold on the ground before the others sprung into action, and Axel was promptly suspended for fighting on school property. That night, Saïx and Marluxia nursed bruised faces with ice and Axel sat beside them with Demyx putting moisturizer on his tightening tattoos, all of them passing around the dirty bong and laughing.
The day Axel turned 16, he dropped out of school. He was slightly hesitant, thinking about not being able to see Roxas every day - but then he thought about how he wasn't going to think about the blond that way and how he'd been held back two years, anyway, and Roxas had been promoted to the high school. He sat around for the next year, doing nothing but smoking chronic and drinking himself stupid and laying around on his bed.
And then his mom died.
He'd drifted apart from his mother, just like he had Roxas. In his defense, he stopped talking to her because - when he'd bother to come home - she was either asleep or high and screaming about how much she hated him. He didn't cry at the funeral, just nursed a sort of numbness that he was used to feeling when he thought of his mother. However, it brought him face-to-face with his grandparents.
They didn't stay long, only came for the funeral. They agreed to continue paying the mortgage on the house and the bills on one condition: that he get a job.
Which he did. As a carpenter.
He worked for his GED, for the courses he would need to be certified. He would get up at four in the morning to leave for work a half hour later, heading over to the shop that was a forty minute drive out of town to start cutting lumber to correct lengths, going over housing blue-prints and when other contractors would be there to start the foundation or do the plumbing. At seven, he and the rest of the crew would be leave to go to the work site, check everything over, and start at eight o'clock sharp.
Axel thought he'd hate it, if only because of the alarm ringing at stupid-o'clock in the morning - but when the clock struck two and he was headed home, it was all worth it.
Axel remembered the day that started his life as a fuck-up; he also remembered the day that everything turned itself around. The company Axel worked for started a new housing project - across the street from Roxas' house. He'd forgotten where the kid lived until he was standing on the skeleton of the roof, hammering and drilling things in to place. It was hot out, almost impossibly hot with the sun beating down on his back, and he stood to pull his damp shirt over his head.
He caught blue eyes over the fabric of his t-shirt, he balled the shapeless thing up in his hands and held on to it for dear life; mostly he was trying to crush the impulse to jump down from his perch and run across the street and hold the blond. Instead, he gave a salute and turned back to his work, his breathing only a little unsteady.
When he'd finished his shift, and walked down the street to get to his piece of shit car, he'd put his t-shirt back on, along with his safety vest, and he was still wearing his dirty work gloves and tool belt with his hard hat under his arm. He saw Roxas walking toward his own car, in his driveway. He blanched.
"Roxas!" He called out, jogging toward the blond and not believing what he was doing. He watched the blond stiffen, watched him slowly turn his head toward him and blue eyes flaming with wroth were set upon him. He stopped by the blond's car, hard hat swinging from his hand.
"Hey, Rox, I-" he was immediately cut off by a fist to the jaw, and cold 'fuck you', and Roxas slamming his car door, tearing out of the driveway.
All Axel could think of was how much taller Roxas had gotten.
The next time Axel got an opportunity to talk to Roxas - three days later and the bruise on his face still fairly dark - he was fresh from his shift and the blond had the hood of his car open, hands on the edge of the heated metal and shaking his head. He walked behind him slowly and carefully.
"Need some help, Rox?" The blond whipped his head around, blue eyes blazing and features twisted into a scowl.
"Fuck off, asshole." Axel sighed, reaching out to touch the blond's hip.
"Roxas, are you really pissed off at me for ditching you in middle school?" Roxas shoved his hand off and continued to push the red head to the ground.
"Yeah, you absolute fucking dick, I am! Who the hell are you, anyways, coming over here and talking to me like we haven't not been talking for the past seven years?" Axel looked up at him from the ground and just stared. He took in the blond, nearly breaking out in frusterated tears and shaking from head to toe in rage - he wanted so badly to reach out, to smooth the tremors from his limbs and bury his face in hair like honey.
Roxas dropped to his knees, fisted the collar of Axel's sweat-damp wife beater, and split his knuckles across a tattooed cheek bone. Axel's eyes squeezed shut, he sucked in a breath between clenched teeth, his own hand gripped the one in his shirt - not trying to remove it, maybe just trying to keep it there. Before he could open his eyes, Roxas had grabbed Axel's chin with his free hand, pulled it up, and pressed his lips the other's open mouth.
Axel's eyes flew open and he stared and the distorted mess of flaxen hair in front of him, completely immobile. He was sure that his heart had been skipping at a rapid rate, that his entire body had gone limp - but everything boiled down to the lips against his own. Just as Axel was about to respond, he was shoved back and suddenly alone on the baking pavement as the blond ran inside.
Axel sat for a moment, completely dazed and a bit confused. He pushed himself to his feet, shut the hood of Roxas' car, and walked to the front door.
He rang the bell - no answer. He pounded on the peeling door - no answer. He resorted to a combination of banging on the door, ringing the bell, and shouting the other's name - in unison - before Roxas whipped the door open, face red and eyes pointedly not looking at the red head's face.
"What do you-"
"Roxas, look at me." Axel cut him off, voice quiet and serious and resonating through the sudden silence. After a moment, Roxas' eyes met green.
"Did you mean it?" Axel's voice had fallen in volume, in pitch, until it was a husky murmur.
"What d'you mean, did I-"
"Roxas. Did you mean it?" The taller man stepped towards him, hand reaching out to rest on a muscled waist, trailing to brush a jutting hip bone. Roxas had grown, that was for fucking sure, and his body was nothing like the one Axel touched himself to when he was younger (if we were being serious, up until three days ago). He was taller, filled out, broad shouldered with large, sinewy hands and even bigger feet. But those eyes, those fucking eyes, they smouldered when they looked at him, they begged and wanted just as much as Axel would have, had he not been pinned by that hot blue gaze.
"Yeah." Axel grinned and leant in to capture those lips again. Roxas responded, but pushed him away just as quickly as before.
"Dude, we're in front of my parent's house. This is not going to happen." Axel just grinned again, wider than before, letting his arms drop from the other's body and stepping back. Roxas shut the door and walked by him, absentmindedly drawing a finger across the red head's abdomen.
"C'mon, douche bag, I need to figure out what's wrong with my car." He stopped and leveled the red head with a less-than-scorching glare, "And this doesn't mean I forgive you." They spent the day with tools, tinkering around in the engine with Axel making stupid jokes and Roxas rolling his eyes and trying to hide small smiles. Axel tried holding a wrench over the blond's head, only to be superiorly disappointed when Roxas reached it with ease and punched him, lightly, in the side.
They changed the oil filter, the air filter, the fan belt - the car finally started working when they adjusted the spark plug. Roxas threw his arms up in victory, hands clenched into fists and looking up at the orange and pink of the sunset. Axel wrapped his arms around his waist and kissed him, hard. Roxas' eyes were surprised, but Axel just lay his forehead on honey blond hair.
"Come home with me? We don't...we don't have to do anything, I've just-" Missed you. The words were unspoken, but Roxas heard them anyway.
"Yeah. I'll, um. I'll follow you in my car." Axel's house was dark when they arrived, like it always was. It was different, though - cleaner, smelled like cigarettes and lemon Pine-Sol instead of sweet, toxic smoke and unclean bodies and sex. They walked slowly, carefully not touching one another, into the kitchen with that day's breakfast dishes in the sink.
"D'you want a beer or something?" Axel asked, voice quiet and unsure in the darkness of the fading sun. Roxas nodded, and when Axel turned away, he wrapped his arms around the red head's chest. He pressed his face against the nape of the other's neck, breathing in and filling his nose with cigarette smoke, Irish Spring on the brink of expiring, sweat. Axel relaxed against him, fingers stroking the skin of the blond's hands and forearms.
"Can we have apple slices and sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies?" Roxas asked, breathing the question across the sensitive skin of his neck. Axel grinned, laced his fingers with the blond's.
"After-school snack, Rox? Feeling a little nostalgic?"
It was so easy with Roxas. They picked up like they'd never been apart, laying in Axel's bed and feeding each other apple slices and exchanging long, slow kisses. It became a ritual for after Axel was finished work. They would meet at Axel's at 2 o'clock sharp, and Roxas would bury his face into the sheets to smell Axel on them while the red head showered away the sweat and grime of the day. Axel would snuggle into bed, damp and half naked, and the blond would flip over to press his nose into his neck and wet hair. Roxas always managed to get crumbs in Axel's bed, but Axel would just brush them away and lean in to taste them off Roxas' tongue.
They spoke in low tones and loud laughter and light touches, laying face to face with their legs tangled together. They would lay for hours, until the sun fell from the sky and the bravest of stars began to peek through the clouds and the violet-blue of an expired sunset. Roxas would leave every night when he started to drift to sleep - he never stayed. When he left, Axel would slide his hands into his pants and grip the flesh that had been half hard since he walked into his room to see Roxas face down in his bed.
About three weeks into this ritual, Axel came home and didn't see Roxas' car in the driveway. His brows furrowed, but he dismissed Roxas as late and jumped in the shower, leaving the door unlocked for when the blond got there.
Axel walked into his room and was accosted with Roxas' absence. His brow furrowed deeper in thought, looking at the bed that usually held a certain blond. Axel shrugged, relaxing his brow and shooting off a text.
dude where are you? it's weird that you're not here
Satisfied when he saw the message had been sent, he turned on his Xbox and settled in to blow some aliens up. Roxas would come or he wouldn't, no matter what Axel did - he'd been over just yesterday, and hadn't left in a way that made Axel feel like he had done something to piss the blond off.
It was 11:30 in the night when Roxas stumbled up the driveway. He leaned against the locked door, holding his thumb to the doorbell, talking to himself and giggling quietly. When an awoken, angry Axel wrenched the door open, Roxas nearly lost his balance and fell into the house. Axel's brow smoothed, his mouth slack in surprise.
"Rox, what are you doing? Why didn't you- Roxas, are you drunk?" Roxas had moved, arms around Axel's neck and face pressed into his shoulder. Axel wrinkled his nose at him; he smelled like the dregs of a Vodka bottle.
"No, I'm not." The blond's words were loud and slurred. "I only- only had like...twelve drinks, I'm not druuuuunk." Axel winced at the volume of the blond's voice, shutting his front door and maneuvering the intoxicated blond up the stairs while he talked his ear off.
"Okay, well, I did have that bottle of vodka. And the drinks. And some dude bought me about four Hand Grenades-"
"What's a Hand Grenade?" Axel asked, pulling Roxas' jeans off and leaving him in his boxer-briefs - he averted his eyes when his mouth went dry at the sight of Roxas' sculpted, muscular legs. The blond babbled on about tequila and Jäger and Red Bull while Axel pulled the kid's shirt off and pushed him into his own bed, pulling the covers up around his ears and turning to leave.
"...and then when you pull out the tequila- hey, hey! Where are you going, Axel?" Roxas' voice went a shade higher, eyes wide in confusion and slight panic. He pushed the covers down and stumbled out of the bed before Axel could stop him, tripping out of the bed and into Axel's arms.
"Axel, aren't we gonna...uh, you know..." Axel raised a short eyebrow at Roxas' mumbling, waiting for the shorter man to speak.
"Well, aren't you going to do something, uh, erotic?" Axel felt his jaw go slack, Roxas' face colouring prettily even as he started to scowl and pull away.
"Roxas. Rox, did you actually come over here thinking I would sleep with you when you're this drunk?" Roxas' blush deepened with his scowl, looking away from the red head.
"Well, yeah. I figured that if I- if I got drunk enough, I'd be brave enough to make it happen!" Roxas shouted, brows furrowing hard and jaw tight. Axel put his face in his hand, shoulders shaking. Roxas stared for a moment, face gone blank, before Axel took in a shaking breath and let loose a string of giggles.
"Are you laughing at me?" Roxas' voice was at once outraged and slurred around the edges, making Axel laugh that much harder. Roxas gripped the taller man's hips, pressing his thigh between Axel's legs and grinding slowly. The red head's laughter was silenced, but he hummed sleepily into the blond's ear, draping his arms around broad shoulders and kissing the column of his neck.
"Roxas, I would jump at the opportunity to make love with you," Axel murmured quietly between kisses, "But now isn't the time. You're drunk, and I don't want you to wake up in the morning and be regretting shit. So just get in the bed and we'll talk about this tomorrow, okay?" Roxas nodded, waiting for Axel's lips to leave his skin before stumbling back towards the bed, gripping Axel's forearms tightly. The taller man sighed.
"Rox, I just told you, we're not-"
"Just stay with me," Roxas blurted, cutting the other off, "I want to wake up beside you." Axel smiled softly and acceded.
Axel woke up wrapped around a tanned torso, strong hands stroking up and down his back and through his hair.
"Morning, Ax," Roxas said, voice rough and quiet. Axel just mumbled incoherently, nuzzling his face into the other's abdomen.
"Mm, as adorable as this is, I need you to get off me for a minute. If I don't piss in about eight seconds, I'll probably piss the bed." Axel reluctantly let him go, and he was almost surprised by how fast he jumped up and exited the room. It wasn't until the blond re-entered the room that Axel remembered Roxas was wearing nothing but his underwear and that he had a terrible case of morning wood. He shuffled deeper into the bed, letting the blond in while still keeping his current state a secret; but Roxas slid his body against Axel's, snuggling into him. Roxas let out a husky laugh, smoothing his hands down the red head's back.
"Happy to see me, Ax?" Axel pushed his face into the crook of Roxas' neck, mumbling something about the world being unfair and shouldn't Roxas be hungover, anyway? Roxas just laughed and shimmied down, pressing kisses and licks and nips to Axel's collarbone.
"So sex now?" Axel murmured, his long arms wrapped around Roxas' shoulders. Roxas' answer was to pull Axel's nipple into his mouth, flicking his tongue over it and pulling a tiny, half-suppressed noise from deep in Axel's throat. Roxas pushed Axel back into the mattress, straddling him and pressing his hips into Axel's lap.
"Is sex okay? Are you all right with that?" Roxas murmured against Axel's mouth, lips catching and breath mingling. Axel nodded, hands going to Roxas' hips and pushing him down. Roxas gave him a dirty grin and pulled the red head's shirt off, rolling his hips and watching as Axel's shoulders and abdomen and jaw clenched. The blond slid his hands down Axel's bare chest, fingers toying with the line of corse red hair on his taut stomach, before slipping his fingertips under the other's boxers. He slid them back and forth under the elastic, leaning down to kiss his sternum before inching the material down his hips.
He pulled the underwear off slowly, fingers tracing muscle and fine red hairs down to his ankles. Axel's legs spread for him when he was finally bare, and Roxas knelt between his legs and slowly stroked the other, tugging and squeezing the hot, hard flesh. He pressed one hand against the other's stomach, sliding the other down, further back; he pressed his nose into that teasing trail of hair, inhaling and pressing tiny kisses to the skin there.
"Can I, Ax? Can I have you?" He raised blue eyes to look at the other, cheek pressed against Axel's burning hot cock and two fingers rubbing circles against a tight ring of muscle. Axel's face was red, eyes reduced to half open, glittering slits, breath coming fast from between red lips. He shuddered hard at Roxas' words, carding a large hand through flaxen hair.
"Yeah."
Roxas grinned and sat up, shuffling off the bed and picking his pants up, which were lying in a heap on the middle of the floor. He returned to the bed with a condom and lube, grin widening at Axel's expression.
"I've never been accused of being ill prepared." He prepped Axel slowly, pumping his fingers and littering his stomach and thighs and cock with kisses. Axel squirmed and panted, pushing his hands into Roxas' hair and bending his knees around his body while Roxas rubbed slowly over his prostate and licked over the head and reduced Axel to shivering mess. Roxas rolled the condom on and slicked himself with the remaining lubricant, moving forward to brace himself on one elbow over Axel and hold his blunt head to Axel's softened opening.
"Ready for me, baby?" Roxas whispered against the other's lips, catching the bottom between his teeth and gently pulling.
"Yeah, please, hurry," Axel pleaded, shifting his hips and trying to force Roxas in. Roxas pushed forward slowly, and Axel ignored the small twinges of pain to focus on Roxas, Roxas inside, please oh fucking god. He did his best to relax around the blond, but a sudden painful stretch had him clenching hard. Roxas barely restrained his pleasured whine and looked at Axel's furrowed brow.
"Ax, am I hurting you?" Axel shook his head hard, eyes still squeezed shut and biting his lip. Roxas' eyes widened, jaw softening.
"Axel, are you a virgin?" Axel's eyes flew open at this, his body tensing and head shaking again. "Ax, don't fucking lie to me. Only virgins sit back and take it if it starts hurting. You didn't even tell me?"
"I didn't think you'd notice," Axel muttered quietly, his face colouring. Roxas kissed him, tongue gently pressing past his lips and tracing the roof of his mouth.
"It doesn't matter if I noticed, it's nice to know that I'm your first." Their kisses were long and wet while Roxas was paused, half inside and rolling the pad of his thumb over Axel's head. He waited until Axel's hips were twitching, finally becoming accustomed to the overwhelming feeling of fullness. Roxas began pressing in again, watching Axel's face and stopping when he grimaced and closed his eyes. Roxas pulled back, slowly thrusting and kissing Axel's throat, working his way in until he was fully in. He continued the slow, rolling thrusts, the gentle rain of kisses over his face and neck and clavicles. Finally, he changed the angle slightly and grazed against Axel's prostate, making the other moan loudly.
"Goddamn, forgot about that," Axel gasped, fingers tightening on Roxas' muscled waist. Roxas grinned and rubbed against that spot a few more times before Axel's body shook and his jaw fell open.
"Fuck, Rox, more," he moaned, curling around the blond. Roxas grinned again, sitting up to adjust their position, much to Axel's disappointment. The blond wedged a pillow under Axel's lower back, settling the red head's long legs up on his shoulders and grinning.
"Hold on, Ax, you're gonna love this." Roxas drove into Axel, pulling a startled groan from the other and speeding up the pace. Roxas took Axel into his hand, his hand a tight fist, and Axel arched his back, head falling backwards and breath coming quicker. Roxas took in the lean, stretched out body before him, swallowing a groan and pushing in faster.
"Rox, Rox, you gotta stop before I come, I can't-" Axel cut himself off with a loud moan, fingers fisted tight in the sheets.
"It's fine, Ax, come for me...I don't - oooh, fuck - I don't know how much longer I can last-" Roxas slammed into the other's prostate, over and over, until the red head let out a cry and came hard over Roxas' hand. Axel had barely finished when Roxas dropped his legs and fell forward and started pounding his body, thrusts becoming more and more erratic until he fell over the edge. Axel wrapped his arms around the blond, feeling the other's cock twitch inside him and humming in contentment.
Roxas stayed inside him for as long as he could, pulling out slowly and trashing the condom. He wiped the come off his hand and Axel's stomach with a stray shirt picked up from the floor and settled in for a long cuddle.
Until Axel looked at the clock twenty minutes later and his eyes widened in sudden realization.
"I was supposed to be at work five fucking hours ago." A moment of deadly calm preceded the flurry of action, Axel throwing himself out of the bed to get dressed despite the sting in his backside and get out the door to the worksite.
Roxas finally convinced him to call instead of rushing to work headlong, smelling like sex and falling over half-assed explanations. He still fell over himself explaining, something about a power outage and his alarm clock not going off - but he managed to explain sufficiently and was put on the afternoon shift instead.
Axel banged shingles into the roof of the new housing project for seven hours, with a strange burn-and-sting plaguing his back, until he was sent home so he could be up and at 'em for the next morning.
When he came home, it was to the blond lounging in his bed, nose pressed against the sheets and grinning. And Axel - falling into the bed, freshly showered and naked and half-asleep - didn't care about anything else in the whole fucking world; just as long as he could come home to Roxas.