Title:You Already Know.
Rating: M (gayness, language, ooc comments made for the sake of making the author squeal)
Summary: Roxas likes to watch things get set on fire. Axel likes to set things on fire. Roxas just might like Axel a little more than he's letting on. AU
Disclaimer: If I owned KH, there would be gratuitous cut scenes of just makey-outness in Final Mix.
A/N - Aha, I've never written more than a one-shot, so this'll be a challenge for me. Just an idea I had for awhile and pulled out of my ass while trying to procrastinate during midterms week. It was rotting away and now seems like a good time to post it. Some of you have seen the rough draft already. Lemme know what you think; then get back to the books. Beware of random updates and long periods of dead-ness. 8D
Why do you like…this? It's certainly a very…unique hobby.
It was a good question; one that four shrinks, numerous friends, and my family (including the extended members that don't really count) couldn't weasel out an answer to. To be honest, I'm still not really sure if I can answer that question. The better question, the one everyone thought they had the answer to and never questioned me about, is this:
When did your fascination start?
The psychologists gave me a load of bullshit about my "raging pubescent hormonal tendencies" kicking in at a "critical time in my young life" which led to a chain reaction of "poorly judged choices." Friends and family thought it was the big move from our sheltered island to the big apple. It was neither, actually. It started with a cherry red Ferrari driven by one Riku Sentoya (read: huge jerk) kidnapping my brother Sora and taking him across the country to live in beautiful California not nine months after we moved to New York. [1 The kidnapping – which, by the way, racked up a huge flight bill that made almost Cloud go serial (first class is pretty pricey) occurred at night and, according to Sora, involved a purple octopus sushi, three boxes of pocky, and a lot of gasoline. Don't laugh.
Anyway. So after Sora and Jerkface left town for bigger and better things (read: gay montage), the rest of us were left to pick up the slack he left behind.
At the risk of sounding like something straight out of a medical textbook – those first couple of months afterward were hard on everyone. He left the summer before our junior year in high school; it was the summer we were supposed fly back to Destiny Island for the first time in two years and spend hanging out on the boardwalk eating sea-salt ice cream. He forgot, which was just like him.
New York went from exciting to just barely bearable. Little things that Sora's carefree attitude never minded suddenly seemed especially nerve grating to me. Schoolwork, for example, was too much of a hassle. Who really cared what the capital of China was? The number of figs leftover if there were 47 to start with, and Bob ate three, spit out two, gave four to a friend, and threw out five of them? Who cared if there was a unit test of Hamlet coming up? Not me. Needless to say, my sophmore year teachers didn't hand me awards and shower me with gold stars. I stayed above passing, though, and moved onto my junior year.
On a social aspect, things weren't doing too well either. Friends and dates were a thing of the past. Aside from the ones I had made way back when (and even those were rapidly thinning out), I hadn't really met anyone new. It's kind of hard to befriend someone who sleeps all day in class. Although I must say that my dark, brooding – ha – sensuous personality drew girls to me during that year the way it did every year, until my lack of charm and knack for being honest got to them (i.e. "You pierced your ear on the wrong side, idiot. That's why everyone thinks you're gay.") the way it did every year.
Parties didn't need my downcast attitude, and I didn't need the cheap alcohol-veiled misery (and puking, wobbling idiots) that came with so many of our high school parties.
So here comes to the interesting part; the one factor in my life that shocked people the most and ultimately led to the seven professionals hired by my mom. I liked watching things burn. Alot. I set alot of things on fire. To be honest, if it exploded and even caused sparks, I probably loved it. At first, it was just little things, like picking up a lighter on the street and just flicking it occasionally. Then, I moved onto collecting matchbooks – much better than lighters, because there was that distinctly acrid smell – for the sheer pleasure of watching things burn. Just watching that first little flame flare to life gave me a high that no drug could imitate.
After pointing out to my seventh shrink that I could also be out on the streets shooting up coke and buying prostitutes like the rest of my school, he sagely advised my mom to accept my obsession.
It was the first day of school as a junior, and I sat bored and tired between two empty seats in the back of the classroom, listening to yet another teacher give yet another pep talk about staying focused this year in a monotone voice and a deadpan expression. Most of the girls put on a decidedly interested front (read: pulled their shirts lower), though their fake smiles were cracking with every syllable (there was only so much good looks could make an exception for). Most of the guys had decided to pull out their skin mags and were…busy. For a moment, I found myself wondering why a teacher with the looks of a god was teaching in a school filled with prissy idiots, and why said teacher was wearing leather pants in a school environment. Then I remembered that I didn't care. Stifling what would've been an otherwise obnoxious yawn with one hand, I snuck a glance at the clock. 10:15.
I rested my chin in my palm, digging half-crescent shaped marks into my jaw, and sighed. Another wasted day doing nothing when I could be somewhere else doing nothing. Like California. It was kind of funny how my thoughts always managed to trail back to Sora and the life he was living without me. My eyes had worked its way up the aisle to rest on Naminé – my best friend since first grade, an exception to the legion of horny females, and whose only passion was drawing - when the rickety door to the room slammed opened, hinges creaking, and a freakishly tall boy with flame-red hair and small tattoos under his eyes shoved himself into (later, I would admit into my life, as well) the room. Clearly unwanted anywhere else. My body went rigid with surprise, and I (along with twenty-one other pairs of eyes) trailed the lanky boy's every move.
"...I don't have time to deal with this… oh fine, stay here, Axel! See if I care!" A haggard looking hall monitor who reeked suspiciously of smoke shrugged helplessly at our teacher before rolling his eyes at the newcomer and turning heel. The boy possibly named Axel flipped the retreating figure the middle finger and mimicked the monitor's exasperated eye roll. Our teacher – I think he told us to call him Leon – arched an eyebrow disapprovingly. The class waited on baited breath for Leon's next move; the red-haired wonder did no such thing. Instead, he threw a crumpled pink detention slip onto the teacher's desk in the front of the room, headed all the way to the back of the room, and took the nearest empty seat, which just happened to be next to me. This couldnot be happening to me, but oh god wait – it was.
Usually, when people sat by me now, they'd pretend I wasn't there; just another cut of pork at the meat market of life. Not Axel though; as soon as his bright, bright green eyes caught me staring, his lips pulled back to form a feral grin, all teeth and danger. It sent shivers down my spine, his eyes, his smirk, his thin (practically anorexic) frame – not like I was jealous or anything – everything about him. For a moment I saw familiarity and doubt in the depths of his eyes.
"I'm Axel. Have we met before?" His voice was low and strangled.
Startled, and suddenly aware of my visibility, I turned away and faced the board, pretending to be interested by the six different expo markers on the white board ledge. His eyes burned holes into the side of my head.
"Roxas. And no, probably not." I said stiffly, feeling bile rise in my throat. For some reason, feeling his breath graze my cheek bought an unexplainable piercing sensation to my chest. The sooner I got out of here, the better.
Apparently that answer wasn't good enough for Axel, because out of the corner of my eye he started to lean towards me, eyes narrowed – only to be abruptly cut off by an absolutely raging – by raging, I mean lips pressed together in a thin line but an otherwise cool, calm, and collected – Leon. My savior.
"New kid. Out. Now."
Axel spared one last glance over his shoulder before storming out. I should've known then that things would never be the same. Looking down, my fingers were still shaking with not-quite fear.
It'd be a week or so until I saw Axel again.