Chapter Two: Freak

Demyx was…strange.

Sure he appeared to be normal when he walked out of the house wearing a pair of baggy blue jeans and a blue tank top with a fishnet shirt under it and matching shoes but he was just really strange to Dee.

One he didn't seem to realize that Dee was well a girl and kept saying "I'm sorry, man" or "Please forgive me dude. We can totally be bros can't we?" which amused Dee to no end. Two, well he was a strange mix of hyper and calm, which Dee first noticed when the boy ran down the steps of his house and promptly hugged the girl and started apologizing profusely then slid into the back seat and talked quietly with Dee and her brother for the rest of the ride to the hospital.

Axel just winks at Dee and answers any questions the blond boy sends his way and turns up the radio to some rock station that Demyx wanted to listen to.

"I can't believe you lost your memory from that head injury. I didn't think you had hit your head that hard on the ground, god man I feel so bad." Demyx chimes from the backseat, Dee just shakes her head.

"It's…um…fine, I think. Thank you though." Dee wonders why her brother didn't tell him that she was female but she didn't feel like questioning it much since her head still hurt inspite of the pain medication that Axel had given her.

"Don't worry Dee. We're close to the hospital and then after we go there we'll do something exciting.'' Axel says tapping his fingers when he stops at a red light. The girl glances over at him and finds herself wondering if this was the dimension where Axel actually had a heart since he and Demyx seemed to have emotions that didn't seem false. She notices that he had a tattoo on his right wrist that was shaped like his weapons from the games, and finds herself smiling at that, shutting her eyes slowly.

Demyx trails off from singing along with the Miley Cyrus song that had been playing on the radio and looks over at Danni, he didn't get to study Axel's relative much the night before and Axel had never really talked about him. He did notice that the boy was strangely feminine looking with long eyelashes, full lips that seemed to have lip gloss on them, and even wore eyeliner that made his eyes wider and more innocent looking. It didn't help that his tight jeans gave his hips a slight curve and that his butt was well rather nice looking.

"Danni's a girl dipshit. You aren't gay." Axel says rolling his eyes.

"What? How did you even know what I was thinking and…what?"

Axel snorts, glancing at him from the rearview mirror, "You were staring and had a stupid look on your face. Anyway Danni has dressed like this since I was adopted into the family. She started copying my mannerisms and even thought she was a boy for some time until well…puberty hit. Mom wanted her to be more feminine but she's more comfortable this way but it gets her into lot of trouble."

"What do you mean?"

"One of the reasons why she had to stay here was because she got into a fight at her old college for dressing this way. Some people thought she was gay at her old school and started harassing her about the way she dressed and one day a group of boys attacked her to try to make her more feminine in their own way," Axel's hands tighten on the steering wheel and Demyx slowly realizes what he meant, "Luckily one of her friends saved her and they both fought them off but Danni ended up breaking a boy's arm after hitting him with a metal pipe. That was the final straw for mom and she decided that she couldn't handle Danni right now and sent her to live with me. I mean I know Danni is old enough to live on her own, she's twenty now, but I just didn't think she would want to or could handle it yet. And now she doesn't even remember what happened to her but I suppose that's a good thing…"

"So is Danni…"

"Gay? Nah, well at least she hasn't told me if she is. She's had a couple of boyfriends back at Hollow Bastion but they couldn't handle the way she dressed so she told me she just stopped dating for a while. Could you do something for me though?"

"Sure man, anything." Demyx says as they pull into the hospital parking lot.

"Help me keep an eye on her. She knows nothing about Twilight Town and all she has is me so I want her to meet new friends and have fun here but she's kind has a temper like me so I don't want her fighting anyone at the school"

"We'll introduce her to the gang then. I'm sure she'll like them and I'll watch out for her on campus."

Axel nods and parks the car, "Good idea, I wanted her to meet Roxas anyway. They're the same age so they should get along okay. Plus lord knows he needs to cheer up since the whole Naminé fiasco…"

Demyx glances back over to Dee and sees her looking right back at him with an amused smirk on her face, "Uh hi."

"'sup. Can we get this over with? I don't like hospitals…" Dee says popping her back with a groan and Demyx finds himself glancing at her chest, well lack of one.

"How….why don't you have boobs?"

"Demyx, I am going to ignore the fact that you were looking at my little sister's chest if you get out of the car right now."

"Going."

Dee laughs as Demyx rushes out of the car and slides out of her seat as well, following behind him and Axel with a smile on her face. But as she walks she wonders about what she heard Axel say in her half awake state, not fully able to believe that someone would try to do…that to her just because she was different. In her normal reality she had friends, though most of them were also different like her, either emo, punk or just strange people who either happened to like the same gender or liked dressing like the opposite gender. Some of her friends appeared to be normal but had strange little quirks that made them seem different then everyone else and yet they were only made fun of, never physically attacked. It made her skin crawl to think about what had almost happened to her "other self" and she didn't really know how to react to it.

Axel glances back at the girl only to see her lagging behind, running her hands over her arms as if she was cold. He turns around and walks over to her only raising an eyebrow at her and throwing his arm over her shoulder, leading her towards the hospital.

"Geeze hospitals aren't that bad. Demy and I will be right there beside you if you need us." He whispers as Demyx walks to the front to get a clipboard.

Dee just nods and finds herself leaning against his shoulder, sighing softly when she notices that he smelled familiar to her, "Like mint…"

After finding out that Dee's head injury was only minor and that she simply had a slight case of amnesia, Axel heads towards the café where his friend Roxas worked, quietly explaining their past to Dee.

"You're Danni Flynn, daughter of Nathan and Gabriella Flynn. You're twenty years old and lived in Hollow Bastion with most of your life. Nathan is your stepfather and he adopted me soon after he married your mother when you were five and I was seven. Your birthday is July 8, 1989 and your favorite colors are green and purple. And yes, you've been a cross dresser most of your childhood, I guess its cause you didn't like girl clothes and liked copying me most of the time or something..." Axel goes on telling Dee about her supposed life and she was shocked to find out her friends different names and strange facts about herself that differed greatly from her former life, like the fact that she had had panic attacks since she was three years old. She notices that Axel failed to mention the exact reason why she was staying with him, just saying that their parents thought it would be a good idea because of problems at school and her needing a change of scenery.

And after telling her all that he thought he needed to know about her former life he talked about his friends, mentioning that she would meet the others soon but that she "had to meet Roxas since he was the coolest blond dude she would ever meet, other than Demyx of course, and Axel's best friend in the whole wide world, once again other than Demyx."

Dee giggles and decides not to mention how gay that sounded and nods, singing along with Demyx to Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". Axel just smirks and shakes his head amused that the two were harmonizing almost perfectly and even doing "air drumming" at random times.

"I've been roaming around always lookin' around at all I see…" Demyx trails off at the end of the song to point at the window, "There it is, Sunset in Summer Café where Roxie works."

"Gayest name ever. It's pretty though." Dee murmurs, looking at the medium sized café that had pretty white tables in the front and numerous flower beds around it.

"Well it is owned by Marluxia…" Axel grins at her after parking the car, "Who you should meet by the way. I'm sure you two will hit it off."

"Why?"

Demyx just grins and jumps out of the car, opening her door and pulling her out of it, wrapping an arm around her waist, "You'll see, Dan."

Dee growls at the name and glances back at Axel who just lets Demyx pull her into the building, his hands stuck nonchalantly in his pockets.

"You are a bad big brother. Help me."

"Whatever, you love me. Don't worry about Demy he's trying to be friendly after thinking you were a dude."

"I liked him thinking I was a guy…I make a sexy guy."

"That you do…wait…forget that I said that" Demyx blinks and blushes as the two laugh as they walk inside, the smell of coffee and warm baked goods hitting their noses.

Dee sighs softly, automatically wanting a cinnamon roll and something fruity to drink and absentmindedly walks forward, luckily stopping before she could run into the blond boy in front of her who was cleaning a chalkboard that had menu items on it. He turns around slowly and smiles and her stomach twists nervously when she notices who it was.

"Sorry about that. Am I in your way?"

"Ah no, it's my fault. I was distracted…" She says blushing faintly as her shades slide down her nose a little. Demyx and Axel run up and hug the boy with a shout of "Roxie" and she silently thanks them for interrupting the awkwardness.

"Hey guys…can you let me go? This is weird," Roxas says laughing a little and dusting off himself off as Dee reaches down and helps him up, kicking Axel in the side as she does, "Thanks, my friends are kind of weird. I'm Roxas by the way, can I help you?"

"I'm Danni…"

"The one I told you about remember Roxas?" Axel says rubbing his side as he stands.

"Oh, sorry, it's nice to meet you Danni. Axel has told me a lot about you."

Dee grins slightly and brushes her bangs away from her face and Roxas blinks, blushing a little, "I hope everything he said was good…even though I wouldn't remember if it was true or not."

"Y…yeah, everything was good. Though hilarious…" Roxas trails off as a pink haired man walks up and Dee was amused to see that he wore a pink skirt over a pair of black hip huggers and a black shirt under a pink apron. He wore pink eye shadow and red eyeliner and light pink lip gloss.

"Roxas aren't you done with that board yet? Oh…you two are here…great," Marluxia says frowning a bit as he looks at Demyx and Axel, "What do you want?"

"We wanted to introduce you and Roxas to Danni."

The girl yelps when Demyx pushes her in front of Marluxia and the pink haired man looks her up and down before he grins slowly.

"Do you pack?"

Dee blinks then blushes realizing what he meant, "Ah…sometimes. Depends on the day and how I feel I guess…"

"What do you use? I always wanted to know what it was like for the other side," he blinks a little when she shifts uncomfortably then laughs, "I'll ask you later then. What would you like, sweetie?"

Marluxia leads Dee to the front of the café near the counter, talking to her quietly about both cross-dressing and the specials of the day, leaving the three boys to blink behind them .

"What did he mean by packing?" Roxas ask with a tilt of the head and Axel laughs hitting him on the back.

"I'm sure Dan will explain it to you later…though I was wondering about the same thing myself…hmm."

Roxas just blinks and shakes his head, "Dan seems nice though. Is he shy or something?"

"He? Danni's not…" Demyx yelps when Axel steps on his foot and gives him a slight look and a shake of the head, "Ow."

"Yeah he's shy. He's been through a lot the past couple of months. I want him to hang out with us to get over his shyness and get some friends you know?"

"That's cool. I'm sure the others will like him. What's he like?"

"Very different…just don't ask him about his past because he's had some head trauma thanks to water boy over here…he's got amnesia and doesn't remember much though he recognizes some pictures of the family…"

"Kay…"

"Anyway how you been feeling…I know you've been working a lot since…Xion…" Axel trails off when Roxas looks down at his feet.

"Yeah Sora has said I've been working way too much but I can't help it. It keeps me from thinking about everything. It's just different and it doesn't help that I see her on campus all the time."

"I know, dude, bummer. How about you get us some cookies and we'll talk about it like fancy gentlemen over tea and crumpets?"

Roxas shakes his head and laughs, turning to walk to the backroom only to see Danni walk out with a tray of cookies in one hand with an pink apron tied around "his" waist.

"Say hello to your new coworker, Roxie" Marluxia says walking up while Danni puts up the cookies in the glass case in the front.

"How did you get him to work for you so fast?" Demyx asks with a raised eyebrow.

"I used my feminine wiles and a little persuasion." The male flutters his eyelashes at Axel and winks causing the boy to stick out his tongue and pretend to throw up.

"You bribed him with the cookies didn't you? He'll do anything for sugar, little sugar whore."

"I heard that!" Danni flips him off and goes back talking to another waiter who worked there, a sugar cookie stuck in her mouth.

Marluxia shakes his head and laughs, "No…well yes I bribed him with a few sugar cookies that Roxas made. He seems to like those. Anyway, he said he was going to be in town for a while and I asked if he had to pay you rent and he said he wanted too."

"But he doesn't…"

"He knows that he doesn't have too but he still feels bad about staying with you for free so I offered him a job to help out and give him something to do when he's not at class. Since he doesn't know his class schedule yet we're working on a work schedule but it is almost summertime now so we should be good for a while."

"Thanks Marley, that was surprisingly nice of you, which is…strange. How come you've never offered us jobs?" Axel says frowning.

"I don't want my café to be burnt down if I had to leave you in charge of watching it. Demyx however can have a job anytime he wants." Marluxia winks at Demyx who grins back at him.

"Thanks, Marley!"

Axel rolls his eyes and scoffs, "You just did that because you think he's cute."

Marluxia just grins and steps up, punching Axel in the stomach before walking away to go talk to Danni.

"Why did you punch Axel?" She asks, watching Roxas walk towards the backroom, a slight blush forming on her face as her eyes trail to his backside.

"He was being a dick. He has a nice ass doesn't he?"

"Yes he does…" Dee blinks then glances up at Marluxia only to find him grinning down at her, "What?"

"Oh this is going to be fun…"Marluxia laughs and Dee finally notices how creepy deep his voice actually was and felt scared for her sanity.

"I doubt it."