Summary: I've been on top of the world, since about six months ago, marking the first time I laid eyes on you.
Disclaimer: I don't own it. I don't own 3OH!3, or Kingdom Hearts. But I do own a pretty sweet Roxas pin. Ooooh, yeah.
Author's Note: La la la la. It seems that this was enjoyed by the readers, so here is the second installment. Have an enjoyful New Year!
II. But I'll Be Okay
Tell your boyfriend,
If he says he's got beef
That I'm a vegetarian,
And I ain't fucking scared of him.
-3OH!3, "Don't Trust Me"
Everyone has a black sheep in the family. It's the crazy uncle that talks to the mice under the cupboard, or the grandmother that had a 'senior moment' and ended up spray-painting the mayor's house. To be sure, the Warner family had more than their fair share—it seemed to be that everyone and their mother had stored their insane relatives within their family. They had crazy great-aunt Maleficent, who had to be locked up for her own good in the local old folk's home, and Cousin Mickey, who looked a bit like a mouse and frequently proclaimed to be a king that had come to "save the world from darkness", whatever that meant.
However, Crazy Aunt Tifa was possibly the most insane of them all…more so because she was completely crackers, and the adults thought she was normal. Oh, but Axel knew—he knew she was a conniving she-devil wrought from the fires of hell, constantly roping people in with her deceptive kindness and good cooking skills. She was just too nice, too polite to everyone, with the exception of Axel. Of course, Tifa and Kairi got along well on some odd female-to-female basis.
Now, she was running approximately twenty-five minutes and fifteen seconds into the station, shirt twisted and hair in a state of casual disarray. She jerked her body to a stop in front of the bench that they sat on, breathing a bit heavily.
"Hi! Sorry I'm late, kids. Lara just told me you'd left the station, and I was handling an order…" Tifa laughed, running a hand through her hair, smoothing it down around her shoulders. She smiled apologetically, smoothing down her shirt and plucking at her shorts. In addition to be a Secret Screwball, Tifa was also in the possession of a type of beauty that caused men and women alike to stop and blink. At the moment, some clueless teenage boy was in the process of spilling coffee all over his perfectly distressed jeans as he gaped. The boy's girlfriend looked none too pleased, but Mister Distressed Denim didn't seem to notice.
The boy moved to the side, trying to get a view down Tifa's shirt, but Axel bounded upwards, positioning himself in front of her. Honestly. Your hot aunt is mentally impaired, and suddenly everyone thinks it's okay to sneak peeks through her clothing.
"AUNTIE TIFA!" Axel bawled into his aunt's ear, yanking her upwards. "It's good to see you. How've you been?" The Distressed Denim boy scowled and shifted again, only to be thwarted by Axel's sudden affectionate attack on his relative, crushing her slighter shorter frame in his arms. "How's your store going? Good? That's great. Yanno, I miss that store—Selphie and Leon talk about it still—oh, hey, remember that time we came to visit and we tied bottle rockets to the shingles?" He noticed the boy still continuing in his valiant quest to see cleavage, and he clutched Tifa tighter and exploded into a magnificent bout of laughter. Its sheer magnificence was founded completely in its sound---something so unnatural that it both disturbed and frightened everyone present. In fact, it was more like a war cry; a raucous noise of "KYA HA HA HA!" That caused Spilled Coffee Boy to shuffle over to where he couldn't be seen, dragging his boo with him.
"That's nice, Axel." Tifa said slowly, trying to pry her nephew off without appearing to be too creeped out. "Good times. I didn't know you missed the store that much. In fact, it's doing swell. Got new helpers and everything. One of them is here—oh, lord, where is that boy?" She twisted around, effectively dislodging Axel's grip and craning her neck over his shoulder. "Demyx! Get your skinny ass over here!"
"I'm buuuuusy!" A voice—Demyx?—howled.
Tifa scowled, placing her hands on her hips. "Demyx Martin! You have five seconds to be un-busy, or I'll dock you a week's pay!"
There was a wet, smacking noise, a small sigh of frustration, and Tifa's unfortunate minion slunk out from behind a wall, pouting miserably. The boys was about Axel's age, give or take a year, and was running a lightly tanned hand through a mess of dirty blonde hair that had been painstakingly sculpted into a mohawk-mullet combination. His jeans were of the distressed persuasion, and could not shield the large coffee stain by the zipper.
"You!" Axel hissed, jabbing a finger in the boy's direction.
The boy laughed—a hearty chuckle that seemed to bounce around the area. It was a pleasant laugh that made you want to hear it again, and Axel hated him for it. "Nah, I'm Demyx. Nice to meet you." He extended his hand and Axel stared at it with a mixture of disgust and bewilderment.
"Yeah. I know." Actually, he didn't know. Well, he knew now, so it counted, right?
Demyx's hand lingered in the air, where Axel glowered at it with disgust until Kairi hip checked him out of the way, thrusting her out hand forward for the blonde to shake. "Hi! I'm Kairi and this idiot's Axel. We're relatives of Tifa's." She batted her eyelashes profusely at the boy, taking off her spectacles to make sure that he could see just how pretty her eyes were.
"Demyx's a godsend." Tifa explained as she moved them forward. "Honestly, I dunno what I would've done without him. I'm not there all the time, so it's a huge help. He does the lifting for when the heavy things come in."
"Oh, I bet he does." Kairi giggled, shoving her nonexistent breasts up against Demyx's arm. Axel gagged from his spot behind her, and was quickly silenced by the delivery of a sharp elbow to the gut. "Demyx looks so well muscled, and so on. He looks like a strong man, doesn't he, Axel?"
Axel yawned.
"I mean, not like you. It's so cool to see someone who's actually got muscles, unlike you, Axel. You're just so thin. Maybe you and Demyx can bond at the gym."
The elder of the Warner siblings scowled, and said loudly, "What was that, Kai? I'm having trouble understanding you through the enormous piece of lettuce in your braces."
To his credit, Demyx attempted to stifle a snicker behind his well muscled hand. His eyes glinted with amusement and he slipped Axel a broad grin over the top of Kairi's head.
"It's nice that you're all getting along so well. It'll come in handy, seeing as youse'll be working together at the store." Tifa interjected, clapping her hands together. Axel gaped in horror while Crazy Auntie Tifa smiled broadly at them. "It'll be so much fun!"
--
As it turned out, working at Tifa's general store was not a great heap of fun.
At the crack of ten a.m., she burst into Axel's room and pried apart the curtains in his room, despite constant squeals of, "The sun burns! Oh my god, it burns!" Tifa had then proceeded to get all up in his grill, smiling far too widely and cooing, "Up and at 'em, Axey! The store's a'waitin'!"
The morning had only become only more disastrous when he had stumbled into the kitchen and seen a nightmare masquerading as his baby sister across from his corn flakes. She had certainly dolled herself up for the occasion; the glittery eye shadow bounced off of the light fixtures and into his eyes, blinding him instantly—or at least, it would've, if he hadn't already experienced the urge to gouge out his eyes upon glimpsing her bared stomach and plunging neckline, courtesy of Forever 21. Axel's eyes traveled from her trailer park-chic miniskirt and bright pink legwarmers, and promptly opened his mouth to bestow his opinion.
"What the hell happened to you? You look like Maybeline went all schizoid on your ass."
Kairi sneered, leaning forward to snatch toast from the platter and giving Axel a totally unfortunate glimpse of barely there cleavage. He shuddered. God. Sisters should never have boobs. Thank god Kairi didn't have much to speak of, or he would've died on the spot. She munched viciously on her bread and snarled through the jelly, "Yeah, well, let's see who gets the boy, Axel. And FYI, it won't be you."
"I don't want the boy." Axel said peacefully. "I guess I would if I was gay. But, yeah, I'm not." He paused, and added, "So there."
"What about that thing with Leon? Re-mem-ber?" The girl taunted, smirking broadly as they exited Tifa's house and walked up the road to the general store.
Once upon a time, Axel had a "boyish crush" on Leon. He had asked him out, had even offered up a daisy as a method of persuasion. The latter had flatly refused, causing more than a week of sulking and binging on ice cream. The only reason Kairi knew this at all was because he had bawled out the whole story to Selphie on the phone, and the smaller redhead had been listening on the other line. Thus, she flaunted her knowledge at every appropriate turn, like the shameless harpy that she was.
"It's natural for young people to experiment with their sexuality." Axel hissed as they opened up the store, ambling over to the register. "Natural. So, yeah, Kairi, why don't you just take that and stuff it up your—"
Kairi suddenly beamed, chirped out, "Hee-eey, Demyx!" and seized the edge of her brother's ponytail, dipping his head backwards. "Listen, retard, don't you dare screw this up. I'm gonna make him my man, and you will not interfere. Ya heard? Do. Not. Interfere." Her eyes narrowed (Contacts, noticed Axel, and he felt a bit disappointed) and she let go of his hair, grinning broadly as she skipped off towards Demyx (who was looking blonde and perfect in his coffee-free jeans).
"Hi, Kairi. What's up, Axel?" Demyx laughed, waving at them. Kairi snuggled her way behind the register and twittered like a moron at the casual display of his sheer wit ("You wanna man the register?" "Tee hee!").
Axel wished him a swift death. Preferably by being suffocated by Kairi's raging hormones.
While Kairi lost brain cells by swooning over Demyx, Axel decided to be a man and take charge of the register. The customers seemed to be rather easy-going and lethargic…up until they witnessed his inability to calculate exact change within three minutes. Then they became scowling masses of old geezers who griped about "how long does it take to gimmee the damn change for the damned Ajax, jaysus!"
Honestly. "Patience is a virtue." Axel growled at a middle-aged woman as she stalked away without her change, simply because he'd gotten confused with the matter of Sacagawea coins. "Like anyone even knows how much those are worth. Jesus."
And then, the heavens opened, and down descended an angel.
One who only purchased a fifty cent pack of Bazooka Joe and paid with a dollar. Easy made change, thank you very much.
And a beautiful angel it was too; a petite, girl with blonde hair cut short and swept to the side in a way that Axel had seen in one of Kairi's Teen Vogue magazines. She appeared to be wearing a flimsy, baby pink top that was coated in sequins and sparkles that bounced off the cheap lighting. Her skirt seemed to be an exact copy of Kairi's, although it seemed just…classier on this softly curved figure than his knocked-kneed fourteen year old sibling. God, she was an absolute goddess…that hair, those lips, those eyes—so impossibly large and blue, fringed by the longest eyelashes he'd ever had the luck to see.
And ohmigod, she was talking. To him.
"Hey, babe." She cooed, leaning forward to slide change across the counter.
Axel tried to think of something awesome and cool and thrilling and came up with the proud exaltation of, "Heh heh."
"Hey to you too, Rox. What're you doing here?" Demyx said cheerfully, peeling Kairi off his arm and edging out from behind the counter. Axel was going to yowl his irritation, but Demyx was already placed in front of the blonde beauty, grinning up a storm and chatting up the girl like nobody's business. The redhead managed to choke out, "Hey, uh, I was—"
And then it happened.
Demyx bent forwards, scooping 'Rox' (if that was it, but it seemed more like a cutesy nickname than the girl's actual name) into his manly, muscled arms and lifting her off the floor. He squeezed her around her small waist and kissed her nose.
"Tell me they're brother and sister. It's always a brother-sister thing." Kairi snarled in Axel's ear, bending him down. He nodded wisely and soothed, " 'Course it is. They're just, um, affectionate? Yeeeah."
Affectionate as in INCEST.
The angel let out a small rupture of laughter, looping her arms around Demyx's neck. She pressed herself closer and whispered, "I just kinda felt like seeing you."
Kairi mimed vomiting. "Cheap whore." She coughed, plastering on a wide smile when the two looked her way.
"Aw. I missed you too." Demyx cooed in reply, nuzzling his woman's neck.
Just when Axel and Kairi thought it couldn't possibly get anymore syrupy and sickening, the love of Axel's life (for all of the two point five minutes she had occupied it) wiggled upwards and planted a firm kiss on Demyx's lips.
And they stayed like that.
…For quite a while.
Axel's heart neatly broke itself into three pieces. For him, Kairi, and the pathetic thought that he'd ever thought of having a shot with Demyx's Totally Hot Girlfriend. He turned to Kairi so they could commiserate properly, but the small red haired girl was too busy glowering to notice.
"That…slut. I can't believe her! What has she got that I don't?"
Um…beauty beyond human understanding and a nice ass?
"Rise above it." Axel advised, feeling the urge to be brotherly, or at least ward off Kairi's insane anger on the love of his life (hey, just 'cause she was hot and Demyx's girl didn't mean he couldn't try).
"Stuff it, bean pole." Kairi snarled, leaping over the counter in a dramatic and amazingly nimble way that could be linked to years of gymnastics. "I don't care if she's fuckin' Princess Diana. It's on."
A/N: Woooooah. Chick fight, chick fight! I was kinda worried about Tifa's characterization, because I've never written her before, and I kept thinking, "Oh God. This doesn't sound like ker!" But I think it came out pretty decent. Aaaanyways, I'd think of something witty and clever to say about reviewing, but yeah--I got nothing. Just do it? Por favor?