chapter two - and take me home
"Too much cock?"
Axel nods, massaging the ache at the base of his spine.
"Any good?" Lexaeus jabs his large meaty-fingers at the blinking buttons on the cappuccino machine. His nails are half-chewed.
"Honestly?" The night is less than clear. Waking up, sloppily dressed and alone on Olette's balcony, didn't bode well for the guy who'd fucked him senseless. "I can't remember."
His frizzy-hair co-worker arches one of the hairy masses sprawling across the milk expanse that is his large forehead.
Staring down the night, Axel can almost feel his back hitting on cold cement as the stink of piss and puke and animalistic sex whirl up and into his nostrils. A figure, pale as moonshine, is thrusting a frantic beat above him, attacking his body with the greed of a man starved.
Everything else is fizz.
"Some fuck." A squirt of Redi-Whip is mashed atop the coffee-confectionary and pushed through the order window. The cafe clatters in return; the day had begun uncommonly busy stint but Lexaeus was a substantial enough barista to hold bearings while simultaneously trying to keep Axel from falling on the stove.
Axel shrugs. "Yea. He was."
---
6:42 and the boss had almost been pissed when he found out that Axel brought his hangover to work. The guy is never one to criticize—he's always hot for Mary Jane—but: "Dammit, boy, can't you stay sober for a few days?"
The redhead had laughed; Xigbar sent him home.
Axel clomps into the warmly lit entryway of the Opry-Glove Boardinghouse, letting the rich waft of stew envelope his senses.
His place isn't anything spectacular: a couple rooms, one ratty toilet, and some half-chewed carpeting from a worn shag-van; but meals are free and no one's too strange, so things work out OK.
The heavy, oaken door clicks closed.
"Evening, dear," chortles the well-crafted falsetto of a woman lost somewhere in the bowels of her Boardinghouse. "Home so soon?"
Axel snickers, amused that she was listening for him.
"Gonna be down for dinner with the family?"
Axel's satchel, the vibrant collage of nonconformity, patches and pins that it is, falls to the linoleum. "You know I don't eat." He peels off his bootstraps with quick fingers. A murky silhouette stirs in the living room. "Tomorrow, 'kay?"
"All right, dear, I'll hold you to it!"
And the shadow disappears.
Axel starts up one of several staircases, grunting and ticking off "the family" as he passes their doors. Owner's on 1, Leon and Marluxia bunk 2: the grungy, dirt-speckled auto-body worker and his flower-loving twin.
Axel thinks one of them might be straight on a bad day.
3 is Larxene: not particularly social, but creative enough to tack her own cryptic notes to the doors with blunted instruments of BDSM torture and butcher knives. That's about all anyone ever hears from her.
4: Roxas. Axel used to take showers with the kid after they met up at a Grind; "saving" hot water and shit. He guesses the guy got a girlfriend, 'cause he's never around Contact anymore.
And Axel's room: a gigantic roof-top flat with a high, glass ceiling and walls that were just recently erected.
It's a steal in comparison of what he makes and what he pays, but his ass never fails to pick up the extra when is comes to the ladder.
Normally—Axel eases himself onto the first rundle—the climbing's not so bad—lift, extend, place, up right, up left—but under the circumstances—wince, three more—God, that kid was fucking rough.
His footing catches; Axel falls. His hands fumble, his jeans rip down the knee; a bit of feathery something jars out from his jeans' up-turned cuff as he crashes to a stop.
"What the fuck's this?" His fingers curl around a rumpled half-scrap of paper. Axel turns it, once, twice, three times over in his fingers, not noticing the sequence of numbers scrawled in miniscule script until the paper's fourth twist.
941-5678
Maybe it's worth a call.
To Be Continued...
lolupdated.
review, and i will continue.
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