Chapter Two
The Man With a Plan

"I have a plan," Sora said with considerably more enthusiasm than Riku could have prepared himself for.

Of course Sora had a plan; he always did. Much to Riku's dismay, Sora having a plantypically meant only Sora would benefit from whatever harebrained scheme the brunet came up with while everybody around him suffered from massive amounts of brain trauma, food poisoning, or frostbite. The frostbite had occurred during Sora's most recent brilliant idea to rescue the nearby population of crickets. In the middle of winter.

I hate crickets, Riku thought to himself as he eyed Sora from across the table. He took a sip of his coffee, wincing as it scalded his tongue. And I hate Sora's plans.

"So, I'll be needing your help—"

"No."

Sora tried to remain optimistic, which was difficult considering the last time Riku had helped him resulted in a trip to the emergency room because Riku had fallen into a pond. In the winter. With the crickets. "See, I learned something about Roxas last night," Sora pressed on. "Turns out that he knows that guy Axel and is quite possibly dating him."

Riku didn't seem interested in the least. "I'm still listening, but that doesn't mean I'm going to help you," he said firmly.

"C'mon, Riku, we've gotta save Roxas! That guy is way older than him!" he insisted, although thirty wasn't really that much older, especially since Roxas was twenty-one, almost twenty-two. That was beside the point, Sora convinced himself, and he needed saving whether he thought so or not.

"They've been dating for a while, I'm pretty sure. Roxas is always gone at night, so my assumption is that's when they secretly meet. I'll need your help to follow him to Axel's secret lair and then we can bust in and rescue Roxas from the clutches of evil!"

Arching an eyebrow, Riku forced down a wave of amusement and asked, "Clutches of evil? Secret lair? What do you think this guy is, a vampire?"

"I can't rule out the possibility," Sora said seriously.

Riku choked a little. "Are you for real?"

"Well, yeah."

"Sora, this is crazy," Riku said, setting aside his coffee mug to lean forward and give the brunet a stern stare. "So Roxas has a boyfriend. Big deal."

"But it's an older boyfriend, and he didn't tell me!" Wringing his hands together, Sora focused the most pathetic look possible on Riku's face.

The silver-haired boy sighed. "Of course he didn't. If you were dating a boy, would you tell him?"

"Of course I would!"

With a dubious little smirk, Riku picked up his mug again and held it to his lips. "Whatever you say," he murmured and took a sip.

"Hmph." Crossing his arms, Sora hunched down in Riku's kitchen chair and sulked spectacularly.

"You don't have a problem with it, do you?"

"With what?" Sora grumbled, attempting to look as grumpy as possible. It wasn't really working. He kept getting distracted, his eyes straying to the video game consoles in the living room and the comfy blue couch he wished they were sitting on, because it was freaking hard to throw a hissy fit on a wooden chair. Literally.

"With Roxas being gay," Riku said quietly.

"What?" Tearing his attention away from the next room, his gaze zeroed in on Riku's face, which looked oddly vulnerable and soft. "No! Why would I?"

"Because you seem to be taking this a little hard."

"Well, who wouldn't?" He sniffed defiantly and looked away again. "I mean, he's my brother. He should tell me these things!"

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to come out to someone?" Riku asked, growing irritated. "Especially the people you care about most?"

"Well, no," Sora mumbled, beginning to falter. "It doesn't seem that hard. You just say it."

"It is," Riku growled and stood up, slamming his coffee mug down on the table. It cracked down the center, a small, spider web-like line that snaked jaggedly all the way from the top to the bottom. "You couldn't possibly understand."

Sora stared. "Are you trying to say I'm stupid?"

"No, that's not it." Sighing, Riku closed his eyes and put one hand to his forehead in exasperation. "What I'm trying to say is…"

And then coffee started leaking out of the crack and Sora yelped, jumping up to grab napkins, and Riku swore loudly as he rushed to help.

"I'm sorry," Sora said automatically, used to apologizing for every mishap in Riku's apartment, since he was usually at fault.

Riku gave him a strange look, taking a proffered napkin from Sora's hand and calmly mopping up the coffee. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Oh." Laughing meekly, the brunet finished cleaning up the spill and tossed his dirty napkins in the trash before taking Riku's broken coffee mug and holding it up for inspection. "Did you wanna save this? We could probably fix it."

"Nah," Riku said, placing his hand over the mug, his fingers overlapping with Sora's. "It was cheap. I can just buy another one."

"Okay." With a megawatt smile, Sora dropped the broken coffee mug into the trash and turned back to his friend. "So, what were you going to tell me?"

Riku's expression closed off, and he looked down at his feet, suddenly transfixed with his black and white checkered Vans. He cleared his throat. "I know," he eventually muttered.

Blinking, Sora cocked his head to the side and asked, "You know what?"

"How hard it is."

Errr, Sora thought, his brain screeching to an abrupt halt. What?

"Errr, what?" Sora's words echoed his thoughts.

"I know how hard it is to come out to someone close to you," Riku said again, his face clearing, looking immensely relieved, like a weight had been lifted. "I'm doing it right now, in case you hadn't caught on yet."

For a while, Sora could only stare. His best friend since elementary school, the one person with whom he could share anything, was gay. He could only think of one thing to say:

"Does nobody tell me anything?" he shrieked.

Apparently, that was not the reaction Riku had been expecting, because he blinked rapidly and hesitantly took a step forward. "You don't care?"

"Did I care about Roxas?"

"Um." Riku gave him a look. "Yeah. You've kind of been making a big deal out of it for the past—" he paused to check his watch "—half hour or so."

"Oh," Sora said, suddenly meek. "Oops."

"Yeah." Scratching the side of his neck, Riku continued, "Also, there's one other thing I should tell you."

Well, nothing could be more surprising than that, Sora thought, then grinned cheerfully, swinging his arms. "What is it?"

Riku let out a deep breath. "I have this really retarded crush on you, and it won't go away, and I'm really sorry." The second the words were out of his mouth, a scared look entered his eyes, and he swiveled his head to the side awkwardly. "So there it is. That's all."

"Uh," Sora said, nearly choking on his shock, and grabbed the back of a kitchen chair to steady himself. "I've, uh…gotta go stalk Roxas now," he uttered faintly. "I'll call you later."

And before Riku could even raise his hand to wave goodbye, Sora tore out of the room and down the stairs.

-

Stalking people was stupid. It was hard, really hard, harder than Sora had expected. First, he had to find out where the hell his target was without asking him directly, because that would have been too suspicious, and he had checked every single typical college hangout before finally discovering Roxas at a vending machine in the history building. As a detective movie afficionado, Sora was well aware that he not only had to act the part but he also had to dress the part – of being a detective, that is, because he wasn't crazy stalking Roxas, he was investigatively stalking him. It was all for his brother's benefit, he assured himself.

And so Sora had gone about digging through Roxas's clothes, being that he himself didn't own anything black, and had managed to find black slacks and a black turtleneck. He thanked the heavens that the temperature was cool enough that he wasn't sweating. Even with a school cap on, he found himself being stopped by classmates who were curious as to what he was doing. Stalking Roxas was becoming trickier by the second.

Much to Sora's relief, Roxas finally chose a candy bar and exited the history building, heading toward Seventh Heaven, the pub where he and Riku had met Axel the night before. Being outside made it much easier to follow Roxas since the sun had set hours before and even with the streetlights, Sora had little trouble finding cover in the shadows. As Roxas entered the pub, he looked back, and Sora casually leaned against a lamp post, staring off in the opposite direction of Roxas.

This is the worst hiding spot ever, he thought to himself. But a moment later he heard the door shut and he relaxed, seeing that Roxas had gone inside. He walked over to the entrance, hand resting on the metal door handle, then came to the immediate dilemma of how he was going to remain unseen inside the small pub.

Before he could devise a proper plan, the door flew open and nailed him in the face, pushing him back and effectively hiding him as he heard two people leave the pub, one person stomping and yelling while the other followed. The door slowly swung back closed and Sora rubbed his nose, which hurt like hell, and watched the retreating figures of Roxas and Axel as the redhead followed Roxas into the alleyway just to the left of the pub.

I knew he was meeting Axel! Sora smiled triumphantly as he followed, staying a significant distance back to avoid detection. He peered around the corner where Roxas and Axel had disappeared and barely managed to muffle his choke of surprise when he saw Axel grabbing Roxas by the hood of his black jacket, jerking him backward and into the wall. Roxas's head cracked against the brick and he cried out in pain, gritting his teeth angrily as he gingerly held his fingers to the back of his head, growling when they came away tinged with blood.

"Axel," he hissed, "what the fuck was that? I'm bleeding!"

"That was kinda the point," Axel said with an exaggerated grin, his eyes flashing briefly in Sora's direction. Sora shrank back, fearing for a moment that he'd been discovered, but Axel merely ducked his head to lick Roxas's bloody fingers as he lowered his hand.

That was close, Sora thought, wrinkling his nose at the way Axel had licked the blood from Roxas's fingers. Gross. Why is Roxas dating a sicko like that?

Roxas didn't seem to think it was gross. He was smirking and flicking his fingertips suggestively, but he still had a hint of a glare in his eyes, obviously still somewhat annoyed as evidenced by his next sentence: "We're not playing this game tonight, Axel."

"It's not a game," Axel murmured, trapping him against the wall with his body, one hand pressed against Roxas's chest as he unzipped the blond's jacket with the other. "I'm hungry."

"Then we're not doing this in public," Roxas complained, pushing at Axel's shoulders with both hands. "Someone could see us."

"Which is why I'm doing it." Grinning, Axel slid off Roxas's jacket, laughing when the blond docilely let the piece of clothing drop to the ground. "I thought you had a problem with this?"

"I do," Roxas said, still glaring, "but there's no point in arguing with you since you're obviously just going to do it anyway."

"Ooh, he's learning!" Looking ultimately pleased with himself, Axel slipped a hand underneath Roxas's screened band shirt. With a yelp, Roxas grabbed his hand and tugged it away.

"Stop that, you're cold!"

"Like that's anything new," the redhead leered.

Oh my god, Sora realized. I'm watching my brother get molested and I'm not even doing anything! I'm a horrible person!

"Shut up and help me," Roxas muttered with an irritable look, reaching for the bottom of his shirt to tug it off over his head. Axel smirked and grabbed the material, pulling it over Roxas's blond hair for him, and tossed it onto the steps near Sora.

Eep! Sora ducked back behind the brick wall for a moment, hoping neither one had looked to follow the shirt's trajectory. He waited a few minutes until he thought it was safe and risked another glance down the alleyway.

Axel had Roxas completely pinned against the wall, and Sora noted with a wave of shock that he was completely off the ground, his legs wrapped around Axel's torso. The taller man's head was ducked against Roxas's collar bone, and Roxas's expression was…

Sora quickly found somewhere else to look. At Axel's shoes, to be exact. His boots were covered in mud now, the laces only half-way done

That's a look I never want to see on my brother's face again,he mentally told himself once he'd recovered enough to form coherent thoughts. Ever again.

When he finally mustered the courage to look back up, Axel's hands were at Roxas's studded black belt, and Sora was just about to turn around and leave to get help when the tones of the old school Batman theme erupted from his back pocket.

"Shit," he swore and reached for it, frantically trying to turn it off by answering it and hitting the end button as quickly as possible. Riku's picture flashed on the front screen along with his name, and Sora momentarily felt bad for hanging up on him, but it had to be done. His cover was blown, and he needed to get far away before either of them could see him. He glanced up to see if Roxas and Axel had noticed anything.

He very nearly crapped his pants when he saw nothing more than green eyes and a flash of teeth before he had the good sense to stumble backward, staring at Axel standing mere inches away and looking smug.

"Hey there, Sora," the redhead purred, trapping him against the brick wall the way he'd done with Sora's brother.

How did he get here so fast? Sora thought frantically. Did I really take that long to ignore Riku's call?

"A-Axel," he stuttered, valiantly willing himself not to pee. "How are you?"

"I'd probably be feeling a lot better if you hadn't interrupted us." He grinned, then leaned forward to whisper, "You could have just kept watching, you know."

Sora squeaked. Behind Axel, Roxas was cussing loudly and stomping around the alley as he assumedly gathered his clothes. When he showed up at Axel's shoulder, he looked pissed off beyond all rational thought, and he shoved Axel out of the way to grab Sora by the collar and yell, "You followed me!"

Sora meekly tried to blend in with the wall. "I'm sorry."

"I can't believe you! Just what the hell did you think you were doing?"

"Protecting you?" Sora offered, wincing at how pathetic that sounded. By the way Roxas was nearly lifting him off the ground by his shirt, it didn't really seemed like he needed that much protection anymore. But Axel had seemed so strong, and Sora didn't like the idea of Roxas dating older boys…

"I don't need your protection," the blond boy hissed. "What I need is privacy."

"I was worried about you." Frowning, Sora pried Roxas's hand away from his shirt and continued, "What was I supposed to do, just turn the other way while my brother was skulking around with people I don't know every night?"

"Half-brother," Roxas corrected harshly.

Sora's face faltered. "I was just trying to help…"

"Roxas," Axel interrupted with a cool hand on either boy's shoulder, keeping them apart. "Stop giving your brother such a hard time. It's not his fault."

"Like hell it isn't," Roxas muttered, but he didn't put up much of a fight; he merely adjusted his hood and moodily looked off to the side.

Axel nipped the side of his jaw. "Just listen to his apology, will ya?"

Rubbing the spot Axel had touched, Roxas turned his stormy gaze to Sora and said, "Okay, fine. Talk."

"Um." Sora spread his hands innocently. "I'm really, really sorry and it will never happen ever again?"

Roxas snorted. "Yeah, whatever. It's fine. Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

Sora didn't say anything. He just looked back and forth between Axel and Roxas, taking in their disheveled appearances, particularly at a bruise forming on Roxas's neck and the ruffled state of his hair and clothing.

"Well?" Roxas snapped when the silence had stretched too long.

Sora felt a smile growing on his face as his eyes finally found Axel and Roxas's hands joined between them. He looked pointedly at Roxas and asked, "Just friends, huh?

-

A/N: For the record, Axel is not thirty. :D