So here's chapter two! Thanks for the reviews much appreciated!
yeah you have to get through the chapters before roxas comes in…but I hope it keeps you interested. Maaaaybe next chapter!

I don't own anything. Peace

Contains swearing

Enjoy!

…..

"You have to pay for the sins I have created."

That was the last thing Van has said to him, his hand resting on his forehead. It was two o'clock in the morning and Axel was still groggy from sleep, confused, still trying to figure out reality from dream state. His father smelt of alcohol, which was pretty normal occurrence now. What wasn't normal was that he had come into his room at all. The relationship Van had with his three children had become distant to the point where the only time he seemed to speak to them was a mumbled hello when he used the bathroom in the morning. Or when he started drinking and predictably started yelling. Axel was thirteen years old and still trying to figure out the point of what he was shouting at. The television remote wasn't where he left it, shout, Axel's school books were on the table, shout, Cassandra was staring absently out the window again and the food was getting burnt, terrifying roar, Reno taking Kairi and Axel to the park until he calmed down, Van throwing a beer bottle at the door of their hasty retreat.

The next day, he realised his father wasn't coming back, and his dad was an asshole and a raging alcoholic who had torn Cassandra's mental health into tiny shreds and then left them to pick up the pieces. He finally understood what Van's words meant. His father's sins turned his life into a cesspool...

The next couple of years were destructive. His mother's sanity seemed to have snapped. They often found her in the shower mumbling and weeping, eyes wide and self-inflicted scratches up her arms that were bleeding. Her mood swings were unpredictable, one minute laughing at something on the television and suddenly throwing the remote at it in a rage, smashing the screen. She started forgetting to eat, to wake up for work, picking up Kairi from school, paying rent.
Axel's first criminal exploit: learning to forge Cassandra's signature to deposit the cheque Van left in the mailbox at the end of every month into her account.

The cheque made Axel feel physically ill because it was a constant reminder that he was still around. Van worked a good job, and got paid well for a 'Midgar; the destroyed economy' citizen. A thousand dollars hardly paid for toilet paper to wipe his ass after the expenses were paid to keep them alive. It was the 'fuck you and try live with this for another twenty eight/twenty nine/thirty/thirty one days' cheque.

So they moved to a shittier suburb, where drugs were the local currency and break-ins taught you to hide valuables in your shoes or locked up in a safe.

When Axel turned fifteen, he placed a lock on his bedroom door.

His mum had stumbled in drunk, makeup smeared down her cheeks, a bottle of gin in one hand and a razor in the other.

"Oh Axel," she murmured, grabbing his cheeks between claws, nails digging into his flesh. Tattoos were still slightly sore under his eyes. "You have black tears."

The blade of the razor pressed against his cheek, and fear trickled through his veins. "You're hurting me…"

She just stared at him. Her pupils were as large as marbles. "Your eyes…they're like your father's..."
The tip of the razor dug into his skin, and his breath came out in a rush and tasted slightly sour. His mum threw the bottle of gin against the wall, glass smashing, alcohol spreading across the rug and the smell permeating the air. She leant down and kissed him, open mouthed, something you wouldn't…shouldn't grace with your own child.

His shock caused the blade to slice his cheek as he jerked away, blood warm down his face.

"Shhhh," she whispered, straddling his legs while he sat in his desk chair. The light of the computer washed an unnatural light across her face and made her look sickly, but he couldn't tell if it was just his own mind making her look chilling. The blade moved closer to his eye in her movement and glinted deadly silver.

"Mum..." he hissed, finding breathing more difficult, cotton wool suddenly stuck in his throat. "Mum…please stop."

Her other hand clamped down on his crotch, her fingers grasping around him. "Your eyes are just like your father…like your father…like your father…" she continued her mantra, whispering at him, massaging him. And it was like his mind had disappeared in a hole he had painted there, the muscles in his body seizing up until he cramped.

Reno saved him by crashing through the door and tearing her off his frozen self, the razor once again tearing into his skin and snapping him from his shock. He fell off the chair in haste, crashing onto the ground that caused pain to shoot up his spine, scuttling backwards like a crab until his back hit the solidness of the wall. Glass punctured into his hands from the broken bottle.

"What are you doing?" Reno snarled. He suddenly smacked her hand against the wall hard, bones cracking. The blade fell from her grasp and she screamed and thrashed, her free fist cracking against his chest as he dragged her from his room and down the hall.

Cassandra had seemingly forgotten about what had happened. Lucky her. It was a poisonous memory that he would never forget. He got a job getting paid minimum wage of $5.63 an hour stacking shelves, camped out on Zexion's floor and stayed at school longer so he wouldn't have to go home. He started drinking heavily so he would forget. He started popping Xanax like skittles so he would forget. He tried heroin, cocaine, acid…anything…trying in mad desperation to forget that his body had started to react from his own mother's touches. He felt sick.

Reno left when he was sixteen.

"I got a job in Kilika Island," he said as he shoved clothes in a sports bag. Kairi had run out of the house in an angry rage and Axel was high. Even in his stoned haze, his stomach dropped to his ankles. It was the worst betrayal.

"I'll send you money," his brother continued.

Axel tugged at his hair until it hurt. "What…what the fuck?"

He couldn't say what he needed to say he was so fucked. He felt Reno's hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at his brother. His grey eyes looked concerned.

"Don't get stuck here, Axel. You're smart…fucking smart. You can do what-"
Axel whacked his hand off him in sudden anger. The only thing going through his head: Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal, betrayal.

"Look…we can find someone who can help mum."

"Fuck you Reno. We don't have any fucking money!" Axel clutched his head when it pounded. He couldn't see straight, the room tilting. He wanted to vomit. "And where are we going to go? The orphanages…child services are fucking…fucked! We'll be in worse shape than that fat lady who lives next door…" He laughed suddenly, a desperate sound until his eyes burned with unshed tears.

"Axel-" Reno began.

"You're exactly like Van, you selfish son of a bitch!"

Reno punched him hard in the face and left with more words. "Clean yourself up Axel. Get your shit straight! Make something of your life!"

Like he needed more words.

He had this habit of talking when he wasn't home. When he was around his friends, he talked too much and smiled until his cheeks hurt, all flashing teeth and wild red hair that he couldn't control and toxic green eyes. People thought he looked like The Joker, but that was ok for him. He would do anything to become another person, so people would realise that there was something wrong with him.

He found his mum in the bathroom with her wrists cut from elbow to palm. He didn't know that a human body contained so much blood and it pooled around her. She had drawn smiley faces on the white tiles with it. The doctors patched her up, sent her to a psychiatrist who didn't give a shit and gave her a prescription for Cipralex.

It helped for a while, until Kairi stole the repeat prescriptions.

"Mum needs them Kairi. Where is the prescription?" Axel said, sighing slightly. He was tired. He had been studying for what seemed like years for exams.

Kairi twirled her hair around a finger, blowing a pink bubble from glossy lips. "I dunno Axel. Maybe mum threw it out."

"Don't fuck around! Just give me the fucking paper!"

"I need the money!" she cried.

Axel grabbed her arm, soft flesh yielding under his grip until she grimaced. "Get a job! She needs the prescription, so just give it to me!"

She scoffed at him, "Give it to me? You want me to fuck you Axel?" her voice dropped, dripping with honey. "You want me to suck your dick, Axel? You must be very sexually frustrated…you never bring a girl home. But maybe you just want your own sister. Personally I find incest a little revolting."

He let her go like she stung him. Her eyes shone, blue like Cassandra's. She stepped away from him, smiling roguishly at him and rubbing her arm where his fingers had left red circles on her arm. His fists clenched.

"What do you need money for?"

"Oh, things." She picked up her bag. "Maybe some condoms." Openly laughed at him, popped her gum, stepped away from him towards the door. She stopped, the screen door pushed ajar. "You know Axel, we're never getting out of this shit-hole. Why don't you just accept it and make the most of it."

Words…

A 99 for his TER, and four universities to choose from, neurotically stacked in a pile on his desk and still unopened and three statements he stapled into his memory, probably for the rest of his life.

"You have to pay for the sins I have created."

"You know Axel, we're never getting out of this shit-hole. Why don't you just accept it and make the most of it."

"Clean yourself up Axel. Get your shit straight! Make something of your life!"

Guilt, despair and self-disgust.