Hey Guys, sorry for the late chapter. I've been busy doing things and stuff. Like Uni.

Enjoy.

...

Zexion's apartment was where demons could go and die. Or perhaps that is just how Axel felt about it. He didn't understand the appeal of painting every wall black, have every piece of furniture black, to even have towels black. Hell was probably more light and cheery. But it was where Axel's demons could go. Zexion and Axel understood each other in ways that Axel would never understand. They refused to share secrets or tell the stories that caused the scars. It was an unspoken agreement "I won't show you mine if you won't show me yours".

Zexion was a pseudo-emo fuck. Pseudo because he gave a shit about people and what people thought of him. He tried to hide it behind this façade of melodrama, bullshit and lack of enthusiasm and a fringe that had to cover half his face. Everyone had their masks.

His friend was sitting at his black desk in his black swivel chair fingering through Axel's letters.

"Adaequatio Intellectus Nostri Cum Re?" Zexion asked. "Sounds like a fucking cult."

"That's exactly what I said." Axel leant back on the couch on the other side of the room, taking another gulp of their traditional cheap beer that tasted close to piss.

"Great minds think alike, my friend," Zexion said, his only eye visible flashing blue, his equivalent of a smile. He saluted. "I think you should go there because it has 'cum' in the slogan, even though it's in this armpit of the world." Axel grinned and downed the last dregs of his beer while Zexion tossed the Midgar letter over his shoulder onto the black carpet. "I can't fucking believe you got offered a place in Bevelle AND Twilight Town!"

"So did you."

"Yeah, but I'm not an idiot."

The empty bottle went flying towards Zexion's head, missed and bounced along the desk before rolling to the ground, not breaking. You could run over the bottle in a monster truck and not break it.

"Careful. Or I'll make you scrub my toilet…using only your teeth."

"That's repulsive."

Zexion's phone went off, and Axel pushed himself up from the couch as his friend answered it with "Suck me off, Demyx!", and made his way to the kitchen. The apartment was extremely impersonal. There were no photographs, no pointless knickknacks, no artwork. What was in the apartment were only the things you needed. Why? Axel didn't know. Because it wasn't a home? It was a place to get drunk and high and forget.

He opened the fridge and eyed the merchandise. The second fridge trip. Enough cheap beer and comparably an expensive bottle of red wine with another pretentious label.

"How come everything that isn't cheap and isn't covered in age is considered pretentious?" he murmured.

"Huh?"

Axel looked up from the fridge, a beer in his hand, at Zexion standing by the door. "Nothing."

"We're having a party! Get your sequined party pants on, please."

...

Twelfth fridge visit. Or was it the thirty third? Axel had lost count after the third joint and a pill he found on the ground. And there was no more beer. Fuckers. The expensive wine was his.

The music was so loud that the glass in the windows was shaking. But no-one complained about Zexion's parties. His father was a lawyer, and seemed to have his greasy hand in everyone's pie to let Zexion do whatever he wanted. Like getting a scholarship to Twilight Town. And the waiving of all his fines he incurred over the years for drug possession and supplying alcohol to minors.

Zexion invited anyone and their followers. But there were the usuals. And it was exactly like highschool again. Everyone fell in some sort of category. The popular fucks, the bums and dope heads, the arty freaks. Olette and Namine were perched on the kitchen bench talking about their latest 'whatever the hell girls like them talked about'. It was never something Axel was interested in because they regarded themselves as hipsters. They forgot the ability to enjoy anything because they opt to argue against it, rebel without understanding why they're rebelling in the first place, and tried desperately to dress exactly like a homeless person because everything was too mainstream. Too cool for school. He mentally cringed at the term, but finding another definition was too mainstream anyway.

He escaped the kitchen before Olette grabbed him to try and kiss him again. Before she started speaking to him in bogus Mills and Boon speech about how mesmerising his eyes were. He was so drunk he probably would have vomited on her and would have enjoyed it more than have her grab at him. He never liked people grabbing at him…

Tidus and Cloud were slouched on the couch, laughing at Tifa, Yuna and Riku swaying drunkedly to some hard electric rave music. Zexion and Demyx were on the lying on the floor, their legs resting on the remaining space on the couch, playing Tekken on the widescreen TV upside down and yelling profanities at each other. There was Hayner, and Pence, and other fuckers who stole all the beer, and Axel with his three hundred dollar wine and his guilt. He didn't go home to check if Kairi had returned or if Cassandra was ok. He pushed past Hayner and pulled open the glass sliding door to the balcony, and breathed in the cold air.

Apart from the shit neighbourhood Zexion decided to move to, the apartment had a good view over Midgar. It was high enough to see over most of the rundown skyscrapers. And you could even see a couple of stars. The Shinra Electric Power Company emitted too much light, and it was an industrial town. Smoke and grit was pumped into the air and seemed to cover fucking everything in its poisonous crap. But if there was a wind, you could actually see and Midgar was temporarily not the armpit Zexion described it as.

"You have alcohol?"

Axel swayed violently, swinging around. He hadn't even heard the door open. And some boy was there, someone he had never met before.

"What are you, like thirteen? Get fucked man. Go home," Axel scowled, feeling a little put out that a kid had crept up on him. When you lived where he lived, you tended to keep your eyes and ears open for anything. Chances were you would get a knife poking into your back and a demand for your wallet.

The boy didn't even flinch. He just shrugged thin shoulders. "I live too far away just to strut home. And I'm eighteen. If you want my identification like a stalker bitch, I would stoop to show it to you if you give me some of that."

One of Axel's eyebrows rose. The kid probably came up to chest he was so short. It was interesting that he would be a smartarse to someone who was taller than him and had tattoos on his fucking face. Axel was thin, but he wasn't exactly harmless looking.

The boy had a ridiculous haircut that seemed to sweep to one side. It was also ridiculously blonde. It was probably natural, which was something Namine would have been jealous over because she bleached her hair to get the same colour. When you lived where he lived, you also tended to over-analyse people. He took note of the grey hoody, blue jeans and shoes. Trying to be cheap, and all designer. Pretentious.

He cracked the top of his wine, took a drink and then passed it to the boy.

The boy moved to the barrier of the balcony and turned to lean against it, and took a swig.

He's beautiful

It was a strange thought. But he was. All the angles, and the blonde, and the long fingers and arms. Everything seemed to fit perfectly. And that made Axel immediately hate him. Beautiful people didn't understand shit, because everything was more likely to be handed to them on a golden platter. Statistics even showed that if you're beautiful you were more likely to get better marks at school than if you were ugly and more likely to get a job.

What is your flaw, pretty boy? You better have fucking boils over your body or I will throw you over the barrier…

"What's your name?" the boy asked, reaching into his hoody and pulling out a pack of PJ gold.

"Axel."

"Roxas." Lit the cigarette and then offered one to Axel. Axel took one, and wished Roxas would now go away. "Are these yours?"

He was holding up Axel's four envelopes.