"So. Roxas. Bored yet?"

Roxas graced Axel with a non-communicative grunt.

"Was that a 'yes' or a 'don't bug me; I'm rehearsing for my caveman role for the theater'?" Pause, two, three, four. "So, had any plans for tonight?"

"Maiming of vociferous redheads."

"Oh, ouch, you wound me. Wait. 'Vociferous'?"


"Hey, what's in the bags?"

"Don't—"

"Talk to you, yeah, I got it memorized. Geez, ever consider getting tested for antisocialism or general emoness?"

"…"

"Whoa, did you just growl?"


"Hey Rox—whoa, whoa! Alright, I get it! Silence is golden and all that crap! Now put down the bottle!"


Roxas realized that the silence may have been golden with Axel keeping his mouth shut, but that even gold got boring after a while. Not that he was going to strike up conversation, oh no.

He was bored out of his fucking mind.


This time, the reeking smoke performing an assault intended to incapacitate his nostrils pulled him out of the unresponsive state he had gradually drifted into. His dreamland—if he had indeed fallen asleep, that is—succumbed to reality and soft colors behind his eyelids gave way to harsh, obnoxious elevator lights. Oh, that was right. He was still stuck in the Shinra building, in the elevator, with Axel, who was currently fucking smoking. And just for the record of those higher powers who were set on mocking him, he was choking Roxas as well with said smoke emanating from said man's cigarette in hand and mouth.

He would later deny to himself that another honest-to-god growl had rippled from his throat. (Not that it mattered as only Axel and himself could possibly have heard it and Axel still had those damn earphones plugged into his head, but it was a matter of self-image.) Still, presently, he was in no mood to acknowledge whatever sound had come out between his lips, only the fact that he was displeased.

"Do you mind?" He had wasted the control mustered to state each word relatively coolly. The knowledge that he had forgotten Axel was temporarily deaf to the world did not improve his emotional condition any. Roxas dragged himself up from the floor and suddenly realized he would have to walk into the cloud of grey he swore wafted around the redhead to confront him.

"Why do you hate me so?" He tried not to breathe as he reached forward and yanked on a scarlet tuft of hair. Axel did not open his eyes instantly, but took his time in inhaling another lungful of smoke and blowing it out, to Roxas's distaste, before pinning the blond with an unhurried, poisonous jade gaze. A hand drifted to one ear and rendered it capable of hearing the outside world again.

Roxas felt his mouth tighten. He gestured towards the cylindrical glimpse of white dangling from those blushing rose lips, forcing himself not to look as he pointed. "Do you mind? Some people actually like unpolluted air in case you didn't know that."

To Roxas's astonishment, Axel's customary smirk vanished and his eyes averted from Roxas's face. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry." He slid the cigarette from his mouth, looked at it longingly, and nearly brought it to his face to take one final drag, but instead reached up and stubbed it out in the handily present ashtray. His eyes' focus danced around Roxas, but never actually returned to him throughout all this.

Ever since he had been a tiny, clumsy toddler, he had been taught to never kick an enemy while he or she was down. This applied to any situation from the schoolyard bully clutching a bloody nose to the jerk obsessed with fire that wasn't currently acting out the jerk part anymore. In an instant where the lesson decided to hide within the recesses of his mind and not reveal itself, Roxas's lip curled. "What? Suffocation a big turn-on for you?"

Axel's eyes lifted and Roxas's breath caught. He was drowning…no, incinerating in the flickering jade of these poisonous flames. The color was never stable, he realized when eyelids sheathed the furnaces behind them momentarily before falling back again to reveal darkening orbs. The sun's rays leaving a forest and shadows swallowing live green angrily. Angrily. Oh wait.

"Ok, shut up just for one fucking minute." Axel's voice was soft and just on that edge of tight. Roxas suddenly felt the tables turn on him at a dizzying speed. He was frozen to the spot, the redhead seeming to loom over him, even if he was still standing and Axel sitting. Words flowed through his ear canal and to his brain, but the world had slowed for him and it took him several seconds to register the meaning behind the words.

"Why do you hate me so much? Hm? Ok, irritated's fine, pissed off, whatever. But what's with the murderous, almost homicidal mood? Do I look like an old leering uncle of yours with gropey hands or something?"

"What!? No!"

"My minute's not up yet, shhh…" Axel leaned closer, balancing on the line bordering 'invasion of personal space'. "So what? You freaking out because of me hitting on you? Is that it? Well, tough luck, kid. You're going to have a lot of those and not all as considerate as yours truly. So is that why you hate me though?"

Roxas swallowed several times, but his throat refused to loosen up. His mind also closed on him, unable to produce an response on the spot. He didn't hate the redhead, as annoying as he was on a daily basis. Hate, hate, he didn't think he actually hated anybody, anyone that he could recall anyway. Axel was right, loath as he was to concede it; why the hell did he react as if he were stung all the time around Axel?

His throat opened a miniscule amount, now enlarged to what felt like the size of a pinhole. "I…" he choked on his saliva, of all things, and he nearly gagged. "I don't…"

Axel's eyes widened briefly at the display before narrowing back into dubious scrutiny. "Right, ok. Lovely. I hear Moogles dancing in hell to celebrate that. So can we please, look, you've got me begging, heh, can we please just not kill each other this weekend? Or act normally and not like I'm a serial rapist and you're a sex toy? Keep this up and I will go bloody Tampax insane from boredom."

Roxas just stared at him. What passed for a nod, but could have been a sudden spasm of the neck, came several seconds later. Axel's eyes softened and melted into their usual amused mischievous verdigris. "Cat stole your tongue? Did I traumatize you for life?"

In the following one thousand milliseconds, Roxas determined two things. One, maybe life didn't hate him quite so badly. Two, maybe life didn't, but his body sure did, as his throat still stubbornly cowered tightly. He shook his head no; he wasn't traumatized. Almost had been, but that was not the point now, was it?

Axel chuckled. "Could have fooled me. Ok, so I, Axel Ross, hereby agree to not hit on Roxas Hunter in the elevator without his permission as long as you don't treat me like the plague. So, let's start over. Hi." He stood and lazily grasped Roxas's limp hand in his own, swinging it a bit in a lousy example of a handshake. "I'm Axel. Got it memorized? Nice to meet you. And you are?"

His throat relaxed. "R-roxas."

Axel quirked an eyebrow. "Nice to meet you, Ruh-roxas." He paused and was, no doubt, about to make a comment on that when Roxas's tongue betrayed him again.

"Bloody Tampax insane?"

The redhead blinked, startled for a second. He figured it out a moment later. Axel grinned. "Long story. But hey, you're not rushing off anywhere. So that idiot I was talking to on the phone earlier? Yeah, Demyx decided that 'bat shit' wasn't gross enough to be worthy of his cursing vocabulary. Sit down; this will get complicated…"