I'm not back. Not really. But I was depressed, and couldn't write We Did Not Just Move Here, so I took to this for the moment. Hope you enjoy this random update. I don't know when the next one will be. ^^''
The rumbling of the rusting metal truck as it groaned, and the piercing light the sun gave off late in the afternoon awoke the blonde teen. He rubbed wearily at his eyes and shifted in his seat. The radio buzzed in the background, classical music interrupted with static and someone preaching from the bible. They were close to somewhere, wherever that was. Roxas tried to keep his eyes closed, but the light was burning purple and copper splotches into his eyelids, like shooting stars when he tried to concentrate on them.
Copper. Something about that color made him wonder, made him think of burnt out birthday candles and motor oil. He grumbled and clutched his stomach that was twisting up with hunger pains. When was the last time he ate? Drank anything? Why was his mouth so dry? Why did he feel so heavy? He blinked, long enough to decide that it was too bright to open his eyes. He chased the fleeting image of whirring white forest trees, and the blinding reflection of the snow away. Who the hell was he? Roxas tried to roll over on his side, pull up his blankets and curl in on himself and go back to sleep.
He mumbled, mouth sticky, "Hayner, give me my damn blanket." The chuckle that set atomic bombs off in the pit of his ever shrinking stomach, rang back in response. His eyes shot open, but he couldn't see anything, but a blinding red blur, set in slow motion.
"Kid, I'm no Hayner." the red-head grinned back, features illuminated by the sunlight, palling his skin and making every tendril of hair glow, like fire in the dead of night. Roxas jumped, backing away from the stranger, knocking his head against the hand bar falling off the top of the truck above him, he meant to scream for dear life, but when this person only laughed, and beat his head on the steering wheel and kept driving, his foggy brain decided that he was probably not a threat. "You're a lightweight, kid."
"Not a kid." He grumbled back, when his heart rate settled.
"Ah, for someone who nearly smoked themselves into a coma his first night with pot, you sure seem to be lively." The red-head didn't take his eyes off the road, his gloved fingers tapping on the steering wheel off beat with the classical music. He had a cigarette between his cherry stained lips, his window rolled up, rattling because of the harsh wind the whistled outside. The ashes were falling to the ground, embers sizzling when they hit his lap, like he was burning them. Roxas groggily started to remember who he was, where he was, and who this stranger, Axel, was.
The blonde looked down at his pale hands, dirt under his fingernails and calluses on the palms, with a scar brazen across the surface. He was shaking, maybe from fear, because Axel's ethereal eyes couldn't be trusted. He was wiry in the jittery dullness of him, but Roxas couldn't tell why he'd adapted such a feeling for him over night. Maybe because it had to be in the negatives inside, at least five degrees colder outside or maybe it was because the lack of food in his stomach had his blood sugar dangerously low. He drew in a deep breath. I have to get used to it. He watched Axel, without giving a response. Axel's chapped lips let the filter fall to the ground and one of his boots stomped it out.
The red-head's gaze slid over to the Blonde, and then back to the road, "I picked up chips this morning… they were god-awful. I'm not gunna eat them." he sounded disgusted. Roxas sat still for a moment, trying to tell the time from the little digital clock, but it kept blinking 3:26 am. And sputtering. His watch completely forgotten on his wrist, his voice rough lick sandpaper. "What time is it?"
"Three o'clock. You've been out all day. Thought you nearly died on me again." Again? That's right. Axel saved me last night. After he… he... Tears sprouted to his eyes and made his ashy eyelashes sodden. Almost instantly they started to freeze, so he whipped them away, and reached to the dashboard, where the bag of ketchup flavored potato chips sat, half gone, next to forgotten cigarette stubs and bloodied napkins that made Roxas lurch for just a moment. He lowered his gaze to the chips as his mouth watered. He was starving, and those chips were the best things he'd ever had the pleasure of putting to his lips. He nearly choked on them with how fast he wolfed them down. He feared Axel might have stopped him at any moment, but Axel never did. His eyes stayed trained on the road, watching the mile markers pass with disinterest.
"Where are we?" Roxas rasped out, his throat coated in sleep and salt. He leant forward to fish out his half gone water bottle. Luckily it was still there, slightly chilly. He gulped it down and tossed it back to the ground empty. His mind was still swimming. A part of him kept saying how he was asleep in his collapsing bunk bed, with Hayner crammed next to him because there was never enough room for them, stealing all the ratty blankets that did little to ward off the cold in the winter, and wishing that someone, anyone would come and choose him for once instead of the toddlers. But the other part, the part dowsed in haze and low quality weed, kept saying how it was real, painfully real. And that everything happened.
"We're on our way to Wonerland. It'll take a few days to get there, so get comfy. Or don't. I don't give a shit, really." Axel shrugged and pulled out another cigarette, a puff oh air and tip glowed ember. Roxas watched on in slight amusement. Axel was an interesting creature. His lanky arm stretched behind him and banged a few time on the roof of the truck. Snow plopped down to the road and made the vehicle stop rattling so much. The windows shook and then went still; the radio came to the end of the composition and was taken over by static. "Eh, can't have it both ways. Quiet car, or a decent station." He went back to driving and Roxas, again leant forward in his seat, and pulled out a small thick book.
"Why do you smoke?" Roxas questioned innocently. The smell was suffocating him, but it kept him from frostbite. The red-head tenses, the flame of the cigarette sparking for half a second before returning to normal.
"We're not playing fifty questions again, kid. You keep quiet, and I'll keep quiet." Axel relaxed again, and Roxas returned to his book, bending the spine back and crinkling the corners as he read. His brows knitted together and eyes focused intently on the faded printed words on the page. "Where'd you get that from? You didn't have it before."
"What happened to not playing fifty questions?" Roxas's gaze never left the text, but he hesitated on turning the page.
The blonde couldn't see the smirk curling on the red-head's lips before it was replaced with a snarl, as if to chastise himself for smiling at the blonde in the first place. He growled out between sharp canines, "this is my damned car; I can do whatever the hell I want."
"I took it, while we were back in that place." He shrugged and took a deep breath, taking a long blink to refocus on the book.
"You have a nasty habit of stealing shit don't you?"
At this point, Roxas shut his book and slid it under his warn jean clad thighs, "I only take what I need." His speech was clipped, but his lips pursed together as if to say more, then he did, "anything and everything except money, never money." the blonde went back to reading his book. He hunched over, trying to keep the light out of his eyes, and squinting down at the page,
and he gnawed on his lip nervously, rubbing the corner of the page he was going to flip, and jiggling his leg with the uneven grumbling of the powder blue truck, humming softly to the pop music of his choice playing mutely from the radio in the gently used vehicle.
Axel's cigarette fell to his lap in a fiery blaze; he swerved across the lanes, nearly hitting the only other car on the road, cursing loudly. "Fuck!" he exclaimed loudly, holding his hands to his crotch to smother the growing flame. Roxas's head snapped up with a yelp, just in time to catch Axel raging in his seat, struggling with the fire on his jeans. The red-head franticly unbuckled his seat belt and fell into the door when the lock got caught, and wouldn't open. "Fuck! Fuck! These are my only pants!" he seethed, the flame finally dying. The old truck didn't take well to turning so quickly and promptly shut off near a guard rail on the side of the road. If it wasn't for its age, they would have tumbled over and down the steep hill, and be split open like rotten melons with a plastic fork. Axel knew this.
Roxas stared wide eyes, unaware of how close they were from dying. When Axel calmed down, Roxas still couldn't take his eyes off his lanky form. The same flannel hung loosely off his form, unbuttoned and jeans ready to fall off, if not for his jutting hip bones. His gloved hands tangled in the messy hair and tugged viciously for a few moments. He was clearly upset.
Roxas licked his lips, seeing his breath in the frigid air. A shiver wracked through his body and he wondered just how Axel, not a single trace of fat on his bones, managed to not freeze to death. His fingers kept place in the book even as Axel came back to the car, slammed the door shut, forcing a small squeak out of the blonde, and lifted the hood. Roxas returned to his book, hoping Axel's neurotic episode would dissipate.
Before long Axel approached his window, hood of the truck down, cigarette yet again dangling off his lips, and a small, almost unnoticeable grin on his face. His boney knuckles, cloaked in leather knocked on the blonde's window. When Roxas looked up, Axel motioned for him to roll down his window. The blonde dis as instructed, with not as much ease or finesse as he thought he would. The window felt as if it had been glued shut, and not used for many years. Crystallizing cobwebs and dust escaped when he manually rolled it down. "I was just thinking; when we pull into town, that we're gunna need some new clothes."
Roxas snorted, and watched Axel gracefully inhale and exhale perfect ringlets of smoke, that froze and dropped to the ground, "You really shouldn't enable people's bad habits, you know."
Money… uhm Munny feels so unbelievably wrong to write, and I tried, but I couldn't. So they are now using the US Dollar! Yay! okay not yay, but Whatever aha.
Ewonsama: you and your guessing aha. Just wait and see
Lisa: uhm… I'm sorry it upset you, but I've never seen and X-men movie before… so I don't see the need to put a disclaimer. I'm actually kind of down that there are so many similarities. ): and I'm hoping this turns out nothing like X-men.