This Chapter is dedicated to my lovely Mikolette who has been drawing out her symptoms of "Withdrawl" from the story in notes to me since I let her read parts of it in progress during class.
Happy slightly late Christmas everyone. Expect updates near the end of a month, I will be doing those at the least. Maybe more, depends on my business level.
"What are you doing?" Roxas asked with curiosity as Axel bent down in front of him.
"You have nice eyes." Axel stated with a smile. Roxas had completely forgot about the fact that he was wearing a towel, he had just come from an awkward situation, and he was quickly getting into a situation he probably shouldn't be in.
-transition-
"You, my love, are a fucking dick." Sora said and punched Riku. Sora punched Riku hard. And Smiled about it.
They were walking up the metal stairs towards the fourth floor. Water sometimes dripping from Riku's still wet hair. "Ugh. I totally deserved that, but," Riku looked pointedly towards Sora," fuck. That hurt. Oh hey." Riku smiled at the man walking down the stairs and moved in front of Sora out of his way. "What's up?"
"Luxord's running a poker game of some sort downstairs for people…," The man's eyes bugged a moment when he saw Sora smiling happily behind Riku, " finished already." He walked quickly down the stairs after he finished his sentence with a hurried "Gotta go."
"What the hell was his problem?" Sora said with a frown.
"You." Riku captured another kiss, quickly wiping away the frown and annoying memory in Sora's head.
The two had finally made it up the stairs and were walking by one of the rooms when they heard vaguely familiar shouting through the door.
"You have such a fucking horrid attitude! UGH!" Roxas yelled as he slammed the door to the room and huffily stomped into Riku.
"Hey…Was tha-"
"Yes." Roxas cut off Sora.
"Did you do-"
"No!" Roxas exclaimed, cutting Riku off this time.
"Okay…testy subject. Wanna go play card games downstairs with everyone?" Riku said, attempting to defuse the annoyance.
"Clothes, Riku. I need them." Roxas said with exasperation, motioning to his towel and started to follow the other two to his room.
"Fine. After you get dressed, do you want to play?"
"Oh, we'd love to." A rich voice drawled out behind the couple, slowly Sora and Riku turned to look at a voice they both knew well. The red head was draped over Roxas and smiling at the two while ghosting his right hand over the flesh of the boy's barren shoulder. Roxas was trying to suppress the moan building up in his throat and clenched his eyes and hands. Axel didn't have the clearest view of the blonde's face but Riku and Sora did.
'Why did I have to be interested in this particular guy?'Roxas screamed inside his head "Get the hell away from me Axel." Roxas had little emotion in his voice and moved out of the embrace and away from the fingers that were quickly giving him goose bumps on his arm.
"Aw, poor little Roxy still mad at me?" Axel smirked and put his hands on his hips.
"Fuck off. I'm going to get dressed!" Roxas yelled at the group and stomped his way off to his room.
"Dude. What did you do to him?" Riku looked at the lanky man, amazed. He'd never seen so much raw anger in the blonde, or pleasure. Riku could tell Roxas wanted to jump the man but for some reason tried to stay away at all costs.
"He crawled on top of me and got mad when I flipped him over." Axel stated bluntly.
The atmosphere was awkward for Riku and Sora while Axel looked like he could actually have cared less. Soon the blonde returned in his jeans, t-shirt and hoodie. They all made their way down a floor and to one of the makeup areas that had been cleared out so that the large round table in the middle could fit a good fifteen people around it with comfortable space. Roxas' friends both grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the table to watch. Axel, being the gracious man he is, grabbed two chairs and put them directly next to each other and pulled Roxas next to him, whispering in his ear about how delicious the young blonde looked.
Roxas just plain ignored Axel as they waited for the next game to start. Opting out of playing strip poker, Roxas sat and watched as Luxord, the head honcho for cards he learned, completely stripped five of the ten players. At being accused of cheating, Luxord bet all of his clothing that the accuser could shuffle and deal out the cards and the British man would still have the best hand at the end. Roxas watched, mesmerized, as Luxord laid down his cards to reveal that he did indeed have the best hand of the table. The accuser spent the rest of the night into the morning wearing the skimpiest loincloth the boy had ever seen.
Roxas did, however, decide to play a new game he'd never heard about, but after the basic idea was explained, thought would be interestingly fun. It was called 'The Circle of Death' and if you hadn't played before you had to find out the secret to every card during game play. Bottles of alcohol were brought out to the table, one deck of cards, and Luxord numbered everyone off, alternating between 7 and 8.
Roxas soon learned that he was really good at the Nine and Queen cards. Nines had people rhyming with the starting word all around the table. One round had Axel starting with "Grass" and ended with Roxas screaming "Ass!" So enthusiastically that he caught Axel off guard and the man was laughing so hard he couldn't take his turn and ended up taking a shot.
"Hah hah!" Roxas laugh at the red head, overjoyed at his small triumph.
"So, you're trying to get me inebriated and take advantage of me? How cute." Axel sing-songed at the exasperated blonde.
"Fuck you." Roxas murmured, pouting and flipping a black six, pointing out twelve people to give one shot to each.
"You'd like to." Axel said, causing a couple of the men around them to sputter their shots and have to refill.
"No thanks." Axel's turn to flip proved to be an eight of diamonds causing the redhead and every other person pre-numbered eight to take a shot.
The night continued in this fashion, Axel hitting on Roxas, Roxas ignoring him, and every man at that table wondering how the fuck Roxas could be gay and not want to bang the man.
That's not to say that Roxas wasn't acquiring an urge to just give in. People had been leaving to take naps or just sleep until it was time for breakfast and they soon found the table with seven people left. Sora was wasted and Axel was slap happy. They both kept whispering to each other and giggling like little kids. Luxord was barely tipsy, only slurring the longer words he attempted speaking. Roxas was feeling a little flush but enjoying himself none-the-less.
All too quickly a voice was heard throughout the building, startling many from their sleep and scaring Sora practically into a fit of hyperventilation. Everyone at the table got up and went about heading downstairs towards the breakfast everyone had been excitedly chattering about for the last six hours. The metal spiral stairs had a red carpet down the whole four flights with white garland lining the railing.
Roxas was awed by the beautiful decorations hanging everywhere and then became even more so after he was, finally, able to see the Christmas tree that had been put up, in all its glory. The whole thing was enormous, Roxas was sure ladders and maybe a pulley system had gone into decorating the red and gold themed tree. Axel, however, was only thinking about how cute Roxas looked with that boyish twinkle in his eyes and the lights reflec- what the hell was he thinking about? Axel did not think mushy things about his conquests. No. Nope. Definitely not.
Roxas turned the corner and saw close to twenty tables pushed together into two giant rows to seat every single person employed at the establishment. Every single place was set with red and green utensils, a cup, a plate and napkins. The doors to the kitchen were propped open and a line quickly formed. Axel grabbed two plates and a Roxas, heading towards the large line. He was laughing while fighting his way into the line of hungry and slightly grouchy, but happy men. Roxas couldn't help but enjoy himself. He grabbed onto Sora when they ran past the guy, who quickly grabbed onto Riku, lest the happy couple be separated for more than two moments. The line, once organized, started moving fairly fast. The four made their way up to the door and into the most delicious looking Christmas themed breakfast buffet Roxas had ever seen. Axel, Riku and Sora all enjoyed the excited face Roxas was putting on. Riku most of all, though, because he hadn't seen such strong emotions pass across the boy's face in a while.
The group sat down at an empty portion of the large tables and quickly started to dig in. Roxas looked up when Demyx sat across from them but only smiled at his hyper friend. He was going to have to severely thank his friend for ever mentioning this place. Oh… Isn't that…"Hey, Wakka!" Roxas exclaimed, waving his arm to get the man's attention. "Wanna sit with us?" Roxas asked, and didn't even bat an eyelash when Xaldin had emerged from the crowd behind the orange haired man.
Everyone enjoyed their food with varying amounts of enthusiasm. Roxas and Sora both shoveled in two to three plates of pancakes alone, while Axel and Riku both shared a look of amazement at the young metabolisms. Wakka slowly glared from under his lashes as he ate and didn't let his hate seep into the atmosphere. Yes… he'd pretend to be friendly and get close to the cheating bitch who stole his job. He'd gain back his dignity.
As soon as it looked like everyone was getting ready to leave Marluxia gave a speech about how fantastic we all were and thanked us for working and hoped we had enjoyed the breakfast. He also wished everyone a Merry Christmas and to see them all in three days time. The whole place had made enough money to take a generous amount of time off.
Roxas said his goodbyes to Sora and Riku and headed up to his room to grab his bag and trudge home through the gently falling flakes of snow. "Roxas!"
Axel came chasing after the younger male, bundled up in a scarf, short sleeve t-shirt and jeans. " You really shouldn't walk home alone in this part of town, even on Christmas." Axel was concerned he shouldn't have been. He totally was though, couldn't even deny it.
"I'll be fine Axel." Roxas said, being gentle. The red head had been exceptionally gentlemanly as of the last few hours. Oh wait… "Axel. Are you still drunk?" Roxas looked accusatorily at the tall male in front of him. The flakes were falling into the spiked hair and Roxas couldn't help but be drawn to the contrast.
"Never, dear maiden. Now let us embark upon our walk eastwards." At the look Roxas shot him Axel had to laugh out a, "Kidding, kidding. I'm not that bad." Roxas smiled with amused disbelief but let Axel lead him towards his home anyway. The man jumped around corners and barrel rolled is way past them, thoroughly making Roxas feel giddy with how silly he was, for he too joined in the fun. Roxas forced the man to drop him off three blocks away with a joke about being stalked. Roxas watched Axel walk away in the opposite direction before heading to his own snow-covered house.
Roxas fiddled with his keys and turned the knob hurriedly to get out of this fucking cold-ass weather. "Yes! Bed!" Roxas sing-songed but stopped when he heard a loud recording of violins being played. They sounded just plain sensual, no denying that, and that probably should have tipped the blonde off, that maybe, just maybe, he should have walked away before grasping the full situation. The tiny tree in the living room had presents wrapped in Santa paper. There was one, however, with Roxas' name and 'From Reno' on it. The paper was a beautiful red and green foil. Roxas looked around for his brother and noticed a trail of shredded paper leading from the living room up to Cloud's door. It was a complete mistake following the trail of paper. When Roxas put his ear to the door, over the obnoxiously loud violins, he could faintly hear squeaking and moaning. When the blonde had finally put two and two together he hightailed it out the door, tripping on his cat, and just grabbing the poor thing, shoving it in his coat, and heading towards the local dog park. No one would be there at this time of the morning and especially on Christmas.
-Transition-
"Thank god the pharmacy was open." Axel chugged down a Gatorade as quick as he could and put it in his second sack. Next was a V8, he alternated quickly until half of his store was gone. Then he slowly started drinking a Gatorade and letting the snow fall on his warm skin. He closed his eyes and lounged there, in the barely cold air, just enjoying himself. He was quickly awoken from his light nap when his stomach gained a warm and fluffy weight on it. Looking down he saw a cat curled up in a little ball. He just smiled and slowly started stroking the hair and wrapped it in a scarf to keep warm. No matter what, cats were more of a priority than him. Eventually Axel tilted his head back and went back to relaxing but was soon disturbed again when he heard a faint call of 'Mew mew! Here mew mew!' That cat looked up and mewled out a happy little sound. "I'm assuming that's you then. Mew Mew? What a childish name." Axel laughed softly then, "He's over here!" he yelled, quickly grabbing the attention of the owner since there were no other noises to disturb the call.
"Oh thank heavens!" The boy had appeared out of nowhere, huffing at his run and looking down with a blush on his face at having to scream 'Mr. Mew Mew' at the top of his lungs. Axel stopped when he realized who exactly was right in front of him. "Thank you so much…" the boy looked up and Roxas blushed hardcore when he saw Axel cuddling his cat in the middle of the snow covered park. "Axel… what are you doing here?"
"That's what I was going to ask you. Come here and sit down." Axel moved his bag of drinks and patted the dry spot next to him. He handed the younger male one of his Gatorades.
"Thank you. I'm here because my brother is doing PG Twenty Five things at home again. How about you?" Roxas curiously glanced to the side at the bag of drinks then to his cat curled up on Axel's stomach. He really was getting more and more tired by the moment.
"Drinking off my hangover." Axel smiled and held up his own half-drank Gatorade. His other hand was still softly stroking the fluff of the black cat laying on his chest.
It got to a comfortable quiet for a while until Axel noticed a shiver and pulled the smaller boy in to absorb body heat, after some extreme protests. They started talking about things. Where they lived, things they liked, music, movies, life. The cat had fallen asleep on the man's chest and Roxas was barely in a better position by the time Nine O' Clock came around. Axel smiled and stroked the cat's back while staring at the blonde who was quickly nodding off.
"Come on. You need to go home." Axel gently rocked Roxas' shoulder, careful not to disturb the sleeping cat.
"Fuck no. Warm." Roxas mumbled into the material of Axel's black t-shirt.
Axel barked out a laugh, startling the cat and Roxas both. "You're still so feisty, even when half awake!" Axel laughed. "If you've still got that kind of attitude, why not come home with me?" Axel waggled his brows seductively.
"Oh Fuck off." Roxas smiled and grabbed his cat, trudging off the general direction of his home. "Stop watching my ass Axel." Roxas smiled, yelling out loud enough for only the man to hear. He really did grin when his suspicions were confirmed by another chorus of laughter.
Roxas was thankful when he arrived back home, the couple was taking a break for a while and Roxas let his cat have free roam of the house while the blonde headed straight for his bed. He flopped down unceremoniously, kicking off shoes, pants, coats, shirts and a sca- Wait… Roxas didn't own a scarf. "When did he…?" Roxas grabbed the scarf from the wooden floor, folding it neatly, and setting it on the bedside table. Roxas burrowed himself under the covers. And his last few thoughts before sleep was that maybe Axel wasn't so bad a guy after all.
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