A/N: So sorry for the late update, I've been busy with finals for the past month or so _ Good news is I passed all of them! Today was the last day of classes, so I should be able to focus more on my leisurely writing.

Notes regarding the story: In the last chapter Roxas kind of ranted a lot about getting a shitty job as a opinion columnist in some hodunk town. I wanted to explain that this pertains to his major, because things are supposed to be fact not opinion. It's not a slam on people who write opinion columns. Also, there are things pertaining to Axel's major in this chapter, too. Such as the quasi-lab report...

This isn't my favorite chapter, but what can you do? It was a pain to write...and it's shorter than the rest ^^; It'll get better (and Roxas will stop being a pms'ing muchkin) soon.
Also, they're always owing eachother coffee...

And if you haven't, listen to Clutter by Ronald Jenkees!

Chapter 4: Friday nights are always the same in this town

What kind of sentence was there for man-slaughter?

It couldn't be too bad, right? It was supposed to be an 'accident' after all.

Axel could make it look like an accident. He could 'accidently' shove Roxas in front of a car going fifty miles per hour. A little pebble in his way, small trip, a bit of a shove and—oh! Look at that, Blondie in oncoming traffic. Who knows, if he was lucky maybe the little shit's unidentifiable remains would end up on the front end of a semi.

Axel was furious.

And Roxas deserved it.

The demonized midget had inflicted it upon himself when he had wakened Axel up at freakin' 1 a.m. And to get food, no less—Food!—interrupting a glorious dream about…something. It would come back to him eventually. All he knew was that it was freakin' awesome. And now Roxas had to pay the price.

The equivalent of which was Axel's wrath. Get some, bitches.

Oh god, he was lame.

"Stop staring at me, idiot," Roxas snapped from a few paces ahead. Axel inwardly cackled. Oh no, he wasn't staring. He was burning a motherfucking hole in his head. Sure…you couldn't see it now, but that was why it was so brilliant. Everything is normal and then—BAM! Giant hole in your head.

It just snuck up on you. Like genital herpes.

Axel coughed into the sleeve of his sweatshirt, clearing his throat. A moment later he wrinkled his nose, getting a whiff of the offending item of clothing. Roxas had rushed him out of the house so quickly he hadn't even had a chance to do a smell-check on the clothes he had thrown on. But whatever, tomorrow was laundry day. Maybe he could catch up on his sleep then, too.

He'd found that hardly anyone came into the Laundromat on Saturdays (Honestly…who would?) but that was just fine with him. That meant he could stretch out on the chairs between cycles and count a few sheep. Especially since there wouldn't be any midgets there to disrupt his sleep. For Food. Food!

He was only slightly bitter.

"Are we there yet?" Axel groaned. He didn't care if he was whining like those kids from the movie (Dear God, they should've just stopped with the first one), it was too damned late—early?—to be doing this much. He was tired, cranky, they'd been walking for at least fifteen minutes and his legs hurt. All he wanted to do was crawl up into a ball and go back to bed.

"Stop your bitching. We'll be there soon," The blonde spat. Oh, so he was the one bitching? Roxas was the one who had flipped a tit to get Axel out of bed (chair) in the first place!

"Why didn't you just take Zexion or something?"

"He was sleeping,"

"I was sleeping!"

"He's more important,"

Axel glared.

"Then what about Demyx?"

"He talks too much…and I can't deal with that much stupid by myself. You're enough as it is,"

Axel figured that was the closest he was going to get to a compliment, however twisted it may be.

"Gee, thanks," he muttered with a roll of the eyes. When he glanced up, however, he could've died of happiness when he saw the gleaming sign of CindyRella's Grocer shining like a beacon of hope before them.

Even Roxas looked happier.

*0*

Observation Lab Report

Problem: Roxas (last name unknown)

Hypothesis: Roxas (last name unknown) is a fatty. A PMS'ing one at that.

Materials:

Roxas—a small blonde, approximately 5'4", indigenous to the campus of HBU

A set of eyes with the capability to view all that is around

A grocery store

A cart

Procedure:

Observe

Continue until results are as desired

*0*

Axel watched in disbelief as the blonde beside him pushed practically everything from the shelves into his cart. Kay maybe not everything…but geez! Twinkies, donuts, nutella, ice-cream sandwiches…

"I thought you said you wanted to get food," Axel said, eyeing the cart suspiciously.

"This is food," Roxas replied as he tossed a bag of chocolate covered pretzels into the cart. Might as well get some yoghurt-covered ones, too—Y'know…so the others wouldn't be lonely.

"Junk food,"

"I don't discriminate,"

Axel snorted, rolling his eyes. For the first time since they had arrived he took a glance around the store and noticed a large sum of the people that were there (the few that there was) shooting odd looks their way. Whatever. They were probably just a bunch of freaks anyway. There was even a guy just standing in the corner staring off into space. Everyone once in a while he would take a swig from a metallic canteen. Axel eyed the hand of the man that never once left his jacket, a million ideas of what could be inside running through his mind. He moved closer to Roxas.

"Mmm," Roxas hummed happily as he dropped a bag of strawberry-shaped chocolates in the cart.

"Fatty,"

Roxas looked over his shoulder at the redhead, blue eyes narrowed, '"Excuse me?"

"It doesn't show now or anything," Axel started, ignoring the fact that he was, quite frankly, checking the blonde out. He hadn't noticed until now that Roxas was kind of…girly looking. Not that it was like—BOOM! HORMONES IN YO FACE! But it had a slightly girlish look about him…maybe boyish was a better way to put it. Either way he was kind of…cute?

Roxas sneezed, wiping the snot onto the back of his sweatshirt.

Ugh. No.

"…But just wait a month or two and you'll have a food baby on the way,"

Roxas flicked a grape. Axel yelped as it hit him in the eye.

"I am not fat," the blonde hissed.

"I'm not saying you are, but y'know if you keep it up—"

An orange smashed into the redhead's cheek.

"The hell was that for?"

Roxas sniffed indignantly and continued to push his grocery cart right on by. "Not fat," he said simply as he inspected a bunch of bananas. Yes, bananas. And bananas weren't fattening so take that Axel. As he reached for a just ripening bunch, something hard hit him in the back of the neck, turning into a thick liquid a moment later and dripping down past the collar of his shirt onto his back. Slowly, furiously, he turned around. It seemed the produce section was now completely deserted save for the two students, everyone else sensing the impending doom. Roxas reached to the back of his neck, keeping a hard glare fixed on Axel all the while, and brought the hand back a moment later covered in a thick, translucent, red goop.

"What. The. Fuck," The blonde gritted out, staring at the remnants of an over-ripened tomato in disbelief. He was going to gag. He was going to throw up all over the place and he was going to make sure he got Axel first.

Little known fact, tomatoes were public enemy number two.

They were just fine when they were mutated to be something else, but in their truest form—they were disgusting.

Axel was grinning mischievously. He wouldn't be so damned happy when he was missing his front teeth and right testicle.

"Sorry," the redhead started, hardly suppressing his amusement. "I tripped,"

To his surprise, hell to everyone's surprise, Roxas smiled. Albeit a smile that promised a slow, unmerciful death, but a smile all the same. "Don't worry about it," he stated as he reached to scrape more tomato guts from his skin. "We're only human, right?"

And with that, Roxas threw the used tomato right back in Axel's face…and ran like hell to get to the other side of the fruit display. There was something called common sense that he liked to utilize, especially when he was up against someone who could easily fit in with the inmates at Hollow Bastion Correctional Facility.

He watched with satisfaction as Axel wiped the tomato from his face and, with a flick of his wrist, flung it to the floor. His stomach dropped when he saw the maniacal grin that was now in place on the redhead.

Shit.

Axel had to suppress the cackles that were bubbling in his throat as he reached for a pack of strawberries. He didn't care if he would have to pay for all of it later, because revenge was sweet.

*0*

Twenty minutes later they were standing on the sidewalk. Both were covered in generous amounts of fruit and vegetable remains, having gotten quite far in their little food fight before being interrupted by a clerk when Roxas ended up nailing some random chick in the ass. Oops.

On the upside, they weren't the ones who had to clean it up.

They just had to empty most of their pockets to pay for it.

A gush of crisp air met them as they stepped out onto the asphalt. Roxas reached up and firmly slapped Axel in the back of the head but before the redhead could respond, he was already walking away.

"Thanks, Axel," he called over his shoulder, silent laughter ringing in his voice. "It was fun,"

*0*

Conclusion: Hypothesis proved correct in experiment. Roxas, however, wasn't as bad as he first seemed…maybe Axel would just have to make him loosen up a little.

*0*

It had been nearly a month since he'd seen Axel…It'd been a damn good month.

The beginnings of winter were starting to emerge as the middle of November was made clear. Leaves still scattered the campus, though it was a huge improvement from what it had been in previous weeks. Then, hardly a step could be taken without hearing the devastating crunch of a leave and all of its fragile membranes as its life came to a sudden end.

It was quite sad, really.

Now, the soppy leave remains just stuck to anything and everything they could hang on to.

Roxas hungrily gulped at his coffee, ignoring the incineration of his taste buds as he reveled in the over, near disgustingly so, sweetness of the coffee. It was great. Gas station coffee was the best coffee. Forget about Pluto's, arguably the best and most well know coffee shop on campus, when there was the overbearing, god-awfully sweet of the local gas station. Seriously, it was like fucking sex. In his mouth. In fact, that was exactly what it was. It was a giant orgy in his mouth: the perfect way to start out any day.

He would have to thank Namine later, having been the one to leave the coffee for him.

That morning he had woken up, body aching and head throbbing from the insufficient five hours of sleep he had gotten that night (or morning, as it had been). He'd been up until two a.m. lucubrating, analyzing the countless amounts of news articles that their professor had piled upon them with expectations of them to having it done by the very next day. And of course, Roxas hadn't got off of work until ten.

Had it been anyone else showing up in the middle of the night at his front door, chances are Roxas would've slammed the door in their face. But it had been Namine, and he was more than grateful for her presence at any time of the date. The blonde girl had merely sat on his living room couch, doodling in her sketch pad with a small smile, glancing at Roxas every now and again as he worked away at his damned analysis, the Clutter of Ronald Jenkees playing throughout the apartment.

She'd spent the night as she had so many times when they were in high school, and Roxas wasn't the least surprised when he woke up to a cold spot on the bed besides him. A note written in the curvy script he knew so well was stuck on the bathroom mirror, and in the microwave a large, crudely colored Styrofoam cup lie waiting for him, still piping hot with another post-it note attached to it.

God, he loved that woman.

Roxas almost…skipped to the lecture hall. He damn well could have. Things were shaping up, and though he still had insane amounts of homework to deal with and teachers to mentally bitch out, it wasn't that bad.

Something solid clipped his side at high speed, jolting his entire body forward.

He stared down at the brown liquid quickly spreading across the asphalt. Sinking into the nearby grass…

Glancing up at the redhead who continued to sprint on ahead, shouting back over his shoulder, "Sorry, man!"

Bitch was back on the radar.

*0*

Axel snuggled into his pillow. He'd gotten up to damn early. Especially for a Thursday, when in any normal circumstance he wouldn't have had class until noon. Today, however, Professor Seymour decided that he had an 'emergency' that he needed to tend to later in the day, and moved the class up four hours. Goddamn bastard.

As soon as the freakin' horn-haired freak had finished his babbling, Axel had busted out of the room and nearly sprinted across campus back to his dorm room. Sleep. Sleep sounded fucking amazing.

So the moment he hit the bed, still fully clothed and shoes till on, he felt one-hundred percent ready for sleep to take over his senses. Apparently, that wasn't sleep's plan. Axel tried for the next half an hour, tossing and turning and switching positions to make himself more comfortable—more vulnerable to sleep. But sleep was just a bitch who decided to slack off on its job.

And of course the doorbell would ring.

With a groan, the redhead hoisted himself to his feet. He looked forlornly to the bed. Not like he was actually missing anything. Why was it that the universe hated him so? At this point he couldn't even get sleep. Why? Why?

Grumbling under his breath all the while, he padded his way across the dorm. Flinging the door open, he suddenly remember that he had stripped down to his boxers in an attempt to get comfy. Funny that the site of a slightly irritated (wasn't he always?) Roxas has reminded him of this.

Giving him a quick once over, a small smirk slowly spread the blonde's lips. "Get dressed, you owe me coffee,"