the-necessary-but-totally-spoils-all-my-fun-disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts. I don't own Zexion (although if it were up to me..), Demyx, or any other of the sexy Orgy Thirteen boys (but Squeenix, you can keep Xaldin, Lex, and Veken, k?).
A/N: So, 'Candystriper' has undergone a title change, boys and girls :) I wasn't too satisfied with the title, so I wanted to give it one with a little more meaning and though. "Trains and Sewing Machines" comes from the song Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap - it's a great song, so I'd advise everyone to look it up.
As for this chapter, I feel like it's a little weak, but it was a necessary one. I suppose I'll let you guys be the jugde. Please - review, review, review! I don't know how to make y'all happy if you don't tell me what you want or how I'm doing :) So, on to chapter six of the newly christened Trains and Sewing Machines - enjoy ^_^.
~Drinking (Another Hole in the Wall)~
Zexion stared, nearly dumbfounded, at Axel, who was playing a scratched and beaten guitar while a comrade hammered out a rhythm on overturned trashcans that gleamed morosely in the weak morning light. Axel had yet to notice him; his head was tipped back, the pale and vulnerable flesh of his neck exposed as he sang. Zexion could see the skin trembling as his vocal chords vibrated against it. His voice was a soulful tenor as beaten and scratched as the guitar, but it was not altogether unpleasant.
Suddenly, the drummer stopped playing his makeshift drum set. "What's this chap staring at us for, Ax?" He asked in a British accent much too quaint for its current surroundings.
The music trailed off. Axel righted his head and opened his green eyes, startling against the sharp features of his face and his hair, which glowed like lit embers.
"Oh! That's Zex. Hey, man." He slung an arm around around Zexion's shoulders. The boy flinched, but forced himself not to pull away. He pushed a smile onto his face that looked much easier than it was. Axel grinned wolfishly. "You sure are dressed down today, huh?"
He looked down at himself, at the white-tshirt covered with paint splatters of varying colors and Larxene's 'stylishly' ripped jeans, which hugged his slim hips and took up a nearly permanent residence in the back of his dresser drawer. Seeing Demyx today hadn't been an option, so he'd called in sick – and instead of sleeping in like any reasonable human being would do, he had instead rummaged through his clothing until he found the ruined outfit, dressed, and left before his roommate even woke. He'd headed for Skid Row.
Why, he didn't know. It had seemed like the only correct solution to a string of impossibly complex equations happening inside his brain, a natural function. Still, it didn't serve to explain why. Why he was standing like a goddamn idiot in the middle of a filthy street with filthy people his parents had raised him to step on. It seemed to him that he'd been doing too many things lately, too many impulsive things, too many outrageously emotional things, contradictory to the apathy he'd always basked in. Everything was rational to him. But this, this thing with Axel, this friendship, this Skid Row thing – it wasn't rational at all.
"Hel-lo?" Axel crooned sardonically, snapping his fingers in front of Zexion's blank face. "You are one zoned kid. Are you even alive in there?"
You don't want to know the answer to that. "Yeah." He said, casting aside his thoughts for the moment. "Just thinking about something."
"Anything important?"
"No." Demyx. You. Everything. Hell. "Nothing important at all. What were you singing?"
"The blues." He strummed his guitar. "You sing?"
"I don't, as a rule."
"You know what they say about rules.."
"I've broken a few, but never the ones I've made for myself."
There was a silence between them. Zexion noted that the Row on a Sunday morning was different that the Row on a Saturday night; fewer hookers called for tricks, but the panhandlers and hustlers were out in full force.
Axel cleared his throat somewhat uncomfortably, though Zexion doubted that Axel was ever uncomfortable anywhere. "Do you drink?" He asked. "I mean, would you go for one?"
Holy hell, yes.
"Axel." The drummer interjected suddenly. "It's nine in the morning, I highly doubt…"
"No, it's fine." Zexion said. "It's my day off."
"It's a little early to go to a bar. Hm, how about - my place?"
"Yeah. Whatever."
You're a liar, he chided himself as he followed Axel, and you should heed your own warnings. Don't get attached to anything, remember? Remember? Don't care about him, don't care for him. He's just another junkie, but he might be useful. And that goes for Demyx, too.
"Here we are." Axel said, snapping him once more and mercifully from his own thoughts. They had stopped in front of a ramshackle duplex that clearly didn't know what it was good for, all peeling paint and splintered wooden porches. Zexion blinked, staring. "What, are you scared of it or something? Come on, we're not quite in Cabrini Green."
"Right outside of it."
"Well, that counts for something, right?"
"Touche." He muttered reluctantly. He followed Axel inside the first apartment, which was small and had a peculiar smell, like Axe and spray paint and marijuana with a nicotine chaser.
"Welcome to my humble abode, as they say. What do you want to drink?"
He glanced at the clock. So early, and he was already craving something strong. "Vodka." He said. "Please. With cranberry, if you've got it. I don't particularly give a damn."
"You know, kid…"
"I'm not a kid."
"Younger than me."
"Not by much."
Axel laughed in that cavalier way of his as he opened the refrigerator to pull out a gallon of cranberry juice. "How old do you think I am? No, wait. Don't answer that. I'm twenty-four. And you're, what, nineteen?"
"Seventeen, eighteen soon."
"Young. See, you are a kid. Hey – you can turn on the T.V if you want. Reception's shit, but what're you gonna do, right?"
"Yeah. Sure."
The first drink of the day was always the best one, and Zexion loved Sundays because – at least before his candy striping days – Sunday was the day that he could wake up drunk if it suited him, and stay that way for as long as he wanted. Sunday was the day he didn't have to be anywhere; he was off from the café, and there was nobody to answer to, no hurried showers and toast to sober up before work in case the boss came in. Yes, Sundays had been glorious before the accident. And now, it seemed, he would get one more stab at that glory.
Because this Sunday was good. Of course, he was in the apartment of a man who was nearly a stranger to him, drinking drinks that he didn't make, but it didn't matter. He was comfortable. He was alright.
Axel seemed to have reached a level of optimal comfort. He was spread out on the couch next to Zexion, head tipped, arms wide across the back. "Why didn't you sing?" He asked. "I mean, why don't you sing?"
"What?"
"When I asked. You've got too many rules. I could fuck you if you didn't have so many rules, y'know? If you sang."
"I don't want to fuck you." Zexion said. He was ninety-five percent sure he was being honest. The frightening thing was that he didn't know about Axel, didn't know what this thing was. It was only the second time he'd met him, but he felt like Ax was someone he'd known his whole life. He didn't want to feel anything when it came to anybody. But he knew after few drinks that with Axel (and Demyx, something in the back of his head nagged), that certainly wasn't the case. The feeling wasn't sexual and he was fairly sure it wasn't romantic, so what was it?
He didn't want to think about the subject anymore, so he leaned forward, peering at the clock once again.
"It's…I don't know, it's three in the afternoon." He said. "There has to be some place we can go now. Can't we go to a bar?"
"So long?"
"Well, yeah. But – we've kind of paced ourselves – haven't we?"
"Sure. I guess." Axel said, pulling himself upright. "Okay. Answer my question and we'll go."
"Which - "
"Why didn't you sing?"
"Dunno. Guess I don't really have anything to sing about. I mean, I can't really."
"But -"
"I answered your question." He stood up. "So let's go."
"Hey, Axel - "
Axel ripped his attention away from the bartender he'd been fawning over, and directed it at Zexion, who was leaning heavily against the bar. They'd been there for a long time now; it was just past dark, and the bar, a little hole in the wall not too far off the Row, was beginning to get crowded. Usually he drank in places much less populated than this one, but now he was inebriated just enough that he didn't care.
"Yeah?"
"Do you, uh." The words got lost for a second. "Do you know where the birds go in the winter?"
The look on Axel's face was politely surprised at the question, which had come seemingly apropos of nothing. "Don't they go like, south or something?"
"Right. South. They go fucking south. Who doesn't know that?" He sighed and downed the rest of his drink, the glass clinking with finality as he set it back down. Axel raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry about it." Zexion murmured. "I think too much."
"Well, stop. You're killing my buzz."
"It was just - nevermind." He ordered another vodka and cranberry, which he drank with the thirst of a man who had been lost in the desert for forty days. He was at that particular level of drunk where his thoughts were running into each other and he wasn't sure what came next - if he would do something infinitely stupid, or pass out, or cry. Everything was so complicated now. Apathy was so simple, so simple that he had never had to work for it. Why, now, did it seem a struggle? And all the things he'd known were changing abruptly. It was hard to adjust, comparable to losing your equilibrium. It was emotional vertigo. Strange how he'd thought himself immune to such a thing simply on the virtue of not feeling anything (or at least, he used to be able to not - ).Larxene was trying to be supportive, except Larxene wouldn't know supportive if it bitch slapped her. She just didn't understand that -
"Come on, Zexy" The voice, overly sweet, crooned in his ear. "It's time to go to church."
Zexion, freshly thirteen, opened one eye just a slit. His mother's face was slightly bruised - he guessed they'd gone a little too far last night, but hell if he knew, he'd started sleeping through their nightly violence - and he knew that she'd have it covered in makeup soon enough. "Let me sleep." He muttered. He didn't want to go to church. It was...pointless. Ritual, religion, to hell with God. He wanted no part of the hypocrisy.
"But - "
"I don't believe in your God, and I'm certain you don't either. Shut up and let me sleep."
She snarled, and grasped a fistful of his hair.
Shit, he thought. There goes sleeping in.
"You ungrateful little - "
And Larxene was of the opinion he should just kiss and make up with them. Ha. Money didn't constitute love and didn't demand it, and the only reason they'd thrown that fancy lawer at him in the first place was to save face, so that they could show themselves in their narrow-minded society.
"Hey, Zex, man, your mom is calling." Axel waved his cell phone at him; Zexion snatched it and pressed ignore.
Fucking great, he thought to himself.
"Don't want Mommy to hear you shitfaced?"
"She's a bitch!" He yelled, surprising both Axel and himself with the sudden outburst. He ordered another drink and prayed for being numb. This, this was why he didn't drink with other people, because he'd get so drunk and just say things like that. He hoped Axel wouldn't remember the next day - and Axel, showing some sort of human decency, let it go and said nothing.
They stayed for a long time, even after they'd been cut off.
"I gotta work." Axel said.
"Drunk, at midnight?"
"Late shift. Lax job."
"Whatever." He muttered, sliding clumsily off the barstool. The bartender seemed impressed that he was still standing, but he knew what he was doing. Kind of. He just wasn't very keen on seeing the inside of Castle Memorial so soon. Ashe made for the door, he slammed full force into a blonde boy with pretty blue eyes.
"Roxas?" He slurred, after the room had stopped spinning so wildly.
"Oh - hey, Zex. Sorry about that." Roxas flashed a small smile and slipped past into the crowd. Zexion couldn't even think about that. He just pushed out into the night.
Having already lost his drinking partner somewhere in the packed bat, he found himself alone on the city streets. He felt like Chicago was quieter that usual, but thought maybe he had just muted out all the noise.
He began to wander aimlessly with not even the faintest idea where he was headed. The ground was doing this thing where it tilted, and he swore the world was trying to knock him off balance. Still, he walked. And eventually - when his legs, tired and unsteady, screamed for mercy - he sat down on the curb.
Sometime later, he heard the squeal of brakes as a red convertible slammed to a stop in front of him. The passenger door swung open.
"Get in the car." Larxene spat from the driver's seat. "Get in the fucking car." He stared blankly. "Now, Zexion!"
He laughed and struggled to his feet. "No need to be mad, Larxy, it's just that - " He plopped down in the passenger seat and promptly forgot what he was saying.
"Where the hell" she said tersely once they were driving. "Where the hell do you get off thinking you canjust take off like - "
"Shut the fuck up, Larxene!" He yelled. She was only faintly surprised, well aware of how he got when he was drinking. As if the little bastard wasn't moody enough already. "You aren't my goddamn - "
"Mother, I know, but now I have to spend my night looking - "
"Fuck you." He muttered, suddenly too tired to yell. "You didn't have to do anything."