Author: voodoodoll333 / katalystik
Rating: T
Chapter: 6?
Pairings: Axel/Roxas main, Riku+Sora on the side.
Summary: In another dimension, Roxas is leading a normal, high school life. Axel, on the other hand, is a low-wage worker at a fast food chain who happens to be smitten with the blonde boy. Awkward times lead to desperate measures, and they soon find themselves in the middle of something neither know what to do about. AU Crackfic.
AN: I know Mr. Strife may seem like a very random character, but he has a role in this, I swear. Not a very big role. Not a very important role. But a role, nonetheless. XD True to his Kingdom Hearts self- not completely useful, but COOL TO LOOK AT. Kinda just fun to write.
Er.
As a side note, I have to thank everyone reviewing/commenting. It's overwhelming. I've never popped out words this fast- you guys are so inspiring! I had to say that. Okay. Whew. :) I love you guys.
One more thing: I don't ever plan out chapters, I just write it all out in one go. So if I get something wrong feel free to tell me. Cuz I do. All the time. TT
Okay! Long note! All that said, enjoy!
Chapter Six
"Good morning, class. Your health teacher is out on sick leave, I'm afraid, I'll be your substitute."
The impromptu tic-tac-toe game Tidus had engaged Roxas in on Roxas' notebook was brought to an abrupt halt as the attention of the class was brought to the front of the room. Roxas frowned at the collaboration of x's and o's, feeling gypped out of a victory. He was so close to winning, too. He threw a resentful look at the back of Tidus' head, then joined into the conformity of staring at the newly arrived substitute teacher.
"I'm Mr. Strife." The man offered helpfully, if not in the most depressed tone Roxas had ever heard come from anyone's mouth. "And I'll be teaching sexual education today." The last part of the sentence was said in the finality of an executioner's axe- in fact, the man looked as if he would have preferred death to standing in front of them all to talk about the metaphorical birds and bees.
The class stared as Mr. Strife shuffled over to the blackboard. He wrote the words "Mr. Strife" upon it, as if they needed further clarification. Roxas blinked, staring. Even the /words/ looked sad.
A weird silence fell upon the class as Mr. Strife stared at them all as if he expected something. Roxas compulsively grabbed a pencil, trying to look busy. After a few more moments of quiet went on, Roxas carefully penned "Mr. Strife" on his paper, right under the tic-tac-toe. As an afterthought, he added his final X to the left corner square and smiled triumphantly. Him: one. Tidus: nothing.
A loud sigh from Mr. Strife brought Roxas' attention back to the front of the room, where the man had sat on the edge of the teacher's desk, facing the class. Roxas couldn't help but feel that a gloomy aura was coming from the man- even Roxas was beginning to fell a bit down. That or the one hour of sleep he had gotten was getting to him, either or, really. The telephone call with Axel had kept him up long after the actual event, thinking about-
"I assume you all know what a penis is," Mr. Strife said unhappily, tossing the piece of chalk he had written his name with from hand to hand. Someone in the class laughed (Roxas couldn't blame them. Penis was a funny word.) until Mr. Strife sent them a surprisingly intense glare, a frown upsetting his placid face. The person hushed with a weird choked noise. "I suppose you think a penis is funny?" He asked coldly, eyes intently staring a hole into the kid who had laughed. His bright blue eyes burned a path through the class, intent on an answer.
"S-sorry, sir." The kid squeaked shakily, hands folding on his desk like a kindergartener being reprimanded. "I think that the penis is a very serious thing. Topic. Serious topic."
Mr. Strike nodded slowly. "I'm glad you think so," He said gravely.
Roxas was very glad he was not that kid, suddenly. Something about Mr. Strife, behind his initial guise of depression, was very off-setting. He strictly ignored the part of his brain telling him that genitalia was funny, not wanting to be under the unhappy scrutinization of their sex-ed teacher. A penis is not funny, he told himself. Testicles are not funny. Boobs are not funny.
Another weird period of tense silence fell upon the class. Mr. Strife stood up and walked to the chalk board and drew something under his name, his slight build hiding it from view. A few screechy-chalk noises announced the process of something being written upon the board. He stood back after a while, observing his work. Roxas craned his neck, curious.
"SEX IS BAD. DON'T DO IT." The board yelled at them, backed up by the serious gaze of Mr. Strife. He set his chalk down loudly and crossed his arms, looking despondent. "Any questions?"
Usually, phrase such as the one on the board spawned no question, seeing as they were more of a strict command than anything. No hands were raised. After a while, Mr. Strife looked satisfied- well, he was either satisfied or about to have a good cry, Roxas couldn't really discern one sad expression from the next. He busied himself with drawing a pretty impressive rendition of stick-godzilla attacking the game of tic-tac-toe.
"But what if you already have had sex?"
All eyes swiveled to fix on Tidus, who was looking confused. He smiled sheepishly, shrugging. "I mean, we are seniors. Not everyone's a virgin anymore, right?"
Roxas stared at Tidus, then at the game of tic-tac-toe. Maybe Tidus was so bad at the game because his mind was addled by sex.
Mr. Strife looked at a loss for words, adopting a look much akin to one a puppy who has been kicked would wear. "I... guess... you stop, then." He said, floundering unhappily. Roxas began to wonder if Mr. Strife were a real Sex Ed teacher. He didn't seem very informed on the topic.
Another kid piped up then, spurred on by Tidus' outburst. "But what if you don't stop? What then?" They demanded loudly. Mr. Strife glared at them bleakly as Roxas continued to evaluate the man. Huh. Maybe if Mr. Strife had sex he wouldn't be so doom and gloom-like. Sex was said to have wonderful therapeutic qualities, he had heard.
"You can get a disease," Mr. Strife answered helplessly. Roxas couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy, almost. He obviously wasn't made for the job of explaining sexual intercourse to a group of horny teenagers. He looked more suited to the task of writing sad poetry or painting unhappy scenery. He looked horribly out of his element in the vibrant green sweater-vest he wore.
The class seemed to be either satisfied with the answer or bored with it, but either way they quieted down. Roxas checked the clock on the wall- hey, only four minutes of class left. That went pretty quick, considering they had covered absolutely nothing. He proceeded to beat the pants off of Tidus in tic-tac-toe until the bell rang.
"Damn," Tidus said, staring at the notebook in a perplexed manner as the bell rang, frowning. "I have no idea how the hell you beat me every time.
"You're thinking with the wrong head," Roxas said breezily, shoving his stuff messily into his backpack.
Tidus had the grace to look completely confused.
Roxas smiled. Tidus: zero. Roxas:...a lot.
Out of complete compulsion (or perhaps because Mr. Strife looked like he was going to cry, and whenever anyone cried Roxas became a little panicky), Roxas waved at the man as he left the classroom, hoping he wouldn't off and commit suicide in the next six bells.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.
There was nothing like a good heart attack in math class to wake someone up, in Roxas' opinion.
"Are you okay?" Sora whispered, looking up from his class work to shoot Roxas a look of concern. Roxas nodded and gathered himself from where he was half-sprawled on the floor, having jumped at least a good foot in the air thanks to the spontaneous buzzing inside his pants.
"I'm okay." He replied a bit shakily, wiping a bit of drool from his chin with the back of his hand. Sora shrugged and went back to unsuccessfully trying to figure out trigonomic ratios.
Roxas took a deep breath once he was properly seated; thankful most of the class was either too into their work (or sleeping) to notice him giving what was probably a fair imitation of a seizure. He frowned and stared down at his leg. It didn't look injured or especially exploded-like, even though he could have sworn it had just violently vibrated. He patted it, just to make sure, with all the care of a bomb squad probing a suspicious package.
In response, another violent vibration erupted from the vicinity of his pocket, this time reassuring Roxas that his leg was not, in fact, exploding on him in math class. Though the event could be perceived as fortunate, considering he was, after all, in math class and extreme injury is always a good way to get out of a boring class. He bit his bottom lip and probed a bit inside his pocket, withdrawing his cell phone from it. Somehow he had managed to shove it all back into one piece after having the unfortunate 'breaking-Sora's-nose (and his cell phone)' ordeal, using copious amounts of tape and super glue, along with a choice piece of ribbon. It looked kind of like a piece of modern art, if you squinted just right.
Roxas flipped open his cell phone with extreme caution, afraid it would fall into a million pieces if he handled it too roughly (which wasn't too far from the truth, really).
"Two new text messages." The little screen read. Roxas frowned. He had never had gotten a text before, though it was 'cool' way to communicate between friends. That was the problem, though. You couldn't get texts if you didn't have friends. Roxas felt a little bitter and pressed the 'ok' button, curious.
"Roxas! It's Axel! Hey!"
Roxas wondered how so much enthusiasm towards his person could be contained in three little words. The conversation he had had with the boy last night revived itself, clear, in his mind suddenly, and he felt a bit shivery, for a second. It had been so... weird. Why had he even been compelled to call him?
'Because you couldn't sleep,' he snarky bit of his brain reminded him. 'And there's something about him that makes you question stuff in general.' The snarky bit was right, too, but Roxas hadn't gotten any answers, really from the conversation. Only more questions, none he really wanted to voice.
So he settled on an easy one. "Don't you know I'm in school?" He typed, fingers slow and sluggish on the keypad. When he pressed send he felt a certain feeling of accomplishment, having mastered the art of texting. He mentally patted himself on the back. He read the other message that had been sent to him, eyes intent on the tiny screen of his phone.
"Hi. :)" The message read, obviously having been sent previous to the other one. Roxas snorted, staring at the smiley, unsure of what to think. What an odd turn of events- he didn't know whether to be pleased or alarmed that Axel's stalking had increased to a new level.
Another buzz. "I know, but I couldn't wait. :D" Text-Axel said, and Roxas' fingers flew to reply with a 'What do you mean'-
"AHEM."
Roxas looked up, giving a stunning impression of a deer-in-headlights. His math teacher stood over him, stern looking and palm out. Roxas swallowed his heart back into place, dislodging it from his throat in one gulp.
"The phone." The man commanded, eyeing Roxas' blank worksheet with disdain. Every eye in the room was on them, now. Roxas felt his cheeks burn and cursed him fair skin. He gently placed his fragile phone onto his teacher's hand, careful not to upset the tape bindings.
His phone gave off a spark. His teacher frowned, but took it anyway.
Roxas sunk into his seat, humiliated. Stupid, stupid, stupid Axel, having to text him and get him in trouble. Roxas grimaced at his paper, staring down the unintelligible numbers and signs with a feeling bordering hate, whether for the numbers or the teacher or Axel he didn't know. He marked the answer for number three as the square root of fifty million, not even looking at the question.
Sora leaned over, eyes on the teacher, who was staring at the phone in alarm as it gave off another few sparks, a piece of tape snapping from it.
"Hey, you wanna come over later?" Sora asked lowly, reaching over to correct Roxas' answer with a quick movement of his pencil. Roxas stared at Sora's answer- .5645. He had been close enough. "I got a few new video games since I can't really do anything physical with a broken nose and I wanted to know if you... wanna hang out." He smiled hopefully, the expression skewed due to the huge hunk of gauze and medical tape fastened over the purple swell of his nose.
Roxas didn't even want to know why the phrase" do anything physical" coming out of Sora's mouth was making him uncomfortable. He tried not to think about it and pretty much succeeded. For some reason the notion of hanging out with Sora made him pretty happy, probably because something inside Roxas was starving for the social interaction he had been denied for a good hunk of his life. He smiled back, tentatively. "Yeah. That sounds great."
Something in his brain was screaming that he was forgetting something very important, but he chose to ignore it in lieu of the warm feeling washing around in his stomach. Sora paused in his work to give him a 'thumbs up' motion. Roxas almost returned the motion, but decided not to because it made Sora look pretty dumb.
The bell rang, and the entire class let out a collective sigh of relief- the last bell of the day did something to make you feel good, on the whole. Sora caught Roxas' sleeve as he got up, making him turn towards him.
"Five o' clock okay with you?" Sora's eyes were even brighter against the stark-white of the wrapping. Roxas stared into them for a moment, not realizing what he was doing, before nodding in reply.
"That's perfect." He said, shouldering his backpack and wincing when the strap dug in from the weight of his books. Sora beamed at him, walking out of the classroom with a wave. Roxas was about to follow suit, when a hand on his shoulder made him stop.
"Mr. Roxas," It was his math teacher, frowning down at him with all the might of an authority figure. "I will see you for two hours after school tomorrow. No excuses. You can have your..." He looked at his desk, where Roxas' phone was buzzing angrily. "...phone back afterwards."
Roxas sighed and nodded. "Yes, sir."
He walked out of the classroom just in time to hear his teacher yell a curse, the sound of something setting on fire apparent.
It wasn't until he had reached BurgerMart that Roxas realized he had no money.
It was understandable that he should forget, really. He had gotten precisely an hour and fifteen minutes of sleep that morning, and had been pretty groggy when he had been getting ready for school.
But still. BurgerMart was an unbroken tradition of three years, Axel was a tradition of two days, and neither were traditions Roxas really wanted to break. He stood outside of the restaraunt for a few helpless minutes, searching every pocket on his person, even sifting through the gunk on the bottom of his back in his search for change. But there was none, and Roxas couldn't well go into BurgerMart and not order food. If he did... Axel could get the wrong idea, like Roxas was just there to see him. Which was becoming more and more of the situation, actually, but Axel was still (and would probabaly always be) second to food. But still.
Roxas gave one last, starving look at the shining sign of Burgermart before trudging along the sidewalk, trying to ignore the feelings of hunger igniting in his stomach at the smell of the frying meat and foodstuffs. Axel- oh well, it's not like they were friends, or anything. Roxas pushed aside a mental image of Axel, disappointed and waiting at the register, from his mind. He readjusted his backpack and kept walking, BurgerMart now a speck in the distance.
He would just have to eat soemthing at home, as loathe to the idea he was. He could stand a day without seeing Axel, too. He could live without BurgerMart. This was all no big deal.
VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRM.
Roxas frowned, breaking off from his mantra of "I don't need burgers I don't need burgers", ears perking. That noise was familiar- he turned around, towards the sound, expecting to see a motorcycle coming up the street. He blinked. There was no motocycle or anything, for that matter, on the street , but the sound was growing closer-
BEEEEEEP.
Before Roxas knew what had happened, he found himself spitting grass from his mouth, having thrown himself off the sidewalk and onto an unsuspecting lawn. he looked around, heart beating crazily within his chest-
"Wow. You got some distance." Axel said from his place on the sidewalk, impressed.
Roxas stared. It had to be a figment of his imagination- there Axel was, BurgerMart uniform and all, gazing at Roxas from atop what could only be called a moped. He smiled widely, his eyes flashing bright under his stupid visor.
"Wha-what's WRONG with you!" Roxas breathed, holding his hand to his heart, trying to keep it from beating out of his chest.
Axel leaned forward onto the handlebars, stretching. "Well, I saw you walking past BurgerMart. You didn't come in, and I wanted to see you, so..." He gestured widely with his arms. "Here I am!"
Roxas stared at him, getting to his feet. "Don't you have a job!"
Axel considered him, scratching idly at the line on his cheek. "I took a break."
"Where did you get the moped!"
Axel grinned. "Company crotchrocket." He explained, gesturing at the BurgerMart logo emblazoned on the side of the bike. "Are you getting on, or what?"
Roxas' mouth went dry. "What?" He wish he could have thought up soemthing moe intelligent to say, but that part of his brain was more centered on the fact that Axel wanted him on a bike. Very close to him.
With a rev of the engine, Axel made a grab for Roxas' wrist, falling short by a bit. "Well, you're walking home, aren't you? I'll give you a ride."
Roxas stared at him, at a totaly loss for words. Part of his mind said 'Don't do it, Roxas! He's a weird, stalkerish stranger!' while another part screamed 'He smells like burgers. Axel is a good man.' He was torn, and Axel saw it.
Roxas made a noise as Axel made another bid for his wrist, this time catching it in his hand and yanking him forward. A flash of hot-white-memory, this time not as alarming as before, stormed through Roxas, making his head swim. This wasn't wrong. Axel... he knew Axel, didn't he?
"Get on the bike, Roxas. Please?" Axel wasn't exactly pleading, but his voice was so vulnerable that Roxas knew he could hurt him if he rejected him, hurt him heart-deep-
Roxas sucked in a breath and swung his leg over the bike.
Axel smiled huge and warm, blushing, and was glad Roxas couldn't see it.
AN: MUAHAHAH THAT'S RIGHT CLOUD YOU TEACH THAT SEX ED. Like you don't know what you're talking about. Pssh.
Uh.
Ahem. XD
Next time: Axel gives Roxas something important, Riku owns at video games, and THE TRUE PLOT IS REVEALED. And a lot of you won't like it.