Much thanks for all of the feedback, everyone! I truly appreciate all of the kind words. Chapter seven is up just in time for the end of the world or whatever.


Chapter 7: Love is Understanding


"Prov—" Before Roxas opened his mouth to question him (and really, why should he?), Hayner was back sitting down next to him, chewing off his face and grabbing him in a way that wasn't quite as nice as it was when Hayner was far away just pacing around the room. When one hand gripped his thigh, and the other clamped around the back of his head like a vice, he kept his protests to a minimum, shushed the surprised whimper rising up in his throat, stilled his hands, and tried to will the stiffness from his knees.

"S'better," Hayner mumbled into Roxas's teeth, who, even being in such close proximity didn't really hear much. His heart was hammering loudly, selfishly in his ears.

Then Hayner bit down on his lip, and that sound he couldn't suppress, but luckily, like so many times before, Hayner interpreted it as a sound of pleasure, not pain, which really worked out well in the end. It usually meant that the shouting could be put off for a while longer.

"You like it like that," Or something…Roxas wasn't sure what it was that Hayner was muttering, because his face was buried in the crook of his shoulder again, teeth pulling and tugging along his skin like it was supposed to feel good and not like small daggers were stabbing him repeatedly, but he kept that thought to himself and waited, waited, waited.

It crossed his mind briefly—and he tried to keep these times to a minimum—that he probably shouldn't have to pretend that it didn't hurt, or keep a neutral face so that he wouldn't regret it later, but then he remembered that not everybody could be Sora and Riku's unrealistic fairy tale of a relationship, and that sometimes people put up with things when they loved each other. Like it was supposed to be.

Roxas was thinking this as an intense pressure was building up behind his eyes, threatening to push them out, and Hayner's hands kept grabbing. The teeth skating up and down his neck paused on a pressure point though, and his heart cracked in half when they clamped down hard enough to break skin.

Roxas couldn't help it. He cried out, hand grazing the side of Hayner's cheek. And hated himself for it, hated that he couldn't just pretend for a little while longer, at least until everything was over and he was in bed while Hayner watched television, and there he could cry and whine about it by himself. But there wasn't here, and the fury that ignited in Hayner's eyes as Roxas reflexively reached up to rub his sore neck, was completely, and fully deserved.

"Hayner, I'm sorry," Roxas said, tongue refusing to stay steady behind his teeth, forcing himself to look in Hayner's eyes now to prove that he really, truly was. "It was an accident, I—"

"This is exactly what I thought," He said through gritted teeth, grabbing Roxas's wrist and yanking him forward onto the floor. "Can't do anything with you anymore…such a little tease, and then you act like you don't want it…"

Roxas nodded, he wasn't fair to Hayner. It really wasn't. "Hayner, I really mean it. We can go back to…I won't…."

"No, you really won't."

And a kick landed in Roxas's stomach.

Then another.

Then another.

Then there were possibly three more, but Roxas had stopped counting and was waiting for the bitter taste in his mouth and the colors to dance behind his eyes.

Waiting.

There, something salty, metallic and sour touched the back of his tongue, and stars exploded behind his eyes like fire crackers at a party, and that meant that it was almost over. Hayner never went too far. Only enough to punish when Roxas had been wrong. This was what made them so much different than all those other poor, sad people on the news with the stories about broken homes and bloody noses. It was so much different, because Hayner loved him and would never think to go too far like those other people did.

The kicking stopped soon after, just like Roxas knew it would, and he stopped to listen. He would know soon if Hayner was finished, or if there was more left to punish just by the way he breathed, the way his body was positioned above him, the way his hands hung at his sides.

Air singed Roxas's lungs as it tried to crawl back into them to let him breathe, but the moment was over and there was more to be sorry for.

And Roxas wished he could have that moment back, take it back to thirty seconds ago, or maybe half an hour ago when he made the decision to come home before Hayner was less angry, or a million years ago when he had done something to make him so mad that this became a routine. He wanted to go back to when he first met Hayner, or when was just hanging out with Axel, or just Sora, or his parents' house, or birth. Before that. Before existing.

Hayner kicked him again, right in the chest, where the wind was knocked out of him, and his head cracked against their stupid coffee table, his back pressed right into the spill of alcohol on the floor from earlier. And then Hayner reached down and grabbed him by the hair. "Get up. So easy for you to move earlier, right?"

And dragged him.

He was past the point where yelling would do any good. No, Roxas told himself as he clamped his lips together and crawled after Hayner's unrelenting hand attached to his head. Yelling would only make the neighbors come, and it would be so much worse when they left. It would be so much worse.

Hayner was screaming now, screaming at him, at the walls at the room, at everything and nothing. "You make me so sick, you know that? Doesn't matter what I say or do for you, it's always the same!"

Ungrateful whorewhorewhore. Roxas's backside scooted against the linoleum of the kitchen, past the dining set and against the oven. It felt cool against his face, and stinging arms.

Hayner let go of his hair though, and it wasn't good. It wasn't good, because while the fire in his head stopped burning, it meant his hands were free to do other things, other things that were worse than being dragged, other things that were worse than being kicked.

Roxas kept his eyes closed, because he didn't want to see, didn't want to know, didn't want to feel. And when Hayner came back at him again, it was not Hayner—Hayner who loved Roxas just as much as Roxas loved him, the Hayner who never went too far. No, it was not him, because it just couldn't be, not to Axel, not to Sora, and not to Roxas either.

His arm was hurting, not because it was pinned behind his back wedged between the oven and the awkward little storage cabinet with the broken hinge, but because he had fallen out of bed and smacked it against the night stand. Again.

The bruises were not from socked feet and ringed-fingers that kicked and punched, but from the concrete sidewalk outside, covered in snow and ice and slush. Roxas was clumsy, and the concrete was hard and cold. Again.

And his nose…it was bleeding just because it just was and that's all that mattered because it wasn't anyone's business anyway. Roxas's nose could bleed all over the planet if he wanted it to, and so could his mouth, because it was Roxas's body to do with what he wanted.

And the tears, the tears that never fell because crying was for weak people, sad people, hurt people, and people who weren't loved, no, they didn't exist either. His eyelashes were wet from snow and cold and whatever else sounded good. Roxas didn't cry.

"Hayner," he said, quietly, sure that his voice sounded just as pathetic as it felt coming out, hugged by wetness and gravely things in his throat. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…I…"

"You're sorry, you're sorry, you're sorry," Hayner mimicked, pausing only to wipe his hand on his shirt and assess. "I bet you're sorry."

And then he picked Roxas up by the collar of his shirt, and threw him into the space where the counter met the wall, where the cabinets met the wall too. His teeth clenched together; the pots and pans rattling inside the cabinets, inside his head.

"You're sorry now because I'm mad at you, right? Sorry because it hurts?"

Hayner held him there, and Roxas didn't know what he wanted, or if there really was anything at all. All he knew, was that Hayner was breathing hard, and the stars behind his eyes were back, blooming and blossoming like it was spring time.

"Answer me," Hayner hissed so low that it felt like his voice was crawling up Roxas's skin, down through his ears and into his body, running through his veins. And he did want to answer him, he really did, because it was a valid and important question, but the stars were still blooming, faster and faster now, and rainclouds! It very well may have started raining in their kitchen, right from the back of his head into the collar of his shirt.

Hayner was saying more things, and screaming others, and Roxas felt his head bounce between the cabinet and wall and floor, just before he felt his face connect with prickly carpeting that bruised his nose. He tasted and smelled metal.

"Pull away from me ever again," Hayner was saying, his foot connecting with Roxas's side, rolling him over into the coffee table again. Roxas just let him, because he was right, and the stars behind his eyes were ringing in his head and telling him that it was going to be okay. If he stayed still and ignored the pain, and the numbness, and the metallic smell, it would be over and the end would be good. He could tell though, that the red streaks on the carpet were getting darker the longer he kept his head in one spot, and darker stains meant they were harder to clean out later.

Hayner's foot was poised above his chest, and over was coming so close. There would be a sharp crack of splintering bone, and there would be pain, but it would end soon, as it always did. And while he healed, Hayner would say such nice things and promise that it would never happen again, too. Yes, over was near, and over was perfect.

When Hayner's heel connected with Roxas's chest, he expected the immediate ripple of pain to shoot down his sternum, through his arms, radiating through his body.

He expected the sound of breaking bone to reverberate in his ears like a clash of cymbals in a sound room.

And he expected the bubble of red to jet up his throat and spill all over his lips, and the side of his face, and the carpet.

But what he did not expect was the sound of a lock mechanism shifting into place.

The door was opening.