When you're a non-signed Struggle player like I am you have to pay your own way. A match in Cid's gym is 1000 munny per player upon entry. It's how he pays the winners fee, and then he makes munny by selling tickets.

I sign up, trying to dismiss the fact that I'm late, so late that there's a crowd lined up around me waiting for the first match to start. They awkwardly knock into my gym bag, my

Struggle bats rubbing together in a way that can't really be good for them. I was supposed to be here at least an hour ago. I also try to dismiss the all-consuming fact that my back is killing me.

I don't know how, I just know that I have to win. Sora will lend me the munny for rent. Hell, he'd pay it all if I'd let him, but I can't do it. We've been roommates longer then brothers—I've been paying my own way since I was six and I can't give that to anyone.

The place is loud but the changing room is quiet—the fighters long pre-paired. Each one is a piss poor sack of shit that hopes to one day get paid to hit people with an over glorified stick, like me. But unlike me they don't forget about their matches.

Changing takes more time then usual, I still have a good thirty minutes before my own match, but Id like to watch who comes before me. Size them up. What are the best at? Floor work? Or striking? Or both? Or neither? Find the chinks in their armor, if you will.

Though, I might not be able to get out until exactly my first turn.

I sit my ass on the floor and begin more stretches, pulling my body flush with one leg, my cramped muscles protesting any kind of movement.

Someone raps on the door with two short knocks. I turn sharply and cringe, for two reasons. There's the obvious—my back, and then there's who's in the doorway. He's wearing jeans, a plain T-shirt and a ridiculous blonde wig, but I know its him. I'm instantly annoyed, with him or myself I couldn't say.

He flusters me just standing there.

"Need help?"

I turn away from him and pull myself down over my other leg wincing. "Why are you here?" My tone is harsher then I intended but he sets me on edge, and I really have enough factors to ensure I lose this match.

Axel walks around and sits in front of me, reaching out. "I wanted to see you Struggle." He beacons me. "Give me your hands." I don't. So he reaches over and takes them, positioning himself as an anchor before me, and then pulls. Unrelenting to my tight muscles.

"Ah." I moan, but differently from what he's heard. My voice holds hurt, good hurt.

Axels face is awkwardly solemn. "Why didn't you say you had a match? I would have been less…rushed."

Images flash in my head. I shrug non-committedly refusing to meet his gaze. With my hands in his grasp, he moves, twisting me with him, getting me into a position I wouldn't have found alone. He releases one of my hands, kneeling at my side he takes that hand to my lower back and expertly works out the knots there.

"If you had stayed we could have done this from the comfort of a bed," he emphasizes bed heavily.

I don't react. He's accusing me, asking why I left. I push his hands away, unable to take it. "Quit." I demand, his touch driving me wild. Even such an innocent gesture, Cid has helped me stretch, but the way Axel does it. The way he touches me…I boil, spilling over my edges.

Axel sits back on his heels biting his top lip. His fingers reach and caress my cheek, barley touching me. I hold my breath; his sweetness breaks me with a weight, heavy and foreboding in my chest. I don't like it. It's to unfamiliar. I don't know how to deal with it, how I should act. So cold is the best I can do, my default personality.

I turn my head away, his fingers touching only air. My gaze flickers to Axel long enough to see him darken.

"What do you want?" I ask, annoyed. He is a fire, flickering with the promise of warmth, but I know if I get to close I'll get burned.

Axel smirks, not like usual. An annoyed quirk—to invested in what I say and why I say it. "I thought I said. I like you…" I'm shaking my head. "I want to know why, and that takes more then one night."

I say nothing, maybe if I don't move of breathe his words wont affect me, not in a way that he can see. After a long moment of silence, I find myself rolling my eyes. "We had sex." I say.

"I remember," he says almost cutting me off. "Did I do something wrong?" It's the way he says it that makes me falter.

"No," I admit. It was perfection; Axel had given me one of those sappy, romantic, dates. Something I never knew I wanted. He put a thought in my head I had never even toyed with—what if he could love you? What if you could love him? What if?

Foolish. How many people had had that exact thought about Axel?

"I would like to see you again." Axel reaches out to touch me, and I stand, my lower back seizing at the movement.

"I wouldn't." I lie. I'm caught in a cycle, a truth followed by a lie followed by a truth and so on and so forth.

Axel grits his teeth. Just walk out. I think. Get fed up. Leave. Why bother with me? I'm not worth all of this feeling, all of this trying to get me to go on another date. 'See me again.' I'm bad news, but those are shitty teen drama bad-boy words so I say nothing else. My gaze glosses, blurring Axel into nothing more then a general shape.

"You don't want to know why there's this…" He shakes his head, face scrunching in concentration. "Thing. There's this sameness. I feel drawn to you. I can't explain it." Axel rubs the back of his neck, in that unconscious gesture that I still find unbearably cute. "I would like to get to know you. Can't you feel it?"

I don't answer. Its time for a truth and I cant give him one. Yes. The thought that maybe he'd understand, but that's downright silly. Who could understand the things I've done? More importantly who would understand why I did them.

Axel sighs when it becomes apparent I won't answer, running his hands over his face. Leave. Leave. Leave. I mantra, my stance remaining outwardly passive. He'll break me with sweetness, I'm almost positive.

He stands and stupidly my heart sinks. Where are you going? Dumb. I'm dumb.

"Did I at least get an A plus?"

I smile despite myself, remembering talking and holding his hand.

"Yeah," I tell him, my truth past due.

Axel takes a step toward me, something changed about his stance. Cocky. The whole feel of the room has flipped, I take a step back. "Then I can have anything I want?"

I swallow harshly at the idea of another romp with Axel. "Yeah," I say, remembering the promise. "Just not right now, uhm, I have some time after we can do it at my apartment."

Axel breathes out unbelievingly. "I want a second date, and a third, and a forth, and a fifth. I want five dates."

I stiffen, glaring at him.

He barks a laugh. "You walked into that one." He's right; he's gotten his way, because I unknowingly agreed. I could get out of it. I could refuse, but it's too much effort.

"Fine." I spit, and he laughs. He does that, laughs, when I'm being serious. "But I have some rules."

"By all means, but I have every right to refuse them."

Asshole. "No fancy restaurants. No more flashy dates. No expensive gifts. I don't want to be seen with you in public, or in any way that could mark me as someone you are fucking."

"Dating." He corrects,

"Dating." I say through my teeth.

"And here I thought you were a gold digger." Axel steps even closer to me. "Can I ask why you don't want to be seen with me?"

Incredulous. I snort. "If you took off that stupid wig and walked out is there any question there'd be camera crews before long?" Axel shakes his head no, no room in him for humility. "I don't need to be known as the Struggle player who fucks for favors."

Axels face loses its spark and goes dark. "That's all last night way to you? Payment?"

"That's what you offered. Sex for scouts."

"I didn't mean it like that. I would have sent them anyway."

I have nothing to say to that.

"I'll agree, but only with the addition of my own rule." I nod. "You can't leave. After we spend the night together, you have to wait until I wake up or wake me up."

"You're serious?"

Axel holds up his arms in a playful shrug. "Aren't I always?"

"Deal," I say finally. Wondering why he's even trying so hard. Anyone else would've just gone by now, especially those who think so highly of themselves.

"Deal," he repeats. Then he rushes me, sweeping me up in a frantic, desperate kiss, and I kiss him back. Easily, I'm back to being his plaything. Moldable to anything he wishes.

There's girlish laughter from the doorway. We both turn; I shove Axel away from me as a reflex. It's Tifa, his manager in large black sunglasses but otherwise the same get up as this morning. She's leaning against the far wall with her arms crossed, we must have put on quite a show.

"I've never seen you beg for a date before." She says, addressing Axel.

I should have put it together that she was here with Axel, who else would have told him? Here to watch me play, and ultimately change my life if she likes what she sees. God damn it. It's the first time in a long time that I've felt like running, hiding, and then crying. A childish wish that they would all just leave me alone crushing paired with a childish fear of the future. Of going past what I know.

"I wouldn't really call it begging, more of a negotiation."

Tifa rolls her eyes.

Then a second person pops through the door. Sora? In his own gym outfit, a breathlessness about him that makes me think he's been running. "Rox." Sora says between gasps. "What the hell? Why didn't you tell me about your match?" Sora's gotten really good at mother henning me. Though he gets distracted by Axel, to him, a strange blonde man. "Who?" Then he looks back at Tifa with the same expression of bewilderment.

Cid appears not even a few moments later, not bothering to search for anyone but me. "There you are. You're up, kid."

~.~

^^ Let me know what you think please! I always love feedback. I'll probably see you all in the new year! 2016! That's fucking crazy.

I Want To Love You ~ Lenachka

Halo ~ Noose

Red Sparrow ~ Mree

Little Bird ~ Mree