The first time Roxas walked in to the piercing parlor, he was fifteen. Tossing his skateboard in the corner, leaving a healthy scratch down the turquoise walls, he shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered up to the counter. Axel, amused, watched the kid study the various pieces of jewelry in the glass display case. The kid was blonde in that normal, corn-fed blonde way that Axel associated with Oklahoma and a whole lotta nothing. Farms. Cows. Blondes.
"I was thinking about piercing my—"
"Parental consent required for all minors," Axel interrupted, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the sign, bold and in all caps. Roxas glared at Axel, seething in a way highly typical of fifteen year olds, before he turned, hoisted up his board, and disappeared out the door. That would've been it, another self-righteous wannabe kicked to the curb that Axel would've forgotten in twenty-five minutes when that sexy brunette, all legs, walked in... had Roxas not shown up the very next day at the same time. 3:45p.m., enough time to skate to the shopping district from the high school a couple miles away. If South High were just one more mile away, maybe Roxas would've gone to some other piercing joint. Maybe they would've never met at all.
"My mom said yes!" Roxas said, jubilant and smirking all over his blonde, corn-fed face.
"Got a note?" Axel asked, sucking up a bit of chow mein off his chopsticks. The cute hostess at the Magic Wok two shops down definitely had a bit of a crush on him, discounting his food all the time, throwing in a couple extra almond cookies that Axel didn't like, anyway. Before he knew what was going on, the skater kid was unwrapping an almond cookie and devouring it.
"You said I need parental consent. My parental has consented. You didn't say I needed a paper." Roxas reached for another cookie in the bag, eyes locked on Axel's like he wasn't going to see the kid sneak a hand into the takeout bag.
"I don't know if you're lying," Axel said, eyes darting down to watching Roxas take two more cookies. "What if I was going to eat those?"
Roxas smiled around a mouthful, crumbs at the sides of his mouth that faintly repulsed Axel. "My bad." He was at the door, skateboard in hand and about to shove headphones over his ears when he paused, frowning at Axel.
"You're a minor, aren't you?"
Axel, seventeen, grinned. "I work here. Nice try, sweetheart." Roxas pulled a face and skated away, and while this time it would've been harder for Axel to forget the punkass blonde skater who ate the cookies, he still didn't have a name, and the chick with big tits who wanted her nipples pierced, that would've been a nice distraction. After work, laying on his makeshift bed in the tiny closet of a room he was renting in someone's shitty guest house, he thought of the crumbs at the corners of the kid's mouth and thought that maybe they weren't that repulsing.
When the blonde didn't show up at 3:45p.m. the next day, Axel's chest went all funny for a couple seconds before he took a breath, shrugged, then went back to his issue of Maxim. Five minutes later the door opened, the same familiar clatter of a skateboard against the wall. This time, the kid had brought his mom, a nervous looking lady clutching her bag, embarrassed at her evident lack of cool. The kid, though, didn't appear to be embarrassed at all.
"This," he said proudly, "is my mom. She consents to me getting my ear pierced. Right mom?"
The kid had spunk, that was for sure. Axel ordered him up the stairs, sat him down in the chair, swabbed, steadied, and pierced that virgin flesh mercilessly. Roxas didn't so much as flinch. In fact, he didn't flinch through any of the other consequent piercings he got over the years: left nostril (taken out after a month), a couple more ear piercings, his tongue (infected twice, and Axel told him to gargle, goddammit, and stop touching it, for fuck's sake), and, on one memorable occasion, his nape for all of twenty minutes—enough time for him to walk downstairs, show off in front of his friends, and come back in for the removal.
He'd skate in front of the parlor until the cops told him to clear off, or he'd come in and sit on the display cases while Axel looked at porn or talked shit or ate food, Roxas devouring those gross almond cookies until Axel took to buying him a portion of mongolian beef, at which point Roxas finally (three piercings and one infection in) told him his name.
"Well, Roxas," Axel had said, smiling at the blonde on the counter. "You're dropping mongolian beef sauce all over the display case. And I'm Axel."
"...Not like I haven't know since, like, the very first time I came in." Roxas pointed at his name tag, an elaborate plastic-encased thing covered in sparkly, girly stickers, one of them declaring, "YOU BEAST!" in energetic purple font.
Axel never saw him outside the parlor, didn't know where he lived, didn't know what his grades were like or why he hung out at a piercing parlor once or twice a week for three years. Every time Roxas wanted a new piercing, he came in with a signed, notarized letter from his mother—"Official and shit!—and even if he rarely kept the piercings in, even if Axel wanted to tell him he looked better without his skin riddled full of holes, Roxas never stopped coming back. It's not like he didn't think about asking the kid out, didn't think about inviting him back to his small, sometimes depressing room at the back of that tiny guest house. Not like he didn't think of sitting in the vintage, clawed-foot tub with the kid in his lap while they smoked cigarettes and watched shitty movies that he couldn't help but love. It's not like he didn't crush hard on the kid, but he never quite managed to get the words out. Three years, and sometimes he wondered if he'd be in love with Roxas if he could just get to fucking know him first.
3:45p.m. and there was the familiar clatter against the wall, a little sign hanging above the permanent dark gouges in the wall proclaiming Roxas' Parking Spot. Axel had already brought out another stool, a takeout carton of mongolian beef sitting with chopsticks on top. Axel had a porn mag in his hand, some chick with a leaky gash straddling a motorcycle, but he couldn't focus on it at all, eyes darting up at every person walking by the door.
"I," Roxas announced, slamming down onto his stool and shoveling the food into into his mouth all less than one minute after walking into the place, "have been thinking about my anti-eyebrow."
"Yeah?" Axel asked, all relaxed and cool like he was forever doing around Roxas. He couldn't pinpoint when it was, maybe after the tongue, before the first infection, but Roxas started making him nervous; a panicked, trapped butterfly feeling in his stomach that hadn't ever happened before. So that was nervous, right? Butterfly nervous. "Paper, and let's see what it looks like." Axel held his hand out, waiting for the signed, notarized letter from Roxas' mother, but the blonde just smiled and smiled, chopsticks shoveling food unconcernedly.
Axel swallowed. "No."
"L-E-G-A-L," Roxas said, wiping his mouth with a napkin (a learned habit that Axel enforced after the third ear piercing, tired of spots of sauce and crumbs all over the kid's face). "Time to lock up your sons," Roxas said, a weird light in his eyes that made Axel's stomach dip and pinwheel around.
Roxas followed him up the stairs and into the room, hopping into the chair. Axel felt faintly nauseous. "So. Legal, huh?" Roxas nodded, hands clasped in his lap. "Got any plans?" Axel rolled over, pen in hand to mark out his canvas.
"Just one," Roxas said, looking into Axel's eyes as the redhead held his face steady, eyes picking out proper placement. For a moment, Axel wasn't aware of anything different, but there was a slight pressure at the side of his head, and it felt like Roxas was staring holes into him.
"Am I hurting you?" he asked, confused. His hand cupped Roxas' chin of it's own accord.
"A little," Roxas said, looking closely into Axel's eyes, and... oh. How had Axel never noticed that before? "I just figure that you don't like me. Not everyone in the world is going to like every person they see. But for some reason my body doesn't get it. It just keeps liking you."
"Oh?" Axel asked, smiling now because oh my god. "Which parts of your body?"
"The brain part," Roxas said, expression softening. Axel had thought he was a stubborn, righteous punkass before, but these days he was more than the part, street cred and ethics as etched onto his skin as the color of his eyes, the set of his shoulders. It was strange to see Roxas quieter, vulnerable. "The hands part, and sometimes the dick part, I'm not gunna lie." Roxas bit his lip, looked away briefly. "Or maybe not sometimes. Maybe all the time." The blonde took a deep breath, and Axel was close enough to hear him swallow. "And the heart part. The heart part likes you a lot."