Dealing with Roxas was not unlike dealing with a bitchy cat. He turned his nose up at everything, gave off the impression that he merely tolerated the presence and attention of other people, and he had perfected the silent gaze. Why Axel liked him, he couldn't say. Preferred a challenge or liked hating himself or thought it was ironic. It didn't matter in the end; he liked Roxas, and that's all there was.
Axel was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling like it would open up, crush him or engulf him with insulation and roofing. He was let go again, always the same damn euphemism that was supposed to spare him his sanity or something. "We're letting you go." Go where? To do what? It was the third job lost in four months. Didn't things go right anymore?
He hadn't bothered to tell Roxas. They were an unofficial couple, going places and doing things and kissing a little. They'd only slept together a handful of times, each time more frustrating than the last. Did Roxas even like him? Axel was inclined to think otherwise, Roxas fucking him until he was finished, then pulling out and doing whatever while Axel jacked off into his hands. Maybe he read a magazine. Plotted world domination. None of them involved getting Axel off. A picky eater, a stubborn brat, terrible at conversation, couldn't take a joke, and a selfish lover.
Around the time Axel was lamenting his existence, Roxas wandered in to the apartment. Axel's shit was on the floor; that meant he was angry. Feeling the side of the television, Roxas found it was cool; that meant Axel had gone straight into the bedroom. The trash was still empty; that meant he hadn't eaten. Sure enough, when Roxas opened the door, he found Axel on the bed, immobile. Forgoing discourse, Roxas climbed over the other boy, wrapped his arms around Axel, and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose. Axel could hardly believe his eyes.
This, Axel remembered, was why. Why continue to like Roxas if he was a horrible nightmare of a person? Because sometimes he was surprising. Because sometimes he would do something minuscule - feed Axel a bite of whatever he was eating, walk Axel to his car, kiss the tip of his nose - and Axel's chest would threaten to burst. His arms went around Roxas' back - tentative, weary of pissing Roxas off somehow. He had to let Roxas come to him, had to... oh, let Roxas lap at the seam of his lips, fingers twirling into strands of his hair. Had to let Roxas kiss his neck, tongue pressing at his pulse. He was stubborn, bitchy, intuitive, amazing, perfectly capable of killing someone, really bad with small animals, knew exactly what Axel was thinking 99.6% of the time.
"I learned something new today," Roxas said, somewhere in the vicinity of his right nipple.
"Oh?" Axel breathed, hand running through Roxas' hair. Like petting a cat.
"Yes," Roxas said, licking a trail down to Axel's stomach, running his nose through the hair there, biting at it. "I like kissing you." As it turns out, Roxas' definition of kissing was not limited to mouth, neck, or upper body. Kissing also included biting, scraping, licking, and sucking.