Evergreen tinsel and strings of white lights frame every store window along the upper floor of the Destiny Island Shopping Mall. Roxas admires them as he walks to work, the silver wire of his earbuds playing at his neck, protecting him from "All I Want For Christmas Is a Real Good Tan" and the other tongue-in-cheek island favorites that had gotten old when he was all of twelve. He stops when he gets to the window where the tinsel falls short, and ducks inside.
With the front windows blacked out and the floorspace crowded with fixtures, Roxas, at his height, can't tell who's at the register or walking the aisleways until he's right in front of them, and by then it's too late.
But Roxas isn't one to back down from confrontation, even when maybe he should.
By the time Lex's bulking form appears behind a rolling rack of soft-hued dresses with lacy collars in subtle prints of florals, skulls, and florals with skulls, Lex has likely seen him coming for miles.
With his russet hair, towering form, bulging muscles, and solemn expression, Lex initially reminded Roxas of the Greek god Hephaestus. Good old Hephaestus was a plain-faced blacksmith who chilled all day at his forge making badass weapons and armor instead of starting drama and shit like all the other gods.
Despite their argument last shift, Roxas still gets the impression that Lex is usually chill, and if for his sheer size alone, not someone he wants to be on the bad side of, like ever anyway.
So Roxas squares his shoulders, plucks out an earbud, and strides right up to the man. "G'morning, Lex." It comes out pleasant enough, if a bit tired, but hey, he had to get up before noon for this, so he's allowed to be tired.
"Roxas…" Lex starts, expression sheepish, voice pained, chill blacksmith status confirmed. "Good morning."
Roxas nods, a good natured, bro nod, because it's all he can think to do, and shuffles his Conversed feet to keep going.
Lex clears his throat as if he has something more to stay, and Roxas stops.
"How did it go, your first day?" Lex's question sounds nonchalant, or it would if he weren't wearing the expression of someone having a splinter pulled from their palm.
Roxas pockets his hands, shrugs. "Axel got me all sorted out, so." He doesn't want to seem like a pushover, but the gentle giant looks so damn apologetic, Roxas can't even be properly mad.
The image of Axel sprawled out on his back with a popsicle stick poking out of his mouth like a happy toddler after a tee-ball game sends an unexpected gush of gooey warmth to his chest. This doesn't help him with his bitter thing any either.
Roxas musters a smile. "All good, right? How was…" Roxas cringes. He hadn't even asked Lex what the emergency was before getting pissed at him for trying to take off. "…your thing?"
Lex tucks a dress he hasn't been actually paying attention to back in amongst the other hangers and then looks down at Roxas, thoughtfully. "Look," he says in his narrator voice, "I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have left you like that; it's not something I do, ordinarily."
Roxas gets the odd feeling that he has just heard more words from Lex in a minute than he typically says in a day. Again, Roxas smiles, tries not to laugh outright at the thought that this god of the forge is like eleven times his size and hulking over him all concerned, anxiously shuffling his feet.
"It wasn't your fault nobody showed up. I get that. I was just nervous and when I'm nervous I get a little ticked." Roxas, rubs at his arm, and his smile turns a little self-deprecating. "You don't have to apologize."
Lex smiles. Well… he stops frowning, which Roxas thinks counts. "My sister had this holiday choir concert." His arms cross, thoughtfully, almost brooding. "I didn't have time to change, so my mother kept grumbling that I looked like a hoodlum, but my sister had this solo and it was… incredible… I mean, she's in middle school, so she sang it like a prima donna," he chuckles, a deep, almost wistful sound, "but she was just… so happy that I was there."
As Lex turns back to lift an armful of dresses, Roxas imagines him smushed into a tight row of auditorium seats, next to a tiny old lady with paler russet curls, dressed in some hideous lavender get up that she calls her Sunday best, tugging at the giant's ear and gesturing menacingly to his fading, black pants, brown leather jacket, and white muscle tee.
Roxas bites down on his tongue to keep the giggle in.
Lex must mistake the strangled sound he makes, because when he's settled the dresses hung on his arm amid the others on the wall display, he turns back to Roxas. "What Axel said, about me hitting you…"
"Hey, hey," Roxas tosses up innocent hands, seeing grief in the sag of the man's shoulders, "he was joking. I knew you weren't going to…" Roxas gestures vaguely rather than finish the sentences. He knew nothing of the sort, but it seems like the right thing to say to avoid a repeat scenario.
"No." Lex nods, stepping back to avoid the hand Roxas reaches out with to pat his arm with and say 'there, there', which okay, fine. "But there was a time in my life I would've."
These people are an absolute fucking mess.
Roxas works his jaw. He figures he probably shouldn't say that.
"I haven't always… been the best brother, so," Lex settles the last of the dresses in place, and meets Roxas' eyes more steadily, "I'm trying to make up for lost time."
"That's…" Roxas' chest fills with warmth and he reaches once more to pat Lex's arm, and this time Lex lets him, "really cool of you, man. Congrats."
Lex nods and the silence begins to stretch between them, filled with beats which somewhere in the back of his mind, Roxas is relieved to hear still sound like regular Hot Topic jams and not punk rock Christmas covers or some other hybrid atrocity.
"Now," Roxas adjusts one of the dresses about to give its hanger the slip, "please tell me nobody actually buys these things."
Lex does that thing where he frowns less again, tugging at a beige number with a black lace collar and a scorpion print. "I've seen worse."