Alright, here's chapter three! It's a little longer, but I tend to write short chapters. Yeahh.
Thank you so much for all of your reviews, everyone! Sora Keyblader, Mamotte Ageru, Shadow of Darkness 22, phaz, Toxic Lust, TeleIce, Veritas4Eternity, TFI-Muse, taste of fire, Taiki-chan, and Duchess Elda, you're basically my heros. I like reviews, what can I say? Anywayyyy….yeah. Here's the next chapter of fun.
Chapter Three- Meet the Gang
Axel pulled Roxas along merrily, a large smile plastered on his face. Roxas, being dragged a few feet behind and glaring daggers at Axel's back, was having a hard time keeping up with Axel's long strides.
"You can let go of my hand now!" Roxas said loudly, hoping that the fourth time he asked would actually produce a result.
"That's alright, I don't mind!" Axel said happily. Roxas sighed, deciding not to explain yet again that it wasn't a question of whether Axel minded or not.
Axel stopped abruptly. Roxas walked straight into him, and quickly jumped back, apologizing.
"Here we are!" Axel said, ignoring Roxas's profuse apologies. Roxas stepped to the side of Axel to get a better view, and then looked curiously at him. In front of them was a large house, looking broken down and half-hidden by overgrown shrubbery. There were no signs that anyone had lived there for at least the last ten years.
"Umm…where are we exactly?"
"Oh, silly me, I forgot to mention! This is where my friends and I all hang out. Since you're gonna be here basically the whole summer, I'll introduce you." He winked (to Roxas's disgust) and walked towards the old house, still dragging Roxas along with him.
Roxas gulped. He wasn't so good at meeting new people, especially kids his own age.
The two walked past the front door, too covered in ivy to enter, and to the side of the house. Axel, finally letting go of Roxas's hand, opened a window that looked like it was almost ready to collapse. He climbed in, his skinny frame easily fitting through the small space.
Roxas followed suit, ignoring Axel's out held hand. "I can do it myself, you know," he said defensively.
Inside, the house was just as disheveled as it was outside. Axel turned to his left and, opening a door, descending into a basement that looked more than a little creepy. Roxas hesitated, thinking back to every ghost story he had ever heard, and decided that more than half of them involved dark basements with rickety stairs. There was a flash of light and he heard a scream from below, along with a low murmur of voices. Roxas gripped the doorframe even tighter.
Axel, halfway down the stairs, seemed to notice that Roxas was no longer standing behind him. He turned back questioningly and when he saw Roxas's expression, raised his eyebrows.
"Aww, Roxas are you scared!" he said loudly, quickly ascending up the rickety staircase. The voices in the basement grew quiet, and Roxas could have sworn he heard a chuckle.
"What! No! What are you talking about? I'm just thinking that this probably isn't a good idea, because I mean come on, this house looks like it was built in early 500 BC and it just cant be stable. What if it collapses on us! WHAT THEN!" Roxas decided not to mention the fact that this was only half of his worries. The other half consisted of ghosts, ax murderers, and quite possibly a few zombies thrown in there.
Axel looked like he was fighting back the urge to laugh. Roxas pouted.
"Roxas, don't worry, I'll protect you from collapsing buildings and whatever else you might be scared of!" Before Roxas knew what was going on, he found his head being squashed onto Axel's chest and a pair of arms wrapped tightly around him. He blinked.
"What the hell are you doing! Get off of me!" Roxas pushed Axel away, his face once again turning magenta, and wrapped his arms tightly around himself.
Axel noted that Roxas looked absolutely adorable when he was angry. Also when he was embarrassed, scared, ect. Basically, in Axel's opinion, he looked molestable 24-7.
"Come on, it'll be fine, Roxas!" Axel said, ignoring Roxas's state of embarrassment. Roxas sighed, and reluctantly followed Axel down the stairs.
"It's not my fault if the house collapses on us," Roxas muttered under his breath.
At the bottom of the stairs, Roxas stopped abruptly. Instead of the shabby interior he had expected, other than the shaggy green carpet that could be loosely referred to puke green, the surroundings were relatively nice. The walls were painted a dark blue color, and from what Roxas could see in the dim light, there was a pool table in the center of the room. A TV faced outwards towards a couch, or what seemed to be a couch. It was hard to tell with the large number of people sitting on and around it.
"Hey everyone," Axel addressed the crowd. No one answered. Their attention remained fixed on the TV screen.
"No, don't go in there! YOU'RE GOING TO GET KILLED!" someone yelled.
"Shut up, Sora, what did we tell you about talking during movies?" a girl criticized.
The boy named Sora, either not hearing the girl of choosing to ignore her, spoke again.
"Are you serious? The CLOSET? Why would you ever open the closet when he—AHH!" The boy yelped and dove across the couch to cover his eyes. On the screen, the blonde girl's face was gruesomely disfigured. Roxas also yelped, covering his eyes when blood spewed everywhere on the TV. In the background, he could hear cries of, "Sora, get offa me!", "stop being such a wimp!" and "this isn't a scary movie, its supposed to be a comedy!"
Roxas peeked out from his hands over his eyes, pretending that he hadn't been terrified just a second ago. A comedy? Yeah right.
Axel was now standing directly in front of the TV, blocking it to get everyone's attention.
"Guuuuuyssss!" he said, flailing his arms around a bit.
"What?" they all said, apparently irritated that their show was being interrupted. Someone extracted a remote from deep within the couch and paused the movie.
"Alright, now that I have you attention…" Axel started.
Everyone waited.
"This is Roxas!" he said, pointing towards Roxas, still standing at the foot of the stairs behind the couch. Everyone turned to look at him. Roxas blushed and tried to hide but didn't want to look like an idiot in the process.
"He's going to be my new stepbrother or something. Isn't he cute?" Axel looked at the group expectantly. Roxas died a little inside.
"Roxas, this is everyone. Riku, Naminé, Kairi, Cloud, Leon, Demyx, Zexion, Yuffie, and the one under the couch is Sora. This is The Gang. They're generally a good time. Any questions?" Roxas chose not to respond, but rather shook his head.
"Alright! So now that Roxas is in The Gang, let's get to this movie palooza action. What are we watching?"
"Scary Movie 3. Which is supposed to be funny. But apparently Sora disagrees," said the girl Roxas thought might possibly be Kairi. She pressed play on the clicker and started the movie up again.
Axel, at this point, was wedged in between Kairi and Sora. Roxas wondered how on Earth they had fit ten people on one couch, but chose not to question it.
"Roxas! Get over here!" Sora called.
"Umm…it's ok, seems a little cramped anyways," Roxas said, hoping Sora would leave it at that.
"Nonsense!" Axel said. In one swift motion, he pulled Roxas onto the couch and into his lap.
Flustered, Roxas squirmed and tried to get out of the death grip that Axel held him in.
"It's ok! I can stand!" he squealed.
"That's ok, Roxas, this is pretty comfortable, I'd say," Axel said, seeming to be enjoying himself. Roxas felt like he was going to explode from embarrassment.
"No, Axel, I don't—"
"SHUT UP. I AM TRYING TO WATCH A MOVIE HERE. I SPENT THREE DOLLARS AND FOURTY FIVE CENTS TO RENT THIS AND I REALLY WOULD APPRICIATE YOU NOT TALKING HERE."
Roxas stared at the source of this outburst, which seemed to come from, if he remembered correctly, the girl named Yuffie.
"Sorry," he said quietly.
"It's ok!" she said cheerfully.
Roxas, slightly sketched out, stayed quiet throughout the rest of the movie. However, it was nearly impossible to concentrate on the enthralling plot twists and character development on account of his position in Axel's lap.
Axel, every so often, would trail his hand up the side of Roxas's leg, and Roxas, every so often, would have to slap him. He probably would have punched him in the face, except for the fact that he was scared of being killed by Yuffie for talking during her precious movie.
Roxas concluded, without doubt, that Axel was a psychopath pervert with weird friends to go along with him.
Axel sat at his kitchen table a few hours later, blowing on alphabet soup he had made for lunch.
The morning had been good.
Not only was Roxas cute, but he was also playing hard to get. Ah, well, no matter, Axel liked a challenge. Especially one as innocent as Roxas.
He sipped his soup, sighing contentedly at its tomato-y taste. Good times. Yup.
"Roxas!" A voice called. Roxas sighed gustily, afraid to turn around. He did not feel in the mood to be molested by Axel at the moment.
"Roxas, its me!" the voice called again, closer this time. Roxas reluctantly turned around.
Standing there was a man, about six feet tall with black hair and a wide smile. His father.
His father was smiling.
Wait, his father was smiling? What?
Roxas stood still as he was, for the hundredth time that day, enveloped in a hug.
What the hell was wrong with these people? Had they corrupted his dad as well?
"Hey…hey dad," he said wearily, reluctantly hugging him back.
"I'm sorry I wasn't around yesterday to see you, I was pretty busy," he said apologetically.
"Oh um, its ok…" Roxas said.
"Good!" There was an awkward silence, in which Roxas decided it wasn't the best time to bring up the absence of his father from his life for eleven years. That was more of an evening conversation, he decided.
"Well, um, I think I might go upstairs and take a…nap…" Roxas said, although he hadn't taken a nap since he was twelve. His father nodded, still smiling.
"Just be down for dinner! I'm making mu shu pork, you know!"
Roxas forced a smile, wondering what on Earth had compelled his father to take up the art of Chinese cooking.
Roxas mounted the stairs one at a time, opened the door to his room and, for the second time in two days, collapsed onto his bed.
Yupp, that's chapter three. Hoped you guys liked it. This story is preeeetty fun to write haha. Reviews anyone?