Disclaimer: Oh how I wish I owned it!

Warnings: A little of this, and a little of that…Yaoi, mature language and themes.

Author's Notes: First off, I want to thanks all my lovely reviewers! You guys make my day, you really do! Oh, and I had a bit of a mental train wreck, when I started going over the itinerary I had designed for the trip in this fic. For some unknown reason I had thought that Roxas was only supposed to be in Europe for two weeks, and then I looked at the amount of stuff I had written down that he was going to see, and really freaked, because there just isn't enough time. After that I reread my chapter one and was surprised to find that it was mentioned that he has THREE weeks there, not two. Good thing too.

And in totally unrelated news, I think I might actually have Strep Throat, not that I'm exactly happy about the whole thing. I will know for sure after a visit to the clinic today, but until then, more ICECREAM!

Uncommon Ground

Chapter 5.

It wasn't until later in the evening that Roxas truly started to hate the new situation he found himself stuck dead center in the middle of.

In a very literal interpretation of the phrase.

It hadn't been so bad for Roxas when they were touring around the city of York after arriving there in the early afternoon. It had actually been, almost pleasant, at least when compared to the bus ride there.

For one thing, if Demyx started to talk non-stop (which he always did), or God-forbid – sing, Roxas only had to run away from the situation. Something he couldn't do when stuck sitting behind him on the cramped bus ride.

The running away from Demyx scheme had worked brilliantly too, all it required was stealth and a little bullshit.

Stealth hadn't been too much of a problem. When the three of them had decided to check out York Minster Roxas had been overjoyed for one reason. The place was big. Big enough to get lost in, and most importantly, big enough to lose someone else in.

They had started off sticking together when they entered the massive building. That had lasted about two minutes, at which time Roxas put his plan into action.

He needed to use the bathroom.

Well, not really, but nobody else needed to know that. And even though Roxas was a bad liar, he had still managed to pull off a pretty good 'need to pee' act. Complete with leg crossing and a little jig.

And Demyx had bought the act, hook, line and sinker. Axel not so much. He was fairly sure that if Roxas had to pee, he wouldn't be dancing around like a five year old very close to wetting himself. It just wasn't his style. Nevertheless, he watched Roxas head off in the direction of the bathrooms, and waited patiently for around four minutes, before deciding to check and see if the kid had drowned.

It came as no surprise when Roxas wasn't to be found in the washroom, or anywhere else Axel and Demyx looked.

Roxas had seen his opportunity and had ran with it – the whole of York Minster all by himself, provided he didn't run into his two 'companions'. And he didn't even see them until over an hour had passed, and by that time he had stopped caring.

Everything had gone so well before they got to the hotel. Too well.

But this. This. Simply would not do. No way in hell was Roxas sleeping in the middle!

And that is exactly what his present predicament entails.

One queen size bed.

Three guys.

No fucking way.

"Oh it's not a big deal. I did this once back in high-school on my way to see a concert!" Demyx slapped Roxas across the back amiably. "It was freaking hilarious!"

'Yes, I bet it was just so fucking hilarious you almost died. You annoying pain in the ass.' Roxas thought to himself, staring at the bed in a delightful mixture of horror and disbelief.

Sharing a bed with Axel had been bad. Maybe not bad enough to cause Roxas any Post Traumatic Stress, but definitely bad enough to induce a few nightmares. Perhaps even a night terror or two for good measure to add to the lack of sleep he was sure to get in the future.

But sharing a bed with Axel and Demyx was simply beyond his ability to comprehend. It was embarrassing, far too touchy-feeling to his liking, and above all entirely too gay.

"You okay Rox? You're looking a little paler than normal?" Axel gave him a knowing smirk. He knew Roxas would rather staple his own ass to the floor than share a bed with two other men.

Unfortunately there was never a stapler when you needed it.

"Of course I'm okay!" Roxas protested, his voice so squeaky it sounded like he'd just been castrated.

Axel raised an eyebrow. "You sure?" He taunted. "If you want to sleep on the floor that's fine."

"No that's okay."

"Check out my pajamas!" Demyx stepped out of the bathroom wearing what appeared to Roxas to be a set pajamas suited to a retarded girl.

Demyx mistook Roxas' look for confusion.

"They are music fairies!"

And Roxas had to admit that they would probably look good, if you were high on a hallucinogenic. The pants were a light green color, but after that everything went to many different levels of wrongness. Little black and gold music notes being held by…little winged fairies. Roxas hadn't seen anything so disturbing on pajamas in his entire life.

He looked closer. The fairies were wearing leaves and flowers and other assorted foliage.

"Nice. Little People." Axel said with only the smallest hint of sarcasm. Evidently he also had a liking for idiotic things.

"I got them in London." The dirty blond said simply with a shrug. "I figured since I'm not going to Ireland I should at least get something sorta Irish."

Demyx crawled into bed and Axel started stripping down to his boxers, leaving Roxas with little other option but to follow his example.

But there were certain limits to Roxas' capacity to function. One of which was partial nudity in the presence of two other guys. Presence, wasn't the word. Spoonage was more the correct term for a three guy snuggle fest in a cheap British hotel.

While Demyx was quite comfortable in his pajamas (however juvenile Roxas considered them), and Axel was more than content in just a pair of silky black boxers, the youngest blond took it upon himself to personally make up for the lack of modesty in the room

He wore his clothes.

Now, to be fair it must be said that Roxas did change out of the clothes he had worn all day. He had simply put more day clothes on. A pair of jeans, and a tee-shirt, followed by a black sweatshirt, because that meant more layers. He even put a clean pair of socks on, just to be safe – Axel struck him as a possible foot fetishist in any case.

"Think you'll be warm enough?" Axel quipped, laughing as Roxas struggled to shove him over, and into the middle of the bed. At last Axel relented and moved over, giving Roxas enough space on the edge to sleep. Barely.

"And by the way Demyx." Roxas said, after a few minutes of silence had descended in the small, darkened room. "Axel likes to sleepwalk. If he tries crawling over you in the middle of the night, just punch him in the face, or something."

The only response was a faint chuckle, and the sound of light snores coming from Axel.

The warning turned out unnecessary. Axel never tried crawling over Demyx in his sleep.

He crawled out of bed the other way, right over top of a sleeping Roxas.

At least, a once sleeping Roxas. Once Axel had gotten into the position of straddling the younger blond, Roxas had awoken very quickly with a start. Followed by a blood curdling scream.

"RAPE!"

"Huh…?"

"Get the fuck off me!"

Axel blinked. Beneath him Roxas was having a little fit, much like a seizure in fact – except for all the choice phrases being used.

"You sick mother fucker! You fucking rapist!"

But that was the point where Axel had to scratch his head and really wonder about just what was going on.

"And if you don't get off me right now…" The threat was left hanging in the tense air of the room. Or else I'll find some scissors and snip off your balls! Seemed to be the most logical conclusion to it.

Roxas squirmed and grabbed the bedside lamp from the nightstand and held it up, aiming it squarely at the other's head . It appeared to be solid metal – likely brass – and made with durability in mind. Complete with some very mean looking sharp edges.

Axel didn't need further prompting and quickly jumped off the enraged blond. "Sorry, I was sleeping."

"You were sleeping! You were sleeping and raping me!"

From the other side of the bed, a rustle of bed sheets was heard, and Demyx, tousle haired and sleepy eyed raised his head to look blurrily at the two. "'m tryin' to sleep…" He slurred, before his head hit the pillow with a resounding 'thud'.

"You know that I sleepwalk." Axel pointed out, voice lowered as not to bother Demyx. "It's not like I intentionally tried to straddle you.

"Plus," He added. "If I was trying to rape you don't you think I would have tried…oh, I don't know? Ripping your clothes off maybe?"

"Rape." Roxas protested yet again. Only this time it lacked most of its former indignation and outrage, and instead just sounded flat. A point solely made for argument's sake, nothing else.

"Sure kid." Axel sighed. "Sorry about that, it probably won't happen again." 'Hopefully.' He thought to himself, but didn't say it out loud for fear of a pair of scissors or a lamp being used.

"It damn well better not." Roxas replied, turning over on his side of the bed, and facing away from Axel. The bedside clock telling him it was already two in the morning, and that in itself pissed the blond off. 'I won't be sleeping now.' He thought in irritation. Fighting to get comfortable in the bed again, and pulling up the blankets to his chin – despite the many layers of clothing he already had on.

And fifteen minutes later he was out like a light.

Roxas would not speak to Axel in the morning.

It wasn't at first noticeable until Axel made the huge mistake of asking how Roxas had slept – earning himself a chilly glare and a pair of dirty socks thrown at his head. Roxas immediately packed his backpack and stalked out of the room without any further violent outbursts aimed at the redhead. Minus a slammed door to the face.

"So…" Demyx was packing his own stuff up in a rush, mostly clothes. "What happened last night?" He pulled his unbelievably small backpack on and turned to Axel for clarification. "I heard the word 'rape' a lot."

"Yeah, well." Axel shrugged. "A bit of a misunderstanding. Roxas likes to blow stuff way out of proportion."

Demyx nodded in understanding. "He seems…" He stalled for a word to describe the young blond and eventually settled on "Tense."

They both finished packing in a hurry and left the hotel room. Axel leading the way to the front desk in the lobby to check out and hand the two room keys in.

"Don't worry about it." Demyx said as they approached the big front counter. "I'm sure he'll get over it."

Axel wasn't entirely convinced of the matter, but Demyx continued on in a positive manner. "Besides," he said smiling brightly, "If he was super mad he wouldn't have stayed around here."

"What?"

Demyx pointed to the small café attached to the main lobby. At a corner table, in the far back they could just make out the small figure of Roxas sipping from a mug.

Axel let out a sigh of relief, although he wasn't sure why exactly. It wasn't as if he really needed to stick to the kid on his trip through Europe. Although, he had to admit to himself that it had been fun. Really enjoyable actually. He would have missed all the heated banter and teasing if Roxas had decided to strike out on his own.

"Let's go bug him!" Demyx yelled, and then took off in a dead run for the table Roxas was seated at. Roxas didn't have a moment to dodge before a mass of dirty-blond hair hit him in a head on collusion that left him sprawled on the floor.

A waitress glared at Demyx as she passed by, but he either didn't notice or didn't care, as he got up off the floor and held a hand out to Roxas. "Sorry 'bout that. You looked like you needed to wake up."

A barely audible grumble was the only reply, but Roxas took the proffered hand without hesitation and didn't even bother to offer a rebuke after being wrestled to the floor.

"Well?" Demyx asked, sliding into the booth opposite Roxas, "I heard Axel raped you last night."

The tea that Roxas was sipping on sprayed out of his mouth and landed all over the table in a light mist. "What?"

Axel sauntered over to the table and sat down beside the dumbfounded blond right at that moment, but Demyx kept right on topic.

"So did he? I thought I would have noticed something like that going on, since I was in the same bed and all!"

Roxas was turning redder and redder by the second. Although from embarrassment or anger was anyone's guess. "Shut up." He hissed, causing Demyx to stop the very loud, very public interrogation.

"I wasn't raped." He continued, much in the same, ominous manner.

Axel made the very wise decision of not saying anything at all, which was good. Roxas had a tendency to violent flare-ups after all. Especially since he was the supposed 'rapist' of such fame as to have every patron of the café straining to hear what was said about the incident.

"Almost raped?"

"One more word Demyx and I swear…" Roxas lifted the butter knife beside his plate deftly in one hand and made a slicing motion with it dangerously close to the other's neck. The point was made crystal clear.

"Well that's a relief! And here I thought that Axel was a serial rapist or something!"

Axel found himself also suddenly mesmerized by his own butter knife, and wondered briefly what it would be like to gut someone with it. Someone who was long overdue for an execution and a haircut.

"Coffee?" A younger waitress with a soft, British accent asked timidly, standing a good five feet from the table, and looking anywhere but at the two young men ready to kill the other.

"Sure!" Demyx replied brightly, turning his cup over and gesturing at it. The waitress took a hesitant two steps foreword and poured the coffee from a distance that should have been physically impossible. Leaning much like the Tower of Pisa, only more so. Much more so.

"Axel, you want coffee?" Demyx asked. When he received no reply he turned Axel's coffee mug right side up regardless, much to the poor waitress's dismay.

"And maybe some more hot water for Roxas? That would be great!"

The waitress speedily took off for the kitchen, sending somebody else out with the water.

"You know what I think?" Demyx asked the two once talk had resumed at the other tables and it became obvious that no-one was too focused on their conversation anymore.

"I think that this is good." He took a long sip of coffee and leaned back in his seat with a look of utter satisfaction. "Us. Bickering around the breakfast table. It's good isn't it? Kinda reminds me of my family back home."

"But we're not having breakfast." Roxas pointed out after pondering the matter a moment. "It's technically not even a breakfast table."

"So…order something! Both of you. My treat!"

And unexpectedly both Axel and Roxas saw something different about the smiling, cheerful weirdo they had picked up on a bus. Very acute, somewhat eccentric insight into people.

Thankfully neither could truly foresee just what a pain in the ass that insight would turn out to be. If they had, they most definitely would have resorted to a butter knife.

A/N: In the next chapter, Jorvik, a very drunk Roxas, and a castle!