It Takes Two:
The Fighter
For Jessica Paige Box, my best friend

"Oh yeah?"

"You heard me, did I stutter, cunt-face?"

"What'd you say!?"

Hayner balled his fists at his sides and glared. Seifer was fearless with Fuu and Rai at his sides; everyone knew it except him.

"You and that other fag should just stay out of everyone else's hair and get lost quick, ass-munch."

And he snapped.

Seifer was on the ground in a second, and both Fuu and Rai could see the black eyes and fat lip forming already. It took both of them to pull Hayner off of Seifer and to hold him down, because all of them knew Seifer was a pussy except him.

Seifer had a good right hook. Not so much a good left. Hayner hurt both ways after he was done. Fuu and Rai gave him kicks to the stomach before the three of them left.

Hayner groaned at his stiff neck and shaking elbows as he sat up from the dirt, closing his right eye from the sting. He stood up and brushed the dust off of his pants. At least Seifer didn't leave unscathed. Fucker had it coming.

He stumbled into Roxas' door and had a bad headache when he noticed Roxas tending him.

"You can't keep doing this, Hayner."

"I had to."

Roxas laughed, "Just what exactly are you out there to prove?" He lightly dabbed a cotton ball on the small cut on his lip.

"I dunno."

Roxas laughed.

x-0-x

Nails raked across skin and legs tangled and a breath was hard to find. Hayner would thrust and they both would moan. Hearts beat as one, bodies so close they could melt, love so strong it could kill.

Roxas wanted to kiss, Hayner wanted to breathe. Roxas settled for bites on the neck and Hayner would buck and buck until the pretty light exploded behind his eyes and reality came back into focus.

Roxas would sigh contently, happily, tiredly. Hayner would pull out and pull the blanket just over their waists and regain his breath. Roxas wouldn't care about the mess or the smell or the sweat or the exhaustion. He would come closer and crawl on top of him, lacing their fingers together and rest against the older boy, hearts beating as one, bodies melting.

Love so strong it could k i l l.

x-0-x

Roxas had tears in his eyes and Hayner was happy the damned movie was almost over.

"Have you no soul?"

"What?"

"Inman just died, Hayner, she was waiting for him for four years. Four years!"

Hayner scoffed, "He was ugly."

Roxas scoffed too. "You're ugly."

"Says you."

Roxas huffed, stood up, and locked his bedroom door and didn't come back out for the rest of the night.

x-0-x

"Hayner…are you drunk?"

"N-no, I had just like, one shot… Okay, maybe almost four… Okay, four, not almost four… I'm just a little tipsy."

Hayner plopped down onto the couch rather ungracefully, and nearly fell over the edge if it wasn't for Roxas hand grabbing his arm at the last second to drag him back down. All he did was laugh.

Roxas didn't let go of his arm, not until Hayner met his eyes for a second, before bursting into laughter.

Roxas stayed firm. Hayner couldn't.

x-0-x

"I love you, Hayner."

No response.

"I love you, Hayner."

"…Love you, too."

x-0-x

"I can't do this anymore."

His clothes were rain soaked and his vision was blurry, and his head ached from repeatedly running into things. His stomach churned uncomfortably, making him roll over onto his side on the floor with a groan.

Roxas was warm when he lay down next to him and set a hand on his shoulder.

One shot, he was fine.

Two, he was fine.

Three, his speech held the slightest slur.

Four, he was okay.

Five, he was okay…

Six, he watched the blurry lights and listened to the muffled voices.

Seven, he was dfrkbulsnhk.

He bumped his head into buildings walking home. He ran into street signs and was amazed how he got home in one piece.

Roxas almost cried. Hayner nearly threw up.

Roxas dabbed his bumps and bruises and Hayner did throw up.

"I can't do this anymore."

Hayner shot up and stumbled toward the bathroom, coughing wildly and feeling cold tendrils run down his spine.

"I just can't."

x-0-x

"I can't keep this up by myself, Hayner."

"Who says you're doing it by yourself?"

Roxas kept quiet and kept his eyes on the tiles of the kitchen floor. Hayner sat across from him, expression blank with the slightest bit of anger.

Roxas sighed crossing his arms as well, "When is my birthday, Hayner."

He spat it more than asked.

His lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed together.

"S-Septem-"

"October."

Hayner fell silent, and kept his eyes downcast.

He heard the chair scoot across the tiles on the floor as Roxas stood up.

"And yours is April twenty-third, and our anniversary is June twenty-seventh, and your mother's birthday is November nineteenth."

Hayner stayed quiet.

"It takes two, Hayner, to make something like this work… I don't want to do it by myself."

He could hear the tears already forming. He could hear them coming.

Roxas held the lump in his throat.

"This isn't going to work…" Roxas whispered. Hayner almost stood up and said something.

Roxas left the room quietly and softly closed the door to the bedroom.

x-0-x

"Shut up, shut up, you don't know anything!"

"Oh yeah? Well at least I know enough to remember a damn birthday, you fucked- up sorry excuse-"

"Don't you say it, don't you fucking say it."

"Don't say what? Fucked –up sorry excuse of a-"

Roxas groaned at the hit to his eye and reeled back into the wall where the older boy had cornered him. Roxas pushed off the wall and spat in the older boy's face.

"Fucked-up, sorry excuse of a fatherless waste of fucking sperm!"

Hayner had already left the room and slammed the door on his way out.

x-0-x

Olette and Pence soothed him with an icepack and calming words.

When Roxas came back home, Hayner was still gone.

He made himself a sandwich he couldn't even eat.

At 10:00 he was still missing.

At 11:30 he hadn't come back.

At 1:57, Roxas cried, scrunched up on the kitchen table.

At 2:43, Roxas had fallen asleep in his tears on the table.

x-0-x

Hayner came home late the next day. He stood in the doorway of the bedroom and stared at the bag.

"Where ya goin'…?"

"I'm staying with Pence." He threw a shirt in the bag and packed it in.

Hayner was silent again. He looked at the purple blotch around Roxas' left eye and sighed.

He turned and went downstairs and walked outside and sat on the front porch with his knees to his chest and both hands on his head.

He heard Pence pull up. He heard him walk up and stop in front of the older boy.

"Hayner?"

"You can't take him, Pence."

"W-what?"

"Please don't take him Pence."

He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came. They both looked up to watch Roxas open the door with his bag slung over his shoulder.

Hayner heard the bag drop and Roxas' head meet his shoulder.

"How long…?"

"A month."

He didn't say anything.

Roxas rubbed his head a little and smiled half-heartedly when Hayner finally looked up to meet him. After a peck on the lips, he grabbed his bag and threw it in Pence's trunk and they drove away with Roxas eyes watching him outside the window.

Hayner stared long after the car was out of sight.

He'll come back…he always comes back.

x-0-x

Olette stared dazedly at the phone number calling her cell phone at two in the morning and sighed.

"H-Hayner?"

A sniffle and a ragged exhale.

"What's wrong?"

No answer.

Olette got up sat up from the covers and rubbed her eye.

"Honey, are you okay?"

Another sniffle and Olette had her shoes on.

"It's okay. I'm coming over, okay?"

"Okay…"

Click.

x-0-x

When did he go to sleep?

Hayner woke up sprawled on his -their- bed on his belly, one leg dangling off and toes tapping the carpet.

When had he been crying?

He dried his cheeks and eyes and fisted the sheets and sighed. Contently; genuinely; almost…

When had Olette come in?

Hayner walked downstairs, following the scent of something cooking and found Olette prancing in boy-shorts, a tank top, mussed hair and no socks making breakfast.

When had Hayner gotten down to his boxers?

She barely glanced up from her cooking when Hayner stood at the entrance to the kitchen and offered a small good morning. Hayner's throat ground out a half-assed one of his own and sat at the table.

Since when had he been hungry in the last four days?

The plate Olette had made him was gone quickly and he even went back into the kitchen for seconds. Olette ate quietly on the other side of the table and read the newspaper like she did every morning.

Since when did Hayner do dishes?

He washed the pans and the plates and the glasses and set them to dry on the counter. Olette had thanked him and told him to put some pants on in the least because she was already dressed and she told him they were getting out of this old house for some air, because Hayner was suffocating in it.

So he did. He put on pants and a shirt and his shoes and they went to the park and sat on the swings and talked.

Hayner talked about Roxas. Olette talked about boy problems and how if either Hayner or Roxas were straight, they would both be in trouble.

Olette came into the house at two thirty in the morning, got Hayner up from the couch and made him change into something to sleep in, because he had taken too much Vicoden to remember what to do.

So, he took off his pants and his shirt and Olette made him go to bed. Then he started crying so she came into the room and lay with him until he went to sleep.

"You did all that?"

"Yeah…It was only three in the morning, Hayner." She giggled and pushed off the tan bark gently in the swing.

Hayner looked down at the bark with a grin. He was tired. And he was hungry. And he was never taking Vicoden without a headache again.

x-0-x

Thirty days, nine hours, and thirty-six minutes.

Time went it's slowest today. The sun didn't even bother to rise on time, and the hours were laughing at their baby steps threw the seconds, turning into minutes after centuries of wait.

At least, that was what was going through Hayner's head. The blond boy sat on the porch, knees together and hands together and tapping his lips in some beat that reminded him of the timing of the seconds, and that they weren't really going as slow as he thought.

His leg began trembling in the anticipation and the wait and the aggravation growing in his stomach. He sighed annoyedly, laying back and resting on the porch floor and staring up at the ceiling.

He waited a few seconds before looking up at the street in front of him, and groaning again.

He waited a minute before doing it again. Then his mind went elsewhere and five minutes went by, and he looked up again; still no dull forest-green old junky car pulling up.

He sighed deeply, again staring up at the ceiling of the porch and blinking himself into some kind of not-really-sleeping sleep. He would kind of jump at the sound of a car passing and he would ease after it didn't stop and assume his state.

He almost forgot the younger boy's name and stuttered something close to 'Hi', 'Hey', 'oh my god', and 'mother fucker' mixed together and wrapped his arms around Roxas' waist and pulled him down onto the porch floor when the car had pulled up and he hadn't noticed. Roxas only laughed.

His eyes were bluer and his hair was blonder and his skin was softer and paler and his shirts smelled oddly like Pence's car, but that was okay; Pence's car smelled like socks and cheap cover up, that was all.

His eyes were darker and his hair was just a little longer and his skin was tanner and he still smelled like axe and Irish-spring soap, but that was okay; Roxas never once got tired of the scent.

He told Hayner that he was tired, and hadn't slept for a week. Hayner had told him about Olette and the Vicoden and how they both needed sleep.

Eventually they both made it up the stairs and were laying on the bed, pointing out shapes and faces in the ceiling paint.

Roxas changed the conversation suddenly to snow. How calm and soothing it can look but once you snorted the stuff, it was like fire burning to the tips of your hair.

He said he did it twice. Not with Pence; not with anyone Hayner would have known; he said they were friends. Hayner was far too gone on the Vicoden-without-a-headache to care.

He wanted it; Roxas made it sound kind of good.

Roxas stashed some in his bag when no one was looking because the high was too fun to pass up and the consequences weren't much. He pulled it out in a little bag and used a declined credit card he swiped too to make the lines of white, white snow.

Funny, it wasn't cold like snow. Hayner said it was more like fire shooting through to the tips of his hair and accumulating in small lumps behind his eyes and making them hazy.

One line, he was okay. Two, he was okay. Three, he couldn't hear Roxas telling him to only do one more. Five, he was fucking Roxas on the couch downstairs without even knowing it.

The light exploding behind his eyes didn't bring reality back. Lying back on the bed stark naked and pointing out how the ceiling changed colors didn't bring reality back. Fucking Roxas didn't bring reality back.

Fucking Roxas didn't bring it back.

Fucking ROXAS didn't bring reality back to his senses. All he wanted to do, was sleep.

So he did, still jacked up on Vicoden and the cocaine Roxas called snow. He felt cold in the summer air and he felt hot from the inside out and everywhere else. He remembers the headache and the suffocation and the bright white light that finally brought reality back.

Roxas was there. They weren't home, though. They were outside, on the lawn, watching the whizzing stars and clouds flying from dawn to night, dawn to night.

Fingers laced and lips touched and cheeks brushed; they took their time and they hurried up. From dusk 'till dawn, dust 'till dawn.

L o v e s o s t r o n g i t c o u l d k i l l.

x-0-x

A/N: Started: 4/25 10:08PM, Ended: 5/15 11:00PM

Can you say, TWENTY DAMN DAYS?