-Hello ff dot net! Guess what?

Yes, you are correct. It's summer! I'm done for the semester! Yahoo!

Well, hopefully that means more writing. Though with the next chapter already written, there really is only one more to write. So I will hopefully have this done within the next month, at the very most by the end of the summer. I know I've been slow and stuff with posting, but when things get ridiculously busy I really can't help it. And the other part of the time I am just too lazy to write.

So you see the lame excuses, but I'm sure you all just want your next act. So here you are.

Disclaimer: Do not own Halestorm or Kingdom Hearts. But how cool would it be if I did and could actually turn this into a musical? I mean, Avenue Q has puppet sex, so Broadway shouldn't mind stripping and blowjobs, right? Right?-

It had been close to two weeks that Roxas had started working at Royal Garden. And while the job at first had been considered a dirty one when initially accepting, Roxas found that perhaps there were some perks. The money was pretty nice, and he got a great workout from prancing around the stage and attempting to be sexy. Not to mention his boss had made him completely invisible, and while the police were searching for him on the outside, as long as he was inside Royal Garden than he was completely safe.

And , true to his word, Marluxia kept a "look but don't touch" policy for Roxas the first couple of days. However, he seemed to forget to tell the customers that this code would break after a few days, and therefore everyone saw the blonde as an object of lust that they could stare and drool over without actually touching. Another perk that Roxas saw with a job he had been reluctant to take in the first place.

But while the customers, who knew of the carnage that could ensue if they broke one of the club owner's rules, didn't so much a try to make a pass at the blonde, this didn't stop Marluxia himself from trying to seduce his newest employee. Roses, candy, extra money, all of these and more were offered to Roxas as gifts to get him to change his mind. But no matter how much was given, Roxas was consistent in the "No"s, "No way"s, and "You must be out of your fucking mind"s.

Of course, Marluxia wasn't going to take this attitude for much longer. At first he had thought the blonde was just being shy, coy, playing hard to get, any excuse he could come up with. But once the constant refusals became daily, the pink-haired man thought for sure he was going to lose his mind.

He had to have Roxas. He just had to. And he had the upper hand. With this in mind, he handed Roxas a wad of bills after his evening performance, the sweaty blonde staring at the cash blankly as he breathed in and out in an attempt to catch his breath.

"What's this for?" he said between pants.

"From your audience, of course. Or rather, a member of the audience who wants to spend a bit of time with you."

With that, the blonde's eyes grew wide. Fuck, which one was it? There were so many of them he hadn't had time to look. Though the majority of them were balding, overweight office men, it could have been anyone.

"Take the money. I'm not doing it."

"My dear," Maluxia purred, Roxas instantly glaring at those words, "you do not have a choice. Now I told you that your first couple of days I would try my best to keep them from coming. But, who could resist? You're so…so," he slowly reached a hand to Roxas, the blonde slightly cowering back in fear, but determined to keep that icy look upon his face. Marluxia cupped the boy's chin, his fingers gently grazing across his skin. "Irresistible."

Roxas immediately turned his head away to avoid any more of his bosses touch, smacking away the hand that touched him so intimately. Marluxia disapprovingly clicked his tongue a couple of times, backing off a bit as he tried to reason with the blonde. "Well, I mean, I guess you can have it your way. Go ahead, decline his offer, make him upset. But don't come crying to me when a little birdie tell him who you really are," his voice was getting increasingly louder with each word, various people in Royal Garden now starting to stare, "Roxas Sai…"

Marluxia was instantly silenced with two hands over his mouth; the blonde had not liked how his boss thought it was acceptable to shout his name at the top of his lungs. "Cut it out!" he hissed, and he could feel Marluxia smirking through his hands. Removing them, he sighed, finding no way to get out of it, but not wanting to actually say he'd do it quite yet.

"Y'know…there could be a way around this whole thing. I mean, none of my customers would dare try to take something that is mine."

"I've already told you no probably a thousand times," Roxas muttered. "What makes you keep asking over and over?"

"Well, it's certainly possible that I've taken…a special liking to you," Marluxia said. "And with the rules as they are now anyway, me giving you special treatment anyway, the whole club thinks there's something going on between us."

"You and me? Fat chance."

Marluxia glared at the boy's back. He was getting a bit angry with Roxas's cocky attitude and constant refusals. "Now why do you have to be so godamn stubborn?" His tone changed immediately, and when Roxas didn't move, he scoffed, throwing his hands in the air. "Fine, have it your way. But your time is up, and now you have to play by the full rules of this game. Sleep with him, for all I care. He's waiting in room 2 for you. Now get moving."

Throwing the wad of bills at the blonde's feet, he turned to storm away. Roxas couldn't help but stand there for a few more moments, reviewing his options and calculating his next move.

Before Marluxia really had a chance to walk away, Roxas choked it out. "Fine." This immediately halted the taller man's steps, who turned his head slightly. "Pardon?"

"I mean, I guess I'd rather…," he had trouble finding his next words, a pause in between them as he chose them carefully, "be yours or whatever than be whoring myself out to random people I've never met. I mean, it's obvious, isn't it?"

"Obvious? Oh?" Marluxia grinned, intrigued. He sauntered back over to the blonde. "And what exactly is obvious?"

"You're in love with me, aren't you?"

His boss was quite taken aback by his words. "Didn't expect you to be so forward," he reached a hand out and played with a lock of the blonde's hair, "Roxy…"

"Don't" he warned, swatting at the hand once again to get it away from him. "Don't call me that."

"So what if I am in love with you, then?"

To which Roxas responded with a laugh. "You really don't get it, do you?" When looking at Marluxia, though, it was clear he was missing something. "You had your heart set on an angel's kiss. Maybe a taste of this," he ran a finger lightly over his own lips. "Maybe a long white dress and a fistful of flowers."

"Haha, well maybe that's a little bit much…"

But before Marluxia could say anything else, Roxas had gotten close to him; close enough to sneak his way in-between the pink haired man's arms, his back facing the other man. "You wrapped your arms around a murderer pretending it didn't hurt," and as quickly as the blonde had entrapped himself in his boss's arms, he pushed him away, nearly knocking the taller to the ground. "Every time I cut you deeper and deeper."

Marluxia rolled his eyes. Like getting rejected had ever stopped him. "Hey," Roxas yelled at Marluxia, to which the pink-haired man threw a quizzical look at. He was sure that from all of this Roxas was giving him a stern no, just as he always did. "I'm not the one. I'm not the one. I'm not the one you wanna give your heart to."

"I'll give you this; don't think that it's something else," Roxas finally spat out, but his glare didn't falter. "This has got nothing to do with love."

"This has got nothing to do with?" Marluxia asked, grinning from ear to ear.

"I've begged, you plead, you wanted more than you could keep," Roxas explained, trying to get across to his boss that it was only his situation and the pink-haired man's pleading and threats that was getting him into bed. "This has got nothing to do with love."

"This has got nothing to do with?"

"Right," Roxas assured, "this has got nothing to do with love."

Face-to-face with his boss, he switched gears for a second in order to symbolize how he feigned interest at first. Flashing a coy smile, Roxas lightly traced a finger across Maluxia's chin. "I gave you just enough to paralyze," he walked around his boss, finger still in contact with the other's skin, "thought maybe that could satisfy," he was at Marluxia's right shoulder, with which he then gave a push with his hand, not hard enough to send him anywhere or cause damage, but enough to get the taller body to move and jerk in surprise. "Sometimes I get so bored of you, boy."

"Hey!" Marluxia interjected, pouting his lip and looking wounded at the last comment.

"I'm not the one. I'm not the one," Roxas gestured to himself, "I'm not the one you wanna give your heart to. I'll give you this; don't think that it's something else," the blonde crossed his hands and then pushed them away to signal his disdain and protest of this treatment. "This has got nothing to do with love."

"Really?" Maluxia smirked, questioning the blonde's last statement, "This has got nothing to do with?"

"Yes!" he shouted, finally feeling that Marluxia was getting it, "'cause I've begged, you plead, you wanted more than you could keep. But this has got nothing to do with love."

"This has got nothing to do with?"

"This has got nothing to do with love." And as the music swelled from on stage, the dancers moving, swaying their lithe body's to the beat, Roxas actually felt like joining them on stage. Perhaps this was the plight of everyone here, all pressured and threatened into sexual relations that was mistaken for actual romance. And for the most part, the guys and gals he worked with put up with it, never actually voicing their opinion, but instead just going with the flow for the extra cash or a favor here and there.

Or, in Roxas's case, for a secret to be kept. But if there was one difference between what was happening in those relationships and the one that Roxas had to establish with his boss, there was going to be one thing that was extremely clear: that there was no romance whatsoever, and that love had nothing to do with what would go on between them.

"I'm not the one," he thought he must be hearing things, because he thought perhaps his coworkers were joining in with him. "I'm not the one!" he heard them all chant from the poles, the hung cages, the stage, from the back; it seemed that their voices were all one, and as the music began a crescendo, swelling upward, the secrets of all those selling their soul at this dead-end job were reaching their peak, trying to bust through some invisible roof that contained their true feelings.

"We'll give you this, don't think that it's something else!" they all chanted to their "lovers", those sitting in the audience who came every single night to watch them and claim them as their own. Roxas shouting above them all, his lungs sore from his protesting, "This has got nothing to do with love!"

All at once, the dancers began chanting with him. "This has got nothing to do with!"

"We've begged, you plead, you wanted more than you could keep. This has got nothing to do with love!"

"This has got nothing to do with!" they were now shouting in the faces of their partners, their protests stirring outrage from the customers. At once they got up and began shouting at the dancers, who were now too busy focusing on backing Roxas up than actually doing their job and arousing the ladies and gentlemen in the crowd. "This has got nothing to do with love!" they all chanted, Roxas joining them at the forefront, the cause of all this mayhem. Marluxia was just now realizing the chaos that was going on around him, and immediately left Roxas to try and do some crowd control along with the guards. "This has got nothing to do with?" the patrons of Royal Garden questioned back, anger evident in their sneers. "This has got nothing to do with love!" Roxas yelled, by now a full riot circulating around him, the men and woman paying for services here shouting and clawing at the stage with the dancers egging them on and daring them to come up and actually do something for once. Roxas smirked at the commotion he had caused; Marluxia was off his back for another night, and it seemed that he had done an excellent job of, as his job stated, "stimulating the crowd."

Nodding at his handiwork, he quickly snuck out the backdoor to Royal Garden. He had managed to escape Marluxia's advances for one night, but tomorrow could be a different story, and with him bound here until he could actually figure something out in regards to Axel and his current situation, he couldn't move.

The fights still ensuing inside, Roxas was able to sneak back to his room undiscovered.

TBC

-This chapter was also kind of a doozy. I mean, Dirty Work was hard to write too, but after I actually came up with it I was all, "Fuck yes, this is awesome, why didn't I think of this earlier!" With this it was all, "What the hell should be going on here, I really don't know."

And, as you saw, I changed some of the lyrics to fit this a bit better. The original lyrics were I think what gave me the most trouble, but once I changed a few words here and made sure there were still a good amount of syllables and that it still would sound okay I was satisfied to a certain extent.

So here is the chapter preview of what was probably my favorite scene to write and what kind of inspired the whole "Hey, Halestorm is awesome, let's make a musical!" idea.

Scene Preview

Roxas was really against it, and therefore made no further attempt to get his feelings across. But then it occurred to him that he could still tell Axel how he felt while on stage without anyone getting too suspicious. After figuring out his master plan, he only needed to prove to himself that he had the balls to do it.

And so, here he was, two minutes before going on stage, pacing back and forth, pulling at his hair, going back and forth in his mind saying it was a stupid idea, no, it was the only way and it had to be done, God I'm going to look like a fucking idiot, but I need to do this, fuck, fuck, fuck!

And as the last dancer came backstage after her own performance, he knew his time had come. There wasn't going to be any running away this time. If this was what he needed to do, then so be it. Roxas took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and turned to the red fabric curtain that stood between him and the entire audience.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer proclaimed, a guitar silently strumming in the background for Roxas's intro. "We have a real treat for you tonight as our next dancer comes onto the stage." Roxas crossed the threshold, moving beyond the curtain and into the darkness that gathered on the stage, no one able to see his body against the extreme blackness the stage was without the lights. "The sultry seduction that this man effortlessly pulls you into will bring you to your knees," the blonde took another deep breath, feeling his heart pound into his chest. "I give you Royal Garden's one and only Roxy!"

Well, there it is. Nothing else to say, so read and review, over and out! -Nibzo-