.o.O.o.

I own nothing! Don't sue me!

For additional disclaimers, warnings, summary, pairings, and everything else see the first chapter!

.x.X.x.

Suggested food: pre-packed lunch

Suggested beverage: creek water

Suggested listening: "Drowning" – Backstreet Boys

.o.O.o

Where the Hell is Magic Lake?

Chapter 06: Still Lost

-o-

"Mmmmmn…" Roxas murmured in his sleep, pleasantly warm and content with the heavy, but not uncomfortable, weight on his chest. Stirring slightly as he started to get further and further from his happy little dreamland, he became more and more aware of the fact that something was definitely on him, and, as far as he remembered, he didn't think anything should be. Sleepily blinking his eyes open, he was met with Axel's widely grinning face no more than mere inches away from his own.

"Morning Sunshine!"

"AAAAARGH! AXEL! YOU FREAK! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! GET OFF ME!" Struggling, Roxas managed to shove Axel off of him, quickly scooting up into a sitting position so as to be less vulnerable.

Axel raised an eyebrow. "Well, well, what do we have here?" he teased, reaching out and poking Roxas's bare chest. "Sleep well?" Roxas immediately grabbed for some blankets, clutching them to his chest and glaring at Axel, blushing lightly in embarrassment.

"Get away from me you freaky pervert!" Roxas told him. "And put some clothes on!"

"You're one to talk." Axel smirked. He was obviously taking great pleasure in the fact that Roxas had followed his suggestion on how to stay warmer in his sleeping bag at night. Grumbling, Roxas pulled his clothes on, struggling to get changed under the sleeping bag, despite Axel's comments to not "be such a girl about it". No way was he letting Axel see him nearly naked of his own free will.

After a quick breakfast, the two packed their stuff up, once again facing a day of hiking up the creek, jumping from rock to rock to cross over the water. Hopefully, however, they could reach Magic Lake by nightfall and all the extra effort they had to put out as a result of getting lost would be worth it, and they could spend the rest of their trip relaxing, not worrying about being stranded in the woods.

"Let's play a game!" Axel suddenly suggested as he hopped over a rock.

"No." Roxas firmly replied. "I refuse to play any more of your stupid games."

"Aw, come on!" Axel pleaded. "It'll be a better one this time!"

"No."

For a minute there was silence, and Roxas actually thought that Axel had decided to stop bugging him. Of course, he must have been having a severe mental lapse, or else be experiencing an extreme bout of hopefulness that reached beyond this world to have thought this, but nevertheless, for one brief, shining moment, Roxas thought he would be spared Axel's annoyance, at least for a little while. Oh how wrong he was.

"I spy…" Axel began, grinning. "With my little eye… something… green!"

Roxas rolled his eyes, unable to keep from answering. Honestly, Axel was such an obvious idiot. He might even be able to give Sora a run for his money. "Tree."

"Aww…" Axel pouted. "You got it on your first guess… Oh well! Your turn!"

"Oh no!" Roxas said, spinning on his heel and giving Axel a warning look. "Just because I guessed your stupid little 'eye spy' doesn't mean I'm automatically in the game!"

"Yes it does!" Axel insisted. "Come on! You have to do at least one! Come on, come on, come on!"

"Fine!" Roxas said, turning back around and refusing to look like he was enjoying the game, even in the least. Again with the giving in just to end the annoying persisting. "I spy with my little eye, something with freaky red hair, stupid tattoos and an annoying personality."

Axel thought about it for a minute. "Me!" he answered cheerfully, not sounding insulted in the least. "Okay, my turn! I spy, with my little eye…"

They carried on like that for a while, Axel 'spying' stupidly obvious things, and Roxas either unable to help blurting out the answer because it was so dumb and obvious, or flat-out refusing to dignify him with a response.

"Okay, okay, one more!" Axel eagerly said, nearly tripping over himself as he lost his footing on a loose rock, sending his shoe into the water with a wet 'sploosh'. "I spy with my little eye –"

"The creek." Roxas cut in.

"Aww… how'd you guess?" Axel pouted. "I hadn't even given the clue yet…"

Roxas rolled his eyes. "No, Axel, I wasn't playing the game. Look at the creek. Seriously."

Axel did, and he immediately stiffened, looking a tad fidgety. The creek had been growing wider and wider all morning, slowly turning into more and more creek, and less and less creek bed. At the same time, the sides grew from sloping little rises to full-fledged cliffs, leaving them in a valley that was mostly filled with the running creek. It seemed as though they'd finally come to a point where they would have to cross through the water. It was only a little pool that looked about neck high, maybe a little deeper, but it would mean getting soaking wet.

"Um… Can't we go around it?" Axel asked, shifting his weight nervously.

Roxas turned to give him an exasperated look. "There's nowhere to go around. It's just the creek in front of us and the huge freaking rock cliffs on either side."

"…We could climb the rocks?" Axel suggested, hopefully.

Giving him a confused look, Roxas gestured to the creek. "It's only a little water, Axel. And besides you seem to enjoy taking off your clothes so much, this'll give you a legitimate opportunity to do that."

"Heh, heh, well as much as I'm sure you want a chance to oggle my body, I think I'm gonna pass." Axel said, making his way over to the rocks that towered over them on either side, carefully boosting himself up onto a foothold.

"Axel, get down from there!" Roxas shouted over to him. "You're being ridiculous! It'll take twice as long for you to scale those rock cliffs than if you just took five minutes to take your clothes off and cross the creek!"

But Axel wasn't listening. Carefully scaling the rocks, he continued his quest to cross the section of the creek that was in their way without getting wet. Heaving an irritated sigh, Roxas quickly stripped down to his boxers, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Axel wasn't taking advantage of the situation and perving out over him. But it seemed as though the red headed teen was too busy trying to keep from falling to pay attention to much of anything besides the rocks directly in front of him.

Heaving his pack up and over his head, Roxas stepped into the freezing cold water, biting back a gasp. He was certainly not looking forward to crossing this pool. But at least he had the sense to know it was the best way to get across. Shivering as the freezing cold water enveloped nearly his entire body, only his head just barely sticking up and out of it, Roxas slowly made his way across the pool, careful not to loose his footing on any slippery rocks that might be hiding beneath the water's surface.

However, it proved not to be a slippery rock that was Roxas's downfall, but a sudden, unexpected drop of deep water. Spluttering a last minute yelp as his head went under the surface, Roxas resurfaced a second later to Axel's panicked shouts.

"Roxas! ROXAS?! ARE YOU OKAY?!"

"I'm fine!" Roxas called back, not in a very good mood. "It's just WATER!"

Axel looked a little hurt at that, and Roxas felt a little bad for about .05 seconds, but he got over that quite quickly in favour of sulking and finishing getting to the other side as fast as he could. It only took another minute or so before he was out of the water, quickly pulling himself up onto a rock and shivering.

Axel, however, was still less than halfway across, picking his way along the cliffs like some sort of very bizarre mountain goat. Roxas rolled his eyes at him – why couldn't he have just crossed through the water like he did? Axel was taller than Roxas and would have had no trouble getting across.

"Hey Axel!" Roxas called out, hoping he wouldn't startle the other male and make him fall off the cliff or something. "You're taking FOREVER!" Axel didn't reply, in fact, he didn't even look up, which Roxas found to be rather strange. Oh well, as long as the other male was in that kind of a mood, he might as well take advantage of it.

"Come on Axel!" he taunted as he pulled his clothes back on. "Pick up the pace! We're supposed to be at the lake sometime this YEAR!" Axel still didn't answer, and Roxas frowned. What the hell was wrong? Usually Axel jumped at the chance of some verbal sparring. But now he was being so… docile. It was freaking Roxas out.

Finally, Axel made it far enough ahead that he was able to cross without getting in the water, climbing down the cliffs and hopping across the creek on a few unsteady rocks sticking out of the water to join Roxas where he sat on his rock in the middle of the creek. "Sorry I took so long." He said, a sheepish, embarrassed, and very forced smile on his face. Roxas raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't press the matter.

"Come on then." He said, pulling his pack back on. Before them stretched a section of creek with ample rocks to navigate, so they weren't going to have to cross any pools again any time soon. Axel was very quiet, and for once Roxas was bothered by it. It meant that something was off, and it irritated him that he didn't know what. After a while, however, Axel initiated conversation, and it wasn't long before he was babbling like an idiot again. Roxas told himself that he almost wanted the creepily quiet Axel back, but he knew it wasn't true.

"…and so I don't know what your opinion on styrofoam is, but personally –"

"Axel, shut up." Roxas suddenly cut in, not even looking back at the blabbing redhead. "We've got to cross the creek again."

Well that certainly shut him up. Going eerily quiet again, Axel didn't say a word, although Roxas could hear him trying to control his breathing behind him. "Axel." He started, turning around. "I said we've got to –"

"I heard you." Axel interrupted, looking around nervously, much as a caged animal might survey its confines for any means of escape. "So, uh, I'm just gonna head over to the cliffs and –"

"Oh no you're not!" Roxas told him, grabbing Axel's wrist as the boy tried to walk off. "Those things have gotten even bigger and steeper since the last time we had to cross a pool, there's no way you'd be able to get up them now."

Axel nervously looked away, attempting to tug his wrist free of Roxas's hold. Roxas didn't allow it. "No, Axel, you're crossing through the water. You'd kill yourself trying to scale those cliffs, and it'll only take a minute to swim across."

Gulping as he nodded in agreement, Axel nervously licked his lips, trying to think of something to say that would stall the inevitable. "Uh… could we at least eat something first?"

"You're not supposed to eat and swim." Roxas pointed out. "You have to wait a while after eating before going back in the water."

"Yeah, I know…" Axel said. "But nobody really listens to that rule anyways. And besides, it's past lunch already. Can't we just have it right now and then cross the creek?" Roxas sighed, pulling his pack up. If they kept this up, they'd spend more time arguing about it than if they sat down and had a full seven course meal before crossing the creek.

"Fine." He relented. "But let's make it quick, okay?"

Looking considerably happy with Roxas's decision, Axel plopped himself down eagerly accepting the food Roxas tossed at him. As eager as he was for the food, however, he took a looooong time getting it down. Roxas had his polished off in a minute or two, but Axel continued on his for several more after that.

"Axel!" Roxas finally snapped. "Just finish the damn food so we can get going!" Axel nodded, finishing it at the pace of a normal human being, as opposed to one who had been drugged with some kind of heavy sedative. In slow motion.

Waiting the obligatory 15 minutes after Axel finished eating before getting back in the water, Roxas shucked off most of his clothes once more, stuffing them back in his pack so they wouldn't get wet. They had been walking along one side of the creek for a while now, because there had been no rocks out in the middle of it for quite some time. They'd had a nice, albeit narrow path just along the rocks to follow, but now it had finally petered out. However, it seemed that there was another such walkway on the opposite side of the creek, if they would just cross it.

Looking back to the other male, Roxas poignantly then looked back to the creek, hoping to give the guy a hint. However, Axel continued to just sit there staring at him, so Roxas felt it was his duty to kick the guys butt into gear.

"AXEL!" he snapped again. "Come on! You've had your food, we waited fifteen minutes, it's time to get a move on! God, what is wrong with you today? More than usual, I mean!?"

Laughing shakily, and obviously experiencing no hilarity at the situation at hand, Axel stood up, slipping his shirt off and tucking it in the hem of his pants. Roxas's brain took that moment to randomly notice that Axel's sunburn was looking a lot better. Probably thanks to all that entirely platonic aloe-vera-rubbing-in that had transpired the previous night.

"Uh… okay." Axel said, drawing Roxas out of his completely non-sexual thoughts of rubbing lotion onto Axel's chest. "Now what?"

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Now you grab your pack, put it up over your head, and swim across. Yes, you're going to have to swim." He said, noticing the horrified expression that crossed Axel's face at the word. "Because this pool is deeper than the last one. But it looks like if we just swim right across it there's a place where we can get out on the other side and keep hiking for a while. So let's just go."

At this, Roxas took a deep breath, stepping into the water before plunging right in, holding his pack up above his head and kicking frantically at the water. When he heard no following splash, however, he turned to see Axel still standing at the edge of the creek, looking unsure.

"AXEL! GET IN THE FUCKING WATER!"

Axel flinched, stepping in a couple inches, but leaving it at that. Growling, Roxas turned back around, quickly and awkwardly paddling his way over to the opposite shore as he held his pack up over his head with one hand, deciding he'd rather not have an argument with Axel mid-creek. Something told him that Axel wouldn't be jumping in to save him anytime soon, so he decided to continue on by himself for the moment, before he wasted up all his energy shouting and drowned.

Clambering out onto the opposite shore, Roxas immediately threw his pack off to one side. "AXEL! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" he shouted back across the creek. "To get to the other side you kind of have to GET IN THE WATER!"

"I'm working on it!" Axel called back, contemplating the distance.

"Grah!" Roxas exclaimed to himself. What the hell was Axel playing it? All he had to do was get in the water and swim across – it wasn't that hard. Sure it was cold, but other than that there really wasn't anything that terrible about it.

"Hey!" Axel called out, and Roxas looked up.

"What?"

"Catch my pack!"

"WHAT!? No, Axel, don't!" He quickly called back. "You'll never be able to throw it across the whole creek! Just swim across with it!"

Axel ignored him, hefting his bag up over his head and pulling back, preparing to throw it. Roxas waded a few feet out into the water in a rush, still yelling back at Axel.

"Axel! Don't throw the freaking pack!" he told him once again, waving frantically.

But of course Axel threw it anyways.

Giving an impressive heave, the redhead actually managed to get it a little more than halfway across the creek, only to have it land in the water, sinking a bit under it's own weight before being grabbed by the current and pulled downstream. Axel saluted it as it floated away.

"It was a good pack." He solemnly stated, watching it as it drifted around a bend and out of sight.

"AXEL!!!!" Roxas shouted from about waist deep in the water. "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?" Axel sheepishly raised a hand to the back of his head, scratching it with a sheepish grin.

"OBVIOUSLY YOU WEREN'T THINKING AT ALL!" Roxas continued, looking royally pissed off. "THAT PACK HAD HALF OUR STUFF IN IT, YOU FREAKING IDIOT! NOW WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO, HUH? HUH?!GET YOUR ASS THE HELL OVER HERE RIGHT NOW !"

Axel looked like a whipped puppy as he reluctantly but obediently took another step into the water. And another. And another. A visible shudder coursed through him, and Roxas impatiently tapped his foot on the other side of the creek. Taking a deep breath, sealing himself for what he was about to do, Axel took a great leap, throwing himself all the way in the water.

Roxas's first thought was to wonder if Axel actually knew how to swim. Because what he was doing looked like some sort of panicked and frantic, retarded version of the doggie paddle. He was trying to keep himself as far out of the water as possible, but with little success, and Roxas furrowed his brow, wondering just what the heck Axel thought he was doing. To top it all off, the redhead had a wild, terrified look on his face as he flailed about, his usually spiky hair tousled and falling into his face. All in all, he looked rather like some sort of frightened, half-drowned, spiky hamster, flailing in the water like his life depended on it.

Eventually Axel's valiant efforts at swimming somehow got him to the opposite shore, and he frantically dragged himself out of the water, collapsing on his back, chest heaving. Behind him, Roxas frowned, crouching down over him so that they were arranged in a sort of no-contact, 69 of the face position.

"Hello Axel." Roxas greeted, his face looming upside-down over Axels, an eerie forced smile on his lips. "You mind letting me in on what the hell just happened?"

Axel scrambled up into a standing position, looking away from Roxas. Brushing himself off and pulling his shirt back on, he turned and started walking up the creek. "Come on, Roxas." he said, quietly. "You're the one who wanted to get going so badly."

Frown back in place, Roxas grabbed his pack, slinging it up over his shoulders and marched up to Axel, stopping right in front of him and crossing his arms over his chest. Axel moved to step around him, but Roxas stopped him by reaching out and placing a palm flat against his chest.

"Not so fast." He commanded. "I asked you what the hell just happened, and I want an answer. You've been acting really weird all day, and I want to know why. You do realize you just lost half our stuff, right? If I hadn't had the tent and the stove and the food we'd have been totally screwed, you know that right? And yet you still threw your pack in the freaking creek! Axel, you're a freak, but I though you at least had a little more sense than that! So tell me what the fuck is wrong, so I don't have to worry that I'm lost in the woods with a complete psychopath!"

Axel hung his head, not responding. Roxas heaved a sigh, waiting for an answer, but when Axel continued to refuse to give one, that broke the last straw.

"AXEL! What the hell is wrong with you!? I try being nice and just asking for an explanation, and you just close up on me! What the hell?! Usually I can't get you to just shut up and act like a normal human being for one freaking second, but now you have nothing to say?! Do you want me to yell, Axel? Is that how I'm gonna have to drag it out of you? Cause trust me, I would LOVE to yell at you, and if you were acting like you normally do, laughing like a freak at the fact that half our stuff just got washed away, then that's exactly what I'd be doing! But the fact that you're acting like some damn mute is throwing me off, and personally, I think I'm handling the situation pretty well, seeing as I'm apparently dealing with some sort of bi-polar freak! And you know what? I –"

"You wanna know why I'm acting weird?" Axel suddenly cut in, in a low, subdued voice.

Roxas huffed and put his hands on his hips, glaring at the male standing in front of him, soaking wet and still in his clothes, red spikes hanging limply over his face. "Yeah, Axel, I would."

"I'm afraid of deep water, okay?" Axel told him, still not meeting his gaze. "If I have to go in water that's too deep for me to stand in, I freak out because I can't swim very well, as I'm sure you noticed. Added to that existing factor, you wanted me to be carrying the stupid pack, which would have hindered my already crappy swimming abilities. I thought that if I could throw the pack across to you, it might make things a little easier for me. I'm sorry that I screwed everything up. I'm sorry I screwed up your whole freaking life."

Roxas stood in shock, not knowing what to say. Well. He certainly won the worst person of the year award. How insensitive could he be? "I… I'm sorry, Axel. I didn't know… I mean… you were more than fine with the jet ski…"

"That's cause I wasn't actually in the water." Axel pointed out.

"Oh…" Roxas responded, everything falling into place. "Well, I didn't know! I… I just thought that…" he trailed off, not knowing what more to say.

"Whatever." Axel said, brushing past Roxas and continuing up the creek.

Roxas followed after him, not saying anything. He felt absolutely awful. Sure, Axel was an annoying freak most of the time, but Roxas knew what it was like to be genuinely afraid of something… and to top it all off he had to go and be a complete bastard about it, laying into Axel when it was completely obvious that something was wrong. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Suddenly the tables were turned, and Roxas found himself babbling to Axel's completely unresponsive back.

"Uh, I'm really sorry Axel. If I'd have known I wouldn't have been so hard on you… I, uh, is there something I can do to make it up to you? Do you want to play a game?"

Roxas pushed aside feelings of being completely disgusted with himself for acting so out of character, blabbering at Axel for forgiveness like some stupid little kid trying to get back in a parent's good favour. But screw it all, he felt bad, and when he felt bad about something he turned into a groveling little blonde puppy.

"Um… I spy with my little eye… something… that… starts with an 'I' and ends with an ''m sorry'."

The corner of Axel's mouth quirked up at this, and Roxas felt a little relief wash through him. Coming up on Axel's side he looked up at the taller male to gage a reaction, and Axel looked back at him and smiled.

Before promptly pushing him into the creek.

.x.X.x.

A soaking wet Roxas grumpily walked alongside a quite upbeat Axel, who regained his humour surprisingly quickly after pushing Roxas in the creek. Apparently he felt as if they were even now, and kept glancing sideways to look at Roxas, who was staring straight ahead and glaring.

In other words, things were back to normal.

"Haha, oh come on, Roxas, you should have seen the look on your face!" Axel laughed. Roxas just grumbled an incoherent response and kept walking. Luckily nothing had gotten too wet inside the pack, but Roxas was a little grouchy over the idea that Axel would just so thoughtlessly dump him and the rest of their remaining supplies in the creek without a second thought.

"So how long until we get there?" Axel asked, attempting to change the subject.

"Hopefully before dark." Roxas grumbled. Sora had said that this was a two day hike, right? So technically, since this was their second day, they should be there before nightfall. At least he hoped so. Being stuck with only Axel for this long was really starting to wear on him.

.o.O.o.

Oh Roxas, you insensitive jerk. XD

So yeah, Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter than most and doesn't really contain anything massively exciting or anything, but it was needed to further the plot. I mean, who knew Axel actually had a brain and real thoughts and feelings in there? XD Apparently not Roxas.

Oh, and by the way, this chapter is dedicated to Skitts, who sends me fun reviews ( and sometimes notes ) each time I update, and always asks in the nicest way for me to please update again soon. Skitts was the one who finally made it hit me that OH MY GOSH, SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY FOLLOW THIS STORY AND LIKE IT!! Yaaaaay! Makes me feel all happy and squiggly inside.

So here's another update, and I hope everyone enjoyed it!