Michele-bell is my hero, just so everyone knows. Thanks for the quick beta and saving my fic from certain doom.
Warnings: mentions of past activities of the heterosexual nature. In all probability, you can probably skip over that scene and still understand the "plot".
Chapter 2 – got television in their veins and spiders on their brains oh yeah
"Come on," Kairi says. Her hands are on his shoulders and her knees are pressing into his thighs like two sharp weights that are not heavy enough to be called painful. Panting and laughing and balanced on his lap, Kairi looks like a barely legal prostitute hired right off of the Strip in Vegas.
"I want-" Axel begins.
She laughs and shuts him up with a sloppy kiss on the side of his mouth.
Distantly, he gets that this is just a dream. He hasn't seen Kairi ever since her family skipped town a little over a year ago, and what he's seeing now is just an instant replay of the best-worst night of his life.
He still doesn't want it to end.
"Please," he gasps into her sweaty skin. She tastes sweet like summer days by the pool, like peaches or soap. "I need -"
He wakes up and sees Riku's eyes less than a foot away from his face. Appropriately, he freaks the hell out.
"Hey, calm down!" Riku says, dodging a clumsy punch and landing on his ass. He bounces the mattress a little as he scrabbles to get away, saying, "I thought you were having a nightmare or something so I came to wake you up, fuck."
Axel stops moving and feels laughter threatening to break out from his lips when he realizes how absurd his life is turning out to be. "Not a nightmare," he corrects. "Actually, it was kind of the opposite."
Riku blinks and says, "Oh." Then he flushes and scrambles off of the bed and onto the floor when he realizes what that actually means. "I, uh. I'm really sorry."
"It's cool." Axel flops down on his back and stares up at the white ceiling. "Ever had a girlfriend?" he asks absently, his eyes drifting to the spot staining one corner. He doesn't know too much about Riku's life before the boy moved in, and he has the feeling that he's not going to be able to fall back asleep any time soon so he might as well find out.
"Nah," Riku says. He pulls his knees up against his chest and shrugs. "Not really."
"Wait, seriously?" Axel's seen the way girls giggle in the hallways when Riku walks by. He's pretty sure that the new exchange student, Selphie, actually cornered a guy on the basketball team just to get Riku's number. If Riku can't manage to keep one of them, then he must be doing something horrifically wrong. Which is hilarious in so many ways.
"Yeah, why?" Riku looks at him and frowns a little. "Are you going to make fun of my lack of progress with the ladies? Because I already know. Seriously."
In that instant, it dawns on Axel that he can say something really bitchy and watch Riku storm away, ruin whatever moment they have going on right now. He knows he would have done it two months ago without a second thought, when his world was just AxelandRoxas and the rest of the population could go fuck itself.
But things are changing.
(More like Roxas is changing.)
"That's cool," Axel hears himself saying. "I don't care if you've never touched a girl in your life. Dating is seriously overrated."
Nice words are spilling out and he wants to prove to himself that he can adapt, too. Or he can die trying. Either way is better than watching Roxas get farther away without giving chase and running his feet bloody.
"Oh really?" Riku smiles and scoots closer to lean back against his mattress, his thin legs sprawling out across the floor like a Raggedy Ann doll. He tries to hide a yawn and mumbles, "What time is it, anyways?"
Axel glances at the bedside table. "5:12. Hey, you wanna go watch the sunrise? I haven't done that in such a long time." It's a random idea, and he's not sure where it came from, but his fingers are itching and he feels the urge to get up and do something. He half-wishes Riku would say no, give him a real reason to bitch him out and leave.
Riku laughs in surprise. "Yeah, okay," he says. "Why not?"
And then it's too late to back out. Axel grabs his wrist and pulls him onto the rooftop just in time to catch the sun breaking over the horizon. The sky is splattered orange and red and Axel can't look away even though his eyes start to burn and he is forced to shut them or go blind.
"It's beautiful," Riku says, his voice hushed with awe.
"Yeah," Axel says. He is watching from behind the fleshy screen of his eyelids and it really is.
After a few minutes, he sighs and rubs his eyes. The thin shirt he is wearing feels paper-thin in the face of the cold morning breeze. "Come on," he says, sliding open the window and sticking one leg in. "Let's go back inside. I think my dad's going to wake up soon."
His dad wakes up at 7:30, which is more than two hours away, but he doesn't say that. Riku follows him in wordlessly and Axel thinks he probably knows it too.
!
Roxas nudges him with a foot and mumbles, "Larxene called. She wants to talk to you." He tosses the phone down next to Axel's head. Axel is currently lying down on the lawn and watching the clouds float by, his thoughts disintegrating. The distraction is less than welcome and he decides to ignore it, opting to watch Roxas wander back inside with his T-shirt sticking to his narrow back.
"Hello?" He hears a tinny sharp voice saying, "Pick up the fucking phone, Axel. I know you're there."
He moves the phone closer to his ear because he has no strength of character and he doesn't think he can take another second of that voice. "What do you want?" he mumbles into the receiver.
Larxene laughs and the sound is even more irritating when every other gasp is a wash of spiky static. "Hey, sweetie. Axel. I need a favor."
"How bad?" He considers hanging up but decides he likes living a little more. Xigbar is less of a boyfriend and more of a personal hit man, but the two are probably the same to Larxene.
Larxene sighs, which is surprising enough in itself to make him pay attention, before saying, "Real bad. Pick me up from my house in twenty minutes. I'll be outside."
The flat dial tone sounds and he gets up to borrow his dad's car because this is how they always work. She's like the bitchy older sister he never asked for but decided to keep anyways, if only for the sentimental value. The only person he's known longer than her is Roxas and that's never a contest.
Larxene is standing at the end of her driveway when he pulls in half an hour later. He doesn't bother turning off the engine, just sticks his head out the window and says, "Hop in, sweetie."
Larxene looks tired, but she slaps on her customary sneer and slips into the passenger side seat. "Drive," she orders, fumbling with her tiny purse and pulling out a stick of mascara. He tries to watch out of the corner of his eye as she somehow manages to apply make-up in a moving car without taking out her eye.
"Where are we headed?" he asks. He drums the steering wheel absently as they wait for a green light. "Not that I'm complaining, but I need to get home soon. Roxas is over because there's this new movie that just came out and we're gonna-"
"Abortion clinic," Larxene says. She drops her lipstick and snaps, "What?"
Axel shuts the hell up and drives.
!
"You sure about this?" he asks. He sneaks a glance at the only other person in the stark waiting room, a dark-haired girl who looks even younger than Larxene. He averts his gaze when the girl looks up at him. Her eyes are frightened and bruised and remind him of someone else a little too much for his liking. He decides to ignore her.
"Fuck, you think I'd make a good mom?" Larxene laughs and punches him in the shoulder. He pulls a face but notices that her hands are shaking. "You're sweet, but this isn't a chick-flick and I'm not dropping out of school so I can have a brat."
"No, I mean. I just thought somebody was supposed to ask you that."
"What? Oh, right. Don't tell me. This is deja vu for you. I took you here last year with Kairi and -"
He blacks out for a second and his hand is clamped over her mouth before he realizes he has even moved. He lifts it away and tries to ignore her wide blue eyes, but his heart is pounding in his ears and he can't. "Sorry," he mumbles. "Just, don't say her name."
Larxene doesn't answer him for a long time. She picks up a magazine dated from sometime in the last decade and pretends to read it while Axel watches the clock on the wall and wishes he were back home. It feels like the Cold War re-enacted by two teenage kids with nothing but their friendship on the line. The silence is finally broken when she says, "I didn't mean it like that. I mean, I know you didn't mean to knock her up and all."
"Okay," Axel says.
A tired middle-aged woman walks in with a clipboard and says, "Larxene? Honey, we're ready to see you now."
"Uh." Her eyes cut to his face and then back again. "Can he come?" she asks, her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets, her posture screaming fuck off and die.
The woman smiles gently and nods, and Axel gets up numbly to follow them. He can't help but wave to the young girl when he passes her. She flushes and drops her gaze, fumbling with her hands on her lap, and he tells himself that it isn't disappointment that eats away at his chest like acid. It's really not.
Kairi held his hand on the examination table and looked like she was about to cry, but Larxene is nothing like her and for once Axel is so fucking glad that they are best enemies.
!
Roxas finds Axel in the living room with his hands covering his eyes, his skinny form sprawled out across the couch.
"You okay?" Roxas asks. He sits down on the other end and Axel feels a spike of relief when their plans are not being dragged up and questioned like the goddamn Spanish Inquisition (if the Inquisition had been made up of jilted girlfriends.) He's not sure if he can handle talking about the new action flick that he missed when his clothes still smell like disinfectant.
"I didn't see the movie," Roxas says, looking down at his feet. "I mean, I gave our tickets to Demyx and his girlfriend so they're not wasted or anything."
That makes Axel sit up and stare. They have only been obsessing over this movie for the past two months before school got out (although admittedly that probably had more to do with the fact that anything was better than listening to Xemnas talk about chemistry like it was the sexiest thing in the world.)
"Yeah? Why didn't you go?" Axel readjusts his body on the couch so that his head is resting on Roxas's lap and his feet are dangling off the other end. He wiggles his toes and starts humming a song he heard on the radio, on the way back home, but his body no longer feels like a glacier and it probably has something to do with the fact that Roxas is here and that makes everything better.
"I didn't feel like going," Roxas says. A message is buried beneath those words, but Axel is too tired to dig it up.
"All right," he mumbles.
The distant strains of a heavy metal song starts to drift down from Riku's room, and they listen to Metallica's Master of Puppets even though Axel hates the band and Roxas thinks any music from the 80s deserves to be burned in a giant bonfire of doom.
Roxas falls asleep with his hand resting on Axel's chest.
Around midnight, Axel struggles to slide out from the couch without waking the other boy up, but Roxas's sleeve slips up in the process and Axel feels his world tilt for a second. He has never noticed before how thin the boy's wrists are, and it feels strange, but not horrible, when he encircles one with his long fingers just for the hell of it. They almost reach around to his knuckles.
"You're fucking skinny," he mutters, staring at the fragile bone that he has entrapped in his hand. "Fuck."
Roxas shifts and Axel holds his breath and lets go.
!
Namine drops by Axel's house a week later and leaves an invitation to her father's formal function addressed to Riku. The words are written in gold-flaked ink and are probably meant to impress the hell out of whoever reads it, but it's going to take a lot more than that to impress Axel. He just brings it upstairs and knocks on the bathroom door where he can hear the shower running and Riku singing off-key inside. The sound bounces around the tiles, echoing strangely, and it's actually not that bad. Just a touch off-pitch in places, nothing a few voice classes wouldn't fix. He stores away the information in case they need it.
"Riku! I've got a letter for you," he yells, banging on the door. The water cuts off and he hears a muffled curse as somebody stumbles out and falls loudly against the counter. Riku's head appears at the door a few seconds later, his wet hair dripping onto the T-shirt he must have just thrown on. Axel raises one eyebrow and wonders why Riku feels the need to look descent for another guy.
"Who's it from?" Riku asks. He doesn't reach out to take it.
"Uh…Namine, the hottie with the rich-ass dad." He leers and taps the letter against Riku's head. "Hey, what'd you do to make her fall for a guy like you?"
Riku shrugs and tries to read the words in Axel's hand, squinting and twisting his head to one side. "Nothing. She took art with me in freshman year, and we were sort of friends until she started going out with this guy. He's probably busy or something so she needs somebody else to go with her."
Axel doesn't think that she looks like the type of girl who would do stuff with other guys when she already has a boyfriend, but then again he doesn't know too many girls other than Larxene.
"You going?" Axel asks. He holds up the card and grins. "It says RSVP, which is French for reply soon you lazy fucker."
Riku laughs and runs a hand through his hair, grimacing when it comes away wet. Axel wants to know if he was expecting anything else and thinks Riku is kind of stupid. "I don't know. I mean, I haven't talked to her in a while. Think it'll be weird?" Riku bites his lip.
"Nah, course not. It's a huge function. Means there's gonna be free food." Fancy catered food on giant silver platters, Axel thinks, and shit he's starting to feel a little jealous now.
"Hey, uh. Is there going to be any dancing, do you think?"
Axel blinks and wonders if just missed something vital to their conversation or if Riku is just seriously insane. "Wait. What? Why the hell would you even care about that?"
Riku flushes a little. "I, uh. I don't know how to dance," he admits. "And Namine might expect me to."
"Fuck." Axel leans against the doorframe and shrugs. "Just tell her no. It's easy."
"I'm not going to ruin her evening by being a dick," Riku says sharply.
"Oh. Okay then." Axel gets that Riku's basically a good guy, that he wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose, and he's kind of like Roxas that way only Roxas tries to keep it hidden where no one else can see. And this isn't Axel's problem.
"What do you want me to do about it?" he asks carefully.
"Um. Teach me?" Riku is looking at him like he is a lifeline, like he's perfect, and it's so damn frightening that Axel just can't say no.
!
Roxas raises one eyebrow and says in his flawless monotone, "You want me to teach you how to dance so you can pretend you knew all along and teach Riku?"
"Um."
Impossibly, it sounds much stupider out-loud and coming from Roxas's mouth even though it already sounds way too retarded in his head. "Yeah," he says, hiding a wince. "That pretty much covers it."
He waits for Roxas to call him a dumbass, an idiot, a stupid fucking prick who should know better than this because he would be totally right.
Roxas kicks at a pebble and sends it skittering down the empty street. "Why do you need to be the one to teach him?" Roxas asks. He doesn't sound very angry. Or confused. Axel has a feeling that Roxas knows the answer to this better than he does himself, but he's still asking like Axel's thoughts matter to him.
"It's just...the way he was looking at me," he says. "Like, I was his real big brother and I could solve everything and I liked pretending to be that guy, okay?" The words spill out and he can't stop it any more than he can stop in the middle of throwing up in a toilet.
Roxas says, "Yeah, okay, I'll teach you."
Axel stops walking and stares after the other boy in surprise as the statement starts to sink in. He kind of expected Roxas to say no and maybe give him a telephone number to some girl who could teach him instead.
"Seriously?"
"Yes. Seriously. Come on, we can start today." Roxas doesn't stop and Axel has to run to catch up.
They stop in front of a florist shop after a few blocks and Axel worries that there's been a horrible mistake. It's a small building with a cute frilly display in the window, the kind of shop he expects an old lady to own, but nowhere he would imagine Roxas setting foot in.
"Here?" he asks. He hopes he doesn't sound too judgmental because Roxas is still his best friend no matter where the guy goes.
Roxas pulls open the door and doesn't bother answering him. "Hey, Aeris! I brought a friend over. Is that okay?"
Axel follows the boy in and notices a slight girl standing behind the counter. She has a pretty pink dress and nice eyes and Axel wonders why she looks so familiar when they've only just met. Roxas seems to know her well and maybe that explains why he looks so relaxed in here.
She looks up and Axel hates her perfect smile already.
"Of course it's all right." Aeris brushes off her hand on a towel before holding it out to Axel. "I'm glad you brought a friend over, Roxas. And it's nice to meet you," she says, as if Axel's the kind of guy who would care for stupid things like formalities.
"My cousin," Roxas says, nodding to the girl. "On my mom's side."
"Oh. Cool." Axel shakes her hand and grins. "I'm Axel." He doesn't know why he likes her a hell of a lot more now than he did ten seconds ago, but he lets it slide because this kind of thing seems to happen a lot lately. He hopes he's not starting to PMS like a girl.
"Uh. So, can I borrow the room upstairs? It's not gonna take long, I promise." Roxas has one foot on the staircase already, anticipating her answer.
Aeris smiles and says, "Use it all you want. The woman who rented it for the dance studio is out of town for a couple of weeks. I'm just glad somebody is going up there."
"All right. Thanks." Roxas races up the stairs two at a time, and Axel stands there awkwardly, not sure if he should say bye first.
"Thank you," Aeris says quietly, her eyes on the staircase where Roxas just disappeared. "For being here with him. I…I remember you from the funeral. You were the one sitting in the chair next to Roxas."
"Yeah," Axel says. "Uh. That was me." He vaguely recalls her face from a crowd of people in black who came up to Roxas afterwards and told him how sorry they all were.
"Axel?" They both turn to the direction of the stairwell, where Roxas's voice is floating down.
"Coming!"
"Go on," Aeris says, smiling ruefully. "I know Roxas won't say anything about it, but he's probably a little mad that I'm stealing you away from him."
"You are?" Axel says.
Aeris shrugs, which doesn't help him a whole lot, and he sprints up the stairs and almost runs into Roxas who is on his way down.
"I thought you got lost," Roxas says dryly. He looks…normal. Not any angrier than usual. Axel's not sure what she was talking about.
"Sorry, I got held up a little. But I am so ready for this whole dancing thing. You?"
Roxas rolls his eyes and grabs him by the hand, pulling him into a huge empty room with mirrors covering two walls and a dusty stereo sitting in one corner. Axel can imagine balls being held here, can see the pretty girls and boys twirling around in black dresses and matching suits like a movie.
"Come on, put your hand on my waist," Roxas says.
Axel blinks and forces his gaze down from the high ceiling. "Huh?"
"Axel." Roxas moves to position his arms quickly on his shoulder and waist. "Just do it. Trust me, it'll go faster this way."
Axel knows how to respond to a statement like that. He leers and tightens his grip around the boy's waist (which, seriously, feels like hugging a freaking stick). "What if I don't want it to go faster, Moxie Roxie?"
Roxas snorts. "You don't get a choice, dumbass. Riku needs to know these steps in two weeks, so I'll teach you in one. Follow my lead, okay? It'll be easy once you get the basic steps and stuff."
Axel bites his lip and concentrates on not tripping over his own feet because this looks a hell of a lot easier on TV. After a few minutes of intense absorption, he notices something that is probably very important to the entire dancing process and he stops flailing around, making Roxas look up at him.
"Hey, where's the music?" Axel asks.
Roxas shrugs, and Axel can feel the movement under his hands through the thin material of the T-shirt Roxas is wearing. "We'll add it later," Roxas says. "The stereo here is broken."
"Oh. Okay."
Roxas rests his head against Axel's shoulder and they slow dance in an empty room to the sound of the city outside, to the accompaniment of their own hearts in their ears.
Axel won't forget this day ever.
!
Riku tilts his head on one side and watches Axel set up a stereo in one corner of the garage.
"Thanks for teaching me," Riku says. He looks a little nervous, which is weird, but Axel isn't going to ask because his stepbrother is just a freak sometimes. "I know you didn't have to."
"Yeah, sure. It's no big deal." He straightens up and grins. "You ready for this?"
"Um. Yeah." Riku looks around the room. "Is there somewhere I should be standing?"
"There's fine." Axel walks up to him quickly and tries to remember what Roxas said two days ago, something like count it out and make sure you guys are on the same step and don't fuck up too much.
"Follow my lead," Axel says, sounding a lot more confident than he actually feels. He pulls Riku closer and feels the other boy slowly yield, bending towards him without ever quite giving in. It's not like being with Roxas, who just seemed to know exactly what to do, how to fit his body to Axel's, and he probably shouldn't have taken that for granted because things are looking to be pretty awkward right now.
"Come on," Axel says. "Count it. Just follow the beat. Here, I'll start, and if you laugh, I might kill you. One, two, three."
Riku flushes slightly and tries to mimic Axel's slow steps. After a few minutes of huffed curses and bruised toes, Riku stops frowning and his expression clears, like he solved a puzzle and it all makes sense suddenly. It took an hour for Axel to get the same steps looking that natural which is something he will never admit aloud.
"This is so not cool," Axel says, but he's smiling and Riku beams back. "You're a fast learner."
"Thanks."
Riku starts to lean forward and his strange sea eyes are broiling and Axel's stomach twists into a knot at the sight, he's so fucking confused. He opens his mouth to ask what the hell but his stepmother opens the door and beats him to it with the familiar call of, "Dinner's ready, boys."
They break apart quickly and Axel strides towards the door, saying, "Awesome. I'm starving."
He doesn't look back and walks quickly into the house.
!
Demyx calls him on the night Riku is out to the big function thing with Namine and he says something about fucking stoners and impounded car and are they interested in playing at a club next month?
"Just a few songs before the band gets there because the guys who were supposed to show up said they can't make it, the fuckers, and then I remembered you played with some other kids, so I thought, why the hell not?" Demyx laughs and the sound is so quick it's a wonder he's not choking on his own breath. "It's not a big venue, and there's not gonna be a ton of people there, so it's no big deal or anything if you screw up. It's a good opportunity to get out and play for other people. Hey, you can totally say no if you want."
Axel says, "Wait, shit, you serious? You got us a gig?"
Demyx laughs again and he sounds like he's still smiling when he says, "It's less of a gig and more of a placeholder, but yeah. You guys can play and people will pay to hear it. You're my student, so I think you'll be fine up on stage. Sound fun?"
"Yes," Axel says immediately, and then realizes that he's coming off as way too desperate. "I mean, that sounds cool. I'm gonna have to ask Roxas and Riku about this, though. Make sure it's fine with them first."
"Yeah, absolutely. Just call me back as soon as you can so I can find somebody else if you guys aren't interested." Axel hears somebody yelling on the other end of the line and Demyx calling something back. "Uh, sorry Ax. I need to go, but I'll talk to you later, okay? Bye."
"See you," Axel says to the dial tone. He doesn't wait for another second to pass before punching in Roxas's number and hearing Roxas mumble, "hello?" into his ear, sounding like he just woke up. That makes him feel bad for about a second before he starts explaining what just happened.
Roxas doesn't even let him finish, just says, "Fuck. Yes. Call him back and tell him we'll do it."
"Okay," Axel says, choking back a laugh. His pulse is racing like he's just finished a marathon, like he has runners high pumping in his veins or something. It's weird, but in a really good way. "Let's do it."
(Later, Riku will smile until his cheeks are cracking and punch the air with a yell, and his father will stick his head in from the study and ask what is going on and why are they so excited when it is 11 at night and normal people are sleeping, and he will grin wide and easy and say I'm just really, stupidly, happy.)
Roxas says, "We need to work on a song or something. Seriously. We can't just play some other band's stuff on stage."
"Sure, yeah. Okay. Riku's already wrote one and it just needs lyrics. So." Axel's mind is tripping all over itself and he thinks he will be more functional if they are talking face to face instead of over a phone line. "Wanna come over?"
Roxas shows up at his doorstep twenty minutes later with his guitar strapped on his back and his eyes shining bright in the dusky light of the street and the setting sun. "Come on," Roxas says. He holds up a battered notebook and says, "Let's start already."
They plop down in the middle of the living room floor and fiddle around with their guitars, a blank notebook quickly filling up in front of them. The TV plays background noise a few feet away and offers insipid inspiration and annoying advert jingles and there is this one moment when Axel glances up and sees Roxas bent over, scribbling down snatches of possible chord combinations on the page, his hair hanging down across his face, and Axel thinks,
pretty.
Roxas says, "I think the pen's out of ink." He looks up expectantly and nudges Axel with the back of the blue ballpoint pen, grinning and obviously anxious to continue.
Axel gets up to fetch another one and forgets what he was about to say. He hopes to hell it wasn't anything too important, so he sticks it in the back of the mind and decides to think about it later.
!
By the process of elimination, they decide that Riku will be their lead singer (Roxas refuses to, point blank, and Axel just can't). This turns out to be a huge pain in the ass since it's a really weird set-up. Riku obviously can't move from his drum kit so Axel and Roxas are forced to fill up the rest of the stage by themselves. They need "presence" in order to have a good show, Riku insists, and Roxas backs him up with a nod, so Axel figures they can't both be wrong.
During their first practice, Riku drops the beat constantly and mangles half of the lyrics because drumming and singing do not, apparently, go hand in hand.
"Fuck!" Riku shouts, standing up and knocking over his stool. "This isn't working and you guys know it." He looks flushed and out of breath and Axel doesn't know what they're going to do because he kind of agrees. They've been playing the same song for the past hour and a half and they haven't even gotten past the first verse yet without somebody (Riku) screwing up.
Roxas sets his guitar down carefully on the garage floor and walks over to Riku. "Let's try it again," Roxas says calmly, setting the stool upright. He looks at Riku with his fever bright eyes and Axel gets the feeling that nothing will change his mind, not now, not ever. Roxas is invested in this like he hasn't been in anything since his world sort of caved in.
"We'll get it right eventually," Roxas insists.
"Yeah. Eventually. That could mean, like, years." Riku sighs, but he sits back down and starts to twirl around one stick between his fingers. "Again?" he asks, a little more confident, maybe, now that he knows Roxas hasn't given up on him.
"Sure," Axel says. He glances over at Roxas, who is strapping on his guitar and strumming out a few chords from the song they are trying to play.
Roxas shoots him a small crooked smile and Axel grins back.
!
Axel's not sure what time it is, but they eventually make it through their one song okay. Riku almost lost it once, in the middle of the chorus, but Axel just screamed something into the microphone and he doesn't think anyone in the audience would have noticed. He knows how to force people to pay attention to him, and it's going to pay off when they're on a stage, thank god.
"Think we're gonna be any good?" Riku asks. He looks pleased that they finally finished the song and he got to prove that multi-tasking will not be a problem for him. He won't stop smiling or tapping out random beats on his kit and Roxas is watching him with something like amusement on his face.
Axel stops packing away his bass and looks up at Riku. Personally, he thinks the lyrics they wrote are half-descent, but some of the lines sound forced, like they're trying to be profound and end up sounding really pretentious instead. The problem might be that he's not sure what they're singing about. Not girlfriends, not corruption or anything on the global scale, not even a dog or pet hamster for people to relate to. It's just pretty words and a catchy melody line to maybe cover it up.
Roxas wrote most of the lyrics though, so Axel's not going to complain.
"We're going to be amazing," he says firmly. Roxas glances at him, surprised, but doesn't say anything.
After they pack up their instruments and Riku leaves to watch a movie with some of his friends (he has other friends, he reminds them, and Axel laughs because he actually forgot about that), Roxas finally looks at him again and says, "I didn't know you thought we were good. Actually, I kind of got the impression that you thought we sucked. Hard."
"What?" Axel tries to remember a time when he said such a thing, and Roxas just laughs and shakes his head.
"No, you never said it, but I could tell by your expression whenever we were playing. Like, you weren't sure this was working but you didn't want to say it out loud in case we would blow up or break down and cry or something."
"Oh." Axel doesn't know how Roxas manages to see through him every time, but he hates that he can't reciprocate. "I didn't think we sucked or anything. I mean, I know we're not horrible." He's seen some kids at school play at a dance once, and they actually got bottled offstage by some seniors halfway through their first song. He knows they don't need to worry about that. "I just don't know if people will get it, you know?"
(Sometimes, he wishes Roxas weren't pouring his heart out onto a page for a group of faceless strangers to hear, people that have the power to sneer and call it trash when they don't have a clue about how brilliant his best friend is. But then Axel reminds himself that's the whole point and he can't do anything but nod and smile and pray that someone in the audience will understand even though Axel doesn't since that would make everything worth it, would make Roxas smile, yeah-)
"My mom told me to stop singing," Roxas says suddenly, and Axel's head snaps up to stare because that revelation seriously came out of nowhere. Roxas fidgets for a few seconds before adding, "Obviously, this was before she. Uh."
Killed herself.
Axel nods for him to continue but he doesn't think Roxas sees it because he is staring intently down at his hands. "I mean, it was a week before that, so she was already pretty messed up and stuff. She was taking me to out for dinner or something and I was singing along to the radio and she. She kind of snapped." He pauses, and Axel's chest aches and his eyes burn but he keeps his hands at his sides because he doesn't think Roxas wants to be touched right now, he understands that much at least.
It still hurts.
"So I promised her I wouldn't sing," Roxas says. He leans forward earnestly and Axel wants to tell him he doesn't have to try, Axel's never going to ditch him like that, but the words get stuck in his throat and Roxas is talking again, spilling out words, saying, "Sorry for being such a bitch about it before. I mean, I know it would be so much easier if Riku didn't have to do both parts, but."
"It's okay," Axel says. "She's your mom.
Roxas sighs and drags one hand through his hair and looks like he wishes it weren't true.
"Yeah, she is," he admits eventually. "Um, Axel, honest to god, do you think this is going to work out okay?" All of his defenses are down for once, making him look years younger, like he could fall apart at a wrong word, like his entire world is hinged on this one answer and Axel's the key to everything.
Axel looks him straight in the eye and says, "Definitely."
!
Chapter 3: in the works, in case anyone was wondering (LOL). The percentage would be something like 50-ish.