This isn't happening. My parents love me, and this isn't happening. Roxas closed his eyes tighter and curled into a ball. He hadn't gotten out of bed in three days and, surprisingly, Axel hadn't made him.
I'm at home, in my own bed, with my own family, and THIS ISN'T HAPPENING. He had gotten a sudden hit of reality that just about killed him. Axel was, for once, very right; he had been with him for six months, and nothing had changed. What his parents were doing waiting to pay, he didn't know. But they hadn't paid.
He whimpered softly and tried to curl closer in on himself, which was just about impossible at this point. His knees were up at his chin, his arms wrapped around his knees. Maybe, he thought, if he held the position long enough he could disappear altogether.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Axel asked. He had insisted on talking to Roxas these last three days, and had gotten little response if any at all.
"I don't care."
"You smell. Go take a shower."
"No."
Axel snorted. "You had better get over this pretty quickly. It's freaking annoying."
Roxas rolled over on his back and sat up slowly, fixing Axel with a flat look. "My parents are coming for me. They love me."
"Okay, whatever. But while we're waiting for them, go take a shower. You're stinking up the whole room." Axel, Roxas noticed, was chewing on a piece of celery; a vegetable; something abnormally healthy for his captor. Not that he cared.
"There has to be some mistake…" The blonde murmured, ignoring the redhead. "They had to be in a position where they can't pay the ransom or something…I know that they would under other circumstances…"
Axel groaned and walked (purposefully!) over to Roxas, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. This action was met with a mewl of protest, following a full fledged scream as Roxas was pulled across the room and thrown into the bathroom.
"I shouldn't have to tell you twice." Axel said, any ounce of kindness that had been in his expression or voice completely disappearing.
Roxas looked up at him, half in shock and half in disbelief. Axel ignored the look and shut the door, faintly the blonde heard it lock from the outside. "I'm not letting you out until I've heard the shower running for at least ten minutes. If you come out and your hair isn't wet, you're going straight back in. And the second time I'll supervise you."
Roxas sat on the tile floor for a few moments, blinking. Axel's outburst had been completely unforeseeable to him; he was being patient, and then he was so pissed off that he threw Roxas into the bathroom.
"Can you say 'bipolar'?" He murmured, standing up slowly. He glanced around, and after a few turns noticed two things; one, the shower had been in front of him the entire time. Two, that the bathroom was very, very small. There was a shower, toilet, and a sink, but the entire space had to be only 6x6.
"That's lovely." He said to himself, shook his head, and turned on the water in the shower. The moment the redhead heard it start up, he chuckled and walked away from the door.
"Good boy!" He called over the roar of the water, moved back into the living room and sat down in front of the couch. His laptop, however, held far more allure than the TV.
He picked it up and pulled it open, the screen immediately popping awake. He typed in his password quickly, a familiar collage of illegally obtained pictures of Roxas appearing all over his desktop background.
"Hello, beautiful." He muttered, double clicked on the Internet icon. "Why haven't your parents paid me yet?"
The Google home page popped up the moment the words had exited his lips, and not seconds after Axel was browsing through his Gmail® account, begging for a new email from his "connection."
"Damn it." He murmured, his eyes being met with only read emails. "Where are you, Xigbar?"
He glanced over his shoulder, confirming that the shower water was still running and that the little blonde hadn't somehow managed to get out of the bathroom without him knowing. The coast was clear, however, and he returned to typing away furiously on his small keyboard.
Xigbar, the email began. Enter, tab, capitalize. Where the hell are you? I've been waiting for your goddamn response for five days. EMAIL ME ALREADY. I don't have this kind of time. Axel
The redhead sighed and moved his mouse up to the address bar, clicking once and typing the address for America's Most Wanted website, checked the fugitives list. He was still in the clear.
"Thank God…" He breathed, letting his curser hover over the Missing Children link. He paused for a moment before double-clicking, hundreds of pictures flooding his screen.
He looked through the first ten, then the first twenty, then the first thirty, continuing on as far as he could go before his eyes started to hurt from the too-bright screen. After getting to number 154, however, and not seeing Roxas's picture, he was satisfied.
He smiled to himself and clicked the little 'x' on the top right hand of the screen, the Internet closing and letting him stare at pictures of his little blonde captive. It had taken a good three months for him to accumulate all of those pictures…all of the information that he had needed.
He had followed Roxas, hired people to follow Roxas, and learned everything about the blonde and his family that he could. And had it paid off? No.
"All that hard work for nothing." He said to himself, eyes wandering over pictures of Roxas with his friends, pictures of Roxas walking home…
He stared at the screen for a few more moments before clearing his throat, closing his laptop, and turning on the TV. The shower water was still running, so he kicked his feet up on the coffee table and indulged in a short episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog.
This amazing, surprisingly effective form of relaxation continued on for about ten minutes before he heard the shower water turn off. It had probably been a half an hour since he forced Roxas into the bathroom…
He sighed and stood up, turning off the TV and locking his laptop (better safe than sorry!) and headed at a leisurely pace through the living room and bedroom until he was standing in front of the bathroom.
Without knocking he unlocked and opened the door, walking in on a completely naked Roxas holding a towel in one hand, staring at the mirror. He glanced at Axel in surprise and quickly wrapped the towel around his waist, cursing.
"Ever heard of knocking?" He said, not meeting the redhead's gaze. Axel shrugged; it was so easy for him to pretend he didn't care.
"The water stopped running so I assumed it was safe for me to come in."
"Well, you know what they say happens when one assumes." Roxas case Axel a wearing glance before pushing past him and into the bedroom, quickly going over to the closet.
The redhead raised an eyebrow before turning off the light in the bathroom and facing the bedroom, watching the blonde with a curious expression as he changed into his pajamas.
"Feeling any better?"
"Like you care."
Axel cleared his throat and sat down on the bed. "Gotta give you that one. Are you like, hungry or something?"
"No."
"Tired?"
"No."
"Are you feeling anything at all, at this particular moment?"
"No."
Axel sighed and laid down, closed his eyes. "All right. Makes my job easy."
Without replying, the blonde exited the room, presumably to return to his haven in the living room. Axel made a soft 'tch' sound before sitting up. He wanted to keep an eye on his captive as much as possible, but at the same time he really wanted to catch up on some sleep.
He stood up slowly and moved, equally as slowly, into the living room, where Roxas was sitting on the couch staring out one of the windows.
"Bird watching?" Axel asked, raising an eyebrow and sitting down on the other end of the couch and picking up his laptop once more.
"No."
"So conversational…" He muttered. After typing in his password once more and opening the Internet, making sure that Roxas couldn't see his background at any given moment, he glanced up at the blonde.
"Leave me alone."
The redhead sighed and shook his head, turning his attention back to Google. After brief consideration, he decided on his search topic: The Five Stages of Grieving. About ten million results popped up, and he clicked on the first one immediately, which was pretty self explanatory.
"Roxas, it think you're isolating." He said. The comment, however, was met with no response. The blonde was still staring out the window, now almost longingly. Expectantly.
"Or, since it appears you're still waiting for you parents, maybe denial…" He sighed and closed his computer, turned the TV back on.
"I told you; they're going to come for me."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, kid."
"They will!" Roxas replied harshly, and the redhead could see what looked like tears threatening to spill from his eyes and over his cheeks.
"Hey, relax." Axel held up a defensive hand and shifted a little further away from the younger of the two. "Don't like, spaz out on me."
"You're such a self important, ignorant asshole." Roxas murmured, standing up and marching halfway into the bedroom. "You don't care about anyone but yourself."
"It's not like that's against the law."
"It is when you kidnap someone because of it." With that, Roxas closed the space between him and the bedroom, leaving Axel alone in the living room. It took a moment or two, but the redhead soon recovered and decided to check his email again. Immediately, his eyes were met with a very satisfying alert; 1 new, unread message.
A/N: Alrighty! I really hate this chapter! ;D I dunno. Something about it just seems off to me. But hey, whatever. If you guise like it, that's good good. xP And dangit, your reviews are so lovely. I love them. They make me happy.
Now! I am very sorry to report, but I think that, for all of you who are just waiting on the edge of your seats for the fluff...there MIGHT have to be a tiny, tiny little road block. But no worries! Its the kind of road block where you have to take a detour that ends up getting you to your destination faster. o.o If that makes any sense. *blinkblinkcoughblink*
Love yaz!
~Sara