Roxas was sitting on the couch with his legs folded neatly beneath him and watching TV when Axel emerged from the bedroom. It was rare for the blonde to actually be awake, dressed, ready, and watching TV before his captor, but in light of recent events it didn't surprise Axel in the least.
When the redhead walked over, clearing the sleep the sleep from his throat and sitting down on the couch, Roxas thought about glancing at him. He thought about apologizing for going through his laptop. He thought about a number of things, as a matter of fact, but acted on none of them.
He and Axel watched TV in silence for a few moments before Axel turned to him and cleared his throat again. "Are you hungry?" His voice was raspy, a quality very characteristic of someone who had been crying. Roxas found that hard to believe.
He shook his head no, but apparently it wasn't very convincing because Axel asked him what he wanted to eat anyway. "How does ramen sound?"
A smile threatened to tug at his lips. He hadn't asked for anything to eat since he had sent Axel out and effectively ruined anything they might've had that resembled a relationship. He just shrugged, not taking his gaze away from the TV.
"Roxas." Axel said his name flatly, but Roxas could almost hear the way he raised his eyebrows. "Talk to me."
Roxas sighed and cleared his throat, shrugged again. "Xigbar said that he was going to go get something from McDonald's. You know I don't really like fast food, so…" He trailed off as he felt his throat close, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.
Axel sighed and half extended an arm to comfort Roxas, thought the better of it, and let his hand fall. "Well, after we eat, start packing. Some old lady said that I was on AMW. I didn't see anything, but I'd rather be safe than sorry."
Roxas nodded slowly and glanced at Axel quickly, swallowing hard to prevent himself from breaking down the second he began speaking. "Where are we going?"
Axel shrugged and reached over Roxas. The blonde held his breath, thinking for a moment that maybe his captor would try to embrace him or make amends or something of the sort, but was only met with disappointment when Axel grabbed the remote and clicked the TV off.
"I don't know. I was thinking maybe New York or Chicago. Somewhere big where we can blend in." He looked at Roxas straight on, shrugged. "I don't know."
"We should go to Chicago." Roxas said quietly. Axel raised his eyebrows in response, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips.
"Oh? Why is that?"
"I have family in New York." He didn't know why he was saying this. He should want to go to New York. He should want to go there so that he can escape and make sure that Axel was caught and went to jail. Instead, however, he was protecting him. He was protecting the person who ruined his life for some reason that even he wasn't sure of.
"Oh." Axel looked a little surprised that Roxas had even said anything, but smiled at him. Roxas's breath caught in his throat. He loved that smile. He wanted Axel to smile at him all the time, yet couldn't bring himself to forgive what he had read on the computer (which, why Axel was still updating his Facebook Roxas had no idea).
"Well…thanks." He smiled again and stood up, walking into the kitchen. "Did you say you wanted ramen?"
--
The drive was an incredibly long one. It seemed longer than the drive from Michigan to Nebraska, and probably was. Roxas was unsure, but he didn't really care one way or the other.
They didn't speak. Roxas wanted badly to bring up the events of the previous night, but at the same time he wanted to let the whole fiasco die. He wanted to stop the ridiculous feeling that he had for Axel, he wanted to go home, he wanted to stay…"
"Do you want to listen to music?" Axel glanced at him as they merged into another lane, and Roxas shrugged.
"Why don't you put some music on?" He smiled down at Roxas, but Roxas didn't return it as he pressed the 'on' button and they listened to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Ah, the irony.
They continued driving in silence for a while, and after several failed attempts at striking up conversation with is captive, Axel gave up. He watched the cars in front of him with a disappointed expression adorning his face, ever once and a while glancing in his rearview mirror to make sure Xigbar was still following him, glancing at Roxas every once and a while to make sure that he was still distantly staring out the window.
Roxas's stomach grumbled just as they were coming in on the outskirts of their destination, and Axel couldn't help but chuckle. Roxas glanced at him with an expectant look, and Axel raised his eyebrows. "Hungry?"
Roxas blushed faintly and nodded, glancing out the window. In his peripheral vision, he could see Axel glancing at road signs and such before nodding. "Okay…there're a few restaurants coming up here. We're almost in Chicago…do you want me to have Xigbar pick something up once we get a place set up and everything?"
The blonde shrugged. "I guess."
Axel sighed, and that ended all conversation from that point onto the motel that Axel had found for them. Roxas was tired, his head hurt, and he felt like he needed to cry. Axel was tired, his head hurt, and he could tell that Roxas wanted to cry.
--
The motel that he had chosen for them wasn't in a good area of town. Of course, because the blonde's parents still hadn't paid the ransom, all of the money that was being used to support them was coming out of Axel's pocket. As a result, their living quarters weren't as nice as they had been went Roxas had first been kidnapped.
Hookers lined the streets near and were milling around the parking lot of their motel, male and female. Both Axel had Roxas received cat calls, and the captive sunk down so far into the seat that he was almost sure that no one could see him. He was wrong.
"Hey baby…" One of them called as Axel stepped out of the car to get his things. "When's the last time you got some?"
Axel raised his eyebrow at her, not bothering to answer the question, and walked around to the passenger's side to open the door. "Come on," He said to Roxas, tapping his shoulder. "They're just hookers. Its not like they'll kill you."
Slowly, Roxas climbed out of the car and grabbed his bag from Axel. "They're…" He started, but was at a loss for a word to describe swarm of sexual deviants that were amassing around them.
"Come on, baby…" Roxas had to have heard that at least six times, and each time Axel snorted in disgust, trying to shove his way through the crowd. "We just wanna have some fun…your little friend can even join the fun too."
"Fuck off." Axel spat at them. They recoiled as though the words had some sort of actual, physical weight and went from leering to glaring.
"Fine, be that way." They hissed. "We don't need you. We got all of Chicago, baby."
"That's great…" Axel murmured. Subconsciously, he realized, he had grabbed Roxas's hand and was leading him to their room (he had reserved it online). The blonde didn't even seem to have noticed, glancing around like he was surrounded by a pack of hungry lions. Or lionesses, as it may be.
"They're scary." Roxas whispered, and Axel chuckled once he had pulled out the key, Xigbar surprisingly close behind, and let them into the room.
"Welcome to Chicago, kid."
--
"What's today, again?"
"Tuesday." Axel and Roxas were watching TV, and Xigbar was doing God knows what in the bathroom. "Why?"
The blonde shrugged. "Just wondering."
They continued unpacking their clothes, Roxas setting his things in the drawers first so that Axel's could go on top of them. By now, he had gotten used to a one bed, one bath, one kitchen/living room set up, so when he walked into the motel and found that it was set up almost exactly like their previous quarters.
"Oh." Axel glanced up and looked at Roxas, furrowing his brow. "Are you still hungry?"
"Um…" Roxas shrugged. "I guess so."
"Damn…" Axel glanced at the bathroom door, which was shut and locked, and sighed. "Alright. I'm going to run out and get some stuff for the fridge and shit. I don't know if Xigbar will be out by the time I get back, but don't try anything, okay?"
"Wasn't planning on it." Roxas placed the last of his things in the dresser drawers and put his suitcase, bag-type thing in closet and walked out into the living room to get acquainted with the new channels.
Axel had his jacket on and his car keys in hand by the time Roxas had to program guide pulled up and was halfway out the door. "Alright. I should be back soon. I have no idea where the big grocery store is around here, so…"
"Okay." Axel paused and looked at Roxas sadly, the blonde completely oblivious.
"Okay." With that, he was out the door.
--
When the redhead came back, Roxas was sure he was drunk. There was no other reason to explain the behavior he was demonstrating. However, he had only been gone twenty minutes; barely enough time to get to the store and get back while having a drink in between.
He and the tall blonde came stumbling through the door just after the sun had set and the city was bathed in darkness. They were giggling like maniacs, and walked right past Roxas and into the bedroom. Like they hadn't even seen him there.
The blonde exchanged a glanced with Xigbar, who was standing in the kitchen, looking just as shocked as the captive. They were completely silent, the sounds of the TV quickly forgotten, the door to the bedroom slammed shut.
Roxas swallowed loudly, his vision blurring over with tears. He shouldn't feel the hurt that he did, yet all the same there was disappointment coursing through his veins. When he turned his gaze back to the TV, his attention should have been focused on what he was seeing and not on what was happening in the other room.
He shouldn't have cared when the uncontrollable giggles were replaced by strangled moans, or when he heard the loud thump against one of the walls when the room, or when the blonde who's name he didn't know cried out Axel's name.
He sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm himself, not wanting to cry, least of all in front of Xigbar. The last thing he needed was a pedophile trying to comfort him while his captor that he had fallen in love with was fucking a prostitute in the other room.
"That's so disgusting." Xigbar muttered, walking over to the couch and sitting down uncomfortably close to Roxas. "I can't believe he has the audacity to do that."
"Shut up and leave me alone." Roxas said, turning away from Xigbar and hugging a pillow as discreetly as he could manage.
"Aw, come on kid. I'm just trying to make you feel better." He reached over and placed a hand on Roxas's shoulder, but it was quickly slapped away.
"I thought I said leave me alone." The blonde's voice broke once, but it was imperceptible to Xigbar, who looked like someone had slapped him across the face, save for the bright red handprint.
"Come on, kiddo! I'm just trying to make you feel better."
"I don't need you to make me feel better." Roxas hissed. In the other room, he could hear Axel's new lover breathing heavily, which was interrupted by another loud moan. "I need you to leave me alone."
"Hey, its cool. I get that you want him. But evidently, he doesn't want you." Xigbar sighed. "Its unfortunate. He has no idea what he's missing out on."
"Save your breath." Roxas spat. "I wouldn't find comfort in you even if I wanted to. Which I don't. So leave me alone."
"Now…you don't really want that, do you?" Xigbar's disgustingly curious hand wandered along Roxas's thigh, and the blonde slapped it away once more.
"Yes. I do. And despite that fact that he's in there doing God knows what, he's probably going to be pretty pissed off if he comes back in and finds you trying to rape me on the couch." Roxas stood up and marched into the kitchen, taking a bottle of water out of the refrigerator of coming back into the living room. "Screw off."
Xigbar snorted. "Man, you've been spending too much time with this guy. No wonder he has a crush on you."
Roxas stopped dead in his tracks as Xigbar turned on the TV, blinking. He was sure that either Xigbar had misspoken or that he had heard wrong; surely things were the other way around. Right?
As he stood there, the bedroom door opened and the blonde came out with Axel following close behind. "Well hi there."
Roxas blinked up at the taller, older looking boy with a hair color a few shades darker than his own, glanced at Axel, then blinked. "Hi?"
"You are so cute!" The older blonde bent down and patted Roxas on the head, but the younger slapped his hand away with a disgusted snort.
"Keep your hands off of me, whore."
The older blonde straightened up and glanced at Axel, who was laughing into his fist, and pouted. "Well excuse me."
"Relax, Dem." Axel patted him on the shoulder and glanced at Roxas, was glaring daggers at the two of them. "He's upper crust. You know how the rich are; you could have a great personality but they'll hate you for your occupation."
"No, I'm pretty sure its his personality." Roxas said, smiling politely. "But what do I know?"
"Exactly." Axel narrowed his eyes and walked Demyx to the door, pecking him on the cheek before showing him out. "Nothing."
A/N: This chapter was short and I hate it. xDD I'm really hoping that the next couple of chapters will get easier, because it was really hard for me to add Demyx and make Axel and Roxas be all cold and spiteful and shit. xDD Thankfully, I've determined that this will be the first of only five chapters with Dem Dem. And the last one won't even count because I've got a special surprise for you guise. [insert evil laugh here]
Also, about the contesty thingy...
Xanjen brought to my attention that people might be in different time zones and what not. Just so you guise know, I'm operating on EST (Eastern Standard Time) If you live in the Central U.S., midnight for me is 11 for you. PST would be 9 pm, and Moutain time would be 10. If you live outside the United States, you're going to have to google the time difference. xD So...yeah. Thanks guise!
~Sara