"Demyx!" Axel hissed, opening the door for the tall blonde who was running down the hallway with a look on his face like he knew he was going to get in trouble. "I told you to be here two hours ago!"
"Sorry!" Demyx whispered back, coming into the dark room and blinking a few times before his eyes got adjusted to the lack of light. "I had an appointment, and it lasted a little longer than I thought it would."
Axel sighed. "Okay, whatever. Come on, its this way." He grabbed Demyx by the elbow and led him across the dark living room and into the kitchen.
"Where's the little snot?" Demyx whispered as Axel got his bearings in the darkness and started getting this and that out of the cupboards.
"Roxas," Axel corrected, flipping on a light. It revealed the now very deceased Xigbar with a hole in his forehead, blood and brain matter spattered all over the wall behind him, dripping down to the floor. "Is sleeping."
Demyx's mouth fell agape, and he looked at Axel almost in fear. "Man, you said it was bad, but this is just…" He stopped and took a deep breath, shook his head a few times, sighed. "What'd he do?"
"Something I told him not to do." The redhead answered simply. "Now, come on. Regardless of how strong I am, I can't carry this lard and open the trunk of a car at the same time."
Demyx nodded as Axel picked the body up and slung it over his right shoulder, letting out a gasp at the added weight (of late Xigbar had clearly put on a few pounds) and looked straight at Demyx.
"Okay, this is what you have to do. This is really heavy, so once we get to the front door, open it for me. Go downstairs ahead of me, pop the trunk of my car so that when I get there I can just drop it in. Okay?"
"Okay."
They started walking, Demyx opening the door just on time and slipping out just before Axel, the door closing on its own. Axel walked purposefully down the hallway and flew down the stairs, his blonde companion only inches ahead of him.
"Demyx, hurry up!" He hissed. "I'm not going to be able to carry this leviathan for much longer."
"Did you just diss a dead guy?" Demyx asked as he popped the trunk, Axel dumped his load inside just in time.
"Yeah, Dem, I just dissed a dead guy." He was panting, but once he caught his breath and slammed the trunk shut he quickly looked around to see if anyone had seen them. However, even if they had, it was Chicago is hooker central; who was going to call the police?
"Now…get in the car." Demyx nodded and climbed in the open driver's side, slamming the door after him, started the car, rolled down the window.
"What am I doing again?"
"You're going to drive this thing down that way," He pointed north, down an empty highway that led to a huge expanse of grass. "Spill gas all over it, and set in on fire. Watch it for a little while to make sure it catches and burns, then high tail it out of there. If you do it right, there shouldn't be anything left to implicate us. Got it?"
Demyx was nodding, his expression dream-like. "Yeah. Yeah, I got it."
"Damn it, Demyx." Axel hissed, walking around to the other side of the car and getting into the passenger's seat. "Why do you have to be such an idiot?"
"Well Christ Axel." Demyx whined, pouting. "What're you waiting for, a hot date?"
"I was actually planning on spending a nice evening with Roxas, thank-you very much." He sighed. "Just waltz in there…watch America's Most Wanted together…cuddle on the couch…"
"Yeah, that's nice." Demyx said, shaking his head and pulling out of the parking lot in the direction that the redhead had indicated. "Well, you're not. You're stuck with me because apparently I can't get rid of the body of the guy you killed the way you want me to."
"Just shut up and drive." He hissed, immediately cursing himself for the corny song reference.
Demyx made a soft 'humph' sound, but didn't say anything after that. He and Axel came to the end of the pavement very quickly, and continued driving for about two miles after that so that they were far enough away from the motel as to prevent anyone from seeing them.
"Pop the trunk." Axel said, grabbing the gasoline. Demyx did as he was asked, and as soon as he was out of the car Axel began dousing everything in the flammable liquid, the last thing being Xigbar's body.
"Ready for a show, Dem?" He asked, grinning. Demyx nodded and grinned as well.
Axel stuck one of his clove cigarettes in his mouth (he hadn't had a smoke for months considering that Roxas wouldn't stop griping about the smell; this was a good excuse for one) and lit it, threw the lighter on the car, and watched as it burst into flames.
"Pretty cool, huh?" He asked, taking a longer drag.
"Pshya!" Demyx looked like a kid in a candy store, and Axel couldn't help but laugh. "Where'd you learn how to do that?"
"Its pretty easy to figure out, Dem." He shrugged. "But for all intensive purposes? Reno."
"Ah."
"Well, come on. I still have to clean up the mess I made, and I really don't want Roxas to wake up while I'm gone."
--
Axel didn't really realize exactly how big his mess was until he was faced with the task of cleaning it up. He had his gloves, he had his squeegee, he had the bleach and ammonia and Windex® and what not, and he was ready to go. All he had to do was start. Which proved to be a very difficult task.
"Wall, or floor?" He asked himself over and over again. The wall was pretty damn nasty, but he couldn't clean the wall without cleaning the floor. If Roxas were to wake up and ask him what he was doing, he wanted the blonde to see the floor, not the wall covered in brain matter.
He sighed and let himself into the bedroom, light washing over Roxas. The kid was sleeping like a rock; a good sign. Axel nodded, closed the door, walked back into the kitchen. "Floor."
He scraped and washed and scrubbed, rinsed and dried and washed and dried again. Blood, he discovered, was not as easy to clean as they made it seem in the movies. He had to repeat that process about three times on the floor until you couldn't tell there had been a body there before he could start on the wall.
He repeated his process over and over and over again. Naturally, he was surprised; whoever thought that there could have been this much brain hiding in Xigbar's head? Evidently it had been there; the pedophile probably just never used it.
Once the cleaning was finished, Axel was left with four red rags (rags that had been white when he started) an empty container of bleach, an empty container of ammonia, a half-full (Axel liked to think of himself as an optimist) bottle of Windex® and a kitchen that smelled like harsh chemicals.
"First thing's first." He breathed, grabbed an air fresher than Roxas had insisted he buy (apparently he hated the way the motel smelled like sex. Whatever sex smelled like) and sprayed the entire kitchen.
He grabbed all of his cleaning supplies, but it in a grocery bag, and dumped it by the front door. His gloves were the last things to go, and the redhead was careful not to get any blood on his hands as he dropped them in the bag along with all of the other things.
One thing before I go…He thought, cut across the living room, and opened the door to the bedroom. Roxas was still fast asleep, laying on his back with his hands folded neatly on top of his chest.
Axel, keeping the door cracked, walked in as silently as he could and sat down on the edge of the bed. He reached up and brushed his hand across the blonde's cheek, and, in his sleep, Roxas's nose twitched.
"So cute." Axel whispered, smiling. At Roxas was, honestly, the most adorable thing he had ever seen. If there was a good Roxas would succumb to the Stockholm syndrome and be able to forgive all of the shit that Axel put him through in their first year together.
He leaned down slowly, cupping Roxas's cheek, and placed a gentle kiss on his captive's forehead. Roxas made a soft 'mmph' sound, his head falling to his right (Axel's left) and he shifted in his sleep.
Axel sighed, chuckled, stood up to leave. He closed the bedroom door tightly on his way out, turned off the light in the kitchen, grabbed his bag of cleaning supplies, and prayed that he wouldn't be long.
--
The scene that met him when he returned was…most undesirable. Roxas had, evidently, woken up. He was sitting in front of the TV, the light that it was emanating the only light in the entire apartment (because their room was more like a small apartment than anything).
"Roxas?" Axel called, taking a few steps inside and closing the door behind him. The blonde didn't answer him, and when the redhead got a few feet closer, he noticed Roxas's tear stained cheeks.
Damn it, Axel. He thought. What the hell did you do to mess up THIS time? "Roxas." He took a few steps closer, and the blonde finally looked up at him, sniffling.
"You missed America's Most Wanted." He whispered. Axel noticed that he was hugging a pillow to his chest, squeezing the life out of the thing.
Oh…shit. "I did?" He walked over and sat down on the couch next to Roxas, who just nodded slowly and closed his eyes. "Did I miss anything…important?"
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. Roxas sucked in a deep breath and stiffened visibly, both angry and hurt vibes radiating off of him. "I recorded it." He whispered.
"Oh. Okay." Axel grabbed the remote (unsure if this was the correct course of action; history was there to show that he wasn't very good in relationships) and rewound the DVR to the opening of America's Most Wanted.
He and Roxas watched in silence for a while, sitting for about a half an hour before what he wanted to see was finally shown. "Now, here's a case that's really touched me deep in my heart."
Oh…great. Axel sighed and kept watching, John Walsh walking across the set of AMW. "About a year ago, a little boy was kidnapped."
Roxas snorted at this, and it was a little difficult for Axel to suppress his chuckle. He knew that Roxas hated being referred to as 'little,' so for the entire nation to see that probably really ground his gears.
"He was taken from a rough neighborhood right outside of his BelAire home on a hot June day last year. We believe that he was walking home from school," Right about then, the reenactment began to play. The actor who played Roxas looked very similar to the little blonde (save for the adorable pink cheeks and playful smile) but the actor who played Axel was way off; brunette with brown eyes. And he looked short.
"…when he was approached by a man in a 1967 Powder Blue Chevy. Witnesses say that they spoke for a few minutes, the boy who was later identified as Roxas DuPont trying to avoid the unidentified pervert for as long as he could."
"I'm not a pervert." Axel said, snorting. "Am I?"
Roxas didn't respond, eyes fixed on the screen, and Axel took that as a bad sign. "Finally, however, Roxas was broken down until he climbed in the car to be led to a fate that no one saw coming."
The reenactment continued for a few moments, up until the part where Wannabe-Roxas starts freaking out because Wannabe-Axel isn't taking him home like he said he would.
"We need your help to help us catch this scumbag. We've had many calls already on this case, and the suspect could very well be a Reno Russo." A picture of Reno flashed on the screen, along with everything the viewing audience needed to know about him.
"This kid has a terrible rap sheet already, at the age of only 21. He's tall, standing at about 6'3", and skinny, weighing a mere 150 lbs. This is what he looked like in high school, but he may have changed his look since then, acquiring two teardrop tattoos on both cheeks.
"If you see this loser, give us a call. Roxas's parents are eagerly awaiting his return home, and I bet this kid can't wait to be reunited with them. And remember; you can make a difference."
Roxas turned the TV off as soon as their story was over, and glanced over at Axel. "You are Reno are twins, right?"
Axel blinked and nodded slowly, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. "Yeah. Why?"
"Do you realize that if you get caught, you'd be throwing your life away?" Roxas's voice had taken on a sharp edge, and Axel hated it. It was far too uncharacteristic for his liking.
"I guess so." The redhead shrugged. "But if I ever get the money--"
He was interrupted by a harsh stinging sensation on his cheek, a loud crack resounding through the room. "You idiot!" Roxas yelled at him, sobbing. "Can't you see that this isn't about the money anymore?"
"Roxas--"
"No. I don't want to hear anymore of your fucking excuses." Roxas spat. He let out another soft sob and shook his head. "You're so blind, Axel."
"Rox, will you at least give me a chance to explain?"
"Explain what?" The blonde shook his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. The light from the street outside was finally starting to show through the windows, and Axel could see exactly how upset he was. "Explain how at 20 you feel it's necessary to kidnap the son of the twelfth richest man on Earth? Or how you feel it's necessary to update your Facebook about how utterly depressed I am? Or how…" He stopped and took a deep breath, the next thing that he was planning to throw at Axel clearly hurting him as much as it was intended to hurt his captor. "How you can parade around here with a prostitute when you know full well how I feel about you?"
"Roxas…" Axel sighed and shook his head. "I didn't even want to kidnap you, okay? I was in college when Reno came up with this master plan of his. When he bailed out, I was stuck here, and I wasn't about to give you back and pretend nothing happened, given how difficult it was. Secondly, that's not even my account. Reno was being an asshole and made on under our great grandfather's name, I'm named after him--"
"Shut up!" Roxas yelled. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! I hate you!" He hit Axel on the arm a few times, but weakly. "Do you hear me? I hate you!"
He fell back against the arm of the couch, breathing deeply. They were both silent for a while until Roxas's tears came to a grinding halt, leaving him glaring at Axel. The redhead took a shuddering breath, shook his head.
"I suppose this was inevitable…" He drew his feet up on the couch and laid down, resting his head on Roxas's shoulder. This was met with a surprised gasp from the younger of the two, but Axel didn't move.
"Its really too bad that you feel so strongly against me." He whispered. "Because to tell you the truth, I'm completely taken with you."
He chuckled humorlessly and nuzzled Roxas's neck. "I know that the odds of you being able to like, actually forgive me for the shit I've put you through a really slim, but its only fair for you to know how sorry I am."
"Um…Axel…" Roxas shook his head, unsure of how to respond. However, when he felt warm, salty tears falling silently against his neck, he decided that words weren't what he needed to use.
Slowly, he began stroking Axel's hair, wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Axel you don't have to--"
"Yes, I do." The redhead sniffed loudly and shook his head, hiding his face against Roxas and trying to make as little sound as possible as tears continued to fall from his eyes. "I love you, and I'm sorry. I love you so much."
The blonde chuckled and buried his face in Axel's hair. "I love you, too."
A/N: I love this chapter! 8D The next few are going to be soooo fluffy. But then it's gonna be sad. But then I'll write the epilogue and it'll be fluffy again. But then it'll be over. D8 I really don't want this story to end. xD I love it so much. But once it's over I have another few ideas in the works for you guise, so you won't be without reading material for long. I promise. xP
Now, didn't I tell you that this chapter was going to be full of fluff and lovely things? And did I disappoint? xD In the next chapter, you can expect Axel to not only tell but show Roxas how much he loves him. xD Its going to be nice. And lemony.
To Xanjen: I lied. Lemon in the next chapter. xD
I love you guise!
~Sara