Second installment!
Warnings: Non-graphic sexings, sexy gypsies running around, inaccurate history, problems with commitment, and more fluff.
A/N: FIRST OFF, when I hear 'bohemian', I immediately think of gypsies. And when I think of gypsies, I immediately think of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Soldier!Roxas, gypsy!Axel, and the general idea of the story is mostly based off of tHoND, and I don't even care about it. SECONDLY, I can't sleep and I'm sick of revising for Psych, so I decided to finish this. I don't particularly like it, but I've decided to give it to the internets for the sole purpose of not messing with it anymore. Enjoy 3
He saw him for the first time while doing his rounds of the city. The man had the skin colouring to warrant him as Romani, but everything else was wrong. Too tall, too thin, too colourful. His hair, pulled back by faded purple scarves - no doubt a cheap vegetable dye - was shockingly red and so messy that the only viable reason behind it would have been shoving him up against a wall and fucking him sloppy. Cat green eyes were offset by small black marks on his cheeks; framed by thick, red lashes and lined with kohl. They held a constant mischievous glimmer, his eyebrows short and coyly arched.
He watched the gypsies in the streets, not intervening quite yet. The girls danced barefoot, dull coins woven in to their faded, worn clothing. They were promiscuous, the way they moved, the way they caught the men's eyes and smiled; but they weren't what Roxas had eyes for. The red haired man spouted fire from his mouth, he held it in his hands and threw it in the air, eyes reflecting the flames in green. Roxas, though his face was schooled into the normal, expressionless state, was entranced. He followed the man's thin limbs, watched him dance with the fire in a state of joy that Roxas never thought he could reach himself.
The dance ended, the fire was extinguished, and Roxas felt himself moving before he could consciously make the decision. The group of gypsies saw him coming from a mile away and scattered like the beads of a broken necklace; Roxas' eyes followed that beacon of red, obscured by the head scarves, until it disappeared around a corner. Roxas felt his chest tightening, ignored the urge to give chase and catch that man and pull that thin torso into his arms-ignore it, ignore it, it'll go away.
And when it didn't, Roxas made himself forget it by going to the brothel and fucking his thoughts away and trying to convince himself that the prostitute's green eyes weren't the reason he came so early.
Stop. Fast forward. Play.
Roxas walked quickly, shoes slapping the cobblestone streets. The moon shone bright in the sky, lighting his way when he took off from the main streets, into the areas with no light and less protection. His stature looked even smaller when he took off his uniform, and he'd catch hell if someone were to find out that he was spending his one day away from the army doing this, but he didn't care.
Roxas had spent the last of the four months that had passed trying to find the red haired man who spat fire. The first three months went without even a spot of red on his peripheral vision, but he'd cornered a lanky blond boy with an outlandish hairstyle and threatened him until he told Roxas where he could find the redhead. Since that day, he'd found out the man's haunts, his home, everything. Roxas had followed him everyday, biding his time, waiting until he could - well, he wasn't actually sure what he was going to do. But he was going to do it.
The blond could hear the raucous cheering from a few streets away, and the sounds of nightlife made him walk faster towards his target. When he could finally see the flashing, dancing glow of fire, he had to force himself not to run; and then nearly stopped dead in his tracks when he turned the corner.
There, in the middle of the street, was his redhead. His skin was liquid, molten in the light of the fire; it shimmered with oil and sweat and the sharp angles of his frame. He swung fire in tight circles, moving with it in a flawless choreography, a master and his barely tamed beast. The gold sewn into his pants flashed in the light, seeming brighter than it would in the day. His chest was bare and hard and lean, muscles standing out in heavy contrast with the fire lit night.
Roxas pulled his cap further down over his face, a precaution against being recognized, and leaned against a dirty stone wall. He watched and watched and watched the man with his fire, a sharp grin on his face while he moved in the night. When the fire was extinguished, and the dancing girls went home, Roxas followed. He followed like he always had, right back to the beautiful redhead's home. The blond waited outside the building, body shivering 'from the cool air', he tried to tell himself; he agonized over whether to go into the building or not.
Finally, Roxas ducked into the low doorway, into the crumbling building that smelled like mildew and rust. He picked his way through the detritus, stubbing his toe and biting back a curse, and cautiously pulled back a rotting curtain. He peeked into the dark room, searching for the fire breather, and deemed it empty, before he was roughly pushed against a wall. He felt the cold of the flat of a blade against his neck, his attacker's breath hot in his hair.
"Well, little soldier, it seems you've finally decided to make your move." Roxas completely froze, breath stuttering in his nose.
"Why have you been following me?" The man demanded, pressing his body further against Roxas' in attempt to tighten his hold, but he only succeeded in creating a warmth low in the blond's belly.
"I-" Roxas stopped himself, cutting off a moan.
"Oh, that's cute. C'mon, sweetheart, I know you can force it out," the man all but purred in his ear, mocking him in a low timbre that sent shivers down his skin, making him break out in goose bumps.
"I just-I wanted-Just tell me your name," Roxas forced the words out through teeth gritted hard enough to offset the arousal in his voice. He could feel the redhead's body freeze, stopped dead by the statement.
"My name. You've been following me for a month, and you want my name." Roxas could taste the skepticism dripping from his voice, but he wanted to taste it directly from his mouth. Before he could stop himself, he pressed himself backward, further into the hard, thin body behind him.
"Yes." The word was barely heard, a tiny sigh falling from Roxas' lips and nearly blending into the background noise. Suddenly, his back was being slammed into the wall and he was having the breath thoroughly sucked out of him.
The redhead's lips were chapped, and he tasted like cheap spirits and lamp oil and fire. Roxas' back arched into his lean chest and the redhead whimpered, fingers scrabbling over the blond's back while they tried to crawl into each other's skin.
Roxas broke the kiss, his lips pulsating from the force of it, and the redhead's mouth descended upon his neck. Roxas wrapped his fingers in the hair at the base of the redhead's neck, for once void of scarves of any colour, and shuddered against the taller man.
"You-your name," Roxas moaned, barely able to choke out the words due to the tongue in the hollow behind his ear and the lips enclosing around his earlobe. A low chuckle came from deep in the redhead's throat, a long nose brushing the shell of his ear as a precursor to the light kiss placed there.
"Axel," he murmured, warm breath ghosting along the side of his face before he was hunching down and biting into Roxas' collarbone, causing him to cry out and let Axel's thigh between his own legs, pressed warm against the aching fork in his legs.
"'M Roxas," the blond mumbled, looking down to watch long, thin fingers fumble to untie his trousers.
"Hi, Roxas." The whisper was breathless, a husky, small sound floating on the air until Roxas' ears were filled with the sound of blood pumping in his ears because those lips had descended on his mouth and those hands were slipping into trousers that had finally been opened.
Axel dropped to his knees, fingers frantically pulling at Roxas' pants, yanking them to his knees and taking the other into his mouth. Roxas hands relaxed, smoothing through red strands as he fought against thrusting his hips up and into that mouth.
"Hi, Axel."
Pause.
Roxas woke to a mouth full of red hair and a naked torso pressed against his own. He blinked, eyes itchy and straining to see past the weak ray of sunlight doing it's best to blind him. Axel was on his side, curling into the blond with his head pillowed on Roxas' collarbone. Roxas was laying on one of Axel's arms - which wasn't helping the slight burn that spiked whenever he shifted - and the redhead's other arm wound tightly around his waist.
The second though that ran through his mind once his mind cleared, right after 'Axel's so beautiful when he's asleep in the sunlight on top of me,' was a series of self-directed expletives. He hadn't meant to bed the gorgeous man, only wanted to speak to him, to understand just why he couldn't get the man out of his mind. Now, he had ruined any chance to find out, and would be spending the rest of his life tugging and pulling and squeezing his eyes shut to think of Axel's lovely, lean body.
He bit his lip, holding back the self hatred, the bitter tears, while he tried to untangle himself from the warm body beside him. He didn't want to wake the redhead, to face the rejection first-hand. So, barely repressing whimpers of lost contact and berating himself for it, he pulled himself from the bed, shoved his sore limbs into his plain clothes and scurried out the door.
Axel woke just as Roxas' side of the bed had cooled down and punched the wall so hard his knuckles split, if only to tell himself that his eyes were tearing up from the pain.
Play.
Roxas' head cracked against the wall as Axel shoved him, moving to press his body chest to chest with the blond's. Lips caught, trying to swallow each other's breath, thin fingers shaking and fumbling with the catches on Roxas' soldier uniform. Roxas' thigh slid between Axel's legs, rubbed into his groin, making Axel moan and bite Roxas' jaw and it had been months since the last time-
Fast forward.
Stop.
Roxas could feel it creeping in, that constant fear of rejection. He removed himself, as always, from Axel's side, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in shaking hands. He finally stood, naked, searching for clothes that had been thrown about the room in a fit of passion the night before. A low sigh from the general direction of the bed caught his attention.
"You would've thought that after a couple of years of this you would've figure out that I want you to stay," Axel murmured quietly, green eyes sleepy and half lidded and staring at him. Roxas stared back, and Axel lay there, arms spread, chest bare, looking like the most beautiful thing Roxas had ever seen in the pale morning light.
Needless to say, Roxas went back to the bed.