Author's Note: Hello again, everyone! So, I finally got off my lazy butt and decided to post another chapter. I'm glad so many people are enjoying this so far, because let me tell you, it's really fun to write. Things shall start getting very interesting from this point on, I hope, so stay tuned for our friends to take a ride on the drama llama!
Chapter Six: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
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"Gooooood morning, little brother!"
"Shit! Sora, give me a fucking heart attack, why don't you?"
Roxas did not like being woken up early, especially when it was by being leapt upon by his overly enthusiastic, morning-loving brother. The fact that he had issues sleeping places other than his own bed didn't help the matter further. And, to add an extra helping of insult to injury, Riku and Axel were both standing in the doorway snickering under their breath.
"Shut up!" Roxas whined. "I don't wanna get up."
"Sorry, blondie, but you've got no say in the matter. The Boss-man wants all of us at the studio by eight o' clock sharp so we can get introduced to everyone who's going to be working with us. Apparently everyone really wants to see how much you and Ventus look alike," Axel replied with a smirk devoid of any sympathy. "Come on. Get dressed, and I'll make you waffles."
The redhead disappeared, leaving a stunned Roxas to fumble with the doorknob of his closet after standing and shaking his head. "Sora, what have you been telling them about me? No way in hell did he just guess the only way you can bribe me out of bed in the morning?"
The brunette shrugged and glanced at Riku. "I've told Riku, but I doubt he's discussed you with Axel. You haven't, have you?"
Riku shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. "Nope. I think he's just really, really good at guessing. Either that, or he overheard our conversation, somehow."
"He's probably got the whole place bugged and covered in tiny cameras so he can keep track of our every move!"
A loud crash from the closet caused Riku and Sora to jump and then rush over to see what happened. Desperately trying to bite back his laughter when he saw the scene before him, Sora giggled, "Um, Roxas? Is it normal to be wearing pants on your head and a jacket on your feet?"
The younger boy was blushing madly as he scrambled to right himself. "You scared me with all that talk of Axel spying on us, okay? The last thing I want is for him to see me naked."
"That's not what you said last night!" a voice called from outside in the hallway.
Sora and Riku burst out laughing as a mortified Roxas stared in the direction of the doorway.
~::~
Thirty minutes and a few heaping plates of waffles later saw the four boys being herded into the car by Lexaeus, who had to assuage Axel's ire at being called a housewife by Riku. Sora and Roxas both rolled their eyes, trying their best not to get involved lest their day take a turn for the worst.
The ride to the studio took a little less than half an hour through scenic neighborhoods full of expensive houses and near-perfectly groomed gardens that made Roxas almost a little uncomfortable. He tried not to stare out the window too much, but neither did he particularly want to look inside the car, because he was about ninety-eight percent sure that Axel was staring at him.
"Roxas, why are you scowling at the seat?" Sora asked when he glanced over and saw the look of distaste on his brother's face. "What did the upholstery ever do to you?"
"It's not interesting enough to keep me occupied," the blonde replied with a faint smirk.
"Someone's got an attitude," Roxas looked up at Axel to find him grinning widely. "Come one, we're nearly there. You'd better put on a good show for the rest of the cast and crew, or they'll all hate you."
"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence," Roxas muttered as the car rolled to a stop outside a large, rather plain building surrounded by neatly trimmed hedges and fronted by a sign that read "Kingdom Pictures, Inc."
"I'm so excited to see everyone again!" Sora said as he all but pranced out of the car, pulling Riku with him. "Did Zexion keep his hair the way it was last year? Are Larxene and Marluxia finally going to get hitched? Is Vexen still a total snob?"
Roxas stared at his brother in utter confusion as he followed them out of their vehicle. Despite his qualms with talking to Axel, he turned to the redhead and asked, "Who are all those people he mentioned?"
"Some of the cast and crew," he replied, nodding towards the building. "Now, come on. The Boss-man - our nickname for Saix, but don't call him that if you value your job and life - hates nothing more than unpunctuality."
The blonde boy followed the rest of the group quietly, stifling a gasp of surprise when he saw the inside of the building. Instead of some sort of office building, like he'd been expecting, the interior of the structure was one sprawling area packed full of film-related items, aside from a few smaller areas off to the sides the were separate from the main room. People were bustling about everywhere, organizing things, shouting instructions, and generally causing a huge amount of noise. All activity ceased the moment they saw Roxas.
Ventus suddenly came running up out of nowhere and tackled his doppelganger. "Hiya!"
With this demonstration that Roxas was, in fact, not actually Ventus, the rest of the people came crowding in around the two boys.
"Holy gods, they look like identical twins!" one man with a mullet-like hairstyle gasped.
"They're adorable!" two more chorused, one a man with rose-pink hair, the other a blonde woman with two antennae-like pieces of hair arcing over her head.
"Well, would you look at that," said yet another man, this time wearing an eye patch and sporting a large scar down one side of his face. "The little dude looks like he's a clone."
"Whoa, whoa, guys! Back off!" Riku elbowed his way through the throng to the two blonde boys. "You're gonna scare him off. Everyone, this is Roxas, Sora's younger brother. In case you haven't figured it out already, he's Ven's stunt double."
The mulleted man began yelling in the direction of one of the closed-off areas nearby. "Zexion! Get out here, you've got to see this!"
"What?" an irate voice replied, accompanied by a head covered in steel-blue hair poking out of the doorway. "I'm trying to work here, Demyx."
"Ventus has a twin!" Demyx replied, pointing to Roxas.
Zexion's eyebrows shot up and he hurried over to get a closer look. "Good Lord, you're right. So you're the famous Roxas, then. Sora's told us all about you."
"I feel like a zoo exhibit," Roxas muttered to his brother under his breath. He then raised his tone and spoke to the crowd of stunned onlookers. "Um… Hi."
"Hi to you, too," a blonde woman replied with a dazzling smile. "So, what do you think of California so far? Axel and Riku haven't been giving you any trouble, have they?"
Roxas and Sora exchanged a glance and a smirk before he replied, "Not really. I like what little I've seen, I guess. It's just… different."
"Sounds like we need to give him the grand tour, sis," a redheaded girl suggested as she slung her arm over the blonde girl's shoulders.
"Well, before you abduct me, can you tell me your names?" Roxas asked sheepishly.
"She's Namine," the redhead said. Her sister then finished, "And that's Kairi." The two then chorused together, "We're twins, just so you know."
"Axel, get your ass over-… Well, hello. You never told me Venny had a twin," Everyone turned to see a redheaded man standing nearby, a man who looked suspiciously like Axel.
"Ah, seems I neglected to mention both of you to each other, Roxie. This is Reno, my stunt double," Axel explained to the stunned blonde boy. "And before you ask, we happen to not be twins."
Reno walked over and extended a hand to the astonished Roxas. "Nice to meet you, kid. Glad to know Axel hasn't been blackening my name in your presence yet."
"Yet?" gulped Roxas as he cautiously took the hand Reno offered.
The redhead laughed and gave his hand a firm shake before letting go and walking over to Axel. "Well, seems like today is twins day. Where's Kadaj? Get him and Riku together, and we can all say we've officially been mindfucked."
"Launguage, Reno," Riku hissed, looking very worried for some reason. "And don't mention him. You know he always manages to find whoever mentioned him."
"Did someone call me?" a new voice called.
"Shit!" Riku took off just in the nick of time. Another silver-haired man materialized out of seemingly nowhere and attempted to tackle him.
"Riku, darling, where are you going? You won't even give a friendly hello to your partner in movie-making? Oh, how rude of you!" the other silverette chided as he ran after Riku, leaving everyone else staring after them.
"Well, that was strange," Roxas murmured, breaking the silence that followed.
"Oh, things like that are completely normal around here. Wait until you see all of us on the job," Axel replied with a knowing smirk. "Just you wait."
"Roxas, I'm glad to see you made it here in one piece. There's no telling what might happen when you're stuck in a confined space with Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Bianchi," The whole group of cast and crew member scattered as they realized Saix was standing in the midst of them, his face devoid of any emotion whatsoever.
"Who?"
"Me and Silver over there, blondie," Axel replied before Saix could explain. "My last name's Sinclair, and his is Bianchi. Got it memorized?"
"Yeah, I got it," Roxas rolled his eyes. "So, um, Mr.…?"
"Clairey," Saix informed him.
"Right, okay. So, Mr. Clairey, what do I need to do first? I'm kind of new to this whole thing…" Roxas scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"I suggest introducing yourself to the others who will be working with you. Once you've met everyone, someone can show you to my office so I can talk with you." Without another word, the imposing blue-haired man disappeared behind a stack of crates, leaving Axel, Riku, Sora, and Roxas standing there, mildly surprised.
"Is he gone?" a timid voice called.
"You can come out, guys, he's not gonna murder you today," Axel sighed. The cast and crew crept out of their hiding places slowly, as if fearing Saix might come back at any moment to scold them, or worse.
"That man has to be the scariest person I've ever met," the speaker said, sticking his head up from his hiding place behind a rack of clothes to reveal that it was Demyx. "Seriously."
"Demyx, you're scared of everyone," Axel joked. "You run from your own shadow!"
"You go watch that Doctor Who episode with the Vashta Nerada and see how you feel about shadows afterwards!" the mulleted man exclaimed. "It was so creepy, man!"
"Dem, did you know if you say 'giraffe' really slowly, it sounds like gullbile?" the man with the eye patch said, exchanging a glance and a smirk with Axel.
"Giiirrraaaafffe," Demyx's eyebrows furrowed. "Wait a second, no it doesn't."
"Stop making fun of him, Xigbar," The scarred man turned and stared down his nose at Zexion, who was standing there with one hand on his hip and a huge book in the other. "I mean it."
"Oh, and what're you gonna do about it, little dude?" Xigbar replied haughtily, smirking down at him. "You couldn't hurt a fly if you tried to hit it with a sledgehammer… That is, if you could lift the sledgehammer."
Zexion suddenly lunged forwards and smacked Xigbar across the face with his book, causing a resounding thwack. Xigbar teetered on his feet for a moment before crumpling to the ground. Demyx rushed forwards and hugged the smaller man tightly, lifting him off the ground.
"My hero!" he crooned, ignoring the protests from the steely-haired man.
"Demyx, put me down! I've got work to do!" Zexion cried, trying to wiggle out of the other man's arms. "Can you please do this when I'm not on the clock?"
"Oh. Sorry, Zexy," Demyx calmed down instantly, setting Zexion on the floor gently. "You can go work now, but I get hugs later."
Roxas's face was the epitome of confusion at this point.
"Bro, you look so confused your confusion looks confused," Sora said with a giggle. "I didn't know that was possible!"
Axel chuckled and gestured to the rest of the people who were coming out of hiding. "All right, time for introductions. Roxas, as you probably could tell, those two were Demyx and Zexion. They happen to be a couple. The guy Zexion knocked out is Xigbar, who's a first-class douchebag, but he has his okay moments. Those twin girls from earlier were Kairi and Namine. The guy who ran Riku off was his stunt double, Kadaj, who's borderline psychotic. Now, let's see… Geez, there are a lot of people working here."
The man with pink hair and the woman with the two antennae-like pieces of hair approached them. "I'm Marluxia," said the man, and then gestured to the woman, "and this is Larxene. We're married, and we're the make-up and costume artists, respectively."
"It's nice to meet you," Roxas said, shaking both of their hands. "You two seem to be the most normal people here so far."
The two exchanged a glance and then burst out laughing before walking away and leaving Roxas even more confused than before.
"Do… I want to know?" the blonde blinked, staring after them.
"Um… No. Not yet, at least," Axel said cryptically. He then seemed to spot something and called, "Hey, Luxord! Go and bring your bunch out, the new kid's here."
A tall man with a goatee and multiple piercings waved and disappeared into a doorway, reappearing a few moments later with several people following behind him. They walked over to where Roxas, Axel, Ventus, and Sora were standing and gazed at the two blondes.
"Bloody hell, which one's which?" Luxord said with a distinct British accent. "Don't tell me Vexen found a way to clone people."
"I did not," said another blonde man behind him. Roxas assumed this was Vexen. "I assure you, this was not my doing. It is rather intriguing, however…"
"Get the stick out of your ass, old man!" a new voice taunted from somewhere above their heads. Roxas looked up to see a tiny, lithe girl with short black hair hanging from the side of a walkway pulling faces at Vexen.
"Yuffie? Where did you go? If you're up to your tricks again, I'll get Mr. Clairey to fire you!" Another girl who looked almost identical to the girl above them, give or take a couple of inches of height, came running up.
The girl on the walkway sighed. "Oh, fine, be down in a second." Without warning, she let go of the iron bar she was holding onto and plummeted through the air. Roxas tried to run to catch her, but Axel grabbed him, making him watch as the girl did a series of graceful flips and landed square on her feet, just like a cat might. "Sorry, Xion. I just got really bored…"
"Those are Xion, the shorter one, and Yuffie, the self-proclaimed 'great ninja.' They're Ven's costar and her stunt double, respectively," Axel explained to Roxas, letting him go as he did so. "Yuffie has a thing for shiny, valuable objects. Don't carry them with you when she's around, or she'll steal hem and pawn them off somewhere."
"Axel, I thought you said the new kid was here," One of the group that had followed Luxord, a man with shaggy brown hair and a scar across his face, stepped forwards and began inspecting Roxas. "We've all seen Ventus before. What are you trying to pull?"
"Um, I'm not Ventus," Roxas said. "He's standing behind Axel." Upon hearing his name mentioned, the other blonde stepped into the man's line of vision.
"Well, I'll be damned. You sure you don't have a long-lost twin, Ven? Cause if you do, this guy's him."
"No, Leon, I'm positive," Ventus rolled his eyes. "He's not a clone, I don't have any siblings, and before you ask, no, he is not some creepy stalker who got plastic surgery to look like me. Mr. Clairey would know better than to hire someone like that. You know he does full background checks on everyone he hires. Their family, too."
Roxas's eyes widened. "He does?"
"Yeah," Ventus said matter-of-factly. "It's kind of required. Didn't you know that?"
"Well, I knew he'd check me, but my family, too? That's a little extreme."
"Not when the people you're asking to work with are worth millions of dollars apiece," Axel slung an arm around his shoulders. "So no abusing us, blondie. We're fragile."
"Well then, what do you suggest I do to stay out of trouble, oh great and wise Axel?" Roxas rolled his eyes and tried to escape, but Axel held him there.
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do, my friend. I can't give you any better advice then that."
"Oh, but I can give you better advice," Riku suddenly materialized next to Sora, who squeaked in surprise. "Don't listen to a word Axel says. It'll only ever get you in trouble."
"Can we please not start a fight now?" Roxas pleaded, sighing. "I really don't want to get off to a bad start on my first day. Can you wait until we get home and then start beating the shit out of each other?"
Riku and Axel exchanged a glance and nodded, saying in unison, "Fair enough."
"Roxas," The blonde boy flinched when he recognized the voice as Saix's. "Come with me to my office, please. I'd like to speak with you before you get too absorbed into learning the way things work around here."
Roxas glanced nervously at the others, who all motioned for him to go, and be quick about it. Gulping, the blonde boy turned around and walked towards Saix's office, almost imagining the cloud of imminent danger looming over his head.
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Author's Note: Poor Roxas... Is Saix going to kill him already? You'll just have to wait and see! Reviews make me a happy pufferfish. :D