Well, look at this. I'm back with another AkuRoku. This'll probably be a threeshot, a little While You Were Sleeping, a little Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul inspired. Don't ask me how I dunnit. Just kick back with a chocolate milkshake and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I have not been off fighting for my right to own Kingdom Hearts and its plot/characters. I have been changing diapers. Poo diapers.

I was dreaming when I wrote this/ So sue me if I go too fast

Notes: If every chapter is longer than the last... (you choose how to end this question. I may answer.)

Probably not going to be 3 chapters, in case you were thinking of being a smartass at the end of this chapter when it doesn't conclude. I want to say no more than 5. The good thing is that right now I'm really excited about writing this story. If I had a whole ton of other ideas bugging me all day they would start to pile up.

Also, watch my LJ for extra stuff. Sometimes even whole scenes in advance.

I have never been on a skateboard. Ok. I tried an Ollie once, but I fell on my butt almost immediately.

For this chapter: sections in italics are flashbacks, but Roxas doesn't remember them yet.

"I think I have a tie fetish."

Demyx snorted and nearly chocked on his drink laughing. Figures. I know the guy for all of two hours and he probably wasn't expecting that to be the answer to "Why are you staring at my manager?"

"That's weird. But adorable. Axel, why didn't you tell me he was so adorable?"

I busied myself with my salad. Oh, this was going to be good.

"Didn't I?" Axel answered smoothly. "Or was I too busy ranting about how he weaseled five hundred munny out of me?" I chanced a look up. He was smirking. Boldly, I mirrored it. Apparently Demyx had to endure a whole week of Axel talking about me, and then Demyx was so saturated with skateboard talk that he accepted an invitation to the Regional Vert Championship out of general curiosity. What neither of them knew was that I would actually be competing – my first gig for Organization XIII – and ultimately winning. On the board Axel bought me.

"Oh, this is great," Demyx said, after introducing himself. "You've got to join us and Yuna for dinner." I had no idea how to turn that down. Thankfully, Axel wasn't making a huge deal out of being practically conned into buying me a new board when I could have got one free. He nearly ran me over. I figured he owed me.

"You're pretty young to be pro, aren't you?" is what he asked instead.

"I'll be 20 this year!" I retorted, secretly glad when he leaned back with a smug grin on his face. Apparently my little irritated outbursts amused him.

Demyx looked from one to the other of us and smiled his own smile.

"Hey, Roxas, you should come to my concert next week," he said. "I'll have Axel come pick you up, and afterward, you can come to Space Paranoids with us." Again, I had no idea how to turn that down.

"Hey," Demyx whispered later, tugging on my arm as I climbed out of his limo, "I think Axel's got a feisty blonde fetish." He punctuated it with a wink and I nearly tripped over the sidewalk. I felt like flipping him off, but we'd just met. And anyway, I was getting into his concert and the best arcade bar in town on his invite.

I flipped him off anyway.

Demyx laughed.

I was pretty sure he was going to be my best friend.

"Axel left?"

"Yeah."

"He made you waffles, Roxas." Sora smiled that I-know-something-you-don't-know smile and cradled a cup of coffee as he took a seat across from Roxas, where Axel had been some minutes before.

"Apparently he does every Monday morning."

"Lucky you."

Roxas pushed his now empty plate forward and reached for his coffee. "Sora... why did you and Riku stop going to the island?" he asked carefully. He could tell immediately that Riku hadn't exaggerated the seriousness of that particular event in their lives. That turning point for him and Sora. There was something almost frightening in the way Sora's hands tightened around the hot cup of coffee and he said all too calmly, "That was about six years ago." He didn't say it as though he was being nostalgic, and he didn't seem to be trying to steer the conversation away from the question. The exchange just died.

Roxas let it.

"You shouldn't be skating for another two weeks. We want to make sure that any internal damage to your skull isn't permanent."

Roxas frowned slightly, but his failure of balance tests were more than enough reason to listen. If he so much as managed an Ollie he'd fall on his face and maybe throw up. Riding a half pipe? Out of the question. He'd break an arm and a leg.

"Now, tell me how you've been adjusting."

"Fine, I guess. I mean... for the past few days I've been waking up feeling weird because my bed isn't in the same position I remember it, and looking around my apartment feels weird. But I've been talking to Demyx and Yuna, and I'm accepting everything. I just can't recall vivid memories of the past five months, just vague things. Like yesterday I remembered where I'd put this jacket. I must have worn it before the accident. I remember it was a gift from Demyx. I didn't know I had it, but today when I came over here, I knew I wanted to wear a jacket and the image sort of slid across my mind and I knew this specific one was in the back of the hall closet. There are other things, smaller, though. Like smelling flowers from the corner deli and remembering standing there right after I moved into the neighborhood and was dialing Sora's number to make sure he'd mailed over my computer." Roxas shrugged.

"It's a start... Have you given any thought to what you want to do once I deem you healthy enough to return to return to work?"

Roxas tugged at the zipper of the jacket. "I'm going to stay here. It seems like a waste to start my own life and then force myself to retrace my steps because I can only remember half of how I managed to do it. Besides, skating pro was always my dream. Now I have it. It's going to be a slow process, remembering how I did things, even when I was just starting to get the hang of it, but I'll manage."

Dr. Luna dropped his pen into his breast pocket and set the clipboard with Roxas's file attached on the counter.

"I've arranged for you to talk to a therapist about any stress, depression, etc., you may be dealing with in light of your memory loss. Her name is Areith, and you're only required to meet with her once, for an hour session. However, you're welcome to keep seeing her beyond that if you feel like it, and especially if she consults with me and deems it necessary."

Roxas seemed to want to protest, but held back. Instead, he asked, "When?"

"Tomorrow afternoon. I'll have Naminé give you your regular physical right now and then you are free to go."

As soon as he left the room Roxas fell back onto the cushioned bench with an aggravated sigh. He was annoyed that being under contract with Organization XIII's health insurance policies meant that Saïx could pretty much dictate what was best for him. The therapist sounded like a bit much, but as he stared at the ceiling he grudgingly admitted to himself that it would probably help him with the biggest problem he was facing: being unable to remember Axel.

The smell on his blanket hadn't gone away, even though Axel himself had been kind enough to take it to a cleaner's to have it "purged", as he'd put it. Roxas was beginning to think his nose was used to the smell and was making his brain think it was still there even if it wasn't. Other than that, there were no other traces of Axel in the apartment aside from the pantry stocked with food he claimed to cook on a weekly basis. But there were points of the day – even if he was with Sora and Riku or even being visited by Demyx, Pence, or Yuna – when he felt as though he should be with Axel, just the two of them. He felt it, but try as he might he couldn't bring forth from memory specific details.

"Did I ever tell him that I loved him?" he mused to himself, a split second before Naminé entered, rifling through his file as though it were a well-memorized text. He learned the day before that he'd dislocated a shoulder and had a few scrapes in practice, but nothing fatal.

"I'm just going to check your blood pressure, your iron level, and some other minor things, Roxas." She smiled sweetly at him, and it occurred to him suddenly that she seemed to know him, outside of being his nurse.

"I'm sort of Demyx's cousin," she admitted when he prodded. "You and I met for the second time – the first was here at the hospital when you got your first physical – at the first concert he invited you to."

I wasn't used to being picked up by a limo and chauffeured to huge concerts. And this was a Demyx Nine concert. His first concert. Axel was talking on the phone when the limo pulled up, and he immediately told whoever it was on the other line to "Just let me get back to on that, Larxene. Goddamn – " before ending the call. He was wearing a tie again, and I hated that I found myself staring at it as soon as I was comfortable enough in my seat.

"Demyx wouldn't shut up about you coming tonight," Axel commented mildly.

"I hope you told him to not let it spill that you nearly ran me over," I answered.

Axel grinned. "Believe me, I did. I think he's holding it over as blackmail material."

I thought Demyx seemed too nice for that tactic, but I'd already proven that you could get anything out of Axel.

"He's been trying to get me to introduce him to Zexion Shade for two months now," Axel continued.

"Oh?" I prompted.

"Piano player. He does some into work for a few other talents I manage: Auron's Sin, Paine, and last year he toured with Ragnarock."

"Does Demyx like him?"

Axel smirked. "Is that good news or bad news for you?" he asked.

I felt my face burn. "I'm not interested in him."

He gave no indication that he was sorry for having embarrassed me, but continued on as though he hadn't refuted my question with his own. "I'm pretty sure that he does like Zexion. What's more, I know for a fact that Zexion adores Demyx." He laughed at the startled expression on my face.

"That's why I'm going to give Zexion a chance tonight." He leaned over and put a hand on my shoulder. It felt numb all at once and I had to focus my eyes away from his tie to hear his next question: "You up for a game of cupid?"

***

My front row seat at the concert was between Yuna, Demyx's supermodel friend, and Naminé, his distantly related cousin and my nurse under Dr. Luna.

"Small world, isn't it?" she said when Axel introduced us. "I'm his nurse," she explained at his curious expression. When he disappeared backstage for the remainder of the show, she asked me how I got invited.

"Demyx came to my competition last week," I replied with a shrug.

"Oh!" she said, giggling. "I should have known it was you he was talking about. He said that you were blond, slightly temperamental, and very athletic."

"Temperamental?"

She smiled. "Don't argue. When I conducted your physical last month you wouldn't let me in the same room as you if I had a needle in my hand, and you argued over your medical contract until Dr. Luna practically wanted to kill you."

I frowned.

"Demyx also told me something else about you…" she began.

I felt a flash of numbness at her tone. "What?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, though I had the speaking suspicion that I knew what.

"He said that Axel's developed an interest of sorts in you."

***

When Demyx sang "being near you starts earthquakes down my spine", I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. There was no denying that I was strangely attracted to Axel all at once. It wasn't' new - being attracted to another guy. But this time I had almost no control over my reactions to anything to do with him. I was sure Naminé had it figured out, and Demyx probably had my name on the blackmail list, having witnessed how I spent half the time staring at his tie.

Backstage I assured him that he'd done great, shook hands with everyone he pushed me at, and eventually ended up being herded back to the limo.

"Please tell me no one knows we're going to Space Paranoids," Demyx moaned as soon as he had exhausted himself waving at fans and was almost jumped on by three different females. He was still smiling, but I could tell that it was draining him.

"I already talked to the owner of the place. No one on the reservation list is getting in, and I made sure ours was kept secret," Axel said. "Yuna and Paine are meeting us there, though."

Knowing that Yuna was going to be there seemed to placate Demyx for the rest of the ride. I learned from Naminé that she and Demyx had been friends since high school and had supported each other's modeling and music careers to the extent that they credited each other at every opportunity.

As soon as we pulled up Demyx put on his crowd pleasing expression and stepped out, throwing me a wink over his shoulder. Sure, no reporters were allowed in, and no one knew that Axel had secured a place for after the concert, but a few desperate photographers had followed and ran up the entranceway on the other side of the boundary rope and snapped a dozen shots a second.

"Roxas is underage," Demyx said once we sat down at one of the enclosed bars. "No strong stuff for you."

"I wouldn't take it if age permitted," I argued. "I sort of need my muscles and reflexes, thanks. Pro skateboarder?"

Demyx laughed. "Oh, right."

"There's some decent non alcoholic stuff," Axel added in.

We'd just gotten our drinks – something weak for Demyx because Axel announced that he didn't need ot be walking around the arcade shitfaced or seen exiting, for that matter – when Axel put his hand on my shoulder again, leaning slightly toward me.

"There's Zexion," he said quietly, eyes flickering to the right. I flashed my gaze subtley and noted a guy about Demyx's height but with none of his brightness in his expression. He seemed bemused by everything going on around him and barely raised his chin as he approached, most of his face hidden under slated fringe.

"Zexion," Axel said a little louder, ignoring the shock that seemed to bloom from Demyx's face at the name. "I thought I might see you here."

I wanted to laugh. It seemed so transparent. Zexion looked like he'd be more comfortable sitting in a very quiet bistro on the edge of the city, not in the middle of it, thrown into one stark contrast after another from all the lights from the bar and the arcade.

Regardless, Demyx bought it. Or he was too busy just staring. I quickly averted my gaze to my lap, hoping to Yevon that my instant attraction to Axel wasn't as obvious.

"Roxas, I'm going to have another drink. Why don't you go on with Dem and Zex to the arcade?" Axel suggested. I gave him a slightly irritated look but followed behind the two of them, amused at their general awkwardness. I guess the plan was to make sure that Zexion took the chance being offered here and that Demyx didn't scare the poor guy off. The arcade was full of people – we spotted Yuna at Melody Master, challenging a girl with her sunny blonde hair up in a nest of braids – but it was something towrd the emptier section that gave me an idea. A keyboard had been set up by the karaoke machine, and for the moment, it wasn't being utilized.

"Hey," I ventured, "I think you guys would make beautiful music together."

I wasn't wrong in guessing that Demyx would sing again, but only if it was for Zexion. Once two girls ahead of us and a drunken guy's rendition of "Highwind", Demyx took the microphone, disconnected it from the karaoke prompter, and asked Zexion if he'd be willing to accompany him with the keyboard.

***

"Mission accomplished," Axel grinned.

"You didn't do anything!" I protested. "Actually, I hardly did. I think... it's hard to keep two people who care about each other from being together."

"That's deep."

I gave him a shove.

"I think Zexion will be taking him home. I've got to prepare for the post concert press and interviews. Do you want to hang around, or should I take you back home, too?"

I didn't have to be anywhere early the next day, and I hadn't been around the whole arcade, but I asked to go home without thinking about those details.

We were almost to the modest penthouse I'd just moved into when Axel lightly touched my arm. "Do you like Italian food?" he asked as we rounded a corner onto Sunset Plaza.

"Yeah, I do."

"I should cook for you," he continued without preamble.

"Pasta?" I joked, knowing that he was possibly a little drunk.

"Sure. Next weekend?"

I reached out and tugged on his tie. "Yeah."

"So, Roxas, tell me how you've been adjusting."

Areith looked more like a kindergarten teacher than a therapist, but Roxas thought that that was a good thing. It made him feel slightly less intimidated.

"Well, my brother's staying with me, so it helps. But there are still points in the day where I have to let my mind catch up with everything. I only lost five months, and everyone seems to think that just telling me how those months were will fix it. Like as soon as I know I can just pick up where I left off."

The rest of the session went fairly well, with Roxas talking about how it seemed that from what everyone was telling him, he'd hardly changed. He admitted how strange it was to know that he'd actually made the decision to accept a career and stay in Twilight Town when he'd never lived apart from Sora before.

When the hour was up, Areith closed her little notebook and handed him a note to give to Dr. Luna confirming that he'd completed his requirement.

"You're under no obligation to come back and see me, Roxas," she said. "I don't think you'll have too much trouble adjusting. Just remember to talk to your friends and your family if you feel like you're being pressured to remember. Be willing to admit your fear of not being able to be the Roxas from before the accident and be willing to accept anything new that might come out of discovering exactly who that is."

More than anything, Roxas wished he could get on a board and skate around a park until dinner time. He hadn't seen Axel for most of the week, but he'd been by earlier that afternoon to cook pasta for them to eat when Roxas got back from his session.

Sora and Riku, not surprisingly, had already eaten when he got back. Axel was waiting for him at the table, a plate of penne and tomato sauce set out. It was good, and halfway through, Roxas could close his eyes and remember at least one other time when Axel made it. There was nothing specific about the memory other than the taste of tomato and remembering that the window had been open.

"Did you ever tell me you loved me?" he asked suddenly, addressing his plate more than Axel.

"About five times a day when I could get away with it," Axel confessed. "It annoyed you a little. Or at least, you pretended it did. Especially if I said it without warning. The best time to say it was usually just before you fell asleep."

Roxas started to imagine it, then felt warm and stopped.

"Did I ever say it back?" he asked after a long moment. Axel smiled as though he knew that would be the next question. "Once," he said without hesitation. "Right before I left to Demyx's Land of Dragons and Atlantica concerts. Almost three weeks ago."

Roxas nodded. "Tell me... how did I...?"

Axel smirked. "I'm sort of hoping you'll remember that on your own."

or within two weeks