Summary: For Roxas Ars, waking up in a hospital after being in a week long coma is the least of his problems. It's the five months before the accident that start the trouble. Because the real trouble is not being able to remember them. Not why he's suddenly living in another city, how he got the job of his dreams, and just who does this guy think he is, anyway? His boyfriend? Yeah, right...

Disclaimer: I have not been off fighting for my right to own Kingdom Hearts and its plot/characters. I have been teaching Japanese to 5th graders.

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

Notes: I know I've been late in updating this, but this next chapter was halting. I kept getting stuck on it and had to mull it over, then write longhand in my notebook before I could open up the file on my computer again. This chapter is roughly the same length as the last, too. Fair warning: the next chapter, if longer - and it's shaping out that way - will be the last.

Also, watch my LJ for extra stuff. Sometimes even whole scenes in advance. And possibly me attempting to sing the song Roxas wrote for Axel?

The flashbacks in this chapter are from Axel's POV.

"This is my favorite part," I said, leaning over. I'd only seen the movie once before, but the hospital scene always stuck out in my memory. Maybe it was the background music, or maybe it was the image of the white carnations falling over the sheets when Art pulled Jenny into his arms.

Roxas looked over at me quizzically. "Really?"

This was only the second time I'd been alone with him since I learned who he was. Demyx and I had been out to dinner and Space Paranoids at least three times already, and in that time I slowly felt myself drawn to him. His strong sense of independence, his lightly sarcastic humor, the way he stayed humble in spite of the mass media attention surrounding his golden career. There were parts of the day that felt empty and dragging, and I almost felt like those were times when I should have been with him. Being physically attracted to him was something different entirely. The first time I had him alone I was confused about why I felt like reaching out and touching him. I wanted to hold him. In the early evening twilight I wanted to kiss him. The urge was stronger than it had ever been for me.

"My favorite part is at the end," he confessed, turning back to the screen. I watched the pale light flicker over his face and took a risk, stretching my arm across the back of the couch. Surprisingly, he leaned against me naturally, without turning to question me.

The last scene was a sunset over a beach. Art and Jenny stood watching it, and without preamble, Art said – and I think Roxas was silently mouthing the words along with the movie – "Sunsets are my favorite part of the day." Jenny turned away from the sunset to ask why, and he replied, "Because it's the end of the day, and no matter how good or bad that day was, we get to see the sunrise in the morning and know that we have the gift of a whole new sunset to look forward to. And all that time between the sunrise and sunset are for us to live. Make mistakes, learn from them. Fall in love, and be loved in return. That's all I want. Only sunsets. Hope for things to change with the sunrise. One thing will never change, though, and that's how much I will love you when I witness my last sunset."

Roxas smiled softly, and I leaned toward him.

"Roxas."

He seemed to hesitate, but carefully met my eyes. I pulled him into a loose embrace with the arm he leaned his weight onto, brought my other hand up to his jaw and kissed him briefly, knowing that the two people on the screen were mirroring us. When I pulled away he looked slightly dazed, his fingers hooked in the knot of my tie.

"You could have done that two weeks ago," he nearly groaned, resting his head on my shoulder.

"Could you stay tonight?"

I pulled back a little too quickly at the question and was surprised at the instant disappointment in his eyes.

"Roxas?"

"You leave too soon," he tried to explain.

I nodded slowly. "If you want me to stay... I don't have anywhere to be until tomorrow afternoon."

He frowned a little. "I can... I can keep you here that long?" he asked.

I wanted to laugh. He sounded like a little kid sometimes. "You can keep me here that long," I assured him. He bit his lip.

"Do you want to stay?" he asked seriously.

I leaned over and turned off the TV with the remote. "Yeah," I answered him without preamble. "I want to stay."

"Until tomorrow afternoon?" There was that innocence again. I wondered what he intended to do with me until then.

"Until tomorrow afternoon," I replied, watching his expression soften.

He leaned forward and tugged at my loosened tie, throwing the silk over one shoulder.

"Roxas," I said carefully. "I won't make you do anything you're not ready for." He nodded, pulling me off of the couch with him.

"Just... hold me," he managed.

We checked that the doors were locked and then turned out all of the lights. I wrapped him up in my arms, the down comforter cushioning the weird angles of our bodies weaving against each other.

As I felt him slip away, I muttered into the pillow, the nape of his neck, "I love you, Roxas."

When I stirred awake the next morning, he was untangling himself from me, and I tightened my hold, feeling a surge of panic. We hadn't done anything, but he could have been feeling regret already.

"Roxas."

He turned toward me, hair disheveled, his face unreadable in the dim light. "I don't think I can..." he started, shaking. "I want you, Axel. But I want it to be right."

I loosened my hold on him, completely floored by his confession. I though I'd be the first to give in. I couldn't understand how much he wanted to be folded up in my lanky embrace. I nodded, unable to speak. "I can wait, Roxas."

He gave me a grateful smile, leaned into me and let me caress the arch of his spine for a long moment before he pulled away, flustered. "I need a cold shower," he muttered, throwing his shirt off and leaving me for the bathroom. I didn't feel ashamed at all knowing that he was thinking of me when he touched himself, and I made my way to the kitchen to cook breakfast.

Roxas couldn't sleep. He'd stuffed the down comforter away in the closet and pulled out a quilt that his mother had made him. It was cold and thin and smelled like cotton and grape juice. He slipped a hand under his pillow and found his cell phone, scrolled through the contacts. Demyx would be awake at this hour, but he was the type who did more talking than listening. Pence would definitely be awake, but possibly unreachable. Earlier that day he'd agreed to come over later in the week to hack into the computer long enough for Roxas to reset the password. Hayner wouldn't be awake, and he was irritable when awoken by phone call. Sora and Riku were peacefully slumbering in front of the TV, and Roxas thought it best to leave them alone. Actually, if he was lucky, any day now he'd stumble in on them having shifted positions in their sleep.

But he needed to talk to someone.

His last session with Aerith was all about Axel, and she'd lightly suggested recreating memories with him if he was willing. According to Sora, Axel had sworn against any deep intimacy, but it still made Roxas anxious in ways that he didn't understand. He was going to continue with this new life, but Axel was a big part of it. And as much as he hated to admit it to himself, Roxas was inexplicably drawn to Axel. He thought of him constantly, looked forward to seeing him, and most worrying of all, felt great waves of disappointment when Axel was close enough to touch and didn't act on it. Roxas would find himself holding his breath, and Axel would walk away. It was confusing. And he couldn't sleep well without the scent of Axel's cologne on his sheets.

Throwing the quilt aside, Roxas scrolled to Axel's name and dialed, hoping that he wasn't imposing.

It rang three times, and just when Roxas thought he was going to have to leave a message – he was momentarily intrigued as to what Axel's voice would sound like, asking for a name and number, and wondered if he had a standard greeting or something more creative – the line sparked to life.

"Roxas?"

"Hey... did I wake you up?" he did his best to sound apologetic.

"Not at all. I was nearly falling asleep over these contracts, though. Something bothering you?"

"I went to see Aerith again today," he began, surprised, as always, how he never felt like dancing around a subject with Axel.

"The therapist," Axel clarified for himself, sounding more awake now. "Did she say something that bothered you?"

"Not really... I... I talked to her about you."

"Roxas," Axel's voice was even. "You don't have to feel guilty about not remembering me."

"I want to remember." Roxas glanced upward, catching a glimpse of himself in the closet door mirror. He meant it, and he felt relieved, having said it aloud.

"Roxas..." Axel's voice broke. "That means a lot to me, kid."

Roxas pouted, but decided to let it slip. "Aerith said that the best way to help me speed things up is if we... recreated memories."

There was a wide smirk in his words when Axel spoke next. "Tomorrow's Sunday. You want me to come over and watch Only Sunsets with you?"

Roxas looked over to the closet, where a corner of the down comforter was sticking out. "That would be a good start."

***

Are you sure you don't want me to stick around?"

"I'm sure. If we're going to recreate this, you can't be around."

Sora grinned. "Maybe you just really want to be alone with him."

Roxas elbowed him. "Maybe I'm trying to get you and Riku to spend some time together without having to worry about me."

He'd made them reservations at a small but well known French restaurant, Lumiere's, and maintained that even if Axel coming over was a bad idea, he would have at least made some progress where his brother and best friend were concerned.

"Riku's going back to the islands on Wednesday, Roxas, and I can't stay much longer. Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"I've got Hayner here, and Naminé, and I really really want to keep this job, Sora. You know it's my dream." Roxas sighed. "I don't know what's going to happen with Axel, but I won't let it ruin anything for me." Seeing the less than assured expression Sora gave him, he rolled his eyes. "And I'll call you to bring me home if anything bad happens. I swear."

Satisfied, Sora went off in search of Riku.

That obstacle out of the way, Roxas set about uncluttering his room. Pence was due soon to help him reset his password without destroying any new files that he may have created in the past five months. The accepting was getting easier, and he'd be allowed back on a board soon, but if there was any proof in the finer details of his lost memory, Roxas was sure he could find them with his computer.

"You had me upgrade the harddrive when you moved in here," Pence said when he arrived. "I kind of did you a favor. It would have crashed."

"It's not the newest computer," Roxas agreed. "I should probably get a new one, once I extract any important files.

Pence made a scoffing noise as he hacked in a coded sequence. "You could do that, but seriously. You're going to be surprised at how fast this thing's running. Once I get past the encryption, anyway."

Rows of numbers filled the screen and he set to work copying them and recoding them.

"Just a minute longer..." he muttered. He made two quick keystrokes and the screen bled blinding white before restarting. "I put in a dummy password when I upgraded it," he explained. "Kind of like a backup. Just enter sea salt ice cream and that should work long enough for you to reset the password. The you'll need to shut it down for at least three hours for the new encryption to settle."

Roxas entered the dummy password and immediately went to the start menu. The other password was set within the account settings: 813XAR. The last two letters were strange. Could they be Roxas's initials? He decided to leave it at that.

Reluctantly shutting it down again before he had a chance to search for new files, Roxas steered Pence into the kitchen and offered him something to drink. The offer was declined, but sea salt ice cream suggested, and Roxas guessed that the dummy password hadn't been entirely because the treat was solely his favorite.

"I think you need me to tell you something, Roxas," Pence said thoughtfully as he finished his bowl. "I haven't known you for a long time, really, but you said something pretty important to me once. In fact," he grinned. "At the time you said to never mention it to you again, but I figure that there was an implied memory loss clause in there somewhere."

Roxas stirred the melted bits of ice cream with his spoon, dreading and hoping that it was about Axel. "Okay...?"

"The day I came over here to upgrade your harddrive, you were still feeling me out about Olette, but I told you pretty honestly that I was in love with her, and you sort of dropped it. But before I left you asked me how I knew."

Roxas let his spoon clatter in the bowl.

"How did you know?"

"I want to give you something."

The look on his face was priceless. I'd never seen him look so vulnerable. "Lay back," he instructed, voice trembling slightly. I raised an eyebrow in questioning, but fell back and relaxed. He shifted his weight, moving his knee between my legs and leaning forward.

"Roxas..." I half groaned.

"Shut up," he murmured softly, still blushing as his fingers worked the knot of my tie. When it came loose he let slip a very satisfied chuckle and dropped it to the ground, leaned forward, and placed a very soft kiss to my neck, then loosened the top button of my shirt and kissed the exposed skin there.

I wanted to simultaneously pull him closer and push him away, demand to know why he was suddenly being so intimate. Before I could do either he pulled back enough to tangle his fingers in my hair and kiss me soundly.

So this is what he'd meant by wanting to give me something. Roxas never initiated kisses. I was always the one to start, and if others followed they were completely mutual. But this. He'd surrendered his body to fully press against me, kissing me with the urgency he only had right before I left for work on Monday mornings. When my hands finally responded and wrapped around him, he pulled back the barest inch to breathe, diving in again with three words formed against my lips:

"I love you."

I relaxed, and when he pulled back again his face was flushed and he turned slightly away from my gaze. That was the first time he'd ever said that to me.

"Roxas. I love you. So much."

He nodded. "I know." He was smiling, and he locked his eyes onto mine. I could feel him shaking. "There's one other thing I want to give you."

I sat up a little, trailed my fingers over his forearms. What did I do to deserve this?

"I... wrote a song for you."

I favored him with a grin of piqued interest. Roxas had a beautiful voice, and honestly I'd been trying to catch him singing a snatch of something. It was the talent agent in me, I guess. "That's kind of romantic," I allowed. He blushed deeper but frowned at me.

"Just listen, okay?"

I nodded.

He took a deep breath and very slowly dragged out a first, quavering note laced with husk, humming from deep within his throat.

"Burn me alive

with your words and your touch...

I never thought

I could love someone...

so much

Holding me tight

in the middle of the night

whisper and tell me

everything's gonna be

alright...

You are my fire..."

Pence took a last spoonful and smiled his 'illegal is faster' smile before answering. "A lot of reasons. But mostly it was that when I wasn't with her I thought about her constantly. I thought about her right before I went to sleep and the thought of her was what got me to get up at the first ring of the alarm clock. On a much deeper level, I feel like... well, I can look at where I want to be in five or ten years and know that wherever that is, she's going to be there."

Roxas nodded. It wasn't Only Sunsets, but it was enough for Pence, and it was believable.

"And you know what you said to me?" Pence goaded.

"What did I say?" Roxas asked, cautious though he felt as though he knew already.

"You kind of looked like someone had slammed a door in your face, or opened one up for you. And you said, 'Pence, don't ever remind me I said this, but I think I'm in love'."

"You probably know all my favorite parts," Roxas challenged, setting the disc in the DVD player. It was surprisingly easy to look Axel in the face after Pence's admission. And he believed Pence. There was no way to explain how trusting the other boy was. Roxas was certain that that's why he'd been able to tell him about Axel in the first place.

"You know Art's sunset speech word for word," was Axel's reply. Roxas had insisted that he do his best to recreate their usual Sunday night, so he had come over right after work, tie loose, jacket cast off. He volunteered to cook pasta, but Roxas had already eaten. Axel's arm was stretched over the back of the couch and he sat as comfortably as if he were in his own living room. Roxas found the remotes and fell onto the cushions gratefully, leaning into Axel as much as he could without being uncomfortable.

"Roxas, you don't have to..."

"I want to, remember?"

Axel nodded, softly smirking before he turned to the screen.

It certainly felt familiar to be sitting in the faint glow of the movie with the hall light behind them, Axel shifting toward him so that the scent of his cologne fanned over. Sometimes he would tilt his head back and close his eyes, mouthing a line and smiling to himself. Roxas noticed how closely he watched during the hospital scene, and guessed that it was Axel's favorite part. When the white carnations cascaded over the sheets, his hand involuntarily fell to Roxas's shoulder.

"That's why you brought me carnations," he said lamely.

"It was a promise. You nearly broke your arm during a competition, and I told you that if you ever ended up in the hospital, even if it was just to have a bone reset or whatever, I'd bring you white carnations."

"Did I tell you off for being so unnecessarily romantic?" Roxas asked, amused.

"Yeah. But I reminded you that since your favorite movie was Only Sunsets you were a hopeless romantic anyway, so it wasn't unnecessary."

As always, Roxas felt his heart tighten when Jenny ran onto the beach where Art was waiting. So he was a romantic.

"Roxas," Axel began before Art remarked that sunsets were his favorite part of the day, "How would you feel if I kissed you?"

Roxas felt his heart tighten again and he concentrated on the image of the sunset onscreen. "I... don't know," he said, though he actually felt anxious for it to happen.

"Would you let me?" Axel asked. From the way he said it, Roxas knew he needed a straight answer. Onscreen, Jenny asked why sunsets were Art's favorite part of the day. He turned slightly toward Axel and nodded.

"...Yeah."

It was the first time Roxas had ever missed his favorite part. He watched it unfold, but Art's speech didn't reach him, he was so focused on what would happen at the end of the speech. He remembered, somehow. Maybe it was because they had done this every Sunday night. Memories of other kisses came back to him. Dimmed, but there.

Roxas felt time shudder to a halt when Axel's lips met his and his skin burned numb along his jaw where Axel's fingers alighted.

"Well?" Axel asked, concern shadowing half his face.

The screen went dark, uncomfortably beautiful music flooding out.

Roxas blinked. "...Nothing," he lied.

Notes: I had a hell of a time working out the time breaks in this one. I kept writing different flashbacks from Axel's memory, and when I got them all in I thought, "Hey, these should probably be chronological..."

There will be an interesting twist on the memory theme in the next chapter.