[5]

It was one of those mornings. The kind of morning where you wake with the daunting feeling that something in the universe has definitely changed while you were asleep and something bad is brewing, but you just can't bring yourself to face those thoughts, and so you brush them off with every flimsy excuse available.

Or at least that was the particular brand of morning Sora was having. By mid-morning, there had already been a couple foreboding signs. First, Roxas still hadn't come back home by morning. Sora had expected his brother to already be brooding at home by the time he himself had returned late last night, ready to bite his head off over having been dragged to the party in the first place. But there had been no bad-tempered blonde, and come morning, his bedroom door was still open and his bed untouched.

Although somewhat unsettled, Sora brushed off the first sign. Maybe it had gotten late and Roxas had simply stayed at Axel's (or, more likely, Axel had tied him up and was currently holding him captive...). Either way, Roxas was a big boy who could take care of himself, as he loved to remind Sora. But then there was the second sign, which Sora came upon when he arrived at work. It was the first time in the whole month he had been working at the bakery that the store was not already unlocked and open with a sulking Axel, grumpy because he was awake so early, working the ovens and loudly complaining about having been there since five in the morning.

Thankfully Sora had been granted his own key and could open the place by himself, but it was still very strange indeed. He was, however, in far too good a mood to get worked up.

With Axel unaccounted for, there was a lot of work to be done in the bakery, not to mention the rush of customers that always came in for a late breakfast. When it all started to settle down, however, Sora found his thoughts helplessly fixated on last night.

They had begun walking aimlessly, the sidewalks of Twilight Town mostly empty by that time of night. Sora didn't even know where they were anymore; he'd never been to this part of town. Most of the shops had closed their doors for the night, but a short ways down the street one was still open, and Sora's eyes lit up when he spotted it. A large neon sign reading Frozen Fortune burned bright blue against the night.

"Riku, look!" He excitedly pointed toward the store.

"Delinquent teenagers?"

"No! Behind them. The ice cream shop. Let's get some!" Without waiting for a reply, he quickly led the way down the street and inside. He took a deep breath, reveling in that familiar, quirky scent all ice cream parlors seemed to have. The place was empty except for a dark-haired girl behind the counter, leaning on her elbows and clearly bored out of her mind. Sora stepped up and ordered something called a Bueno Volcano and excitedly watched as the girl began to fill the extravagant order. Riku came up to stand beside the shorter boy, hands in his pockets and a smirk on his lips as if he was going to tease Sora but kept it to himself.

"Oh, what, do you have something to say?" Sora asked huffily, though he grinned at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah, I do," Riku sniped back, a playful glint in his eyes.

At the same time then as Sora jokingly responded, "Well I don't want to hear it," Riku said simply, "You're adorable."

Sora froze, a pale blush lighting up his cheeks. "Th-that's cheating," he accused. His face was still pink as he turned away to get his ice cream. He hurriedly assured himself the warmth in this face was just because of the alcohol from earlier.

Riku didn't say anything, but simply stood there with that same damn smirk, clearly pleased with himself.

With a shake of his head, Sora came back to the present. He stared down at the muffins he was supposed to be arranging in the display case, letting out a soft sigh. He kept trying to tell himself that he was just happy to make a new friend, emphasis on the word friend. It wasn't like he was actually interested in Riku or anything. He'd only known him for a week. He just liked the guy. In a totally platonic, definitely-never-dreamt-about-him way. And whenever that annoying little part of him would creep up and try to say otherwise, he immediately shot it down. He'd been with Marluxia for years, he couldn't possibly like someone else just a month since his relationship had ended. Right? He absolutely couldn't think about liking someone else when things with Marly had never even been definitely settled.

Keeping that determined thought in mind, he forced himself back to the task at hand. He should be thinking about muffins, not silver hair and blue eyes and...no, dammit, muffins.

Roxas had never actually been hungover before. He'd always watched himself - never drinking too much too fast, always gorging himself with water before bed. But there was a first time for everything, and Roxas was already hating the world before he even opened his eyes.

He made a valiant attempt to open them, but closed them quickly when the bright morning sunlight nearly burned them right out of his head. So he laid there, mentally groaning, trying to take account of his surroundings without actually looking at anything. Memories of the previous night danced around his head, though they all felt somewhat dream-like. But that must mean...he was in Axel's bed right now. Crap.

Just as it had all come together, there was a small rustling next to him and, quite suddenly, an arm stretched across his chest and tightened.

"Good morning, Roxy."

If the alarm bells hadn't already been going off, they certainly were now. He really had slept with Axel. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Fuck. Shit. He finally dared to open his eyes again - it didn't feel great, but he knew he had to get out of there. Now. He'd been shutting down Axel's advances since he'd first followed his twin to Twilight Town, but then he'd gone and done this. "Get off me," he grunted lowly.

"C'mon, cuddle with mee."

"Let me go," he said more insistently. As he spoke, he simultaneously jerked away and sat up to free himself, a movement which caused every muscle in his body to scream in protest. He ignored the pain and the soreness in favor of getting away as fast as possible.

"Why the hurry?"

"I don't want to give you the wrong idea. Clearly you and I have different ideas about what this means."

"Don't be an asshat." Axel sat up on his elbows, frowning now. This wasn't how he'd been hoping for the conversation to go. Ten seconds ago, he'd been perfectly cheerful and ready to begin coaxing Roxas into a round two. "Are you seriously being like this? Clearly you've got a thing for me, Rox. Why won't you just admit it? And it's not like I just declared my everlasting love for you. So could you calm the fuck down?"

But Roxas didn't calm down. In response, he bit down on his discomfort and got up, starting to hastily get dressed. As soon as his clothes were back on, he went to leave the room. He wanted to hurry up and be back home already, squirreled away on his computer and definitely not thinking about what had just happened. As he opened the door, he paused, but kept his back to Axel. "This doesn't mean anything. I'm not interested, Axel," he said flatly, body stiffening even at the words.

"Sure you're not," came the caustic reply.

"I'm serious."

"Okay, Rox."

Axel rolled onto his side, away from the door, and closed his eyes again when he heard the click of the door behind Roxas. Maybe he shouldn't have expected one night to change Roxas' constant rejection. But there had been some part of him that had still been hopeful. Like maybe it was a turning point for them, and Roxas had finally caved to his charm, like he'd just been playing hard-to-get all along.

After the spat, he was in a bad mood now, and he honestly wanted nothing more than to just go back to sleep. But the part of him that was still rational and not boiling in rage (admittedly a very small part) couldn't help but imagine a certain employee being unexpectedly alone at the bakery. He momentarily considered being a horrible and inconsiderate boss, but gave up on that dream seconds later and finally dragged himself out of bed. It was going to be a long day.

It was the pervasive smell of frying bacon and eggs that roused Cloud that morning. For a long moment, he laid where he was, somewhat oddly scrunched up on the sofa so that his full body could fit. He could hear Leon on the other side of the room, apparently cooking breakfast by the smell. To top it all off he had actually slept extremely well, which was surprising, considering he still had the suspicion that Leon had bulk-ordered his furniture from a military catalogue. He sat up and stretched before edging off the couch and padding over to the kitchen area.

"You cook?" he asked in way of a good morning greeting, one eyebrow raised skeptically as he surveyed the multiple pans across the stove.

Leon shrugged. "I can."

"Could I get some eggs overeasy?"

"Sure. As long as, by 'overeasy,' you mean scrambled."

"Yep." Cloud gave an amused shake of his head as he sat down on one of the stools next to a stretch of countertop that doubled as a table, letting his thoughts wonder as he watched Leon prepare the food.

It all felt so familiar and so alien at the same time. There were the things he recognized: the strong, stoic personality, that small, barely-there smile he used to share with Cloud back in the day whenever Zack and Rinoa were being particularly rambunctious. But then there were the other things: the lonely, lost-puppy look he wore when he got caught up in his thoughts and the abrupt tenseness whenever he got too close, like he was nervous. By the time Cloud snapped out of the thoughts, he noticed that he'd been intensely staring at Leon the whole while. He awkwardly darted his glance away when he realized the other man had caught the staring.

Once everything was finished, Leon slid a plate across to Cloud and sat with his own on the opposite side of the counter. They ate a quiet breakfast, but it was the nice kind of quiet. They didn't talk because they didn't want or need to - not because they were uncomfortable and didn't know what to say. But as they were finishing up, Cloud turned his attention to the question that had been nagging at the edge of his brain since the moment of their reunion. He'd never seemed to find the right time to ask the night before, but now he wanted to know.

"Tell me, why are you Leon, anyway? I used to know a guy named Squall," he mused curiously. As soon as the words left his mouth, he sensed a complete change in the atmosphere.

Leon's expression darkened, and stormy eyes trailed off to the side. He opened his mouth, but closed it again without saying anything. He then looked as if he was going to flatout refuse to answer the question, but seemed to rethink that, too. It took a long time for him to finally get started, but once he finally did, his voice was even more somber than usual. "It...was my fault," he began, speaking slowly, "Zack and I were out on that training mission together, and I was supposed to have his back. We were just trainees, they said it was a cut-and-dried mission. I had suggested that we split up. None of us expected...I never thought enemy soldiers could be in the area. When I heard the gunfire, I ran for him. But I didn't get there soon enough, not to save him. After the funeral, I tried to go back to my life in Hollow Bastion. I couldn't, though. I couldn't be that guy anymore. I left the school, left the city, left Rinoa. I came here to be someone new."

Leon fiercely avoided looking at Cloud the entire time he spoke. Both of his hands gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles turning white from the pressure. It hurt to bring up the past, especially when it came up so suddenly. Their nice, quiet breakfast had turned into a horrible trip down memory lane in the blink of eye. He had come to Twilight Town with a new name to build a guard against the memories, and now just mentioning those things was tearing down his wall. He had told himself when he moved that he'd never talk about it. But here, with Cloud, it felt like maybe it was okay, like the blonde was the one person he could say these things to, because he'd never said them out loud before. "I'm...sorry, Cloud. I'm sorry I couldn't save him for you."

What was, in reality, only a few seconds of silence stretched on into what felt like days. Cloud say perfectly still, the story slamming down on him like a waterfall. Of course he knew what had happened to Zack, but right after, Leon had become particularly evasive, and they'd never actually spoken about it. "I never blamed you," Cloud finally said softly. He reached out a hand, awkwardly let it hang in the air for a long moment as he hesitated, and then finally set it on Leon's shoulder in what was meant to be a consoling gesture. He wasn't very good at those types of things.

Leon finally looked at him again, a feeling of unfamiliar relief passing over him at just those four little words. They had met because of Zack, and now they were both his living legacy.

"Oh, Axel, you're here!" Sora greeted, chipper as ever, when the redhead finally came lumbering through the bakery door in the early afternoon. "I was a little worried when-"

Before Sora could even finish, Axel had already stomped past him and into the back room, leaving everything in his wake iced in a layer of frost. The younger boy stared after him, blinking quizzically. What had that been about?

When Axel re-emerged several minutes later, now donning a black apron and carrying a large stack of heavy metal trays, he promptly dismissed Sora for the day. Sora was tempted to stick around and try to talk to his boss, but ultimately had the good enough sense to let the man be. He gathered up his things, called out a hasty goodbye, and began the short walk back to his apartment.

As soon as he was home again, having spent the entire walk back contemplating what could have possibly happened to Axel that morning, he immediately spotted Roxas sitting on the couch and typing angrily on his laptop.

"Hey, Rox! I've had the weirdest day. So when I got-"

"I slept with Axel."

He hadn't meant to just blurt it out like that. In fact, he had definitively made up his mind to not tell Sora at all. Ever. But somehow it had just come bursting out. No longer typing, he instead focused on trying to make sense of Sora's reaction.

"I...you...wha'? You didn't...I mean, huh?" Sora stumbled along incoherently, the gears in his head grinding in overdrive. With that explanation, he was even more confused. Shouldn't Axel have been in a good mood? Unless...

Sora sighed, slapping a hand across his face a little more forcefully than he'd meant to. He got it now; he knew his brother better than anyone. And even though it hadn't been very long, he liked to think he knew the redhead pretty well, too. Despite Axel's at-times-ridiculous way of showing it, he knew his boss was genuinely interested in Roxas. He also knew that Roxas, on the other hand, ran away from commitment like it was a deadly disease he could catch just by looking at it. He couldn't even remember the last time Roxas had agreed to participate in anything officially labeled as a "date."

"Oh," he finally concluded once he'd finished making sense of the whole situation. "Are you...okay?"

Roxas shrugged, nonchalantly answering, "Sure, I'm fine. Just thought you should know." He then went back to his programming, signaling that he was inarguably done with this short exchange.

Sora swayed back and forth where he stood, still carefully watching the other. "Sooo...how was it?" he asked, expression misleadingly innocent, though he raised his eyebrows dramatically.

Roxas refused to reply, but his face had immediately lit up a flaming red and he quickly chucked one of the couch pillows at his twin's head. Conversation over.

I finally went and planned outlines for the remaining chapters, so hopefully they'll all be done in a timely fashion, too. x)
Any thoughts/opinions/etc. are great, and thanks again to those that are following. (: