Quite contrary to Axel's first worry that he might be stalking Roxas, the guy—kid, ugh—showed up at his place of employment again not a week later. He tried to be sneaky about it, too, and it was adorable. Adorable in a completely platonic way, naturally. The way dogs are adorable. The way people you're absolutely not allowed in any shape or form to be romantically attracted to for at least a few years are adorable.

Axel immediately noticed him when he walked in, of course, but decided he was going to pretend he didn't. For one, he was supposed to be staying at the register, so it wasn't like he could go over and talk to him anyways—and for two, it was amusing to watch Roxas shuffle around looking at clothes and pretending he wasn't there to talk to Axel.

Like, he would be willing to give the kid the benefit of the doubt if he didn't keep glancing over to where Axel was before staring unconvincingly at an article of clothing. He kind of doubted Roxas would ever be caught dead in that color.

Eventually, Axel just stared directly at Roxas, waiting for another surreptitious glance. When it came, Axel smiled, and fluttered his eyelashes. Please stop. This is embarrassing for all of us.

Roxas shuffled over to the counter, looking around to make sure there wasn't anyone in line before bypassing the little barriers.

"Fancy seeing you here," Axel said, smirking.

"Shut up," Roxas huffed, face turning red. "Um. Do you get off work soon?"

"Yep. In approximately," Axel checked his wrist, as if there was actually any sort of timepiece there—you know, as if he wasn't constantly aware of exactly how many minutes there were left of his shift at all times. "Forty-seven minutes. Do you want to hang out after?"

"If you don't have anything to do…"

"I was planning on going home and sleeping, but I can definitely postpone that a few hours."

Roxas smiled. Yeah, Axel could definitely put off sleeping for a little bit for this.

"Okay!" he said. "I guess I should probably leave you alone until then, though?"

"Yeah, go look at something more interesting than the shit we have here," Axel said, waving a hand. Then he glanced over his shoulder. Good, no management was there to hear him shit-talking the stock.

The shit stock.

"I'll text you when I'm all done here."

Roxas nodded a few times.

"Uh…see you then, I guess," he said, and then hurried out of the store.

Axel checked his phone.

Forty six minutes.

A few minutes before his shift ended, because it wasn't like the chump change he would have earned amounted to much anyways, Axel made his way out of the store and pulled his phone out. "So, where should I meet you?" he texted, wandering vaguely towards the center of the complex. He'd be closest to everything there, so it seemed like the best place to go.

"I'm in the food court," is what Roxas texted back. Axel looked around at the steady flow of people crowding the stores. He could almost see the hive of customers that had to be currently buzzing around the food court. Like Axel could find anyone in that mess.

"You're going to have to be more specific," he requested. Eventually, he got the message "I'll go stand in front of Taco Bell," which was a pretty specific area, so it would suffice.

Axel kept his phone out to avoid eye contact with anyone he passed, and made it to the food court (which was, by the way, in the middle of the complex, so he had been heading in the right direction in the first place. Ha! Planning). He looked around, trying to find anything short with a spikey head. There were way too many people for this.

He placed himself in front of the previously named restaurant and looked around. Ah—there. Roxas was leaning against a column, headphones over his ears, eyes glued to some sort of handheld console.

Axel walked over and stood in front of him.

Roxas glanced up at him, briefly, and then looked back to his game. "Give me," he said, slowly, attention obviously fully occupied, "Just a second…"

Axel grinned and stood back, arms folded. Roxas was pressing way more buttons on that thing than could possibly be required for gameplay. Right?

Not too long after, Roxas practically deflated, a disappointed look on his face. "Lost," he said mournfully, flipping a switch on the console and slipping it into his jacket pocket. "I can't beat this guy, you can't even attack him, you just have to dodge a million times and hope…" he shook his head, and then looked up at Axel. "Ah, you probably don't care."

Axel shrugged. "I mean, I don't have any idea what you're talking about, but if you're interested in it then I'll happily listen."

Roxas blushed, and looked away as he started winding up his earbuds to put in his pocket. "Um…okay. Well…so, I was wondering if, uh…"

Axel raised an eyebrow. "Yes?" he prompted.

"Well, you work in a clothes store, so…I don't know, you probably don't want to hang around this place anymore now that your shift's over…" Roxas said, shrugging slowly.

"At least give me a chance to actually answer your question instead of answering it for me," Axel said, laughing slightly. "If I don't want to then I'll say so."

Roxas huffed.

"I need new clothes. And I always have a hard time picking stuff out when my parents take me, so they finally just let me have one of their cards and told me to go shopping with my friends if it would help." Roxas pulled the card out of his pocket to illustrate his point. "So…I was wondering if you'd mind…helping me? I can always ask someone else if you don't want to, though, I just thought…you might know about…this stuff."

Axel grinned. "Well, I definitely do know about this stuff, but it's not from working at some shit mall store. Come on, walk with me." He started heading to what he imagined would be the first stop on their journey, unless Roxas had any objections.

Roxas followed him, walking slightly behind. Axel tried to slow down for him a little, but that didn't seem to help, the kid resolutely staying a step behind him. Oh, well.

"What kind of clothes are you looking for?" he asked.

Roxas stared blankly ahead. Then, at length, he shrugged, with something of a guilty expression on his face.

"Well, alright," went Axel. A different strategy, then. "I think we can at least narrow it down a little bit. Why do you need to go clothes shopping so badly right now? Do you need seasonally appropriate clothes? Event-appropriate clothes? Something else?"

Roxas thought about his question for a moment. "A lot of my clothes have holes in them," he said. He looked over his arms for a moment, and then lifted up the one closest to Axel, pointing out the hole in the armpit. Yeah, that was definitely worn out. "And my parents don't like me wearing clothes like this when we go out in public, but if they didn't let me wear this then I kind of wouldn't have anything to wear. So…yeah. That's why…desperate measures."

Axel laughed. Right. Well, at least his family apparently had the means to replace all of it.

"Alright. So you really do need a lot of different things then," said Axel.

"Yeah…"

"Do you have any particular stores you like?"

"Not really."

Axel barely kept himself from sighing dramatically, deciding that that might be a little discouraging. It wasn't like this was some huge burden Roxas was asking him to shoulder or anything. Axel was actually probably going to enjoy this.

"Well, I vote this is our first stop," Axel said, pointing to the department store in front of them. "That work?"

"Oh. Yeah."

Axel gestured for Roxas to lead the way, and he did, looking around like a small child in a hardware store. That is, like he had no idea what he was supposed to be looking for, or why he was there, and was slightly worried that something there might seriously maim him. Axel stepped up and placed what he hoped was a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Okay," he said. "Here's the plan of action. You go around picking up absolutely everything that remotely interests you, and then we sort through the actual reasonable options and sizing variations once you get to the dressing room. Sound good?"

"Yeah," said Roxas, sounding a little bit more hopeful. "I think I can do that."

"Alright. Be free, then. And remember, the more things we have the better."

Roxas nodded dutifully, and then ventured into the forest of clothes racks.

Axel followed behind, staying silent since Roxas didn't seem to be willing to initiate any sort of conversation. He was very focused on the task of picking out clothes, which, well, that was what they were there for.

Once they had combed through almost every "men's" section that had clothes that would fit Roxas, Axel had been tasked with carrying a mere six articles of clothing, while Roxas had a few more in his hands. Jeez, no wonder he had trouble buying things. They'd gone through almost half the store and this is all he was interested in?

"Do you want to check the other half?" Axel suggested. Roxas looked around, apparently wondering what this 'other half' was.

"…you mean the women's section?" he asked, incredulously.

"Well, yeah, I guess," said Axel, frowning. "The 'women's' section," he repeated, using his free hand to put half a set of air quotes around the word "women's." "Contrary to popular belief, clothes don't actually have genders. They're just separated by style and fit and size and things like that, and some of them have pictures of girls above them and some have pictures of boys. I mean, I usually have to shop in this so-called 'women's section,' but…well…" Axel flushed. His tirade had gone a little farther than he'd intended it to. "You know. I'm shaped a little funny. But…anyways, it's your choice."

Roxas nodded, slowly. "I think," he said, "I'll stay over here for now."

"Alright," said Axel. "Well, you should probably try these things on, then," he said, handing over the layers of fabric he had slung over his arm. "Should I hang around the dressing room or no?"

"Ah, no," said Roxas. "I think I'll be okay."

"Text me when you're finished, then," said Axel, and then twiddled his fingers and went off to hang out in the section of the store that had stuff that might actually fit him.

Roxas ended up getting one (one!) thing from that entire store, but their system at least seemed to be working out. If he bought one (one) thing from every clothes store in the mall, then he'd have a semi-decent selection, wouldn't he?

Well, theoretically. They hopped around to about half the clothing stores in the mall (Roxas, unfortunately, still taking the labels "men" and "women's" to heart, which made things a little bit more difficult considering most clothing stores' target audience) and Axel ended up appreciating more things than Roxas did, even putting on a spectacular show of pretending he actually had money to spend on these sorts of things ("Roxas, could you hold my stuff while I try this on?" "Uh, sure, yeah…"), though not quite to the point of actually spending money he didn't have. He'd learned his lesson by now.

By the end of their little escapade, Roxas was eight articles of clothing richer, and Axel had splurged on a shirt that was on sale for $15, so overall, not a bad haul. In Axel's opinion, at least.

"Think we did okay?" he asked, sitting next to Roxas on a mall bench as Roxas texted his parents to pick him up—god, Axel was hanging out with a child.

"Better than I usually do, I guess," he answered, looking through a few of the bags at his feet and shrugging. "I probably don't have enough clothes to avoid wearing my holey stuff altogether, but…well. There are other days."

"That's the spirit," Axel said, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling.

"Um," went Roxas. "Thanks. For helping me out."

"Yeah, anytime," said Axel. "Really. I had fun."

Roxas smiled at his shoes.

"Yeah," he said. "Me, too."

A few hours later, Roxas was laying in his bed, phone laying next to his pillow as he tried to get to sleep at a reasonable time—which, inevitably, meant he would be staying up for at least two more hours, tossing around and trying to get his brain to calm down for long enough to let him sleep.

His phone buzzed, and he recognized it as the specific pattern he'd set for Axel.

(Not that Axel, was, in this case at least, anyone particularly special. Roxas only frequently texted about six people, and they all had different vibration patterns. Really, they did. Honestly.)

But, he tried to ignore it. He felt sleep coming on, he swore.

His phone buzzed again. Then, three more times, fairly close to each other. Roxas felt a slight twinge of annoyance. Fine, he thought to himself. He rolled over and picked up his phone, squinting at the screen as he tried to read the notifications.

"Roxas, do you have my wallet?" was the first text.

Then, "Please answer this if you're awake it's important."

"One more try."

"Ok well please answer this ASAP."

Roxas's annoyance was quickly replaced with confusion and not a small amount of worry as he read through them.

"I don't know, I'll check," he texted back, and got out of bed to switch on his light and search for it, squinting for a moment as his eyes adjusted. If he had it, it would either be in the pants he was wearing or the jacket, so…

He looked around, trying to locate them in the mess on his floor. Ah, there are the pants.

His phone buzzed.

"DO NOT LOOK INSIDE OF IT"

Roxas blinked at the urgency of that.

"Ok" he texted back, and checked his pants pockets. No, not there.

Ah, his phone again.

"I'm not saying that you're lying but I'm really serious about this please promise me you won't check inside of it."

Roxas was beginning to get worried about the contents of this wallet. But, if it was that important…

"Cross my heart," he texted. "I promise I won't look inside."

He picked up his jacket, and—ah, yeah, there was definitely something in the pocket. He stuck his hand inside, and took care to pull the item out shut. Yep, that sure was a wallet he'd only seen once before.

He looked at his phone to see the message "Thank you. I appreciate it."

Roxas replied: "I found it. Do you want to come get it?"

Axel: "Ok good. No, it can wait."

"Thank you. Goodnight."

"Sweet dreams!"

Roxas felt like he would be touched by these messages if he weren't so confused. All he could do was text "Goodnight" back and get back in bed.

What could possibly be in a wallet that was so bad?

Axel didn't text him for a few days. Roxas started to get worried. Had he done something wrong? Was this wallet thing really that big of a deal?

He'd tried to text Axel a few times, but kept second-guessing himself and ending up enabling another dozen or so hours of wondering whether Axel was upset at him or not. He supposed the easiest thing to do would be to just ask him, but for some reason that didn't seem like a distinct possibility.

Fuck. Why was this so hard?

But an opportunity soon presented itself, and he managed to take it before chickening out.

"hey Axel. My family's out on a thing so if you want to stop by and get your wallet…"

He sent his message with a feeling akin to jumping off a cliff and hoping someone will catch you. A very small cliff, admittedly, but he wished he wasn't so freaked out about this.

The reply was, "Oh yeah haha, I should probably get that huh"

…had he just forgotten? Is that why he hadn't mentioned it at all?

Had he been driving around without his license?

Roxas sighed, rubbing his forehead. He couldn't believe he'd been worrying about this for the past, like, week or something.

"we could also hang out or something if you want," he added.

Axel: "sure sounds good."

"I can be there in about half an hour. That work?"

Roxas: "yeah I'm not going anywhere"

"don't get pulled over"

Axel: "don't worry about it"

"im a master at outrunning cops"

Roxas: "?"

Axel: "jk jk"

Roxas frowned at his phone. Even if it was a joke, Roxas had a feeling that it wasn't entirely untrue. Axel seemed like that kind of guy. That haircut…

Oh, well. He should probably stop worrying. Axel could take care of himself.

A few minutes later, Axel texted him, "wait I probably need your address if I want to get to your house," but other than that, Roxas had time to waste while Axel made his way—hopefully, at a reasonable speed—over to his house.

He looked around his room.

He probably wouldn't be letting Axel in there, but…

Well, it was always good to make sure.

Twenty minutes later, Roxas had finished his most intense cleaning spree ever, which wasn't really that impressive considering his frequency of intense cleaning sprees was very, very low. But in just a third of an hour, he had managed to rid his entire floor of clothes and clean off almost every surface in his room, which admittedly did require a lot of stuffing things ungracefully into his dresser and some creative stacking of things under his bed and closet, but once he pulled his comforter over a little and wedged his doors and drawers shut, his methods were nearly unnoticeable.

He had even moved on to picking up some stray things in the living room when the doorbell rung like, seven times in very quick succession. He ran over and opened it before anymore buttons could be pushed.

"Hey," said Axel.

"Hi," said Roxas.

"I assume this is the right house, then."

"Well…I sure hope so."

Axel laughed, and stepped inside, looking around. Roxas shut the door and watched him warily. The house wasn't exactly clean, even after Roxas's efforts—it was pretty impossible when you have a bunch of teenage boys living there.

Well, two, Roxas supposed. But that was enough.

"This is a pretty nice place," Axel said. Roxas looked up at him, surprised.

"Really?" he said. "I mean, I guess." Maybe it was nice. Roxas had a hard time thinking that when he had a very detailed memory of every single stain on the couch, hole in the wall, and crack where bugs liked to crawl in when it got too cold outside for them to live comfortably.

But other than that. Well, it certainly wasn't a bad house. It had all the house things, like central heating and running water. So it wasn't so bad. Maybe.

Axel started wandering off in some direction, and Roxas trailed after him to make sure he didn't get into anything he wasn't supposed to.

"What's down there?" Axel asked, pointing down a hallway.

"Um," Roxas went, leaning over to see where he was pointing. "That's my parents' bedroom and a guest bedroom, and the door to the garage."

Axel "hmmm"ed, and then crossed the living room again to peer down the other hallway. "And this?" he asked.

"That's…my siblings' bedrooms, and mine."

"Oh? Which one's yours?"

Roxas raised a hand to point, but stopped himself. "Well, you're not allowed to go in," he said. Why had he cleaned it, then? Oh, well. He felt like it'd be too…weird, for some reason.

"Aw, really?" said Axel, pouting. "Well, okay…"

Axel gave one more look around, and then sat himself down on one of the couches, leaning back and looking very much at home.

"So, how many siblings do you have?" he asked.

Roxas blinked. He wasn't sure entirely sure what was going on here—and Axel looked really weird just lounging in his house, too. His firetruck-red hair didn't really mesh with the puke-green couches they'd had since the 90's.

There was one thing he knew he needed to do, though.

"Uh, hold on. I need to…before I forget…"

Roxas went to his room, grabbed Axel's wallet (keeping very careful to make sure it didn't fall open accidentally or some horrible sitcom plot event like that) and went back to the living room. "Here," he said, holding it out for his friend to take.

Axel did, and looked over it. He smiled, but it looked like a nervous one.

"Sorry for asking, but, did you look in it?"

"No," said Roxas. "I promised, didn't I?" he smiled, and sat down next to Axel, sinking into the couch cushion.

"Yeah, I guess you did," said Axel, sticking the wallet in one of the many pockets he had at the time. "Thanks."

"Sure. Um…you were saying?"

Axel gave him a blank stare for a moment, but then realization came.

"Right. Your siblings. This is a pretty big house, so…"

"Oh, yeah. I have four brothers, two of them are—wait, no." He frowned, shaking his head. "Three brothers and a sister, sorry. Um. Yeah, the two oldest are in college, so they aren't here much. Then there's me and Sora, and our little, um, sister is Xion. Yeah. She's…"

Roxas flushed. He didn't know what the right words were for this. "I don't really know how I'm supposed to say this. She used to be my brother, I guess, but…"

"Oh!" went Axel, sitting up straighter. "Is she transgender?"

"Yeah, that's the word," said Roxas, nodding. "She only figured it out, or, she only told me, pretty recently but. I'm doing my best, but, you know…"

"It sounds like you're being pretty respectful," Axel said, sagely. "So just keep doing that and it'll be fine."

"Yeah…"

Roxas stared at the coffee table in front of them. This stuff was kind of weird for him to wrap his head around, but he'd do anything to make Xion happy.

"Oh, but," he said, looking back at Axel again, "Make sure you don't mention it to my parents, if you ever end up talking to them. She said it's okay to tell our friends and stuff but she wants to talk to them about it and I don't know when she's going to do that so. Uh, just in case."

"Sure, sure," said Axel. "Speaking of, where are they now? You have the house to yourself for the weekend?"

"Yeah. They all went camping," said Roxas. "They used to make me go too, but a few years ago I…"

He flushed, remembering what a disaster that trip had been. On second thought, maybe he wouldn't tell Axel about that.

"It, it wasn't pretty," he settled on. "So now I get to stay home."

"And play video games?"

"Ah, how'd you know," Roxas said, joking. "Um…do you wanna play some?"

Axel shrugged.

"Why not?"

Roxas really didn't understand how Axel was so bad at video games. Like, okay, he obviously didn't play very many but…it wasn't that hard to pick up, was it? You just press some buttons and the character on screen does stuff. Do a lot of stuff and you win. Right?

Then again, people did always complain about how good Roxas was at it. He didn't really think he was, but if that many people all agreed…

"You are scary good at this," Axel said, frowning as his character flew off the screen for what was probably the 50th time. Roxas was kind of surprised Axel had put up with him for this long. Most people quit after an hour or so. "Either that or I'm just really bad."

Roxas laughed, somewhat nervously. He wished he could offer some consolation, but he wasn't entirely which one it was, either.

"Do you want to do something else?" he asked, trying to disguise his reluctance. He hardly ever got anyone to play against these days.

"Psh, you think you can break me that easily?" Axel said, grinning and going through the character select screen again. "Come on. I bet I can beat you next time."

Roxas laughed, and set up the handicap again. Axel did nearly beat him a few dozen rounds ago, by a stroke of what was probably pure luck, but who knows, maybe he had a fast learning curve.

Axel did not, in fact, have a fast learning curve, and was completely full of shit. He couldn't beat Roxas 'next time,' nor the time after that, and likely would not be able to beat Roxas at any point in the future unless he put some serious training in.

Roxas gave him the benefit of the doubt.

But a few rounds later, it seemed like Axel had completely given up. He was hardly even attacking anymore, and his actions seemed really uncoordinated.

Roxas knocked him off the map again, and then looked over at him. He wasn't entirely sure what he was planning on saying, but after seeing Axel's face, those words definitely changed.

"Woah," went Roxas, "Are you okay?"

Axel's frown lifted suddenly, but his face was still way paler than it usually was.

"I'm fine," he said, with a completely unconvincing smile.

Roxas stared at him.

"Okay," Axel said, "No, I'm not."

He set the controller down very carefully, and then proceeded to fold himself over, touching his forehead to the floor and groaning. Which, all things aside, was a pretty impressive show of flexibility.

"Uh," went Roxas, staring wide-eyed. "Did—are you—are you in pain? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

Axel, for some reason, laughed at this, though it sounded as strained as anything.

"Yes to the first, no to the second," he said, to the floor. "Do you have any painkillers?"

"Uh, yeah, I'll—yeah," Roxas said, and then jumped up and ran to his bathroom, sliding the mirror over to look at the bottles of pills in the cabinet. There were about a billion different kinds of painkillers, so he just grabbed everything that didn't have a prescription label on it and ran back to the living room.

"Here," he said, sitting down next to Axel and holding the bottles near his face. Axel looked over, just turning his head towards him and setting it back down on the floor. He grabbed the bottle with the blue pills in it.

"Water?" he asked.

"Right," Roxas said, getting up and grabbing a bottle of water from the kitchen. He brought it to Axel, setting it on the floor next to him.

Axel laid there for a moment, took a deep breath, and then sat up, slowly. He took two pills, and sighed.

"Sorry," he said, sheepish smile still more of a pained grimace than anything. "I'll be okay. Promise."

"What's wrong?" Roxas asked. "Does this happen a lot?"

Axel thought about it for a moment, then just smiled, and put a finger over his lips in a "shh" gesture. Then he pulled out his phone before Roxas had time to ask any more questions.

"Wow, it got pretty late," he said.

Roxas looked at the clock on their sound system. "Oh," he said. "Yeah, I guess. Do you need to be getting home?"

Axel shrugged, putting his phone away. "Probably," he said. "Unless you want me to spend the night."

"Will you—" Roxas started, words coming out of his mouth before he fully formulated a thought. "I mean, if you, you can if you want, I wouldn't…mind…"

Axel raised an eyebrow at him, evidently amused. It seemed like whatever had happened to him was…passing, at least. "I'm not actually technically supposed to drive at night," he said. "I have…well, vision problems, of a sort. So I figure it'd probably be a good idea."

Vision problems? Axel didn't wear glasses, though, did he? Or contacts—Roxas was pretty sure he didn't wear contacts either. He didn't see any, at least.

"I guess you should stay, then," Roxas said, looking around. "I'll get some blankets out of the closet and…or…" He frowned, an image coming to mind. "Um. I could set you up on the couch, but…I don't know. My family's not supposed to be back until Sunday but…if they come back early for some reason and see you on the couch…"

Axel laughed. "Yeah, that might be a little hard to explain."

Well, Sora would know exactly who you were, Roxas thought, trying not to think about the kinds of things his brother would tease him about in that situation.

"So you could take my bed, I guess," Roxas said. "And I'll just sleep on the floor…"

"Nah, I'll take the floor," Axel said, getting up (a little haltingly—was he still in pain?) and looking around. "I've slept in worse spaces. Need help with the blankets or anything?"

"Oh, sure," went Roxas, taking a moment to turn the TV off (the game system could stay on, it wouldn't really hurt anything) before getting up and going to one of the hall closets. Axel trailed behind.

Roxas opened it slowly, mindful of a possible blanket avalanche. When no such disaster happened, he opened it all the way and gestured to the pile of bedding. "Want anything in particular?" he asked, laughing slightly at the sheer amount of blankets they'd somehow acquired over the years. Roxas had been using the same ones for at least six years now, so he wasn't sure where they'd all come from…

Axel just picked the thing off the top of the pile and draped it over his arm. "Will you tell me which one is your room this time?"

Roxas grabbed a few pillows. "Yeah, I guess," he sighed, jokingly. "Follow me."

He went to his room, and nudged the door open with his foot. None of his lights were on, and it had gotten dark since he'd cleaned. That was…probably good. Somehow he didn't want Axel to be able to examine his room with much clarity.

He walked inside, and Axel stayed in the doorway, blinking in the low light. And—oh, god dammit.

"Are those stars?" he asked, looking up at Roxas's ceiling. Roxas huffed.

"Sora—er, my brother put them up there when we shared this room, and I…just never took them down, so…" he dropped the pillows on the floor, and turned on a lamp, which was the lowest level of illumination possible without it being completely dark in there. Axel didn't need to see the details of this mess, even if Roxas had tidied up quite a bit.

Axel dropped the blanket on the floor next to where Roxas had put the pillows. "Could you point me to the bathroom?" he asked. Roxas went over to his doorway and pointed down the hall.

"It's the only one with the door open," he said.

"Thanks," Axel said, and went to go visit it.

Roxas turned around and looked at his room.

Roxas flushed.

This was weird. This was really weird, and Roxas couldn't really say it wasn't a bad weird, either. He tried to get his brain to shut up while he laid the blanket out on the floor and arranged the pillows in a halfway reasonable way. Axel would probably move them, anyways.

He sat on his bed, and looked around. He usually didn't have friends over in his room…he either stayed at their houses (less hectic) or he had a few over and they all camped out in the living room playing video games and consuming dangerous amounts of caffeine and cheesy snacks until the early hours of the morning.

Besides, Axel wasn't really like the rest of his friends.

For one, Axel was kind of a mystery. Roxas didn't really know what he was interested in. He tended to spend more time listening to Roxas talk endlessly about video game mechanics, and more often than not ended his own potential sharing time with a "ah, but you probably don't care about that," and changed the subject.

As much as Roxas appreciated someone who was willing to listen to him, it felt pretty one-sided after a certain point, and Roxas's experience with one-sidedness was, more often than not, people soon getting annoyed at him and snapping at him to shut up.

He frowned at the floor. He hoped Axel never did that. He wasn't sure if he could take it.

Roxas settled into bed, setting his pillows up to sit up on and pulling his covers over himself. He wasn't really that tired.

Not very long later, Axel returned, face clean of the make-up sort stuff he usually wore. It, well, it was make-up, but Roxas felt kind of weird calling it that. Axel's eyes looked a lot different without the red lining. He had also acquired another pillow, and was holding it against his chest.

"Can I turn this off?" he asked, pointing at the lamp. Roxas nodded, so he switched it off, and then got settled into his little floor bed, fabric shuffling around for a short bit.

"Are you tired?" Roxas asked.

"Hmm," went Axel. "A little. Mostly I just want to sleep this off."

'This?' Oh, right.

"Oh." Roxas wasn't really sure what to say. "You're…gonna be okay, right?" he asked.

"Yeah, yeah," went Axel, "I promise."

"If you say so," Roxas said, frowning. "Goodnight, I guess."

"Goodnight," said Axel. "Sweet dreams."

Roxas blushed, and was glad Axel's face was currently buried in a pillow.

"You too," he muttered, and pulled his blanket up over his head.

Axel woke up again at god-knows-when in the morning, and squinted his eyes against the blue glow emanating from somewhere to his right. Once his eyes woke up a little bit, he rolled over to see Roxas, sitting up in his bed with his eyes glued to another one of his hand-held video game things.

He was also wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up over a pair of headphones, with the pull strings for his hood stuck in between his teeth.

Axel stared at him. That was definitely a familiar wardrobe choice.

"You're still awake?" he asked, his voice hoarse from sleep. But he didn't get a response. Right, headphones.

He tossed one of his pillows vaguely at Roxas's bed, and Roxas jumped, startled at the movement.

He moved his headphones down around his neck, and spat the drawstrings out, apparently trying to play it off.

"You're awake," he said, eloquently.

"I am," said Axel, sitting up, keeping the blanket around his shoulders. "So are you. Have you even slept yet?"

"Um," went Roxas, "No."

"What time is it?"

Roxas pressed a button on his console.

"About four," he said.

Axel sighed. "Do you usually stay up this late?"

"Yeah," said Roxas. "Or, well…until one or two, usually, on school days when I'm actually trying to sleep…um. How are you feeling?"

Axel stared at him. How was he feeling? He was feeling fine. A little sleepy, but—oh. Right. That.

"I feel better," Axel said. For now, at least. "And I'm still going to be okay."

"That's good."

"Yeah. I'd kind of like if you stopped asking, too, it's kind of wigging me out here."

Roxas frowned, and looked away from him.

"Sorry," he said. "I'll stop."

"Thanks," Axel said.

Then he yawned, and stretched his arms out under the blanket. Was it just him, or was it kind of cold in here? Maybe Roxas's family was the type who always kept the thermostat down ridiculously low.

"Were you chewing on your sweater?" he asked, once he got settled under his blanket again.

Roxas continued not looking at him. "Yeah, I know," he said, pouting and pressing a few buttons on his game.

"You know?" asked Axel. "Know what?"

"I shouldn't be doing that," Roxas said.

Axel frowned. Who had put him in that state of mind? It would have made the hair on the back of Axel's neck stand up if they weren't already.

"That's not what I was going to say," he said. "Who told you you shouldn't be doing that?" And is it someone I can punch?

"My mom, mostly," Roxas said. Oh, so no punching, then. "But usually only when I do it in public, she doesn't mind so much when we're at home now."

"I think you should be able to do it whenever you want to," Axel said, tone taking perhaps a little too much of a defensive turn.

Roxas finally looked back at him.

"It's really not that big of a deal," he said. "I can go without chewing on my clothes for a few hours."

"Yeah, but," Axel started, frowning. "You shouldn't have to."

Axel was sort of at a shortage of words here. There were only so many things he could come up with when his brain wasn't working at full capacity, and he wasn't entirely sure how he should be phrasing things when talking to Roxas. After all, Axel didn't really know how far this whole 'thing' went. Though…after talking to the kid for a while, he had gotten a pretty good idea.

But still, it wasn't really his place to say.

"I mean, I chew on my hair when I'm trying to focus. That's basically the only reason I keep it this long," he said. That wasn't entirely true, but it would suffice. "And I also, um…hold on."

He fumbled around on the dark floor, looking for his jacket. Once discovered, he dug through the pockets, and took out a few choice objects. Then he scooted over to Roxas's bed, abandoning his blanket.

"Here's some of the stuff I keep to fidget with," he said, placing them out on Roxas's blanket. "I mean, you probably don't care, but…I guess I'm telling you anyways." It was that point in the middle of the night, you know? Besides, it had been so long since Axel got to share these with someone else. He was kind of excited, actually.

"This used to be full of mints, but I kept it because I like the way it clicks when you open it. I'll probably have to get a new one once it gets worn down, but…"

Roxas picked up the box and clicked it open and shut a few times.

"This is…a rock, I guess. I just like how heavy it is."

Roxas picked up the rock, thing, and held it in his hand.

"I just like running my nails over this thing." Axel placed a keychain on the blanket. It had some sort of column attached to it, that was weaved out of plastic string things. He was pretty sure he'd bought it off a girl scout.

Roxas picked up the keychain and ran a fingernail over the plastic part. He wasn't really doing it right, but it Axel didn't mind too much.

"I like keychains, too," Roxas said. "I keep a lot of them…"

"Really?" Axel asked, grinning. "Any particular reason?"

"I dunno. I just like…" he put the keyring part over his finger, and tugged on it. Then he shrugged, and put it down with the rest of the stuff.

"I do care, by the way," he said.

"Hm?" went Axel.

"I care. You always say stuff like, 'you probably don't care,' but I always care about what you have to say."

Axel stared at him, unexpected emotions welling up in his chest.

He thought that, probably, this wasn't the right time to start crying.

"Oh," he said, instead of that. "I…thanks."

Roxas nodded. "Well, I figure it's only fair, considering how much stuff I always make you listen to…"

"You don't make me," Axel said, laughing. "I like listening to you talk about stuff."

"So what makes you think I don't like listening to you?" Roxas said, frowning.

Axel looked back at the blanket, rubbing the back of his neck. "I guess you got me there," he said, though not entirely truthfully. He knew exactly why he didn't think people would be interested. Not Roxas in particular, of course, just…people.

But that wasn't really something Axel wanted to reveal at that point in time. That was like…level 50 friendship level. They were probably at about a 20.

Axel gathered up the things he'd littered over the blanket, and stuck them back in his pockets.

"So…you just carry this around to fidget with?" Roxas asked, slowly, as if he wasn't entirely sure what words to use in this situation.

"Yeah," said Axel. "It helps to have something to mess with when I get stressed out or…well, bored, mostly. I also—well…" he frowned. Maybe it wasn't time to reveal that, either.

"You also what?" Roxas asked, purposefully.

Well, how could Axel say no to that?

"It's kind of personal," he said.

"Oh," went Roxas, frowning. "Well…I guess you don't have to…"

"Well," went Axel, "It's not that I don't trust you, I just…well, I don't want you to freak out or anything. Will you freak out if I tell you?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Roxas said, more amused than exasperated. "I'll try not to. You don't kill people, right?"

Axel laughed. "No," he said. "I don't kill people."

"It can't be that bad, then, right?"

It definitely could. But Axel decided to take this leap of faith. Nothing could would come from keeping secrets, and he'd much rather reveal this willingly than have Roxas stumble upon it later.

He tugged up one of his sleeves, and laid his arm out on the bed for Roxas to see. He was thankful for the low light, because it concealed most of the damage, but a few dark scabs were still visible, circular, mostly at the top of his forearm.

Axel stared at his arm, seeing Roxas do the same out of his peripheral vision. He wasn't really sure he wanted to know what Roxas's reaction was to it.

"Um," he heard.

Axel took his arm off the bed and pulled his sleeve over it again. He continued staring at the blanket, heart pounding against his chest. He really didn't like showing people these things.

"They're burn scars," he said, fidgeting with the edge of his sleeve.

"You…do that to yourself?"

Axel nodded.

"Most of them are old," he said, semi-truthfully. Most of the ones he had in general were old. Specifically the ones on his arm, maybe not so much.

"Why?" Roxas asked, quietly.

Axel shifted, leaning his head against the bed and staring at the wall. Why? Well, wasn't that a complicated question.

"It's kind of a long story," he said, somehow smiling at the phrasing. At his flippancy. "Part of it is…the same as the keychains. I just get bored and want to feel something, and before I know it I just…"

He shrugged, turning and pressing his forehead into the mattress, trying not to think about the feeling, trying not to think about what Roxas was going to say next, his head trying to provide lines like That's so stupid, Why don't you just stop?

"I'm…sorry," is what he really did say. "I don't really know what to say."

Axel nodded, sort of.

"It's alright," he said. "I've heard about everything by this point anyways."

Silence hung in the air for a few long moments.

"You can always talk to me about it, if you want," Roxas said. "I might not know what to say, but…I can listen."

Axel looked up at him, and sighed.

He reached up and pat Roxas's knee, in some attempt at a comforting gesture. It was kind of awkward from his position, but he was pretty sure the sentiment would come through.

"Thanks," he said. Then, "You should probably get some sleep."

Roxas huffed, the mood in the room suddenly changing.

"I'm almost to the end of this chapter, though," he said, pouting. Axel had never heard video games referred to with "chapters," but he was pretty sure he understood what Roxas was talking about.

"Then you can look forward to playing it in the morning," he responded, grinning.

"Orrrr…" went Roxas, shrugging slowly.

Axel rolled his eyes.

"Let's make a deal," he said. "If you're sleeping when I wake up, then I'll make you breakfast."

Roxas frowned at him, squinting suspiciously. "When will you wake up?" he asked.

"Probably in another four hours or so."

"What? Do you usually wake up that early?"

"Trust me, Roxas, with a job like mine, that is sleeping in."

Roxas made a face at that.

"Remind me to never work in retail," he said.

"Do I not do that every single day already?"

Roxas laughed. "Alright," he said. "Fair enough. It's a deal."

"Good," said Axel. "Now go to sleep."

Axel ended up awake around five hours later, a little bit longer due to the fact he wasn't expecting Roxas's curtains to block out the entire sun. It almost seemed like the middle of the night in there.

He sat up to see Roxas fast asleep, looking more like a steadily rising-and-falling mass of blankets than an actual human being.

Axel stood up and walked over to him, leaning over and examining his face.

He blew on him slightly.

There was no reaction, so either Roxas was really good at playing at sleeping, or he was actually asleep. Either way, Axel supposed he'd keep his side of the bargain.

There was plenty of food in the fridge—Axel supposed there had to be, with this many teenagers in the house—so he had no trouble whipping something up. He sort of regretted not asking Roxas if he had any food peculiarities, but compromised on his lack of knowledge by making an omelet with various additions cooked separately and added on top of it, instead of in the eggs themselves. If Roxas didn't like anything, he could just pick it out.

Axel put the food on a plate and covered it with plastic wrap, before sticking it in the microwave. Then he cleaned everything he'd used, put it away, and went back to check on Roxas.

Still fast asleep. Axel didn't think he'd even moved.

Well, he couldn't just wake him up, could he? The kid had probably only gotten like, two hours of sleep by now, anyways.

He went back into the kitchen and wrote a note instead. "You win. Open for food," it said.

He stuck it on the microwave, made sure he had all of his things (his wallet, especially), and left, bound for home and hopefully avoiding any human contact for the next twelve hours.

He was glad he had spent the night with Roxas, but…he needed some time to recharge.