Roxas frowned at his sketchpad as if it had personally affronted him. His drawing wasn't horrible, he supposed, but he couldn't seem to get his pencil to do what he wanted it to do. His hands weren't working right, and marks kept coming out darker than he'd intended or not in the right place or—
He huffed, rubbing his eyes. This was giving him a headache.
When he looked back at his paper again, he saw Namine glance at him out of the corner of his eye. He'd told her, at some point previous, not to try and help him unless he actually asked for it (it got kind of annoying when you wanted to figure out how to do something yourself, and people kept trying to tell you how to do it), but he wasn't really sure what to ask for here.
"Okay," he said, sighing, giving in. "Help?"
Namine leaned over, and looked at his drawing. He flushed, sure she thought it was completely horrible.
"Hmm," she went, tilting her head slightly. Then she looked up at the park scene they were sitting in front of, then back at the drawing. "What are you having trouble with?"
If Roxas knew the answer to that, then he probably wouldn't be asking Namine for help. But, there was no point in snapping at her. It wasn't her fault he couldn't get his hands to do what he wanted them to.
"I'm trying to draw these leaves," he said, pointing at a particular area. "I don't know how to get them to look okay, though. I know you're not supposed to draw every single one, but…everything else just looks weird…"
"Ah," Namine went, smiling. "Well, it will look weird until you're done with it, if you're doing something like that."
Roxas looked over at her, and frowned.
"Then how will I know if I'm doing it right? What if I mess up the entire tree?"
She shrugged, sitting back up and turning back to her own drawing.
"Then you pass it off as an artistic liberty," she said, smiling.
Roxas gaped at her.
"I knew it," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You're a fraud."
She laughed, and shoved his arm, gently. He leaned over as if she'd hit a lot harder.
"Hey," she said, tone suddenly changing. Roxas sat up, and raised his eyebrows in question.
"You've gotten a lot better," she said.
He frowned, and looked down at his drawing. As far as he was concerned, it was about as good as anything he'd done all class, which was…well, not that great.
"Have I?"
"Well…" Namine tilted her head again, thinking it over. "You've gotten a lot better at sitting down and working. A few months ago you would have probably gotten frustrated and quit by now. And working on something you're only a little bit good at is the first step to getting really good at it."
Roxas continued staring at his drawing, thinking over what she said. She wasn't entirely wrong, was she. He'd found it a lot easier to keep his emotions from getting out of hand recently—at least in situations where they shouldn't be. Even if he still dreaded doing his homework, he didn't want to stab anything by the end of an assignment.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess you're right."
"I think you've been a lot happier in general, recently," Namine said, calmly, scratching out more shapes on her paper. "I wonder why that is?"
"Huh," went Roxas. "I dunno. Have I?"
Namine laughed behind her hand. Roxas blushed.
"What?" he said, pouting, "What's so funny?"
"Oh, nothing," Namine said, smiling politely, effectively ending the conversation.
Roxas huffed, not really as irritated as he was playing on.
Namine was weird sometimes.
"Hello! Roxas! How are you? How's school? How are your friends? Are you getting enough to eat? Are you sleeping well? [fire emoji x 3]"
Roxas blinked at the sudden influx of questions on his phone screen. Someone was feeling energetic. The next text was, "You may answer one, or some, or all of these questions."
"Hello Axel," he sent back, taking his time to think over everything he'd been asked. Then, "im okay. School is school. My friends are okay I assume. I am currently eating lunch. I am always tired."
Axel: "Good job. Nice response."
"School is school?"
Roxas: "Yes. School is school"
Axel: "What's that mean?"
Roxas: "I mean schools never really good so. School is just school."
Axel: "oh"
"Do you have trouble with it? Is that's why it's never really good?"
Roxas frowned. Axel always asked the wrong types of questions. Or…maybe the right ones. He certainly got to the point of things.
Roxas: "Yeah"
Axel: "Why do you think that is?"
Roxas: "Well im kind of stupid so that's part of it."
It wasn't really the ideal way to describe it, but it fit well enough. He wasn't sure what else to call it when someone could ask him what five plus three was and he'd usually have to stop and think about it.
Axel: "That's an interesting choice of words."
"What do you mean by 'stupid'?"
He blinked. That wasn't what people usually said when Roxas talked about this. It was usually, "You're not stupid," or…well, usually that. Which didn't really help that much when he was legitimately feeling stupid.
Roxas: "I mean it takes me a long time to do assignments and I have trouble thinking I guess?"
"Math doesnt make sense to me. I can never keep up w the readings in english."
"Im only not failing a lot of things because im good at figuring out what the answers are when it's multiple choice so my test grades are ok."
He felt something welling up in his chest, but he tried to ignore it. He thought he was used to this stuff by now, but…it still kind of felt bad.
Axel: "So you're not good at completing assignments. Do you have trouble focusing? Learning the material? Understanding what the teachers are asking of you? Something else? Some of these? None of these? All of the above?"
Roxas stopped, and read over that text a few times.
Roxas: "All of the above."
"Usually I can get what my teachers are saying, except this one teacher"
"like I can understand what words he's saying but they never make sense in my head."
"I guess that sounds kind of weird…"
Axel: "no, I understand exactly what you mean!"
Roxas flushed. Well, that was a first.
Axel, again: "have you looked this stuff up on the internet?"
"like, people who have these problems too."
Roxas: "some of it…? usually I just get google saying I have ADD or st…"
"I've talked to the counselor about it too but nothing she says really helps…"
Axel: "Counselors aren't shit, Roxas. That's your first life lesson from Mr. Axel"
"I'll send you some links to stuff you can get some better information from"
"I mean, if you want. I guess I'm being kind of pushy with this"
"I'm gonna rephrase this: Hey Roxas, do you mind if I send you a few links for you to read over? I know head stuff is a very personal thing so I wouldn't want you to feel like I'm trying to tell you what to think about how your own brain works."
Roxas: "yeah…that's fine"
"Thanks I guess? I'm not sure what you just said haha"
Axel: "in short: I will back off if you want me to."
Roxas: "Okay. I don't want you to back off."
Axel: "Cool. I'll send you some stuff."
Roxas frowned at the conversation. He hadn't really ever had a good experience with people trying to…get him to not do the things he was doing, but so far Axel hadn't pulled the "Have you tried not doing that?" so Roxas supposed he could, at least, keep an open mind.
Besides, who knows. Maybe this could actually help?
Axel: "So, since I've been over to your house, I feel like it's only fair I invite you over to mine"
"Feel free to decline."
Roxas set his DS down on his bed to answer his messages.
Axel's place…? Well, that could be…interesting. He wasn't really sure what he thought about that.
"Do you live with anyone else?" he sent. That was probably his main concern. He'd kind of gotten the feeling that Axel lived with this Larxene person, and if that was so…
Axel: "Nope. Got this place all to my lonesome."
Roxas blinked. Did he?
Roxas: "Oh. Well okay. Sure that could be fun"
And he'd take any excuse to postpone working on his homework, after all.
Axel: "Do you have homework to do this weekend?"
God damn it.
Roxas: "Not a lot…"
Axel: "Well I can't distract you from your studies."
"Bring it over and I'll try and help you with it."
Roxas laughed to himself. That was the opposite of what he considered fun, but knowing Axel's work ethic, they probably wouldn't be getting much actual work done anyways.
Roxas: "Well, okay. I guess I can spend some time tomorrow, then."
Axel: "Works for me."
Roxas: "Yeah. Send me your address?"
It turned out that Axel's house—no, apartment, actually—was within reasonable biking distance, so Roxas biked there, wondering all the way about how it possibly took Axel half an hour to get from his apartment to Roxas's house by any means.
Maybe he had to do his hair or something.
Roxas locked his bike onto the convenient bike rack outside of the apartment complex, and looked around. It was…kind of a nice-looking place. Roxas had expected more, average-to-slightly-dilapidated what with how Axel was complaining about his income all the time, but this place didn't look so bad.
He pulled out his phone to make sure he knew which apartment number Axel's was. That would be ground floor, so…
Roxas looked around, and went what he assumed was the right direction. Not that door, not that door…ah.
He looked at his phone again, then back up at the door. This should be the right one, so...
Roxas stared at the door. He should knock. It would be the easiest course of action. Just knock, and…
He huffed, and opened up his messaging app. "I think I'm here," he sent. It would take a little bit longer, but at least he wasn't in danger of knocking on some random person's apartment door.
The door in front of him opened, and behind it was an Axel.
"Hey," said Roxas.
Axel grinned.
"Come in!" he said, opening the door for him. Roxas walked past him, and looked around. "I tried to tidy up a little so it doesn't look quite so much like a hurricane came through. Do you want something to drink?"
"Um, no, thanks," Roxas said, setting his backpack down next to some table, trying to look inconspicuous. Maybe Axel will forget he told Roxas to bring his homework.
It smelled kind of like something was burning.
Roxas remembered Axel's scars, and felt a little sick. It wasn't that, though. It definitely wasn't that.
"This place is…nice," he said. "Do you really live here all alone?"
"Yep," said Axel, shrugging. "I don't like having people around all the time. They get hard to deal with. Anyways, did you bring your homework?"
Roxas huffed. "Yeah," he said. "I was hoping you forgot."
"Nope," went Axel. "I have a memory like…whatever animal it's supposed to be. Come on, let's knock some of this out."
Homework was a lot easier when Axel was around. Or, at least, it was a lot easier to deal with having homework—they didn't really get all that much done. For one, as Axel had not actually finished high school, as he had told Roxas many times before, so the properties of Algebra II were a little bit over his spiny head.
Weirdly enough, though, Roxas having to dig out his textbook and explain to Axel what factoring meant actually helped him get through a few of the problems. The review was nice, and it was relieving to finally not be the only one who was completely perplexed by the material.
So it probably would have worked out pretty well, if either of them could manage to stay focused for more than about five minutes at a time. Every three things would remind one of them of some incredibly interesting story that they just had to mention right then and there, which would lead to another anecdote, then another, then perhaps a discussion about philosophical ideas or something less scholarly, and on and on until one of them inevitably pulled the, "oh, shit, we were working on something," and they pulled themselves back together for a few minutes—at which point, of course, the cycle started all over again.
A few hours later, they had managed to get through about half of Roxas's relatively short math assignment. However, Roxas actually felt pretty confident about the work he'd done, and he'd basically done it all by himself, too. Axel had been helpful, but it's not like he could have provided any actual answers even if he'd wanted to.
"This…actually works pretty well," Roxas said, staring at the scrawl all over his scratch paper. He wasn't entirely sure what half of it meant by that point, but it looked pretty impressive.
"Really?" went Axel. "I feel like all I've done is distract you."
"Well, yeah, but somehow I still actually got stuff done, which is more than I can usually say."
Axel sat back looking over their accomplishments. "Weird," he said. "Well…do you wanna keep going?"
Roxas laughed, and shut his book. "Absolutely not," he said. "I think that's about all the math I can take for the day."
"Okay, good," said Axel, "Because I don't know how much more I could take, either."
Roxas grinned, and put his homework back in his backpack, zipping it up and kicking it under the table. Out of sight, out of mind.
"Sooo," went Axel, glancing around like he was oh-so-interested at the interior of his own apartment. "Are you hungry?"
Roxas blinked at him. "I could eat," he said. He could always eat.
Axel stood up. "I'll make dinner, then," he said. "Do you like spaghetti?"
"Um," went Roxas. Well, at least Axel wasn't trying to ask him what he wanted. "Yeah, sure."
"Perfect."
Before Roxas could say anything else, like maybe offering to help, or what he was supposed to do in the meanwhile, Axel had already disappeared into the kitchen.
"Okay," said Roxas, quietly, to himself.
He looked around the room.
Then he got up and went into the kitchen, to see Axel skillfully combining a lot of things into a single pot. Apparently he was actuallycooking, and not just heating up a bunch of things in jars.
Cool.
"That breakfast you made was pretty good, by the way," Roxas said, sitting himself at Axel's kitchen counter. There was a haphazard stack of papers on one corner of it. Roxas picked up one of them and looked it over. What was this? Well, it didn't look like anything interesting.
"Oh, thanks," Axel said, glancing at him. "I wasn't sure if you had any…well, if there was anything you didn't like eating, so I kind of had to wing it. It was okay?"
"Yeah, definitely," Roxas said, setting the paper on the counter and picking up the next. Oh, this one was some sort of electricity bill. Did Axel have to pay for electricity here? Brutal.
Axel turned back to the pot full of what Roxas had figured out was tomato sauce. It smelled excellent.
The next thing in the pile was an ID card. Roxas saw the back of it, with a little heart on it. It also had a hole punched in it, so it must have been an old one.
He picked it up and turned it over. The picture looked unfamiliar. Someone with a big mane of black hair, which was haphazardly pulled back to keep out of their face for the picture. They looked kind of sick, actually. Like they hadn't eaten for a while, and…
Wait, were those tattoos on their face?
Tattoos that looked suspiciously like…
Was this Axel?
Roxas looked at the rest of the ID card. The name listed wasn't Axel, but "LEA." Was that like "Lee?" Maybe 'Axel' was a nickname, or…
Roxas stared at the bottom of the ID card.
"Sex: F"
He blinked a few times. That was definitely the letter F. The picture and name bounced around in his head along with this information.
Before he could connect these three things together with much sense to them, the ID card was snatched out of his hand.
He looked up, to see Axel staring at him, jaw set into a carefully neutral expression.
Oh. Oh.
"I think you should leave," he said.
Roxas was—not nervous. Roxas was scared.
"I-I'm sorry," he said, weakly. "I didn't mean to, I…"
"Roxas," Axel said, voice strained, forced to keep quiet. "I would like you. To leave."
Roxas nodded, barely, and then nodded again, got up from the counter, grabbed his things, and left.
Axel sat on his kitchen floor, knees to his chest and face in his hands, rocking himself back and forth, memories he didn't want to remember rising to his head in waves as he tried to force them down, away again. He tried to keep his breathing steady as his lungs wanted to gasp for air. Roxas wasn't like them. Roxas wasn't like everyone else. Axel was safe.
He was safe.
I'm sorry…I didn't mean to look…
You're still Axel
That's all. You're still just Axel to me.
You can be mad if you need to but I just want you to know that this doesn't change anything
It doesn't change how I think of you. Maybe it changed how you think of me. That's okay…
I'll stop texting you for now but I'll be here if you want to talk again…
Axel peeked out from under his comforter and stared at his phone, lying silently on his bedside table.
He hadn't had it on for the past three days. He couldn't talk to anyone. No—he didn't want to talk to anyone. He knew what kind of things he would say if he did, and he'd kind of like to keep the friends he had, thanks.
Even Roxas.
Yes, he definitely wanted to keep Roxas. No matter how much his opinion tried to turn itself around over the past few days. He still wanted Roxas around.
He reached out and grabbed his phone, and then ducked back under the covers.
He switched it on, and laid it on his bed, waiting for it to boot back up.
He waited for a moment once the screen came on.
Then it vibrated for about a minute straight.
Oops.
Once it stopped—and he waited for a little bit to make sure it had—he picked it up and went to read his messages. There were a few from Roxas, but he saved them for last. The majority of them were from Larxene, such as "Are you skipping work today?" and "I told the manager you were sick, you better not make me regret this" "Where are you?" "Answer your goddamn phone before I kick your door down."
There were also a few messages from other friends, some who hardly even texted him in the first place, so that was a little suspicious—until he saw the one from Demyx, which said "Larxene made me send this to check up on you please be alive or shell kill me," which solved that particular mystery.
He just texted back, "im alive," and made a mental note to respond to the rest later.
Which he wouldn't, of course, he would just wait until Demyx told everyone and the inevitable rush of messages came in, which he would then respond to. That was more efficient.
Then, the only ones left were from Roxas.
Axel took a deep breath, and then opened the thread, scrolling to the top and reading through all of them slowly.
He wasn't mad.
Axel sighed, and put a hand over his eyes. If he had had it in him, he might have cried in relief.
"would you mind calling me?" he sent. He stared at the screen for moment.
It didn't look like Roxas was going to be replying immediately, so he pulled up his twitter feed and started scrolling through three days' worth of missed content.
He didn't actually care about most of it, but he felt a sense of duty to it. Maybe he should unfollow some of these people…
A notification popped up on the top of his screen. "sure give me 15 minutes."
Axel frowned, and checked the time. Roxas was probably at school. He had half a mind to tell Roxas not to bother, to wait until he went home, but…
No. He wanted to talk to him now. And if Roxas didn't mind…
He huffed, and buried his face in his pillow. He could never figure out what the right line was between clingy and distant.
Well, refusing to talk to someone for three days was definitely distant, so a little clingy wasn't going to hurt anyone.
Was it?
Maybe he was switching too fast. Maybe it seemed pushy, or manipulative. Maybe—
He groaned into his pillow.
"Shut up, brain," he said. He was doing the best he could. He wouldn't know until someone told him.
He grabbed his phone and got out of bed, stretching towards the ceiling, onto his tiptoes, before walking out to his kitchen.
The memory of three nights ago still hung in the air. He wasn't really upset about it anymore—he was never really upset about "it," what Roxas did, in the first place. It just…reminded him of some stuff he would have rather not been reminded of.
He went to his fridge and tried not to think about it. Food. Food was good—especially since he hadn't been eating much. He could manage a few pieces of toast, at least.
He had just about finished with said toast when his phone started ringing.
He checked the screen.
Roxas.
Shit—he should have thought about what he was going to say to him. He almost wanted to let it ring, but…no. He was the one who asked him to call. That would just be mean.
He answered it.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," said Roxas back. He sounded quiet. Maybe it was just the connection. "How are you?"
"I'm…" Axel thought about it for a moment. "I'm alright," he said. "I'm better now than I was."
"That's good."
There were voices in the background, behind Roxas's speech.
"Hey, listen," said Axel, "I want to apologize. I got upset at you and that wasn't really fair."
"Um," went Roxas. "Apology accepted. I don't think there's…I'm not mad or anything though…"
Axel sighed.
"I don't really know what I'm trying to say," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "I just…I wasn't really upset with you, honestly. I've just had some bad experiences with…with being outed, and it sort of…I felt like you were going to react like that, even though part of me knew you wouldn't. I trust you, but it's hard to remember that sometimes. If that makes any sense…"
The line was silent for a moment.
"Yeah," said Roxas. "That makes sense."
"Okay…well…I don't know. I try not to do this but…it actually happens kind of a lot. Kind of a lot a lot. And sometimes my friends end up having to deal with it. So…so if you want to keep your distance then I'd understand."
"Do you want me to?" Roxas asked. "To keep my distance?"
Axel didn't even have to think about it.
"No," he said. "Not at all."
"Then…I want to be here for you."
Axel smiled at his counter. He felt tears coming. What, more of these?
"Well…could you do me a favor, then?"
"Um," went Roxas, "sure, I guess."
"Pretend you didn't see that ID for, like, half a second."
"Okay…?"
"Are you pretending?"
"I'm pretending."
"Okay. Then, Roxas, I have something to tell you."
"Oh…?"
"I'm a trans guy. My ID says female on it for some reason. Surprise." There, that wasn't so painful.
The line was quiet for a moment.
"Oh," is what Roxas said, eventually. "Okay."
Axel couldn't help but laugh. 'Oh, okay?' That was simultaneously the worst and probably the best response Axel had ever gotten.
"There," he said. "All better. Thanks."
"That's what friends are for, right?"
Axel grinned at his counter.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Roxas was such a dork. It was wonderful. "Hey, I wanna make it up to you. Do you want to get dinner sometime?"
"Dinner?" Roxas repeated. "I kind of feel like I should be the one doing that…"
"Well, you can buy mine and I'll buy yours. Then we'll be even."
"What?" Roxas said, laughing. "Okay. That works, I guess? When did you want to go?"
"Hmm. Well, I'm probably going to end up putting in some penalty hours at work," ouch, "So maybe sometime next week? Would that work?"
"Uh, yeah," said Roxas. "I mean, probably."
"Probably works. We can figure out a time later, hm?"
"Sure. Um. Goodbye, then?"
"Goodbye," Axel said. "I—" No. He couldn't say that. "I'm…glad you're my friend."
"Yeah," said Roxas. "Me, too."
"Okay…bye for real now."
Roxas laughed. "Goodbye. See you soon."
That was…nice to hear.
They'd decided on meeting at a burger joint that was mutually convenient for both of them—and not too much of a burden on Roxas's poor high schooler wallet. Though, honestly, Axel was probably about as well off as he was. A pocketful of birthday money lasts a lot longer when you're a teenager.
The first thing Roxas did when he showed up was hold his arms out at Axel.
Axel frowned at him.
"Come on," said Roxas. "Or do you not want a hug?"
Oh, is that what was going on here?
"I dunno," Axel said, grinning. "You're pretty far down there, I don't know if I can reach."
Roxas huffed, and put his arms down. "Jerk."
Axel laughed. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Come here." He held a single arm out, but when Roxas came close enough he wrapped both his arms around his waist and hauled him up to eye level.
"Ah-!" went Roxas. But he quickly accepted his new altitude and threw his arms around Axel's shoulders, hugging him anyways.
On a scale of one to awesome, this was probably one of the best hugs Axel had ever gotten.
He placed Roxas down, gently.
"Okay," he said, "Enough sappiness, let's get something to eat."
Roxas must have been starving or something—well, he was a teenager, they were known to eat everything in sight, weren't they?—because he still managed to make quick progress through his burger while talking almost constantly. Apparently something big had happened in the video…game-o-sphere…and it didn't take much prompting for Roxas to start telling Axel every little detail of what was going on.
It was kind of adorable, actually, though Axel really wished he would stop thinking that. In any case, it was pretty rare to see Roxas get this outwardly animated about something.
"So we're finally getting to see all of this unreleased content that apparently bridges the storyline between all these games, and they might be adding in a remake of this other game that no one's played because it's on this really old system and it's, like, impossible—"
Halfway through this particular bit of information, Roxas started rotating one of his hands back and forth excitedly in a somewhat atypical fashion. Axel took small note of it, hardly thinking much of it—but then Roxas paused, frowned, and stuck his hands under the table.
"Uh, er," he tried to pick up his train of thought again. "Anyways…"
Axel frowned. Right. Most people didn't do that, did they?
"You don't have to stop," he said.
"Well, yeah, I just forgot what—"
"No, not that."
Roxas blinked at him, face blank. Apparently he had no idea what Axel was talking about.
"Your hands," said Axel. "You were…" Hm. Did Roxas know that word? "You were doing this," he said, imitating the movement for a moment. "You don't have to stop."
Roxas flushed and looked down at the table, picking at his food. Axel felt an unbidden surge of anger—not at Roxas, but definitely about Roxas—and tried to keep it from showing.
"Do people tell you not to do that?" he said, keeping his voice as neutral as he could. "Who?"
"Not really…I don't know…"
Roxas sighed, and Axel's anger all but dissipated. Ah—he'd upset him, hadn't he? Sometimes he forgot that righteous anger wasn't always a welcome reaction to this kind of thing.
"People don't really tell me to stop, they just kind of make fun of me for it," Roxas said to his plate. "One of my friends told me it makes me look, um…retarded."
Axel frowned, scrunching his nose up. Well, wasn't that just great.
"That's not a very nice thing for them to say," Axel said, not entirely sure how else to put it.
"Yeah, I know." Roxas sighed. "It is kind of weird though, isn't it?"
"No," said Axel, decidedly. "It's perfectly normal."
Roxas frowned, apparently perplexed at this answer. "No one else does it, though. I mean, I've never seen anyone do it."
"I know a lot of people that do that. Well, not exactly that, but stuff like that. People just show their excitement in different ways, that's all. If people make fun of you for that, then…" you should punch them right in the face. No, that probably wasn't the best piece of advice. "They're…not being very nice, and that's a problem with them, not you."
Roxas shrugged slightly at this, apparently having no further response.
"…anyways," Axel said, in a weak attempt to salvage Roxas's excitement. "You were about to tell me when that game's coming out , right?"
"Oh. Yeah. Well…"
It didn't take him that long to get back into the swing of it.