Disclaimer: They aren't mine.
A/N: There is a lot of drama in this chapter. I mean a lot. It is like an episode of The Hills or something, which I cannot be sure of since I don't watch it. But I will say this: I remember a time when anything hard or anything beautiful felt like the end of the world, all the time. In coolspeak we call this "high school drama." Please do not take me or anything here too seriously.
The power ballad in question is the Damn Yankee's "High Enough" which is, let's face it, an epic mountain of awesome that Roxas belts (NOT the higher harmony, which would be hilarious) in a completely un-ironic way… or at least mostly un-ironic.
--
Chapter Seven: Lullabies
There is the sickeningly manufactured smell pressed between the covers of new textbooks that, after tearing off the plastic cover, wafts out to remind you that, yes, a new quarter has started. As the quarter progresses, this oddly clinical smell dissipates over time, replaced by the chemical scent of highlighters, the dirty stench of mechanical pencils, and the leftovers of perfectly formed fingerprints spit and pasted on with nacho cheese flavored Corn Nuts. Regardless of the particular stench, the important part is that the new textbook smell should be gone, long gone with hours of torturous Hesiod and early Spenser. Roxas should not have come to discover, the week before finals, that his Renaissance Pastoral textbook smelled horrifically exactly like a textbook. Luckily, Roxas spent Dead Week in residence at the side of Axel's bed, Axel with his "notes of in-fucking-fallibility." Roxas could not help that he was not an amazing student, and every cup of coffee that Axel brought him from the dining commons he accepted with only moderate hostility.
"This is not fucking fair," Roxas had said after the third night of reading through Axel's notes like a monk before a holy text. He'd accepted his fifth—sixth?—cup of coffee from the redhead, creamy and sweet like conveniently melted ice cream, and frowned as Axel returned to his computer to finish the rest of some pirated documentary on the Catacombs of Paris.
"I know, right?" Axel had said, fiddling with his headphones. "Brains and body. I am quite the catch."
On a good day Roxas would have fumed silently, maybe scribbled over a few of Axel's meticulous notes, but on that particular day he was inclined to agree with the redhead. Roxas attributed his newfound interest in Axel to the moonlit declarations of promised "love" Axel had yet to make good on. It had been a couple weeks, but Axel had not suddenly shown an interest in eating food outside of the dining commons or doing things with Roxas outside of studying, partying, and sitting in class together. The using drugs together thing, though, had stopped completely, and the redhead had taken to hiding Roxas' cigarettes with alarming ease and frequency. There was also the fact that Axel continued to disappear on weekends. Roxas tried hard not to think about it, as much as he tried hard not think about the fact that Riku had called him twice and Sora grew increasingly listless over their nightly phone conversations. These were all things Roxas could not think about, would not think about. Not if he wanted to stay sane.
Well, maybe he thought about them a little. As he sat three seats away from Axel during the Renaissance Pastoral final, the little voice waved its fists in the back of his head. Damn you, it said. Ask me the fuck out already, it said. Roxas frowned and turned his attention back to the exam. With twenty minutes left, Roxas decided that stabbing his eyes out with his pen might prove more worthwhile than trying to think about "What significance does the locus amoenus have with regard to Shakespeare's As You Like It in conjunction with Virgil's Eclogues?" Maybe if Axel didn't finish one fucking hour ago, it would be easier to concentrate. Roxas flicked his eyes up quickly from his exam over toward the other boy. Sometimes Roxas swore Axel could read his mind. Damn. The redhead was slouched in his chair, exam turned over, twirling his pen between his fingers and staring right into Roxas' eyes. Axel winked at the blonde and nodded encouragingly. Roxas debated flinging his pen at Axel's face.
Twenty minutes and five seconds later, Roxas scribbled his way through the final sentence of his conclusion and slammed home a period before Shiny Bald Professor Man swiped his exam out from under his pen and glared disapprovingly. He shoved his pen into his backpack with shaking hands; he always suffered from the jitters after taking an exam, like he'd been sprinting for his life and had barely made it out alive. Axel's mouth quirked as Roxas stood beside his seat, hands vibrating visibly.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," Roxas said, tightening his hands into fists. "I just… I hate tests or something."
Axel looked up at him for a long moment before launching himself out of his chair. "Let's go."
Roxas did his best to catch up with Axel's long strides. Must be starving or something. Roxas stopped in confusion as Axel took the path that led toward the student parking lot. What? Are we going on a date now?
"Uhh," Roxas said. Axel was already too far ahead to hear, so Roxas said louder, "UHHH."
Axel stopped and turned. "What?"
"The, uh, dining commons are that way?" Roxas said, pointing. Taco pizza today. Gross.
"Your directional skills are very impressive, Roxas. You keep like a map up there or something?" Axel asked, tapping at his temple.
"Ha-ha, jackass," Roxas said. "I haven't had real food other than coffee and kiwis since like last week, so taco pizza sounds like a five-course meal right now." A gross one. Take me out, please.
"You don't have finals tomorrow."
"No, but… food?"
"Your next final isn't until Thursday, and it's some Psych bullshit you don't really need to study for, right?"
Roxas walked toward Axel, nonplussed. "How does any of this make me less starving for food?"
Axel rolled his eyes and grabbed the blonde by the hand and began dragging him toward the student lot. "I will feed your annoying ass in exactly two hours, okay?" Roxas let himself be led, grumbling under his breath. Axel's grip on his fingers relaxed. "I have some emergency cans of Chef Boyardee in the car, if you need them." Mmm, Beefaroni, Roxas thought. Axel saw the change in the blonde's expression and smiled. "You like that, Rox? Big fan of canned goods?"
"I hate you," Roxas said.
Axel smirked as they walked. "Our friendship has progressed to the stage where you can say you hate me and I know you don't actually mean it. I am singing with joy on the inside."
"Fuck you."
Axel's smirk widened. "That one never gets old."
Roxas fumed silently until they reached Axel's truck, an old but surprisingly shiny dark green Toyota that Roxas had to jump to get in to. It was only after they stopped so Roxas could hammer a can of Beefaroni against the ground until it tore open enough for him to suck out the insides—"You have emergency cans of food without an emergency can opener?"—that Roxas wondered where they were going.
"Should I be worried?" he asked, sucking the last of the metallic tomato sauce off his fingers.
Axel turned down the stereo, one of Roxas' cigarettes in hand. "What?"
"Are we going to Vegas?" Roxas asked, reaching across Axel's lap to the side door compartment where his pack of Parliaments was stashed.
Roxas' hair brushed under Axel's chin as he leaned back into his seat, cigarette in hand, and Axel's breath caught oddly before he spoke. "You, uh, want to go?"
"I want to go wherever you're taking me," Roxas said, lighting the cigarette. "But I would kinda like to know where it is we're going."
"Home," Axel said, turning the stereo back up.
Roxas watched the scenery pass from beachside to city to miles of endless traffic. In a way he hoped was inconspicuous, he watched Axel drive. It was very disinterested while being completely focused at the same time. He drove with his right thumb at the bottom of the steering wheel, left elbow leaned on the arm rest, and his lips moved along to the impossibly long CD blaring over the speakers, a schizophrenic mix of rock from what Roxas thought was at least five different eras. As the opening riff of what Roxas had come to term "Axel's song" came on, Roxas turned up the volume and started singing along at the top of his lungs. Not to be outdone, Axel joined in. Complete with vocalized guitar solos and the proper amount of indignant "I'm eighteen and I like it!" rebelliousness, Axel and Roxas finished the song to applause from the passengers in neighboring cars on either side of them. They were, after all, stuck in gridlock traffic.
"Do you know this one?" Axel asked, flipping the tracks forward. Roxas sang along to the new song, and the one Axel picked after it, and so on, all the while Axel lowering the volume until it was mostly just Roxas singing over a whisper of music. They exited the freeway as Axel flipped to a cheesy early 90s power ballad that Roxas knew, at best, every other word of, but suited his range perfectly. They parked in front of a small yellow house, and Axel turned the car off while Roxas belted the final chorus, his voice ringing in a vibrato that Roxas didn't know he had. The blonde smiled sheepishly, meeting Axel's gaze.
"I have goosebumps right now," Axel said.
"Yay?" Roxas said, wincing at the praise as he felt an embarrassed blush rise to his cheeks. He always had an allergic reaction to people complimenting his singing. I'm not even that good. I probably suck compared to… oh my god, that smile.
"What was that thing you did, where you sang higher than the main part?" Roxas didn't know if he'd ever seen Axel smile like that. In seven months, Roxas had come to learn, unconsciously, the way Axel smiled. He had the smile that didn't reach his eyes (the first one Roxas had ever seen, backlit by a small bonfire and moonlight), the smirky smile, the predatory smile, the faux cheery beaming smile, the manipulative winning smile, and the small smile he always tried to hide, but never this particular smile, eyes sparkling and mouth turned up in a way that transformed the other boy's face completely. Roxas' heart pinged as he laughed.
"The harmony? How do you have a CD hundreds of songs long, and not know what a harmony is?"
"I like music, Mr. Choir Boy of the Gods. Doesn't mean I know shit about it." Axel stepped out of the truck, made a show of trying to catch Roxas as he hopped out, and gestured grandly toward the house. "Welcome to my humble abode."
"Nice mountains," Roxas said, looking the opposite direction. Axel shook his head and led Roxas in through the front door.
"I don't, uh, know what my mom has around. Probably nothing. My room is down the hall to the left," Axel said, heading in to the kitchen. Roxas felt vaguely nervous. This is where he lives. His eyes cast over the living room. He probably sits there and watches T.V. And he probably eats there. He didn't know what it was, maybe the sense of invading someone's personal space—I've been in his dorm, though—but there was something distinctly unnerving about being in Axel's house. It didn't make sense, in the same way that Axel crying or Axel taking notes didn't make sense. Being away at school is like living in a glass dome, a tiny microcosm of humanity that exists in the impossible realm of kids with no parents and no homes; a concentrated cell of unreality that is supposed to give birth to adequately functioning members of society. Sometimes it was hard to remember that people at school had real lives outside of studying, partying, and snippets of histories that you had no reason not to believe.
Roxas wandered down the narrow hall, taking in the paintings lining the walls and making the space feel smaller than it was. The bathroom, a girly shade of pink, was ahead, and a room overflowing with stuff was on the right. The door to the room on the left, Axel's, was closed. What the fuck is wrong with you? The doorknob felt icy under his fingers. On some level Roxas felt like he was about to see something disappointing. You build people up in your head, and then you see the reality of them, of what they are, and it comes crashing down. He didn't want that for Axel. Roxas was more content to let the Axel of jagged edges and harsh corners sulk around his mind, and he wouldn't have to know anything else. Anything else would be too much, probably. He heard Axel in the kitchen, singing that stupid power ballad in the wrong key, and Roxas realized he was breathing hard. JUST OPEN THE DOOR. NOW. DO IT NOW.
Axel's walls, a deep blue, boasted not one single poster. His bed, immaculate white sheets smoothed flat and fitted, sat underneath double windows, sunlight filtering in through the open curtains. Roxas fought off the urge to immediately flounce face down on the bed and inhale, instead he peered closely at the white desk fitted to the wall. History books lined the edges of the desk, stacked one on top of the other: Pompeii and Vesuvius, notorious speakeasies, the Whitechapel murders—stacks of books all dedicated to very specific moments of history. Roxas made a move toward the closet, but his foot caught on the edge of the bed and he tumbled down on to it.
He sleeps here. Roxas trailed his hands over his stomach, fingers inching up under his shirt. He's done more than sleep here. His stomach growled and Roxas groaned, curling up on his side, dislodging a pillow from underneath the covers and bringing it close to his face. Don't do it. He held his breath. Don't be a fucking girl about it. Just don't do it. "Fuck," Roxas whispered, inhaling deeply. It was laundry detergent and the smell of time, mostly, but hidden just one layer away from the surface was the smell that clung to his hair all the time these days, to his clothes, his skin: mountain air and something lost in the trunk that you find years later; dusty, familiar.
"Tired?" Axel, in the doorway, sounding amused. Roxas sat up, embarrassed.
"Hungry," Roxas managed, choking down a half-articulated emotion.
"I unearthed a box of Pop Tarts. That okay?" Roxas nodded and rose from the bed… only to stumble right into Axel's arms. Axel chuckled, rubbing his back. "This is definitely right out of a movie."
Roxas, mildly horrified, burbled and pushed away. He was not trying to flail around pathetically, but his body seemed intent on making an idiot out of him. Pull yourself together. We're at his house, not on a date. Roxas gritted his teeth and threw himself into a kitchen chair, cramming a Pop Tart in his mouth. WHO IS EVEN TALKING ABOUT DATING, DUMB FUCK. Not him. You are being stupid and paranoid and what about Riku? What about Sora? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Axel watched the blonde devour three breakfast pastries in a row. When Roxas reached for his fourth, Axel started laughing. "I didn't know you were that hungry."
Roxas frowned at the final Pop Tart and broke it in half, offering a piece to Axel. He felt like drowning himself in the cup of milk Axel poured out for him. Idiot. Idiot idiot idiot.
"I want to show you something," Axel said suddenly, standing. Roxas choked on the milk. "Are you okay, man? You're acting fucking weird as hell."
"M'fine," Roxas mumbled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. We are friends. He said he's going to love me. Maybe he meant like friends. Fuck, what's the big deal. Except Roxas couldn't quiet the voice in his head that said maybe, maybe the reason Axel didn't like him is because he was pathetic. Or stupid. Or ugly. Not good enough, not cute enough. There was a reason. There had to be. You're not his type, remember. You're no one's type.
--
What Roxas couldn't admit to himself is that the excited buzz, the "go with it" recklessness, did a fine job of masking the confusion about Riku and the potential catastrophe he was getting into with Sora. You cannot confuse your sex and your love, but Roxas was doing it anyway. He'd already done it anyway, and if Axel wanted to be around, then Roxas was going to use him. We make these grand pretenses about valuing people's friendship and valuing their company, but Roxas believes these are all really polite ways of saying we use people. We use people for friendship, for conversation, for sex, for marriage. Someone to eat lunch with. Drugs. Everyone has a use, even if we don't admit the usage. There was the problem that in certain lighting Axel's eyes looked too much like Riku's, but Roxas would look away and focus on the bones in Axel's wrists, or the line his shoulders made against the sky. It wasn't even hard to forget his heart was pinned out on a dissection board, screaming into each new scalpel. Axel made it so easy to pretend. But Roxas could not admit these things.
They were sitting twenty feet above the ground on a flattened circle that Axel said was a water tower. Someone's backyard hung beneath them, a display of ostentation that, nestled high above the city in Roxas' earlier admired "nice mountains," was lost on deer and, probably, mountain lions that Roxas couldn't be sure were not watching them in the not too far off distance. They were smoking and it was cold, the March air having taken a dive toward the chilly after the sun slipped past the horizon.
He has nice hands, Roxas thought, blowing out a stream of smoke. Axel was pointing out places of significance in the city below, outlining where he gave a blowjob with an Altoid in his mouth, where he first swallowed a load without gagging, where he first gave it to a jock who begged on his knees for it, where he thought they should go for dinner, the first time he fucked a girl, the first time he ripped off a dealer, where he watched two kids get beaten to death on an elementary school playground. He has nice hands, and he shouldn't be telling me any of this. It was worrying that Axel had done this much living since he turned sixteen.
"My mom married this guy, and he kicked it within the year. We ended up with his house and his life insurance." Inhale, exhale. "Maybe she conned him. I dunno. Didn't really know the guy. But that was after… that whole thing in Mammoth, so…"
So that's his reason, Roxas thought. Pretty good reason. Axel continued talking, detailing the history of his life in this town, and the entire time Roxas could only think about perfect warmth and men he could never be.
"…and so we were frying balls fucking hard," Axel was saying, voice exhilarated, "and we all ditched sixth period English because it literally looked like the ground was made of black ass water, so I was running around the auditorium with condoms on my ears instead of writing essays on slavery or like, I dunno, comma usage." Axel laughed, and it was a happy nostalgic sound. "It sounds fucking crazy now, but those were the fucking days, man. I felt life every second. Every second I felt it burning up my veins like some really good shit."
Nice hands, Roxas thought again, getting angry. He was always going out, always getting fucked, so how were "those" the fucking days. Weren't "these" the fucking days, too? "You got anything on you?" Roxas blurted out right as Axel was about to speak. The redhead shot him a look.
"You're cutting back."
"Excuse me?"
"You're cutting back, Roxas," Axel said again, turning his gaze back out toward the city glittering below them.
"Because you're, what, my mom now?"
"No," Axel said evenly. "I started having this thing bug me. I guess it's called 'a guilty fucking conscience,' because it would keep me up at night and every time I saw your fucking face, it would scream at me. So you are cutting the fuck back, alright?" Axel said all of this, voice clipped, out toward the city.
"Take me back," Roxas said after a pause.
"Roxas—"
"Take me back or I will fucking walk, motherfucker," Roxas ground out, heaving himself to his feet. He glared down at the other boy, felt the insane urge to kick him off the tower. It'd probably kill him. Probably hurt him really bad. But why was Axel, Axel of all people, trying to baby him? A guilty conscience? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK.
"Roxas," Axel said again, quietly this time.
"You grew some morals where your fucking balls used to be? Or, what is it you said, you're 'having a crisis of morals?' Fuck you, man. I let you drag me to your shitty fucking town in your shitty fucking truck. And I was all excited and fucking…" Roxas made a noise of disgust, ran his fingers through his hair. "Fucking waiting for you to 'love me' or whatever. You said it four weeks ago; I've been counting." Roxas paced around the tower, eyes darting up into the mountains for anything unsightly with dripping fangs. He was beginning to hear how utterly insane he sounded. "You can't… you can't just say shit like that to me, man. You just can't." Axel mumbled under his breath, eyes down. "What, asshole?" Roxas shouted. He felt sick, like his stomach was staging a rebellion under his skin.
"I am," Axel said. "I'm trying. To… to love you. Okay?"
Roxas laughed, hysteria running icy in his veins. "Fuck you, Axel. Fuck you."
Incensed, Axel scrambled to his feet. "Fuck me? I'm telling you I'm trying to love you, and you're telling me off? How about fuck you, Roxas?" Axel strode over to the blonde, furious, and Roxas was sure the other boy would hit him. "How am I doing it wrong? Helping you study? Keeping that shit out of your body? Being nice to you? And I can assure you, Rox, I am not a nice fucking guy." Axel took a step closer, voice tight with fury. "How about trying to stop you from killing yourself with these fucking things." Axel reached into his pocket and hurled Roxas' pack of Parliaments to the floor. "Maybe love is easy for guys like you. Nice mom, nice friends. I don't have any fucking friends. My mom is a fucking bitch. Love?" Axel laughed, a hollow painful crack that Roxas felt tweak in his guts. "I don't even know if I can love. I thought I'd try it with you because…" Axel took another step closer to Roxas, their clothes touching, Axel's thumbs bumping against Roxas' arms. "Because you're worth it to me. To try it. I'm not a good guy, I'm never going to be a hero, but I thought maybe…" Axel exhaled, close enough for the gust of warmth to coat Roxas' cheeks. Axel's expression darkened and he turned away. "I don't know what I thought."
They stood on the water tower in silence, Axel turned out toward the city, Roxas behind him. The lines of the other boy's back were a study in grace, and Roxas thought he could lay notes out on it; a whole there, a quarter here. And a rest. Then a key change.
"I'm cold," Roxas said quietly. Axel moved past him in a single movement, headed back down to his truck. Roxas heard nothing in his head and bent close to the floor and retched a few times before picking himself up and climbing down the ladder on the side of the tower. The truck was waiting at the curb, Axel staring straight ahead as Roxas opened the door and hopped up… at least attempted to hop up. His hip hit the seat and he went jolting sideways. He would've landed on his face had the other boy not grabbed his upper arm and hauled him into the seat.
They were halfway back to Axel's house before Roxas said, "Thanks."
"…Yeah."
They parked in Axel's empty driveway and sat in the car, engine off. Roxas wondered where Axel's mom was, if he would have to meet her. He wondered why Sora hadn't called him yet. He thought maybe Axel would just drive him back to school right now, and that maybe they'd never talk again. When Axel spoke, his voice sounded normal.
"You hungry?"
"Just… tired," Roxas said. Tell him you want to go back. Just get it over with. This is fucked beyond repair.
"I can take you back to school," Axel said, hands moving up to the wheel in a jerk. Roxas felt panic explode in his chest.
"I'm just really tired, Axel," Roxas said, and the panic was in his voice, too, skewing it high.
"I'll… you can sleep in my room." Axel opened the door and climbed out. Roxas felt the panic in his chest recede quickly, his heartbeat loud in his ears. He hopped out of the truck and backed up into Axel as he shut the door.
"Sorry," Roxas said, head down. Axel arms wrapped around him a second later, pressing him with soft ferocity. He would've returned the hug, wanted to, but his arms were pinned at his sides. He compromised by nuzzling his cheek against Axel's jacket. He heard Axel sigh above him. What he didn't see was how the redhead's eyes slid closed, head angled up in relief and silent thanks.
--
The first thing Roxas was aware of, eyes slit against the sunshine that streamed into his eyes from under the curtains, was that his entire body felt like heaven. Best mattress I have ever slept on, hands down. He moaned pleasantly in his throat and arched backward, stretching. The second thing Roxas realized was that Axel had not secretly crept into the bed in the middle of night. Despite Roxas' quiet protestations, Axel had insisted on sleeping on the couch in the living room. The third thing Roxas realized was that the smell of awesome was in the air. Nnngh, breakfast. He stumbled in a half-naked stupor out of Axel's room and into the hallway. For a split second before entering the kitchen, Roxas wondered if his mom was the one cooking, and how she'd react to a boy who was certainly not her son, and whom she had never met, wearing a ridiculously long shirt that made him look all of twelve, stumble into her kitchen. Luckily, it was only Axel at the stove, deftly flipping a pancake by flinging up the frying pan. The dining table, standing against the back wall of the kitchen, was covered in a small army of plates. Omelets, pancakes, funny looking hash browns, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, sliced grapefruit, and, oh, fuck yes, waffles.
"You cook!" Roxas declared, delighted.
"Vaguely," Axel said, waving a hand breezily. Roxas could tell he was embarrassed by the small smile. "I didn't know what you wanted, so I made some of everything." Roxas opened his mouth to respond, but Axel set the pan down on the stove with a clatter and hurried out of the kitchen. "No, no, fuck, don't say anything. Eat whatever you want, I'm going to go drown my embarrassment in the shower."
Roxas sat at the table and eyed the food, the grin on his face making him feel slightly giddy. The waffles would have to be eaten, yes, but he didn't want Axel to feel embarrassed. So he ate half of everything. When the redhead walked back in twenty minutes later, Roxas was finishing exactly half of the waffles and sighing with content. Axel burst into laughter.
"I can't believe you," Axel said, sliding into a chair.
Roxas smiled around the last bite of his waffles and felt like an idiot. "Din wan you to feel bad," he said, tonguing the food to his cheek, bottom lip glistening with a trickle of syrup. Roxas reached for the glass of milk and felt his cheeks begin to burn under Axel's stare. He didn't think Axel realized he was doing it. Roxas set the glass down carefully, still smiling like he didn't have a brain in his head, and looked expectantly at the redhead.
"You," Axel said, finally looking away and picking up a fork, "are amazing." In that moment, Roxas thought that maybe he'd burst into song. Axel smiled at his plate of eggs and said, "Washed your clothes and left you a towel by the shower."
Roxas grinned, and made a move toward the bathroom. As he walked by Axel's chair, he felt the urge to hug the other boy. Do it. You want to do it, so do it, and don't half ass it, either. Roxas took a deep breath and slipped his arms over Axel's shoulders, leaning over slightly and hugging the other boy to his chest. Axel's hair against his cheek, slightly damp, felt familiar.
"Thanks," Roxas said, feeling his eyelids lower. Don't you fucking close them. "I… I love breakfast." Fight it.
Axel set his fork down very carefully and took one of Roxas' hands into his own, turning it softly. "I know," he said, and he pressed his lips to the inside of Roxas' wrist.
Roxas felt wobbly as he walked to the bathroom, legs unsteady under him. He went through the mechanical motions of cleaning himself and thought back to the whispered phone conversation he'd had with Sora, Axel's pillow lying on his face to muffle his voice.
"You're late," Roxas had whispered. He'd wanted to tell Sora everything, had to tell someone about how things were happening with Axel. He's my best friend. I want to tell him.
"Had to work late," Sora said, and Roxas could hear him eating, the clink of silverware against a plate. "I miss you."
He had never wanted so much to tell Sora everything, to unload his soul and spill out all over the place. But he couldn't. "I love you, Sora."
Sora had gone very quiet. Roxas knew then that Sora had been having a hard time about something. "I really… I really miss you, Rox. Come home soon. Please. I miss you." All whispers that crackled like static.
"Saturday," Roxas whispered back, misery on the inside corners of his eyes. Misery demanding, calling out for blood or justice.
Standing in the shower, toweling off, Roxas' mind was shooting out in a thousand different spirals, all of them maddening. He would need a cigarette or a bottle of Ativan or anything, anything that would stop the chatter; a thousand different questions and no answers at all.
--
It was mid-afternoon when Roxas tripped over the stack of books on the other side of his dorm room door. Axel had a final the next day, and had to "look over some things," which Roxas was pretty sure was bullshit since Axel didn't study at all. Maybe he needs to study the History stuff. Maybe it's harder. Rationalizing. Roxas didn't want to think about other reasons why Axel wanted to be away from him. I thought… Because the hug had been nice, hadn't it? He kissed him on the wrist, hadn't he? That's twice. Once on my chest, once on my wrist. He brushed against the spot where Axel's lips had pressed on his wrist, biting his lip. He wasn't aware he had an audience.
"Self-love. Touching, pun intended, but do you mind shutting the door? There is a breeze coming in and it is fluttering my thousand fucking pages of Middlemarch." Roxas closed the door, only to find Zexion tossing the book aside and staring down at him from the top bunk. "Where were you?"
"I was—"
"Gallivanting with the enemy?"
"He's not the—"
"Roxas. Listen to Zexion. I know your brain must be addled from his evil redhead ways, but trust me on this one. He is the enemy."
Roxas rolled his eyes. "We're friends, man. It's cool."
"No, we are friends. You spend every second of your life with that guy. I'm not jealous or anything, or maybe I am, but only a very miniscule amount that is almost non-existent, but the point is that this thing you have with him is not called 'friendship.'" Zexion used air quotes for emphasis. "Maybe 'a crush,' as infantile as it sounds, or possibly 'obsession.' Maybe 'pedophilia.' None of these, as you may have noticed, are 'friendship.'" All of this, air quoted. Roxas would have laughed it he didn't feel enraged.
"I will forgive you for this because you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. You don't even know him."
Zexion, as sarcastic and derisively humorous he could be, could also cut a bitch in two with his rhetoric. You didn't cross him. Roxas learned this when he watched as Zexion ripped a kid a new one after he bumped into him and caused the boy to spill coffee over one of his books. It happened sophomore year, and Roxas never wanted to do or say anything that would require such a verbal lashing.
"Know him, Roxas? How well do you 'know' him?" Zexion jumped off the bunk and got in Roxas' face, eyes dark. "If you think trading your precious secrets with that guy makes you soulmates, you are sorely fucking mistaken. Maybe I'm a little bitter, but after knowing you, living with you for two years, two fucking years, Roxas, I think I'm more entitled to 'know' you than this guy you met seven months ago who, if you recall, told me he wanted to suck your dick just to piss me off."
Roxas' cheeks colored at the memory of the night, Axel on the beach, forward and aggressive, propositioning him. It felt so long ago, now. Like they were different people completely. "He's… he's changed. He's not like that anymore."
Zexion snorted with contempt. "Changed? Come on, Roxas, I know you're not a complete idiot. You know where he goes every weekend, what he does. I know for a fact that he fucked Hayner two weeks ago. Because apparently it's fine with you, right, if he fucks strangers. But what happens when your boyfriend starts sleeping with people you know?"
"He's not my boyfriend," Roxas whispered. You already knew he slept with Hayner. That was months ago. You already knew. Stop being stupid… but two weeks ago?
"So you're not a fan of my terminology, that much I understood five minutes ago. The point is that he is a slut, Roxas. That is not an insult, not an attack, certainly not a compliment. It is a fact. A fact, Roxas."
"Stop."
"Let's examine the facts, shall we?" Zexion continued, voice rising as he lifted a finger. "One: Axel is a slut." A second finger. "Two: he is being nice to you and you are spending most of your time with him." A third finger, Zexion shaking the three in the blonde's face. "Three: HE IS STILL A FUCKING SLUT." Zexion's shout startled Roxas, and he jumped. Zexion, who was always fairly predictable (he will make you laugh, he will be useless when stoned, he will murder your papers and call it 'editing'), had never shouted at Roxas. The unexpectedness of his anger pricked at Roxas' eyes. "Listen to me, Roxas. I love you. We have established this. I love you, and I don't want to hurt you, but he will hurt you worse because you are the type of person who allows himself to be hurt. You may guard your secrets well, but I am basically a genius, and I can figure things out for myself. You allow yourself to be hurt, and he will hurt you in a way that I can't see you recovering from." Zexion placed his hands on Roxas' shoulders. "There is a fourth fact, Roxas. What is it?"
Roxas swallowed thickly. He felt so confused, so endlessly lost. "I… he's… using me?" It's not true. You know it's not true. "He's playing nice so he can f-fuck me?" It's not fucking true. God, let it not be fucking true.
"I don't know," Zexion admitted. "It seems like the obvious possibility. It makes sense, whereas—"
"Whereas him actually liking me, eventually loving me, doesn't make sense at all." Idiot. You're so stupid. You're fucking ugly. You're pathetic to the point of hilarity. Of course it doesn't make sense. Roxas sat heavily on the floor, his head falling into his hands.
"We don't know for sure," Zexion offered, though it was obvious the other boy did not believe this. White lites, Roxas thought. "It's worth exploring, if maybe you want to—"
"What I don't get, Zex," Roxas said, voice icy. "Is why you even fucking care." Replace your sadness with anger. Replace it and point it out away from yourself. Fight. Fight them all. "Like you said, we don't know each other. Two years, and I don't even know where you live when you're not at school."
Zexion exhaled heavily above him. "I said I didn't want to hurt you, and I don't. But he will tear you apart, so I think me telling you this is justified. Roxas, you keep telling me you are 'just friends' with him, but why, why are you reacting like this if you're 'just friends?' You aren't just friends, or you don't want to be, and that is why you should know that last weekend Axel gave me a blowjob."
Maybe it was the complete horror, or maybe a small crack in reality that Roxas slipped through, but he burst into laughter; bright, crazed. Zexion frowned down at the blonde, not expecting this reaction. Roxas laughed and laughed, hysterical, uncontrolled laughter that filled his eyes and streamed down at the corners. Zexion should have been worried. He should have been worried that Roxas was broken, but he couldn't have known to be worried because Roxas had never shared the details of his past with his roommate. All Zexion knew is that there was a past, a significant one. He should have been worried.
"You're taking this better than I thought you would," Zexion said after Roxas quieted to bursts of giggles.
"Was—" giggle, giggle. A very big hole seemed to be sitting in Roxas' chest. "Was it good?" Giggle, giggle. "The blowjob. Was it good?"
"Yeah, it was pretty good, but this is starting to feel very insane asylum, Roxas." Zexion crouched down next to blonde, placed a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Roxas' giggles quieted, and a dawning sort of horror crept into his eyes. "…No." And then he bolted.
He knew that he wanted the beach, and he was sprinting across the labyrinth of beach access paths that twisted in front of the upperclassmen dorms. He wanted the beach in his mouth, in his lungs. He wanted the beach filling him to his fingertips. He wants everyone but you. ALWAYS everyone but you. Riku, Sora, Axel, everyone. Always everyone but you. He hadn't realized it was raining, that he was drenched. The ocean looked terrifying, a sea of black roaring up to a sky of grey that touched too close to everything, coating Roxas' cheeks in mist and rain. He was screaming.
"FUCK!" Screaming over and over, and maybe we can watch this happen and think he is being melodramatic. We can think Roxas is overreacting. It is easy for us to sit back and watch his life fall apart, because it is not us. We are someplace else, watching this soaked blonde screaming his voice raw because he thinks he will never be loved. Because he is not worthy enough, not beautiful enough. He would like to drown himself, to take the sea into his lungs like a breath of bright sunshine right as you wake up during the Spring. He would like to drown himself, but he doesn't want the headline to be pathetic: College Student Drowns Self After Being Led On By Redheaded Slut. Or: Ugly Blonde Felt Unloved, Sharks Ate His Ugly Face After Drowning Death. Or: How I Cried A Fucking Ocean and Drowned Myself In It.
Roxas' skin felt numb as he walked back toward the dorms some hours later. The rain had stopped, but he was already soaked from head to toe, compounded by the fact that he had gone in to the water. He stood under the waves and let them knock him down again and again. At one point, unsure of which direction was up, he really thought he might drown. He'd surfaced and felt cheated, disappointed.
He knocked on the outside of HPV until someone in the corner room pissily stomped out into the hall and shoved the door open for him. The girl, blonde dreads halfway down her back and reeking of pot, was clearly tripped out by Roxas' appearance. Her eyes followed him as he went two doors down and to the right. He knocked, teeth chattering. Axel's eyes widened as he opened the door.
"Holy fuck, Roxas. What happened to—"
"Is true?" Roxas asked, voice steady aside from his chattering teeth. Axel's arms reached out for him and Roxas jerked backward. "DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME." Axel's expression went blank, and Roxas saw Demyx jump down from the top bunk and stand, worried, over Axel's shoulder. "I just want to know. Is it true that you've slept with everyone but me?"
Axel's expression darkened. "Is that what you want, Rox? You want to sleep with me?"
"Is it true, Axel?" Roxas ground out, voice rising again. "Everyone but me?"
"Sure, Roxas," Axel spat. "Whatever you like. I'm a slut, I slept with everyone." The door closed in Roxas' face and he heard a loud shatter on the other side of it, heard a crash and something slammed into the floor.
"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!" Roxas screamed, every word at the top of his lungs. In his mind this wasn't Axel anymore. He wondered when it stopped being Axel and started being silver dollars and tropical waters. He wondered when it started tasting like tar and smelling like laissez-faire parenting. Axel wrenched the door open, papers still fluttering to the floor behind him.
"I thought you were cool with this," Axel said, Demyx having the decency to slip out and head down the hall. "I… I'm sick. I told you. I thought you were cool with it."
"I'm stupid. Is that it?"
"What?" Axel asked, eyes squinting in complete incomprehension.
"I'm not very smart. And I don't know how to dress myself right. Is it that?"
"Roxas…" Axel said, understanding.
"I'm too short? I know you like… but Zexion is small like me, and you…"
"Roxas, no."
"I'm," Roxas swallowed and it hurt, "I'm ugly." Axel grabbed at him, pushing the struggling wet mass into his chest.
"Are you… are you out of your fucking mind? In what reality are you not the most fucking beautiful boy I have ever seen?" Roxas continued to struggle, slamming his elbows into Axel's arms. "I look at you and wonder how I ever thought anything was beautiful before. I look at you and I believe in God, Roxas. You make me believe in God. In hope." Axel's voice strained above him, bending forcefully around the words as Roxas gave up the fight and shook in the older boy's arms. "I don't want to be with you in that way, in the way I am with everyone else. I told you this. I wanted to try to love you." Axel's voice broke. "But it's not working. I can't do it. I don't… I don't know how."
They stood like that for a while; out in the hallway, Axel's arms around Roxas, the blonde shaking from the cold and the wet and the current of a thousand thoughts. Roxas didn't struggle as Axel led him into the room and stripped him down. He kept his eyes on Roxas' as he pulled down the blonde's briefs and wrapped a blanket around the shaking boy, rubbing him to generate heat. Roxas couldn't talk through his frenzied thoughts, images and words racing at a hundred miles per hour, and let Axel put him in the bed, clean white sheets folding over him. At some point Roxas watched as Demyx led a very worried looking Zexion into the room and Axel lunged at him, ready to throw a punch. Demyx held Axel off, Zexion instantly snapping into his "coolly unruffled" attack stance, and Roxas wished his head would shut up enough to hear what Zexion was saying, each word like a blow that Axel flinched at. Roxas saw when the fight went out of the two boys, something Demyx said that broke the tension, and Axel returned to the chair at his side.
Roxas studied the redhead's face. He's not even that attractive, is he? Riku is better looking. Roxas studied the shape of the tattoos on Axel's face, marks that the redhead had never even alluded to. I really don't know him. Sora, I know. Everything there is to know, I know about Sora.
"Phone," Roxas whispered, licking the salt of the ocean on his lips. Axel reached over to the desk and picked up his cell. The redhead was about to hand the phone to Roxas, but he stared at it and frowned, pressing a few keys before handing it over. Probably deleting texts from his random fuck buddies. Maybe deleting nudes. These thoughts were carried away with the current as Roxas dialed a number. On the third ring, Sora picked up.
"How'd you get this number?" He hadn't thought Sora would even pick up; he never took calls from numbers he didn't know. But it's after nine. He's probably wondering if it's me.
"Sora," Roxas whispered, and tears pooled into his eyes. Fuck. No. Everyone there watching, Axel, Demyx, and Zexion. Only Axel had ever heard him on the phone with Sora, and that was once and it was an accident.
"Rox? What's wrong?" Sora's voice, coming quickly.
"Sora," Roxas whispered again, eyes closing against the stupid tears. He'd done so well, not crying. Let them see. It's all fucked away. Let them see you broken.
"Don't cry, Roxie." And, like Pavlovian certainty, Roxas burst into tears. Demyx looked away, embarrassed. Zexion looked surprised, impressed even. Axel look like he was debating whether or not to brush the tears away, hands twitching, eyes dark. Roxas cried into the phone, angry choking sobs that didn't say "pity me" and much as they said "I want to fucking kill someone." Sora hissed over the phone, "I hate this. I hate when you're not here. I can't help you when you're not here." He was angry; Roxas heard Sora shove something, heart the thump of it hit the floor. How would he help me? Hold me close? Put his mouth on me? Sora started singing over the phone, low and undulating, something in three-four time. When had they gotten it all twisted? When had the sex threaded its way through the love, through everything? Roxas' eyes slipped closed as he listened to his best friend sing over the phone. He hoped that the world would be less heavy when he opened them again.
--
Later, in his own bed with the daylight coming in under the drapes, the soundless nothing from above him revealing Zexion had not spent the night in the dorm, Roxas reached for his phone. He didn't remember saying bye to Sora, and he didn't want him to be worried. He had seven missed calls, all from the brunette. And one new text message. From Riku.
Why did you tell him?
Roxas closed the phone and laughed. He laughed until his sides hurt, then he slammed his pillow against the wall. He smashed the heel of his foot into the underside of Zexion's bed until the wood splintered. A thousand questions, all unanswered, and now one more: Why did you tell him? But he hadn't, and even if Riku hadn't told him, it didn't matter. He knows. Sora knows. Had he already known? On New Year's, had he known? The two days they spent in his bed, kissing like they were finding a cure for cancer, conducting research, had he known?
More and more questions, piling down on him. Roxas wanted to scream. He wanted to tell someone. There is no one. You've alienated every fucking person you know. There was no one, so Roxas dug into the back corner of his desk and pulled out a tiny bottle. He sifted through the anticonvulsants and the antipsychotics and anxiolytics until he found the small one milligram dots of Lorazepam. He took two, thought about taking more, thought about cramming the whole fucking bottle down his throat if he thought it would solve his problems. But it wouldn't, so he took two and crawled back into bed. Today had been a bust, but tomorrow, maybe tomorrow he would open his eyes and the world would be better. He had two finals tomorrow, both needing studying for, but it would be better.
Anything would be better. Jumping high, New Year's Eve, to be better. Higher and higher, as high as you could jump, your best friend's hand in yours. To be better. Please, Roxas thought, fading out as the tension left his body. Please.