Disclaimer: They aren't mine.

A/N: MOAR FANART. Roxas looking lovely with wings and Roxas and Axel bound and blindfolded, courtesy of ironyofalostkeyword, along with a droolworthy classroom scene involving Axel and Roxas by the ever-gifted pouikee. You know the deal: profile, links. I totally got through about half of the reviews from Chapter 11 before I… stopped. I started reading Katekyo Hitman Reborn, and it stole my soul for a little. And then a bunch of Really Horrible Shit™ happened, but I'm soldiering on like Coldplay tells me to. Two months is an awfully long time to not update, and I apologize for being a shitty author. Thank you for sticking around.

This chapter: Come, friends. Ride the drama llama with me.

--

Chapter 12: Kaleidoscopes

Supposedly there was a trick to it, some artful combination of mnemonics or precise groupings of letters that would cement the stream of words in his head, stuck there like a string of meaning, but everything so far had failed. Roxas simply could not remember the fucking words. He'd tried route memorization, a ridiculous Jeopardy style question and answer session with Axel, clutching his sides and gasping for breath, at the helm, and even retention by osmosis, shoving the poem under his pillow while he slept. When he was at wits end, midway though Dead Week before Finals, Roxas seriously debated ingesting the text with hopes that the words would somehow sink into his bloodstream.

"Some lemon, some salt. You're the chef, man. You tell me what I need to do."

Axel, sprawled across the floor of Roxas' dorm, propped up on his elbows, looked more amused than possible. "I don't know about chef, Rox—I can make a mean cheese omelet—but I tend to cook things consumable by humans. Paper isn't theoretically on that list.

"Unless you count Pringles."

"Yes, unless you count Pringles." Axel heaved an exaggerated sigh, throwing his arms up above his head and baring a strip of pale flesh as his shirt rode up. Roxas looked away. "Maybe you're just shit at memorization. That would explain… well, it'd explain that fucking horrible score you got on the last exam."

"Fuck you. The entire time I was studying terms, you were talking to Cloud in the hall or sucking face with him or watching a fucking documentary on chickens!"

"Chichén Itza. Definitely not chickens," Axel corrected. Roxas figured Axel should at least be mildly affronted, but the redhead was grinning away like usual. There seemed to be some hidden subtext that Roxas was missing. "Besides, aren't you like Mr. Rockstar on your good days? How do you memorize songs?"

Roxas squinted at the redhead, confused, for all of five seconds before the question sailed home, landing somewhere above his right eyebrow and parading around with bright, painfully obvious, flashing lights. The realization was like a bolt of thunder from the hand of Zeus, so Roxas spent the rest of Wednesday afternoon making up a melody to his lines of Shelley's "A Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," the poem split in half so he and Axel could present it for their section final. Memorizing it in song form, for whatever reason, was infinitely easier for Roxas, and by Friday at 8pm, he was only marginally flushed, hands clammy as Axel turned up the charm and orated away before the slightly awed undergrads, the first lines rolling past his smiling lips like discernible honey. Watching the older boy present, lines beaten into submission by whatever stunning intellect Axel kept hidden beneath his bony frame, was astounding. The older boy was animated, lively, the words coming to him with an easy, natural grace. It was almost like seeing him for the first time, or maybe a different him for the first time. Had this ever happened? Axel commanding the attention of a room, drawing all the eyes to the way his hands moved, the sounds his mouth made. It was simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. Maybe that first time, high as a kite and watching the way the flames of the bonfire danced on Axel's face, the ocean rushing in the background. Had Axel been the center then, a scattering of students all turned toward him? Or was he just the center for Roxas? Every movement drawing him, helpless, like a ridiculous little magnet. The only coherent thought Roxas had before opening his mouth to speak his lines was, No wonder I'm in love with him.

The trouble with learning songs is that you're actually learning songs, so try as Roxas might, he couldn't let the melody he'd made up fall away to leave the words alone for him to recite. Fists balled, eyes closed, and in a voice that was half dejected teenager and half concert tenor, he let the poetry spill from him. It had been soothing, memorizing beautiful words and being in close proximity to Axel. Soothing to sing a simple melody in the shower, walking to class, getting dressed. Anything to soothe the way his chest felt so, so empty lately. It had become an issue, keeping him in bed longer than he should be. Keeping him staring at walls, holding up ceilings with his eyes. Stealing the taste from food, muting colors, making him chew drying cement or taffy. Everything lately seemed to take so much effort. Axel, though, made it better. Axel, who had an overabundance of good cheer and wide, dazzling smiles. Axel, who insisted Roxas listen as he read aloud a book on Xibalba, the rising and falling of his voice eventually lulling Roxas to sleep. Axel, who had stopped going out on weekends anywhere that did not involve Cloud. Axel, who made him feel like dying, falling to his knees before a diminishing pinprick of light.

The applause jarred him from his thoughts, and Axel grabbed him roughly around the shoulders, shaking him, smiling all over his face. Roxas couldn't make his mouth move. Looking into Axel's eyes, he wondered if the other boy saw how he was slipping, spiraling away beyond reach. Sometimes it seemed like there was fearful recognition in Axel's eyes, a dawning horror that, shit, Roxas was depressed. But that light would fade, cheer raining down around him again. Roxas wondered if that was how Axel dealt with it, trying to make him smile. In truth, he didn't worry about it that much. It took too much effort.

"Did you see how those chicks were batting their eyelashes at you? They all want you bad, Rox." Axel looked good wrapped in darkness. Neither of them had wanted the final section of the day, but every other section had been closed. They didn't get out until after the dining commons stopped serving dinner, so it had been a ramen affair for awhile, stealing packets from Demyx's stash and heating them up in HPV's second floor kitchen, commandeering some hippie fuck's non-stick wok to substitute as a pot. Without daring to borrow forks or spoons from various anonymous and potentially STD-filled HPV denizens, they'd used random still-packaged wooden chopsticks Roxas found shoved at the back of a drawer containing, mysteriously, nothing but manual juicers and nutcrackers. After Axel complained of malnutrition and dangerous levels of sodium, Roxas agreed to let Axel take him out every Friday after section was over. Before he committed to it, Roxas made a mental deal with himself not to make it a thing. At least, it was supposed to be a mental deal.

"It's not a thing," he'd said, shaking his head briefly, eyes closed.

"What's not a thing?" Axel had asked, peering into his face curiously.

"Uhh." Because even though Axel had taken him out to get food countless times, that was all before the older boy had decided to fuck his clone. It couldn't become a thing because there was no thing for it to be.

"I just don't want us to die of vitamin deficiency or something, I promise," Axel swore, hands lifted up in a blatant show of what was supposed to be non-finger crossing.

"You can't… you know, you can't have your cake and eat it, too," Roxas had said, straying to clichéd truisms to cover up the fact that his inner voice was failing miserably.

They went into the redzone when Axel had stepped behind him, pulling him back by the hips in a vaguely Riku-ish manner that set Roxas' heartbeat to the pace of a punk song. "But I like cake." And even though it was stupid and wasn't really the point at all, the way it sounded in his ear—Axel's voice right there—had been enough to get him to agree. And it wasn't a thing, couldn't be anything at all when they'd come right back and Axel would drop him off to go ride Cloud into a mattress or something. Roxas didn't know what they did, short of ejaculating all over each other like a bunch of sex-crazed teenagers. It's not like Roxas would ever jack off to such rampant sexuality. Not at all. No way.

Ramen hijacking a thing of the past, they typically stopped by their respective dorms to drop off their school stuff before heading out to whatever hole in the wall, "probably awesome, man, relax" joint Axel picked out. The last couple of weeks had been abysmal, though, Roxas standing around wordlessly, cheerless, and then picking at his food while Axel smiled, laughed, and was generally very gushy.

"You're gushing again," Roxas said, wondering what girls were even in their Romantic Poets section. "I swear, you're like a girl. Or a delicious snack bursting with tart artificial fruit flavor."

"Mr. Hilarious tonight, I see," Axel said, grinning widely. Always that ridiculous wide smile, like he couldn't be happier or wouldn't rather be somewhere else. Fucking some stupid clone, maybe. Doing lines of coke off some stupid clone's hips. Not like Roxas knew, or like he even wondered. Not at all. "I'm just sayin'," Axel said, sliding a hand into Roxas' back pocket and bringing his body closer. "I have competition for your affections."

"Oh, you have competition for my affections, is it?" Roxas asked. It was difficult to get the right inflection these days, so he was more or less the deadpan comedic relief. Daria came to mind, but he'd never voice the parallel aloud for fear of lasting ridicule and possible homicidal tendencies. "And here I was, thinking you're the apple of my eye. Oh, I'm sorry, has your boyfriend called you yet?"

Axel beamed down at him, leaning close to press their noses together. "Oh, come on, Roxas. You know you're the only one for me."

And that's how it would be. Their Friday night banter, always coming down to one of two things: 1) Axel was a lying douchebag who was fucking Cloud, or 2) Axel was a douchebag who was fucking Cloud. Roxas would play along, his heart pinging away in his chest like a payphone ringing in the middle of fucking nowhere with no one around to answer, and Axel would smile and act like… well, like they were together. It was a bizarre feeling, especially after Roxas realized it. Axel would treat him like they were in a relationship, but he would have sex with Cloud instead. All the kissyface hand-holding with Cloud instead. But Roxas got the considerate, charming, loveable douche who danced around to classic rock and popped pills with him during the middle of the day, pulling out a mirror to gauge pupil dilation like it was a contest. Together, but apart. Together, but not fucking each other.

It was confusion after confusion; tumultuous, eardrum-shattering confusing with Axel, with classes. With Sora. Axel's hand still in his back pocket, lined up against the curve of his ass, Roxas permitted himself to think about Sora a little. Just a little wouldn't hurt, wouldn't send him down to that place in the center of his chest where he could just sit and clutch his phone to his ear with Sora babbling on the other side. All Riku could text him was the same stupid mantra over and over again: "He'll be fine." Fine fine fine, a million times fine as Sora sounded wilder, more fevered as he told Roxas about how the Heartless were spreading. Roxas would sit and cry, feeling like something at the bottom of someplace very deep. What could he do? He called Sora's father, had asked him about the possibility of raising the dosage on one of Sora's meds. Sora's father had been oddly defeated on the phone. Tired of dealing with the eventual decline of his only son. Tired of letting Sora collapse and having the strength and sense to pull the pieces back together. Roxas didn't blame him. It was hard to watch the person you love crumble away before you.

Axel was shaking his shoulder before he realized that he hadn't been thinking about Sora just a little. "Earth to Roxas, this is your captain, Axel, speaking. We've reached our destination." There was a snap in front of his face, and Axel's eyes narrowed with what was almost worry. "Come on, Roxas. Come on." The light panic sitting on top of Axel's words made Roxas want to smile. He's worried? Of course he's worried. He knows. He has to know.

"Sorry. Lot on my mind." Lame excuse was lame, but everyone ate it up all the time, anyway. People either didn't want to hear it, or they had enough of their own shit to deal with. Roxas was doing him a favor.

"Fuck, I Never Learned This Shit. Am I right?" More smiles, but Axel's eyes were searching his face. Maybe he knows it's worse now. Can't keep up the act anymore. Fuck, I hate this. "You want to call it a night? I can bring a burrito back for you. You want the regular? Or… whoa." Axel stopped short in his attempt to fill the silence with random chatter. It was a habit he'd picked up when Roxas started falling silent more often, nothing left in his arsenal to throw out and put on a brave or even normal face with. Everything was too much effort now. Even raising his eyes to look at the spot Axel was staring at on the third floor landing was too much effort. But when Roxas saw what Axel was looking at, the three story freefall to the concrete below looked suddenly enticing.

"What are you—" Roxas began, and he was diving forward, already knowing. Axel's hand was ripped from his back pocket as he careened toward the floor, a shooting star with an impetus. Like the end of the world, he saw it coming from on the horizon. Like the end of it all, he felt the world falling away beneath his feet.

"I c-can't," Riku stammered, head leaned back against the glass door leading into Roxas' dorm. Dark, disgusting track marks ran up his right arm, branching upward like an obscene tree. "He's—they put him in at—"

Roxas had his hands fisted in Riku's shirt, his face inches away from the other boy. "WHERE IS SORA? WHERE THE FUCK IS SORA?" Flecks of spit showered Riku's face. He was just barely restraining himself. A phone call would've been nice. A text, maybe, before enough time had elapsed for Riku to drive a hundred and fifty fucking miles away. Roxas could've been home already, could've already been there. "WHERE IS HE, RIKU?" Axel's hand on his shoulder now, steadying him. It felt like his entire body was vibrating.

"Take it easy, Rox." Except the sound of Axel's voice made him feel like exploding; the birth of a star, the origin of an entire fucking solar system.

"WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?!" he screamed, a sob following, as he shook Riku hard. The dazed look wouldn't leave Riku's face. Tropical waters, silver dollars. Roxas felt his entire heart being squeezed out of existence.

"BHC. They took him. BHC." Riku was pathetic against his fists, against his fury, sagging into him with tears coming out of slit, pretty eyes. Such pretty fucking eyes. Roxas didn't have to see his eyes to know they'd be little pinpricks, little specks of darkness in foreign seas. The Caribbean, maybe. Disgusted, he shoved Riku away.

"I'm going." He was already mapping the route in his mind, almost to the staircase, when his left arm jerked behind him.

"You aren't going anywhere."

"Get the fuck off me, Ax."

"You're not going anywhere. You have a shitload of finals to study for."

"Get off me."

Axel's grip tightened on his wrist. "You're staying. There's nothing you can do."

Maybe the idea that there was "nothing" set him off. Everything became "nothing" where Roxas was concerned. What was wrong? Nothing. What do you feel? Nothing. What can you do? Nothing. After so much nothing, Roxas just wanted something to fight against. Not something nameless and faceless. And Axel, his gorgeous broken Axel, was such an easy fucking target. "GET THE FUCK OFF ME, YOU FUCKING PEDO!" He tried to wrench his arm free of the redhead's grip, but Axel was apparently stronger than his twig-like appearance proposed. In fact, Axel was dragging him back toward the door of his dorm, Riku having scooted to the side, watching the two of them with dazed dread on his face. "LEAVE ME ALONE! GO SUCK YOUR FUCKING BOYFRIEND OFF!"

Axel dug around in Roxas' pocket, feeling out the keys. He pulled them out hard enough to tear the blonde's pants a little. "Stop fighting me. There's nothing you can do."

"STOP FUCKING SAYING THAT!" The back of his head was telling him he was being a child. But the front of his head was miraculously clear, and he spit at Riku on his way over the threshold, his hand beginning to numb from the lack of blood flow. "I'm not a fucking baby. I can take care of myself. But I bet you wish I was a baby, don't you, fucking perv. You like throwing me around like I'm some little kid. Fucking bastard. I fucking…. I fucking…" Hate you. Just say it. It's true, anyway. Almost true. But Roxas couldn't say it.

Axel managed to unlock his dorm room, kicking the door open and hauling Roxas inside. Wrist still in his vice grip, the two merely glared at each other while breathing heavily. Well, Roxas did the glaring. He couldn't tell what Axel's face was doing in the gloom. He opened his mouth to damn their friendship to hell a little more, but was abruptly cut off by Axel's chest hitting him in the mouth.

"Listen to me. There's nothing you can do. You want to fail your finals? No. I know you don't. You don't need this right now, and I'm sorry this is happening to you. But you don't want to throw your future away for something you can't control. He's in the hospital, right? They'll take care of him."

"Axel," Roxas whispered. He felt so weak. "Axel. Axel." It was harder to breathe, and his fingers were clenched at the back of the older boy's shirt. "I'm so sorry. I'm… I…" Love you. Just say it. It's true, anyway. It will always be true. But Roxas couldn't say it.

"Don't apologize. Just stay here. Go to sleep." His face in Axel's hands, green eyes peering into his face. When had he started crying? "I'm going to take care of him until he's clean. I'll send Demyx over here to crash with you until we get it worked out, okay?" Roxas wanted to say it would be fine since Zexion was never around during Dead Week or Finals anyway. He wanted to ask him if he could question the other boy more first. He wanted to scream. He wanted to kiss him. But there was a press of lips at his forehead, then Axel was out of the room. Swallowing thickly, he dug into his pocket for his phone. 9:10pm, and no Sora.

"Sora." The whisper fell flat in the empty room, a dull plaintive brush against the still air. A thousand questions raced through his mind as Roxas balled up in the center of the room, drawing his knees close to his chest. What had happened? Had he hurt himself? Did he have a complete break? Would he be able to call Sora on the phone, at least? When could he see him? Would he be okay? The questions flew past him faster than he could pick them out. Mind racing, he whispered Sora's name over and over, feeling nothing other than a sinking feeling in the place where his heart should be.

--

He'd woken up some time in the middle of the night, Demyx stumbling in with little fanfare, tripping over Roxas who had fallen asleep in the middle of the floor. Mumbled apologies and bitten laughter later, Roxas had lain in bed for twenty minutes before deciding to grab his keys and drive to see Sora… except Axel had taken his keys. It was not so much a staggering blow as it was a small, but significant, one. Axel didn't trust him. Or Axel knew he'd run. Either way, Roxas hated himself for being predictable, actions plottable by a fiery piece of shit that should be failing out of college, anyway. Should be getting fucked up the ass by a bunch of disgusting strangers. Not standing around and waiting for Roxas to fall to pieces or waiting for the opportune moment to swoop in and play the hero. Oh, ailing heroin-addicted friend in need of sobering? Axel. Oh, syntactically complicated poetry standing in your way of a non-probationary threatening GPA? Axel.

Fucking hero. There had to be some catch. Fuming away in his bed, wide awake at four in the morning, Roxas figured that he must have been cast in a movie he didn't know about. Very reality television, very scripted high school dramatics. There was no way Axel could in fact be this perfect… and then he laughed a little, bit his lips until they bled to stop him from waking Demyx. Perfect? Must be perfect since he doesn't want a fuck up like you. Despite whatever imperfections of personal history and preferences Axel boasted, he still didn't want to be with Roxas. No, they could have their Friday night banter and their relationship without the relationship, but Axel was still with Cloud. Why? What does he even… Cloud doesn't even have a fucking personality. Just quiet and good looking like a… cardboard cutout of a teen flick heartthrob. Analogies having taken a turn for the worst, Roxas thought sleep might be a good idea. None would come, though. Not after Demyx left, not after Zexion showed up to talk at him, his roommate snapping impatient fingers in his face a few times before cursing his existence and storming away. The passage of time felt impossibly fast. Didn't he have class? Meals to eat? Papers to write?

Saturday, he remembered. No school on Saturday. But Finals next week. So much studying he had to be doing, and where was Sora, anyway? BHC, Riku had said. Roxas remembered BHC very, very well. From the funny lotion and tasteless mouthwash they provided to the sorry tongue pink sheets that clung to the too small beds, Roxas remembered BHC with obsessive clarity. There had been Kristen, with the rainbow beads on her arms, swinging from the emergency sprinkler head, tongue pink sheet wrapped around her neck. She hadn't been very good at tying nooses; hadn't checked out books on knots, apparently. Hadn't done her homework like Roxas had. She lived. Jackson, the towering skinhead with two perfect dimples, wrapped the tongue pink sheets around his right hand and punched out the third story window, climbed onto the ledge and ranted all over the side of the building like… well, like a lunatic. He lived, too. After three sessions of electroconvulsive therapy, Jackson couldn't remember Roxas' name. So many people Roxas remembered—Robert with juvenile diabetes who threatened his mom with a baseball bat, Brittany with herpes who asked him to throw a chair out the window to liven the place up, Miguel with his voices who took a shit in the middle of the common room and was still miraculously good at trigonometry—and now Sora was superimposed there, another portrait in his catalogue of horrors. Sora with his fake world who sucked Roxas' dick and was his best friend and knew exactly how to hold Roxas in his arms to make him fall asleep at night. Sora with his keyblade who dated Riku and came in Roxas' mouth and knew which cupboard held the ice cream bowls in his kitchen. Sora with his delusions who was perfect in all the ways that mattered and learned how to suck cock from Riku and could slaughter him at Super Smash Bros. Melee. Sora. Sora. Sora.

Roxas was only aware that he was sitting in the hall, staring across the breezeway that led to Axel's dorm, after someone came in and accidentally kicked him in the kneecap on his way past. A muttered apology, possibly an indignant curse, and Roxas was alone again. His stomach was growling, internal voice mostly silent as he watched for signs of life from Axel's floor. Didn't they need food? Were they even in there? Riku had lovely arms for a heroin addict. Roxas thought of licking them, tongue probing the darkened, collapsed veins that crawled up Riku's arm like a twisted joke of a tattoo, lapping at the damage like a cat before cream. Except for the part where he heard all cats were lactose intolerant. How is that even possible? Thirty minutes—or maybe it was three hours—spent thinking about cats he never owned because his mother was allergic to dander. Another thirty minutes—thirty minutes?—dedicated to the exact color of his yellowed fingernails. It's from smoking. God, I'm so disgusting. And a healthy hour of general self-loathing, detailing the inadequate way his skin tasted to the unattractive way his eyes narrowed when he was angry or thinking or even just staring off into space, mind blank. Kill yourself already, fucking crybaby.

He didn't know when night had fallen, and other than the rough scratch of the carpet at his face, Roxas wasn't really aware of much. Had he been locked out? Didn't he have to pee at all? Had he missed dinner? Like a bunch of waves crashing up against a sheer cliff, the thoughts smashed up against him and he felt nothing at all. The traditional "nothing," though, didn't really cover it. It wasn't that he felt "nothing;" he felt the negative of everything. Not-sad, not-angry, not-happy, not-depressed. A universe of antitheses sliding across the surface of his consciousness, agonizingly slow like a solitary snail over an expanse of concrete or like Cloud's dick pushing into Axel or a small tear down the curve of a cheek. Negatives and allegory: the only things Roxas had anymore aside from the carpet indentation on the left side of his face as his eyes followed shoes approaching the breezeway door from Axel's floor. The shoes—black, nondescript—moved toward the staircase and paused. They walked toward the door of the Crack House. If Roxas could read footsteps, he would have called them "weary," or maybe "dreading." "Fuck no, please," if that could be condensed into a single word. The shoes stood outside the door, pointing at Roxas, for a good while until the prone blonde heard Axel call his name.

"Roxas. Hey. Roxas." A little tap on the glass door for good measure. Roxas didn't need to open the door. The redheaded sonofabitch had taken his keys, had kept him from seeing Riku. The ugly motherfucker had stopped him from going to see Sora. And it was just so much effort to raise his eyes, and had Axel always been so tall? Roxas was content to stare at those boring, tattered black shoes. He was content to stare, possibly drool a little on the hallway carpet. He didn't need to do anything. I love you. I love you. I love you. Love me back.

After a minute or two of staring down at Roxas—eyes tired, mouth betraying nothing—Axel turned around and headed back into his dorm, emerging seconds later with Roxas' keys. Roxas flinched when Axel unlocked the door, but the other boy didn't come inside.

"How long have you been here?" Roxas heard the waves crashing in the silence that filled the space where his answer should've been. "Roxas, have you eaten?"

A swallow, a lick of his lips, and Roxas rasped out, "Can I see him?"

"Did you eat anything today?" Axel's voice was oddly unemotional.

"C-can I see Riku now, please?" His body was sitting up, rubbing at itself, at the carpet imprint on his cheek.

"He's going through withdrawals. You don't want to see him."

"Is it bad?"

"No."

For whatever reason, Roxas was wounded by Axel's short answer. Brief, detached, completely uninterested. Or was it tired, half-asleep, desperate. What was going on? "Is… is he okay?"

"He was just on a little binge. He'll be fine." There was more silence between them than Roxas had ever noticed before. "You want to eat something, Rox?"

"Huh?"

"Food. You want to eat it?"

Why was Axel being so difficult? Roxas felt like crying. "What?"

He was being pulled up by his forearms a moment later, Axel's fingers gentle on him. Stronger than he looks. Roxas wished the redhead would say something, would tell him more about what Riku had said, or tell him about the last documentary he'd seen, or something, anything to fill the hollow air between them. Roxas had to keep swallowing, gulp after gulp of saliva, and his arms were tingling with kinetic memory, his skin remembering how it felt to reach out and wrap around Axel. He wanted to do it, to hug him, but Roxas couldn't make his arms work. There was a burrito in front of him the next time he started paying attention again. Axel was staring at him, not eating anything, with a pale, sleepless look under his eyes. Roxas recalled that the redhead would look that way when they were tweaking. There was a moment where he thought he'd ask him if he'd stayed up all night, but Axel was reaching across to him and unwrapping the foil around the burrito and then depositing it into Roxas' hands. Axel always knew what to order him—"No fucking beans, please, and can we get more steak in there for fuck's sake?"—but eating in front of him now made Roxas feel guilty. Ashamed.

"Roxas," Axel said, and the other boy was suddenly beside him, pulling him up by the shoulder. Roxas dropped the burrito and found himself buried in Axel's arms; a slow, measured heartbeat against his forehead. "You need to eat, baby. Please eat." The plea sounded ridiculous to Roxas, like it was skirting the issue, and where the hell was Axel's food, and why couldn't he go see Sora, but he sat and ate, anyway, Axel's eyes on him the entire time. There was something obscene about it, Roxas was sure, Axel sitting there watching him eat like a starving child; inhaling the burrito like it was air as opposed to food. He wasn't even hungry. Was he? When he finished, Axel was smiling a little.

"That thing any good?"

"Horrendous," Roxas managed, wiping his mouth with a sleeve.

"You have such wonderful taste, Rox. You should write for the Zagat."

"Who?" Roxas didn't remember pulling out a cigarette, but there was one in his mouth, and his hand was lighting it.

"So that's Riku?" Axel asked, eyes sparking. "He's pretty."

"That's… that's my best friend's boyfriend."

"Right," Axel said slowly, drawing out the vowel. "Your best friend's boyfriend that you're in love with. That's Riku Riku. The Riku."

"I'm not in love with him anymore."

"Oh?" Axel asked, eyebrow quirked. "But you were. And he's very, very…" Roxas had never seen Axel flounder before, eyes squinting at something in the air to his left.

"Hot?" Roxas supplied.

"No, I was thinking more along the lines of—"

"Sexy."

Axel smiled hard, eyes flashing a little. "Short, actually, is what I was going for. Followed closely by arrogant and fucking heroin addicted, but sure, I guess he's hot and sexy. If you're into that kind of thing."

"You're not into hot and sexy guys?"

"Roxas. You're dancing around the point."

"You don't think Cloud is hot and sexy?"

Axel shuddered visibly. "Can we strike the words 'hot' and 'sexy' from the rest of this conversation? I feel very pedestrian."

"Ohhh," Roxas said, leaning forward. "So this is about diction now, Mr. GPA, is it? How would you describe Riku's attractiveness?"

"A seven." Axel pulled the Diet Coke sitting in front of Roxas to his mouth, smirking around the straw.

"Oh, a seven? That's sooo articulate of you. I was thinking more along the lines of stunning or godlike, but I guess a seven will do."

"Nah, stunning and godlike are nines and tens, respectively. For a seven?" Axel tapped his lips, faux thought drawn heavy on his features. "'Exotic,' perhaps? But 'rabid,' if we want to talk realistically."

"You're an asshole," Roxas snarled. "You're a fucking prick. Thanks for the burrito, douchebag." He was already shoving away from his seat, a nanosecond from turning his back on Axel, when the redhead lunged across the table to push him back into the chair.

"Relax. I'm just playing around."

"He is hot and sexy!" Roxas shouted. The fury was coming from somewhere outside his body. He didn't feel connected to it at all. "And I would love to have sex with him!" Various burrito-eating college students averted their eyes.

Axel stared downward, green eyes unreadable. Addressing the table, he said quietly, "Yeah. I bet you would."

"What is this even about?" Roxas fumed, crossing his arms. "I want to talk about Sora, and you're sitting here telling me I have shitty taste in dudes."

"I just," Axel began, voice even, "think it's interesting, is all. I've been wondering what Riku looks like."

"Why would you wonder that? That's a stupid thing to wonder."

Axel was quiet for a while, sipping intermittently on Roxas' Diet Coke before he pushed it across the table. The cup made a strange squawking sound as it slid across the cheap plastic surface. "Is it?" Axel wouldn't meet his eyes. "I just, y'know, wondered what your type is."

Huge, manly dudes. Small, cute blondes. Like it fucking matters. "My type is hot and sexy," Roxas deadpanned. Axel's mouth quirked a little and the tension between them eased.

"Yeah, I can see that."

Roxas frowned. There's no way this is seriously happening. "Axel," Roxas said, leaning forward. "You know that you're hot and sexy, right?"

Axel's smile widened, and the older boy shrugged. "Duh."

He's lying. How is it possible that he doesn't think he's the hottest shit on Earth? "So can we talk about Sora now?"

"He had a psychotic break, his parents couldn't snap him out of it, so they checked him in at BHC. They're adjusting his meds and keeping him under supervision. Riku couldn't deal, so he banged heroin for a couple hours." Axel watched Roxas very closely as he related what Riku had told him. "He'd been using more frequently lately. He says Sora's been 'losing it' for a while." Green eyes poured over Roxas, little drills all over his face. "That why you've been fucked up lately? Or is there something else I should be concerned with?"

"Both," Roxas said, looking away. "Both and neither, I guess."

"Both and neither," Axel repeated, looking away, toward Little Vista. "Both and neither, huh. We need," Axel said, gathering the remains and moving to toss it in the trash, "to get wasted."

"I really don't feel like it." Finals. Can't see Sora. Need to study for finals.

Axel shrugged and gave him a two-fingered salute, a caricature of respect, and turned toward Vista. "See ya."

Roxas watched him walk down the street, hands shoved in his pockets, and felt bile claw its way up his throat.

--

His body had taken up residence in the center of his dorm room, curling into a ball there so as to maximize discomfort and alienation. Roxas didn't know what was going on anymore. A bottle of pills was in his hand, but they were all anti-depressants and they were all not enough to knock him out or make him sleep or poison his body or stop his heart. Everything was not enough for anything. Sweeping generalizations about people, about love, about life, and was he crying now? Had he been crying at all? His face felt dry, at least, so there was that last respect given to him. He could be miserable like a man and not a boy. He wasn't even thinking real thoughts anymore, not really. Vague ideas about blood and sex, about anal and the dizzying rush of Ativan. Slow churnings on the nature of god, God, gods and why he, she, it, or them didn't just end him now. He'd had enough, thanks. There was no reason to articulate, no certain event or even chain of events that he felt justified it, just that it was deserved or it was desired. This is how Demyx found him.

"You really need to stop this unintentional roadblock thing you have going on, Rox," Demyx said, flicking on the lights. He smelled like alcohol, but it was Saturday. The entire campus smelled like alcohol. And pot and sex and drugs, but alcohol, mostly. Even drunk, Demyx noticed the bottle in Roxas' hand. "Whoa. You okay?"

"Nngh," Roxas muttered, completely noncommittal. I want to die. I want to die. I want to die. Repeating loops were, apparently, easier to think in.

Demyx crouched near him, sitting him up and rubbing at his arms. "Have you taken any of these? What are these, Roxas?" Roxas just shook his head, swallowing buckets of his own saliva despite the way his mouth felt dry, parched. Was it hot outside? "Weren't you with Axel earlier? I saw you heading toward the burrito place."

"He left," Roxas said, voice hardly above a whisper. Man the fuck up. What's wrong with you? Fucking weak little bitch. "He went to get fucked up." Images of Cloud flitted briefly across his mind, and he shuddered. Demyx rubbed his arms harder.

"Let's get you in bed, buddy." Demyx smelled like Maker's and Marlboro reds. Roxas wondered what supplied this memory since Demyx only drank beer and didn't smoke cigarettes. Head on his pillow, he heard Demyx on his cell. "Get your ass over here. I don't give a fuck what you're in the middle of. How could you leave him like this?"

Please don't be Axel. Please be Axel. I want to die. Where's Sora? Where's Riku? I have to study for finals. Axel, please be Axel. Chatter, all mindless, on and on as he watched Demyx stare at his face, chin resting on his crossed arms and knees. Demyx was saying something, but Roxas didn't remember how to listen. It was only when Axel came in, clothes in disarray, lips chafed a blurry red from probably sucking dick, that Roxas started paying attention again.

"…and no matter what happens, you have to remember that—fucking finally! I called you thirty minutes ago!" Demyx stood hastily, confronting Axel.

The redhead swayed in the doorway. "I… got lost a little." A smile that Roxas wanted to kiss. "Just a little bit."

"Look at him," Demyx pointed. "He was holding a bottle of pills, basically comatose on the floor." This seemed to sober Axel a little, and his brows knitted a fraction of an inch closer. He doesn't care.

"Which pills?"

"These ones," Demyx said, disgusted, pulling them from his pocket.

"These are fucking Lexapro. Do you know how many of these he'd have to take to do something?"

"THAT IS NOT THE FUCKING POINT, AXEL." Roxas really wanted to understand why Demyx was so mad. "The point is that he wants to at all. I can't believe I'm explaining this shit to you!"

"I'm sorry," Axel said, tossing his hands up. "I'm fucking sorry. I'll just go now."

Roxas felt the wetness on his cheeks and he thought of miracles, of statues crying blood. How was this happening now? Demyx was enraged with Axel's response and merely stormed out of the room, maybe muttering something like, "I'm done." Roxas didn't understand anything at all.

Even drunk, clothes messy and hair beginning to tangle, Axel was still nice to look at. Maybe not hot and sexy in those traditional ways, but in other ways ingrained in Roxas' skin. He liked to look at Axel very much. Why do I love you when you can't stand me? He tried to breathe, but his nose was all clogged up, and why did that happen, anyway? Why did he have to get snotty, like his body forgot hot to process snot as his eyes forgot to swallow tears. He could probably, Roxas decided, look at Axel forever. If he contracted some horrible disease that would only allow him to see one thing for the rest of his life, Axel, standing just like this, not looking at him (because that would maybe hurt too much if he had been looking), would be a very fine choice. All angles and all arrogance and all defensive and all ready to fight anything, everything, anyone. How had he gotten so lucky? At least I can be his friend. At least there's that.

"I'm sorry," Axel said, still standing in the middle of the room, still not looking Roxas in the face. "I couldn't deal. I'm sorry."

"I want to kill myself," Roxas said. "I think I have you beat."

Axel broke a little, crumpled, and crossed the room in two strides, kneeling at the side of Roxas' bed. "But why, Roxas? Why?"

Because I love you. Because I love everything and everything ends. And it all hurts too much or takes too much time. And it's so hard to love everything all the time. Harder when nothing loves you back. "I don't know." It wasn't a proper lie. More of a half-truth, since he couldn't pick from among the myriad reasons.

"I know you're having a hard time, but things will change." Axel looked sick, tired. Roxas had wondered if Axel had been talking about not being able to "deal" with him, but from the way Axel spoke, eyes somewhere far away, it wasn't just about Roxas. It was about everything—maybe nothing, too—that Axel covered up with his rapid chatter, their Friday night banter. Misdirection.

"It's not things," Roxas insisted. "It's not what's happening. It is, but it also isn't." Why was this so difficult to explain? It was the easiest thing in the world. "It's everything. It's nothing."

"You need to hold on. Wait… for things to get better. I'm working on it." Axel's hands were folded in prayer, the tips of his fingers red as they pressed into his knuckles, but Axel was not religious at all.

"Working on what?" Roxas understood nothing. Had he ever understood anything? School, that was debatable. But life? Friends? A continuous dupe dragged out over the course of his entire life. He knew nothing at all.

"On me. On things. I love you, Roxas. Please wait for me."

"Stop saying that. Stop."

"What? That I love you?"

"You… you hurt me." Roxas' voice was very small. "You confuse me."

"Your friends hurt you, Roxas. They confused you. Sora? Your best friend? He fucked you over. You are fucked because of him."

"You—" Roxas began. This must be what it felt like to stand on the precipice of the apocalypse. "Don't you fucking say that about him."

"I'm trying to do it right, Roxas. If you knew… how much I—" Axel swallowed away the rest of the sentence. "You have no idea. I've known you nine months, Roxas. You have no idea what I—" More decapitated sentences, phrases left open.

"There's nothing wrong with me," Roxas said, hearing Sora's words, fevered little presses of lips against his face.

"Your best friend tell you that?"

"He's…"

"He's in a fucking mental hospital, Roxas. You gunna base your reality off of what a fucking mental patient has to say?"

"Fuck you."

"Yeah. Fuck me. You'd love to fuck me, right? You want to fuck me right now? How 'bout I suck your cock like I've been dying to all these fucking months. Jacking off every fucking night until my hand cramps, just imaging your perfect little mouth wrapped around me. Dreaming of spreading your fucking cheeks and licking you, tasting you. Every night, Roxas." Axel was shaking, not looking at him at all. "I get sick when I think about how bad I want you."

"Because I'm gross," Roxas said. If it were possible to implode, he would've done it already. It's okay. I deserve to hear how I'm not good enough for him to fuck. I deserve this.

"Gross?" Axel asked, laughing sadly. "Grossly awesome, maybe. I've tried to tell you so many times the way you make me feel, but… I'm just not good with words, I guess, or you think they're all bullshit. You think I'm walking, talking bullshit. Flirting with you, fucking that kid's brother." Axel finally raised his eyes to meet Roxas'. "Come on, Rox. It's not rocket science."

"You're a genius. My mind doesn't work like yours."

"I just want to get it out of my system."

"What?" The four horsemen riding through a current, banners billowing out behind them like ink or blood in water.

"Your face." Axel brought a shaking hand to his mouth, thumb running across the seam of his lips. "Your face is…" Axel smiled, mirthless, "Godlike, did you say? Your face is impossible, like the existence of life on earth is impossible. Or improbable, if you really want to avoid cutting corners. Your face is a statistical wonder. Divine." More sad laughter, Axel's hand slipping behind Roxas' neck. The hair on the blonde's arms was standing up, his heart pumping so loudly that Roxas was sure he could hear the blood rushing in and out of his valves. "You're a ten, Rox."

"Oh." Fuck my life.

"But there's so much more I love about you other than your perfect face." Axel's hand, shaking on the back of his neck. His green eyes depthless, darkening. "Like your inability to memorize poetry." Roxas frowned and Axel laughed for real, a desperate little chuckle that electrified Roxas' spine. "And how you like breakfast. Or, specifically, the way your eyes look when you see breakfast you really want to eat. And that," Axel pointed at his nose. "How your hold your breath when you're trying to listen carefully." Roxas released a breath, heart pounding now, and Axel's hand on his neck was shaking hard. "You don't take shit from anyone, but you break your back bending over for your friends. You've done it for me. You do it for that Sora kid. And even though we're bordering on terrible romantic comedy dialogue, you have to know that I've tasted your laughter in the air, and it is," a thumb over his mouth again, "exquisite. I want to do this right with you." Axel's face was so close now, Roxas could smell the liquid courage on his breath; sweet, outrageously potent, and it was so hard to breathe with Axel above him like this. "Don't you want that, Roxas?"

Oh, fuck. Fuck. This is it. This is it for sure now. Axel's lips parted as Roxas exhaled. "Yeah." Inarticulate, astoundingly simple, but this was it. They were going to finally, fucking finally, kiss. His eyes had fallen shut some time after he agreed and before his dick started to get hard, and fuck, that was Axel's breath in his mouth, coating his tongue, and fuck those were his lips, close enough to kiss, close enough to feel, and Axel was shaking so hard but then…

"S-sorry." A voice in the doorway. Riku. "I'm… sorry." For some reason Roxas felt caught in the act, red handed and irrefutably guilty.

Axel, frozen with lips millimeters away from Roxas', exhaled shakily. "No worries." His body warmth pulled up and away from Roxas. "You guys got a lot to go over. I'll leave you to it."

"Axel, I—"

Axel quieted Roxas with a wink. "We'll talk. You do this now. I'm drunk as fuck, anyway. Need to sleep it off." On his way past Riku, Axel jutted his chin at the other boy. "You good?"

"Yeah. Thanks." Riku didn't smile, hardly lifted his eyes from the floor.

"Don't mention it. You ladies have a good evening." Then Axel was gone, and Roxas smelled the Mai Tai go out with him, trailed by the faint trace of what was definitely come and cabbage. Sex and meth. Wonderful.

"That the guy?" Riku asked, crossing the room and sitting at the foot of Roxas' bed. He looked gorgeous even under fluorescent lighting. Heroin chic and dangerous and, yeah, maybe a little rabid.

Roxas smiled a little, felt like shooting out his cerebellum with a Smith & Wesson, and nodded. "Yeah. That's the guy."