A/N: This is what happens when people like silvermyth get me reminiscing about the formative years of my small-town adolescence in the Bible Belt. I'm not even going to pretend this will stick to a T rating. Rated M for a bookoo of explicit and ideologically sensitive content, including strong language, violence, bullying, questionable social and political ideologies, self-injury, suicide, references to childhood abuse, drug use, closeted queer youth, implied mental illness, anti-gay, ableist & racist slurs, plus sex with pointblank probability of regrets come morning. Man, reading this already sounds like it's gonna be a blast.
As always, reviews are welcome. This is off the beaten path for me, so it'd be cool to know if I'm even somewhat hitting the mark.
CHAPTER ONE: KISS OFF
"I take one, one, one 'cause you left me
And two, two, two for my family
And three, three, three for my heartache
And four, four, four for my headaches
And five, five, five for my lonely
And six, six, six for my sorrow
And seven, seven for no tomorrow
And eight, eight, I forget what eight was for
But nine, nine, nine for the lost gods
Ten, ten, ten, ten for everything, everything, everything."
"Kiss Off" - Violent Femmes
The air was a pointed innuendo of sticky summer humidity on the afternoon in mid-March when Roxas Strife broke his finger flipping Seifer Almasy the bird. More accurately, the basketball Seifer'd chucked at his face during sixth period phys-ed had been the catalyst for a sound reminiscent of a winter-dry twig snapping under steel-toed boots. To Roxas, the distinction was interchangeable.
He watched the gym teacher and long-time friend Pence sprint toward him in the direction opposite the rubbery weapon's fresh trajectory as Seifer slunk off toward his friends. With detachment bordering on academic, Roxas pondered the physics of required velocity and the force necessary to spawn such an uninspiring sound, now echoing off of Radiant Hollow Senior High's gymnasium walls. He'd offered both concerned parties quick assurances that he was fine. It took just one ear-splitting squeal from a classmate in response to the awkward angle in which the digit had been wrenched and Roxas was being ordered to the school nurse with strict instructions to not so much as consider a locker room detour beforehand.
Christ alive. Fucking girls.
There wasn't much he despised more than empathetic squeamishness, although a close second was probably imminent summer moisture the consistency of watery septic discharge. Soon enough, it'd become more a misery to continue wearing his hallowed detachable arm sleeves than a seemingly eccentric fashion choice, even in the air conditioned indoors, and Roxas would find himself wondering how much sweat his monochromatic armbands had to acquire before his skin officially qualified as biological warfare. At best, he was anticipating a slew of odor-related classmate complaints that displayed far less empathy than he'd just received over something as trivial as a spindly middle finger. Eighteen years and running, everyone in this town was still so painfully predictable.
Deliberately avoiding eye contact and standard greetings with the handful of students he encountered in the halls, Roxas plotted the quickest route to the admin office where the nurse was located. The worn rubber soles of his tennis shoes slapped invariable staccato notes against cheap vinyl that had boasted an uncontested monopoly over RHSH's interior flooring since the early '70s. Irritation rising like a heat blister, Roxas only wished the remedy for his piss-poor mood involved something as straightforward as a light jab with a sewing needle sterilized in a sea of rubbing alcohol. He didn't have time for this over-zealous, concerned authority bullshit.
The admin office's door was open, and likely would remain so until the last bell of the day sounded and students started streaming en masse out into the halls liked panicked wildebeests without an ounce of mother nature-supplied grace. Roxas entered, then made a beeline over to the receptionist, who was typing away at a computer keyboard on her desk with enough enthusiasm that it was safe to assume she was doing something other than reception duties. Shrewdly, he shielded his hand to avoid another unwanted reaction. Sliding a piece of paper out of the pocket of his athletic shorts, he held the gym teacher's note at arm's length.
Grabbing it, the receptionist skimmed the note with more scrutiny than a few lines of basic English warranted, and Roxas tucked his injured finger behind the cupped palm of his good hand, resting both just above the elastic band at the front of his shorts.
"You were in an accident?" Placing stress on the final word, the receptionist looked up. Her gaze traveled down his arm, as he'd anticipated, no doubt searching for any evidence of actionable school negligence.
"Yeah." Roxas nodded. He had no interest in laying blame on Seifer or explaining further. There was enough to focus on without getting the school involved in a longstanding childhood feud with an unsatisfying origin story. "I was playing basketball and fumbled a pass."
The receptionist eyed him, her expression the pinnacle of indifference. "Take a seat. I'll tell the nurse you're here." Without another glance his way, she turned back to the computer.
Grinding his heels into the floor enough to pull a tight one-eighty, Roxas made his way over to a row of plastic chairs lined up against the frosted plexiglass of the office's far wall. There were two others present and waiting. He chose the seat farthest away from them and plopped down, curling his back inward against the chair's pitted plastic, hands resting in his lap, shoulders rounding until his chin was an inch away from fusing with his sternum. It probably wasn't a comfortable position for anyone to look at, but the number of fucks Roxas gave about what others were seeing was equal to the sum of regrets he had for taking Seifer's verbal bait in the first place.
Sensing eyes on him, Roxas glanced to his right, toward the pair a few seats down from him. He allowed himself a second to process the revelation that he recognized neither, brows rising minutely beneath the war-zone of messy blond spikes that passed for hair after nearly fifty minutes of gym class. Radiant Hollow wasn't exactly a destination that strangers patronized by choice, and Roxas could count the number of times he'd encountered someone totally unknown to him at school this year alone on a single hand. Maybe two, he conceded, if he truly happened to be down one working finger thanks to Seifer.
They were mother and son, or so Roxas figured, given the similarity in appearance. The woman's focus was directed at a smartphone cupped in both hands, her manicured fingers scrolling through what looked like email or a website with a dense block of text. It was the boy who'd been studying him, eyes naturally tapering in both corners, hair a manifest shade of silvery-white. If not for the woman's interchangeable features, he'd have assumed color that outlandish required ostentatious amounts of hair dye. Roxas returned the look, brows knitting into an expression of well-practiced recalcitrance. It usually sufficed to put others off their game and get them minding their own damn business, posthaste.
The young man's expression didn't change as he took in the look Roxas was shooting him. His eyes were a garish shade of teal, reminiscent of the Gulf's low-oxygen dead zone, and had to be the work of contact lenses, in Roxas' estimation. Just the same, the intensity of the gaze had Roxas looking away and losing a staring contest for the first time in ages. Irritation was quick to return, rising in a steady swell from the depths of his chest into the tense muscles of his throat. His eyes fell on the offending injury that had necessitated this unwanted detour. Considering the swollen digit and the odd angle his finger now pointed out from at the second knuckle, Roxas supposed he could understand the logic behind being sent to the nurse. With a strained sigh, he pinched the tip of his injured extremity between the thumb and index finger of his good hand and gave it a quick, pitiless jerk.
The finger did straighten, as he'd intended. It also made a grinding, bone-crunching sound rather than the anticipatory popping of a knuckle realigning into its appropriate place. A prickling jolt of what Roxas vaguely identified as pain traveled up his arm, halting at his elbow before retracing its route down his forearm, the throbbing intermittent but undebatable. If he'd been alone, he might have studied the injury with more inquisitiveness. With strangers in such close proximity and the receptionist still typing with unnecessary vigor no more than two yards away, the admin office didn't afford him any such privacy, and Roxas silently acknowledged that he probably shouldn't have let himself fall victim to such vacuous histrionics. Glancing back over at the other waiting visitors, Roxas saw that the boy's eyes had widened in surprise, maybe horror. This time the stranger averted his gaze in the face of Roxas' nausea-inducing theatrics but seemed content to keep quiet rather than questioning the logic of setting one's own finger a mere handful minutes out from an appointment with a trained medical professional.
Well, Roxas thought as he smoothed a fold in his athletic sleeve. No harm, no foul after all. Maybe.
"Riku Kimura?" The receptionist's voice was more hesitation than authority as she enunciated each syllable with careful deliberation. The rest of her sentence was objectively rushed, the words half-stumbling over one another in their haste to leave her mouth. "The principal will see you and your mother now."
The two stood, and Roxas took a moment to consider the foreign-sounding name before deeming it too unpronounceable to be worth further effort. With the receptionist leading, all three disappeared behind a back door toward the halls that housed private offices for the school's higher-up officials.
Looking down at his hand again, Roxas flexed his fingers, noting his patent inability to move one in particular beyond an extremely limited range. With an exaggerated look of impatience directed at no one in particular, Roxas glanced at the office's wall clock. If he didn't get called in soon, he was going to miss his ride home with Hayner, not only necessitating a nearly three mile walk and being late to dinner, but also risking his mother's unparalleled ire. At least his brother Sora had an alternate way home, because this was taking an unnecessary level of forever.
He sighed again and tried to suppress the handful of retaliatory actions just begging for critical consideration.
What a day to break a goddamn finger. Seifer was, without question, a special kind of asshole.
o - o
By the time Roxas' home came into view, he was edging toward an hour late and change, having missed his ride by mere minutes. His body was coated in a sheen of sweat, thanks to the double whammy of athletic sleeves still wound around both arms and Radiant Hollow's unrepentant humidity. It was the gift that just kept on giving, without the perk of being able to return it for store credit. After retrieving his street clothes, he'd opted to remain in gym shorts, swapping out one set of arm sleeves for a clean pair that had thus far avoided seeing the inside of a high school gymnasium. It hardly mattered now though, considering how gross he'd gotten on the trek home.
It hadn't just been his sleeves. His backpack was filled near to bursting with textbooks, an ever-present reminder that finals were increasingly encroaching on his already limited evening and weekend sovereignty. Sweat had also formed between his shoulders in a matter of minutes after he'd exited his air conditioned haven of an educational institution. Before long, it was trickling lower, down the center channel of his back, his cotton shirt sticking to slick skin in awkward places, the band of his gym shorts offering fatal absorption as his body's natural condensation reached its final resting place.
The Strife's house was a modest A-frame situated at the end of a line of residences with near-identical architecture. Most were in various levels of disrepair, unfinished construction projects that ran the gamut from peeling siding to sagging roofs. The neighborhood stood as a testament to the blue collar working class of Radiant Hollow, consisting primarily of workers employed by a textile manufacturer one town over. It was a company whose only idiosyncratic characteristic involved a hell and high water battle waged against workers' unions and other unwanted liberal employment protections that had ultimately been lost decades earlier. The nicer homes were reserved for more affluent families clear across the other end of the city, which wasn't saying much considering the town's median annual income teetered just above the national poverty level.
Steeling himself for a maternal confrontation of epic proportions, Roxas plodded up the ramp connecting the lawn to their front porch, a project his oldest brother and a friend had constructed during their first summer out of high school. It set their home apart from the others on this block, a compulsory eyesore that Roxas had made his peace with half a decade ago.
The main door was ajar, a screen with crusted iron oxide the color of sienna on its topmost hinge the lone barrier between the front porch and living room. Its protesting groan was not all that dissimilar to the high-pitched sound emitted in his gym class that had been the initial impetus for his present tardiness. With the shades drawn over west-facing windows to block out excess sunset heat, the room was dark, but even before his eyes fully refocused Roxas could see that the couch was occupied. The squeaking of old furniture springs and Pat Sajak's resonate voice announcing the theme of a word puzzle was his personalized version of a welcome home greeting.
Roxas approached the couch, eyes on the TV. Shrugging out of the bag's padded straps, he let the backpack drop to the floor with an audible thud. "Before and After category puzzles always blow."
Fingers entwined at his waist, torso a concave curve from neck to mid-chest, his older brother glanced at him without moving his head. "You're late," he noted. "And you smell rank as hell."
"I had to go to the nurse's office. Hayner left without me." Ignoring the body odor comment, Roxas waved his injured hand in his brother's general direction, before dropping heavily into a La-Z-Boy recliner that hadn't been stylish since the Reagan administration. His injured digit was wrapped in first aid tape, secured to its neighboring index finger for additional support. Half a popsicle stick on either side acted as an ad hoc splint.
Cloud eyed his younger brother with only a faint flicker of interest before returning his attention to Vanna White as she glided across the screen with an impressive level of effortlessness considering the paltry support her high-heels boasted. "I always figured you for a lover more than a fighter, boyo. We're not even Irish."
Leaning forward, chin resting on an open palm as his elbow ground an unforgiving hollow into the top of one thigh, Roxas took a moment to consider the Big Bird-yellow dress Ms. White was sporting before contributing a response. He wondered what qualifications a person needed to opine on the singular calamity that was the debatable fashion choices of American television personalities. "You should've seen the other guy," he finally replied.
"Nice." Cloud snorted, lips twitching as though considering a smirk but passing for lack of adequate ardor. He reached over toward the coffee table for a half-finished bottle of cheap beer. As if remembering his role as elder brother and secondary parental figure, he followed the comment with a quick inquiry, eyes still directed at the TV. "It broken? Gonna need me to take you to the hospital?"
"No, all good. The nurse fixed me right up."
Roxas watched as his brother took a long swig of his drink before pressing the bottle to the side of his face, rubbing condensation against day-old face stubble. "Good, good," Cloud murmured, exhaling, expression harried. "Last night's shift was brutal."
While a contestant proceeded to tank his guess on a simple puzzle solution, Roxas turned back to Cloud. "That why Mom's not here?"
Matted blond hair bobbing in tune with an answering nod, Cloud took another sip of beer, this one slightly more restrained. "Mandatory overtime. Two hours."
Roxas grimaced. "That sucks." Except for managing to avoid being utterly reamed out on account of his own delayed arrival home, obviously.
Cloud shrugged. "It's good money."
The show paused for a commercial break, Roxas only half-paying attention as some ad extolling the inherent patriotism associated with gas station patronage ran in the background.
Stretching his limbs, knee-joints popping as he locked and released them in quick succession, Cloud looked back over at Roxas. "Anyway, I cooked dinner. It's on the counter in the kitchen."
"Cool." Roxas hopped up, then ambled his way in the kitchen's general direction, noting the wheelchair folded unobtrusively in a corner near the dining table that was used more for piling up old newspapers, mail, and bills than sitting together as a family unit and breaking bread at mealtime. He turned a corner into the kitchen and found himself face-to-face with two paper bags emblazoned with Arby's logos.
"Ven called earlier." Cloud's voice drifted into the kitchen.
"You have a loose understanding of the word cooked," Roxas yelled back, as he snatched up the fast food bags and returned to the living room.
With a light laugh directed more at the TV set than Roxas, Cloud reached up and yanked one of the bags out of Roxas' hands. "Shut up and eat your curly fries."
Settling back into his chair, saying nothing, Roxas complied.
He shoved a handful of what qualified more as lukewarm, sodium repositories than actual potatoes into his mouth, then pulled his backpack closer and toyed with the idea of studying for tomorrow's rumored physics quiz. "What'd Ven have to say?"
"Something about his summer internship schedule and the dates he can come home to visit." Cloud reached into his bag, hand emerging with more fries. "I still think it's not right, working for free like that."
It was Roxas' turn to shrug. "If it leads to a paying job, I guess it's not a bad thing."
"Yeah." Cloud didn't sound convinced. College and internships were both foreign concepts to him. Only a handful of years separated Roxas' two oldest brothers but it made all the difference. He was pretty sure the high school hadn't even hired a career counselor until two years after Cloud had graduated. By then, he'd already gotten a position at the same factory where their mother had been employed for the last twenty years, first working the line for straight eight hours shifts, sometimes more if they imposed mandatory overtime hours during busier months. He'd been promoted to shift manager a few years back, which meant more money but also additional responsibilities that left him tired and irritable on the evenings the brothers crossed paths.
Hand diving back into the grease-stained bag, Roxas retrieved a roast beef sandwich drenched in its own meaty secretions and took a generous bite. "Has Sora eaten yet?" he asked a beat later, mouth still half-full of oily beef and over-processed bread.
"If your understanding of 'eaten' matches my definition of cooking, then sure. You know him," Cloud said, between bites of curly fries. When Roxas shot him a perturbed look, he reluctantly supplemented. "I took a sandwich upstairs to him awhile ago. He said he had homework."
Crumpling the top of the Arby's bag into his good hand, Roxas slung his backpack over one shoulder, then stood and made his way toward the stairs. "Yeah, me too. I should probably get started."
"Take a shower while you're at it, will ya," Cloud called at his retreating back. "You reek on a blessed level."
Ignoring the barb, Roxas took the stairs two by two, turning a deaf ear on the various groans and creaks his feet elicited from the wood underfoot. He turned a corner, past his mother's room, then entered the second door on the left. It was already half-open as if beckoning interested guests. From his seat at the desk in the far corner, a boy looked up and over a pair of silver-rimmed reading glasses, expression genuine, amply welcoming.
"You're home. I thought I heard you get in."
Approaching his brother, Roxas held out the bag of fries while simultaneously noting the chicken sandwich on Sora's desk. It was in its paper wrapper, still untouched. "Cloud said you'd eaten. One of you's a damn liar."
Sora blinked, gaze shifting from Roxas' face toward the bag thrust under his nose. He didn't reach out to take it. "What happened to your hand?"
"Don't change the subject." As Roxas dropped his backpack and settled into a folding chair, he slid the sandwich closer to his brother. It left a trail of glistening oil in its wake, a food corporation's version of edible snail sludge. Not the best move, in retrospect, if he wanted to make the sandwich seem enticing to ingest.
Brows rising in a virtuoso display of unblemished innocence, Sora reached for the sandwich. "I'll eat this if you tell me what happened to your finger."
"I'll tell you what happened if you eat something," Roxas countered.
They stared one another down, for a moment neither speaking. There was no chance in hell Roxas was losing a second retinal stand-off in one day. With an exaggerated eye-roll, Sora conceded defeat. The sharp line of a narrow collarbone rose beneath his tank top as he responded with a nonchalant shrug. "Okay, fine. Some mothers' children, though…"
Roxas watched his brother unfold the wrapper, then take a minuscule bite. The sandwich seemed twice as big in Sora's skeletal fingers as it'd looked a moment earlier in his own hand. Idly, he found himself wondering how his brother had the strength to hold his own weight and even stay balanced on his customized crutches for longer than half a minute, let alone an entire school day. "Y'know, that jab's more effective on someone who isn't related to you."
"I know." Grinning, Sora took a slightly larger second bite. "Now don't you go changing the subject, jackass. Explain yourself."
The corners of his mouth rising despite a concerted effort to keep a straight face, Roxas stole another fry from the bag he hadn't yet managed to pass off. "Gym accident. Basketballs are hazardous."
Sora's brows knitted so close together they nearly formed a complete line above his eyes. "Usually not for you, mister varsity athlete. Was it Seifer again?"
"Nah, and fuck that guy sideways." Roxas stood, dropping the paper bag onto the desktop and taking a step toward the door. "I'm gonna take a shower. That sandwich better be gone by the time I get back."
Sora took another hyperbolic bite. "Okay, Mom."
Twisting his upper body back toward his brother, Roxas flipped Sora off with the only middle finger that was still mobile enough to manage the gesture, then disappeared out the door.
Padding down the hall, he made a pit stop in his room for clothes, reminding himself to start moving some of his belongings back into the room he used to share with Sora in anticipation of the weeks when Ven would be home. He slipped into the bathroom, dropping his clean clothes on the closed toilet seat and initiating a stream of hot water from the calcified bathtub tap with a practiced, wrenching twist. His intensions of taking a quick shower only slightly hampered by the awkwardness that was bathing oneself with a single hand in adequate working condition, Roxas was soon toweling off. Without fussing over his appearance, he pulled up a pair of loose-fitting shorts and slid a pair of athletic sleeves back to their rightful place on both forearms. It was still warm enough indoors to pass on a regular t-shirt. He made a beeline for the sink and began rummaging through the medicine cabinet. Locating the sought-out item, he palmed it in his uninjured hand, before exiting the bathroom and poking his head around the door to Sora's bedroom.
"Did you finish it?"
Palms out, as though proving an indisputable point, Sora nodded. "All done, yeah."
"Okay, cool." With a curt nod, Roxas pushed the door open further. "Hey, can I pinch some of your meds?" He revealed the prescription bottle he'd grabbed from the bathroom and gave it an illustrative, rattling shake.
Quirking his head toward one shoulder, Sora seemed to approach the question with critical appraisal. "Is your hand hurting?"
Roxas nodded. "Total agony."
With a heavy sigh, Sora inclined his head in assent, eyes following his brother as he dug into his backpack, emerging a beat later with a bottle of water. Popping the pill bottle's cap off with casual familiarity, Roxas shook out two prescription-strength painkillers and downed them with a single swig of water. "Thanks. Want to catch a ride to school with me and Hayner tomorrow?"
Still silent, Sora nodded, adjusting his reading glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.
Depositing his water and zipping his backpack, Roxas slung one strap over his covered forearm. He passed a trashcan on the way toward the door, wordlessly noting its contents just before aiming to turn the corner back into the upstairs hallway.
"Hey!" Sora called, his voice quiet but carrying enough to stop Roxas in place beneath the bedroom doorframe. Roxas turned, brows rising in an unspoken inquiry.
Sora mimicked the expression with the skill only a twin brother could execute with such requisite masterfulness. "Has anyone ever mentioned you're a shitty liar?"
Gaze traveling deliberately back to the trashcan that a barely half-eaten Arby's chicken sandwich now called home, Roxas shot Sora a look that was lordly, knowing. "Pot. Kettle. I'll see you tomorrow, smartass."