CHAPTER SEVEN: FIRST
"There comes a time, in a short life
Turn it around, get a rewrite
Call it a dark, night of the soul
Ticking of clocks, gravity's pull."
"First" - Cold War Kids
He walked without purpose, with no sense of time or trajectory, unmindful of the sludge progressively collecting beneath the rubber ridges on the soles of his sneakers. It was possible he'd end up lost, but Roxas wasn't inclined to care about such hypothetical trivialities at the present moment.
He'd just needed to get some space between him and that smile, the bright expression that implied everything was fine when he knew it absolutely, unequivocally, wasn't.
The introduction of country music had been a prime opportunity to excuse himself. Even still, his brother's dancing antics, made even more comical by the new addition of an over-sized college logo sweatshirt, and the outright jubilance he'd exuded all evening in general had left Roxas mentally grappling for a logical explanation, for answers to questions he silently acknowledged might not've even been his right to pose in the first place.
How Sora could act carefree, so unencumbered, when there was so much weight on both of their shoulders, Roxas had never been able to figure. That being said, he wasn't predisposed to start mentally compiling every potential interpretation for the behavior at the moment. Or ever, probably, if he had any real say in the matter.
Olette's arrival had also been an uncomfortable reverberation through every nerve of his already frazzled senses, from Pence's seeming eagerness to coax interactions back to their normal, ante-Almasy-influence standards to Hayner's bristling tension in their mutual friend's presence. Personally, Roxas had no interest in becoming a middle-ground mediator, particularly with Seifer around. While he hadn't had a pre-set destination in mind as he'd vacated the clearing, he knew with absolute certainty where he didn't want to be anywhere near. Same for who around.
So, he'd left.
The darkness was near to absolute, a dense cover of forest above him concealing any remnants of dusk light that so much as considered making an appearance at this time of night. Soon enough, Roxas found himself reaching for his phone and relying on the default flashlight setting as he decided to forge a round-about path back toward the parking area. With the bayou's myriad pools of murky, brackish water as his sole form of enduring company, he continued to trudge away from the gathering without discernible regret.
He heard a soft rustle, the sound of an animal moving from one tree branch to another somewhere unspecified above him. Muscles tense, holding his breath, Roxas slowed and began to listen with a sense of foreboding expectancy.
He waited for the girl's lilting words to come to him again.
What floated his way instead was laughter in the distance, of classmates enjoying themselves and probably getting stoned off their asses in tandem. The ghosts, seemingly bent on trailing his every movement, in calling into question every single line of private thought, had never been inclined to make appearances when he was actually trying to anticipate them. They didn't appear now.
Shaking his head, he looked down. His resounding opinion about his classmates' recreational drug use silent but condemnatory, Roxas failed to note the considerable irony in thoughts that could just as easily be applied to him and his frequent use of pills prescribed to others.
Just the same, thoughts of the fluttering apparition induced a sensation of disquiet that was quick to settle deep-down in his gut. When he turned to continue along the path he'd already set for himself, Roxas did so without nearly as much of the careful observation he'd exercised at the outset.
It took just one wrong step and he was up to one shin in a sludgy hollow of clay and water. Swearing under his breath, just barely managing to keep hold of his phone in the middle of a quick balance check, he jerked his leg up and out of the divot, noting his newly clay-caked appendage with the narrowed slits of his eyes.
Awesome. Fucking fantastic.
He shook the residual water from his leg, dragging the bottom of his shoe against the ground in an attempt to dislodge a bit of the muck while he considered his chances of getting some form of flesh-eating infection across every inch of skin that'd just been submerged. Really, though. What a fitting anticlimax to a resoundingly shitty week — and life, too, while he was in the frame of mind to make wild over-generalizations.
More rustling of underbrush piqued his auditory attention, this time at ground level.
Leg raised mid-shake a few inches above the soil, Roxas froze. When both feet were firmly in place beneath him once more, he aimed the beam of his phone's light in the direction he'd first heard the noise. Still in relatively close proximity to the classmate gathering, he didn't anticipate encountering an animal large enough to pose a threat to his physical wellbeing. Just the same, it was a dogged sound, rising in steady advancement, and it irritated senses that were already set well on edge.
At least it didn't sound like a bird. Small miracles, he supposed.
The churning of forest underbrush continued, becoming ever more evident as he heard the padding feet of someone's impending arrival. A moment's pause, and the figure emerged from behind a cluster of trees, features shrouded in shadows, care of a dark hooded coat that spilled over to conceal the newcomer's entire forehead even in the face of his carefully directed beam of light.
Roxas watched, body still, as the person approached, then stopped a handful of generous paces in front of him. The figure's movements were familiar, the hint of a crepuscular smile beneath pools of shadow inherently recognizable to him.
He cocked his head, frowning a little. "You followed me."
Pulling the hood back and letting it settle into a fabric cowl at the back of her neck, Xion tilted her chin upward to meet his gaze, before offering a shrug to complement her equally succinct explanation. "I got bored."
How very much like Xion, Roxas thought. Then again, he could hardly blame her. These meet-ups weren't exactly the stuff of high school movie classics when it came to encompassing any real form of memorable antics.
"Where are you heading?"
Shoving his free hand into the pocket of his cut-off shorts, unmindful of the way the medical tape slid against the sweat of his swollen finger, Roxas shrugged and looked down. There was no point in explaining his thoughts about even something as mundane as directional trajectory when it wasn't particularly profound to begin with. He watched from beneath his lashes as Xion moved closer, her gaze traveling the whole of him from eyes, nose, mouth, then downward. She paused in motion and observation both as she saw the excess muck on one shoe, lit up by the phone that he'd lowered down to one blue jean-clad thigh.
"You're just making messes everywhere you go lately, boy." She offered a small smile adjunct to lightly teasing words.
Again, Roxas remained quiet, content to just watch as Xion twisted her upper body, reaching for the bag she'd been carrying behind her. She moved it forward, then pulled back the flap and began rummaging. Her hands emerged a beat later with a pair of foam-cut flip-flops, before she turned and made her way over to one of the few nearby trees that was rooted in firm earth rather than scummy marsh water.
When he didn't make any initial move to follow, Xion stopped and turned back to him. "Come here, will you?"
With a frustrated sound tickling the back of his throat, Roxas finally picked up his feet and began to slosh his way over to her, then passed off his phone into the upturned, waiting palm of her hand. Inclining her head toward his feet, she gave him a moment to slip out of his clay-soaked shoes before handing him the flip flops. Despite her penchant for over-sized attire, the new footwear was still a little small for him. Roxas curled the tips of his toes over the front edge of the sandals experimentally a few times while conceding to himself that this was still a marked improvement.
At least Xion wasn't one of those girly-girls who had to wear pink everything. The offered flip-flops were the same light blue as her Prius, which he found amenable, especially in light of what he'd likely have been subjected to if he'd been borrowing anything from Kairi or Selphie.
Xion reached for his dirty shoe discards with one hand, while pulling a beach towel out with the other. She made quick work in wrapping up the muddy mess, then stowed it in her bag.
Thank the lord for that girl and her over-large purses, Roxas supposed.
He probably should have offered Xion herself a form of thanks, but the only thing Roxas could find it in him to say at present was a curt, "You sure do come prepared for the inevitable."
By now, he was pretty sure she understood the underlying sentiment in whatever he ended up saying anyhow. It was no real secret that Xion's intuition was downright incomparable, and Roxas sometimes found himself wondering how much she'd guessed about his mental visitors made-visibly-tangible despite his enduring refusal to admit their existence to anyone other than Sora.
Ducking her head out from under the bag's long strap, Xion let it trail out of her grip and drop to the ground beside them. She pocketed his cell phone with the light still shining, then took a step closer. With arches rising up and away from her own flat sandals, she pressed herself against Roxas who, in turn, allowed the nearby tree to brace his back behind them.
He let her kiss him, let her press their chests flush together as her hands traveled downward, from his shoulders to the bottom trim on his t-shirt. There they remained for a beat before sliding under the thin fabric, then up along both sides of his body underneath his arms. Heat rose between them, making Roxas glad that the sun had already set and taken some of the day's oppressive humidity along with it. The chill of night was starting to set in, and Xion's fingers were cool against the natural heat of his own sensitive skin.
Moving away from his lips, Xion kissed a meandering path from his jawline to his neck, and Roxas' hands found a place to settle at the small of her back. The combined cover of her coat and long sundress made it difficult for him to access her own bare skin. For the time being, he was content with simply bunching the thin fabric of her handmade attire between his fingers and pulling her closer as the physical nature of their moment together intensified by exponentials.
Her actions were gentle, almost unsure, but by now Roxas was familiar with the careful way Xion approached intimacy and he let her set the pace, tilting his head to give her better access to the curve of his neck where shoulder met throat. Not for the first time, he suppressed the urge to press his hips forward, to grind them needfully against hers.
She paused, fingers fluttering in a tickling way along his stomach just above his navel before moving lower with a slow deliberateness that induced pulsing waves of heat in his chest, radiating outward in hot static prickles.
"Everyone was getting baked by the time I left," she said, her voice low. "No one'll be in a state to wander this way for awhile still."
The words were veiled in a conversational tone, but her fingers had curled over the edge of his cut-offs in a manner that left no room for wondering at their meaning. Roxas breathed deeply, trying to exert some semblance of control over the arousal fast forming in more than one part of his body. The muscles in his stomach tightened in response, then released as he answered her in an exhaled tone he was careful to ensure remained level.
"I don't have a condom." He tried to meet her eyes but could only see a dark sheen of hair and clothes from his current vantage point of looking down at her.
Xion's position didn't change, her fingers flexing experimentally just above a sharp protrusion of hipbones. "It's fine." Her voice was airy and breathless at the same time. "I don't mind."
That made one of them.
Rounding his shoulders, he drew his hands from their place at the small of her back to Xion's arms, separating her from him just enough so that he could finally see her straight-on.
"Pretty sure it's already been established that neither of us wants babies, beautiful or otherwise."
She looked at him as if considering the comment, eyes reflecting darkly in the dim light still emitting through black fabric from the phone in her pocket.
"True," she murmured, not looking particularly disappointed by the realization. Her hands reached for the top of his shorts again anyway, a thumb and index finger slowly working the metallic button loose while the other trailed lower. Its sinuous journey came to a halt between his legs, then began a slow, encouraging massage of the already stiffening flesh beneath the starchy material of his cut-offs.
He felt the drag of his zipper as Xion continued down a path he already thought he'd been clear neither of them should logically be pursuing.
"Xi—" His voice cracked, face irritatingly flush with color, abdominals tightening as she slid his pants and boxers downward in one smooth motion. Her movement was just as fluid as she lowered herself to her knees in front of him.
"I want to." She exhaled against his exposed skin, then looked up while Roxas forced down the urge to shiver at the dueling sensations induced by chill air and the heat of his growing arousal. "You don't have a condom," she repeated his words, tone equitable, "so let me do this instead."
The myriad protests swirling between his ears died down, and Roxas found himself assenting with a jerky hitch of his hips as he felt another release of warm, teasing air against sensitive skin now spread taut in front of her.
This was not his finest moment, no doubt about it. But after the week he'd been having and the simple fact that his body was taking over the work shift his mind usually supervised, Roxas wasn't in an ideal position to argue with his own self-doubt at present.
Her mouth was warm, suctioning, moist. Xion's tongue was intermittent in making its presence known, but firm and consistent each time it did. Suddenly, Roxas was biting the inside of his cheek in an attempt to catch the breathy sounds working their way with deliberate inevitability from the recesses of his throat. It was a challenge enough to keep his hips still when every physical instinct within him was telling him to thrust.
Under her persistent ministrations, he came with a shudder and the quiet sound of a moan half-stifled, knees knocking together, almost buckling, as she moved away. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth to cover the subtle puckering of her lips, Xion looked up at him, then gave Roxas a little space. Shakily, still breathing hard, he settled on the ground next to her, tugging his shorts back in place up over his hips but not bothering to zip closed his cut-offs for the time being. Xion leaned against him and Roxas, in turn, pressed the length of his spine against the tree trunk behind them. They remained there together without speaking for a prolonged moment, the rise and fall of Xion's chest measured, his breathing quicker, the result of a speeding heart rate that was only just starting to subside.
He looked down at her, again seeing only the dark crown of her head illuminated by the dim, muffled glow of his iPhone's flashlight.
"Did you want me to…?"
He trailed off, not so much shy about giving a name to his reciprocative offer as he was too breathless to finish the question without a second inhalation. One arm wrapped around the exiguous span of her shoulders, his fingers flexed unconsciously as Roxas imagined her distinct, female scent and the taste of her lingering on his lips from past encounters. He could almost feel the uneven ridges of tender skin on her inner thighs against his own exploratory fingers, so similar in texture to what his own arms bore beneath slide-on sleeves. It was simply the means and justifications that differed between them, and gender, possibly, he figured. Nothing more.
She shook her head, hair a delayed sway behind the original sentiment. "Not now. Next time, maybe."
Her words were clipped, and Roxas took a moment to consider whether letting her go down on him had been the best idea under the known circumstances. There wasn't much he could do about it now, but her tone was ruminative, distant, and it put him on edge because he understood the dark place it originated. He also recognized the sentiment behind words unspoken, even knew what promised to follow if she was left to her own devices.
Disentangling himself from her, then zipping his pants, Roxas stood to allow himself to get a better look at her from an appropriate distance. Xion remained seated, the weight of one side of her upper body pressed against the tree he'd just abandoned, legs curled underneath the skirt of a dress that flowed outward from her slender waist. It spread around her like a pool of silky obsidian, near about the same shade as her hair, which fell around her face and in front of her head, now inclined, eyes downcast.
If that had been all, Roxas might not've given it a second thought, but the light from his phone cast a ghostly pallor over the exposed skin of her chin and throat, and this was what made him pause. This was what made him begin imagining someone else entirely.
The position. Her hair. They looked so much like…
"Mo byen ba."
He hadn't realized he'd actually uttered the words, low and nasal, until Xion looked up. Tucking a strand of hair behind one ear, she nodded, as if in empathetic acknowledgement.
"Toulédé de nou."
Roxas looked at her blankly, the words no more comprehensible than the ones he'd just spoken. She returned his gaze levelly, expectantly, as if waiting for him to expand upon the initial declaration, eyes still hinting at the remnants of vacancy that had been clear in them ever since he'd dropped down beneath the tree beside her.
I'm sick, mokin frèr.
Eyes still on Xion, Roxas swallowed. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached and his throat half-closed, then offered himself internal reassurance that the two of them were here alone.
He didn't want to deal with this now, didn't want to ponder it. Not with Xion, not with anyone.
Without a word, Roxas slipped his hand into the pocket of his shorts, until his fingers curled around the baggy Xion had gifted him a few days earlier. He broke the ziplock seal with a penetrating finger, then pulled out one of the small few pills that remained in its plastic confines.
Eyes traveling away from Xion, they fixed on the belongings she had brought along with her.
"Got some water in that Big Foot bag of yours?"
Xion's lips thinned. It was a quiet display of disapproval, Roxas supposed. He ignored it, raising his brows as he awaited the anticipated response.
Sighing as she glanced between the bag and him, Xion finally replied with a question of her own. "How many have you had today already?"
Not enough, Roxas thought.
"This is my first," was the lie he answered with.
He raised his hand, palm up, and fluttered his fingers in a beckoning motion, expression expectant, then watched as she pushed herself onto her knees and reached for her bag. Rummaging for an extended moment, Xion ultimately emerged with a small plastic bottle of filtered water.
As it exchanged hands, Xion pulled Roxas' phone out of the pocket of her coat. Their surroundings flooded with an over-bright beam of directed light, a searing sensation sending an ache through Roxas' eyes and into his temples. He averted his gaze, refocusing on the pill in his palm and the drink in his other hand. He downed both quickly, then retrieved his phone from Xion, decreasing the light's setting before it gave them both the dual gift of migraines and permanent retinal damage.
"I'm heading back to the parking area," he said. While she nodded, Xion didn't make a move to stand, not even after he took a few steps away from her.
"You coming?"
She shook her head, still looking subtly unsettled. "I need a moment. I'll catch up in a bit."
Mo byen ba. Bokou malad.
When it came down to it, Roxas mused as he continued to eye Xion, weren't they all a little sick, even if the origin itself was vastly different?
It sure as hell felt like it from where he was standing.
Done scrutinizing the girl in front of him, Roxas ultimately shrugged, then prepared to take off. Maybe he should've insisted they talk about the underlying reason for her current mood, possibly force the explanation out of her as needed so he had a better handle on just what she was going through.
It wasn't that Roxas didn't want to know; it wasn't that he was indifferent or didn't feel like trying to help. He simply didn't want to have to turn around and extend the expected courtesy of talking about himself, something he innately knew Xion would insist upon in exchange for her own willingness to open up.
So, with familiar but mostly unintelligible words still ringing in his ears and a heavy feeling settling into an unreachable place between his spine and the cage of his ribs, Roxas turned and began the trek back toward the truck he'd borrowed from his older brother without her.
o - o
The parking area was a ghost town of American model cars by the time Roxas arrived. It was illuminated by the gunmetal-grey of a full moon obscured by the film of hazy clouds above it. At first, he traveled in between their clay-caked, oxidized exteriors without so much as a particular aim even to locate Cloud's ride among them. The remainder of his journey out of the forest had been peaceful, the wind subsiding enough that all he could hear was the echoing of his own flip-flop footfalls against the soggy forest floor and the rapid-fire exchange of the internal voices he'd long ago decided were caricature manifestations of his stream-of-conscious thoughts.
It certainly didn't hurt that the pill was starting to work its effective influence over his senses. Nothing hurt at this juncture in the self-medication process, in fact, and this was the state in which Roxas preferred to remain when he wanted not to think about anything in particular. That included a smiling Sora, sex with Xion, and an indie band naming pissing contest with an outsider who didn't belong here to begin with, just off the top of his head.
Walking up and around each vehicle in tandem, Roxas passed by trucks that all shared similar traits — American-made, often rusted out, and at least a decade old.
Except Seifer's.
Out of all of the vehicles, his was easiest to spot. It was recently washed, relatively new, and souped up with a load of additional-cost features Roxas personally couldn't be arsed to give two shits about. He also wouldn't have been able to list them off with even an ounce of verbal acuity if ordered to do so at gunpoint. Automobiles had never been his compulsive fixation; it'd always been music. Given how closely that new model eyesore was parked to his own Cloud-loaned vehicle, however, even Roxas could see the stark differences between the two modes of transport.
He approached the flatbed, intent on climbing in and grasping onto a moment of peaceful quiet while waiting for the others to make the return trip as the party wound down. What he got instead was a flash of movement from the cargo area and the smell of smoke working its way into his nostrils on the heels of another light breeze.
The fluttering came after, so subtle that Roxas at first believed he was imagining it, much like the girl's words from earlier. When it came again, this time with more audible potency, he was less able to convince himself that he'd gotten off scot-free this evening.
Unbidden, Xion's soulfully spoken sentiments returned to him, and Roxas repeated the five syllables in his head, still not wholly clear on their meaning. He knew a handful of words in the bayou's tongue, much like most of his peers, but they generally amounted to insults, curse words he'd picked up from older family members, his father in particular. Considering how they were usually followed by rants in English just about as incoherent, and sometimes physical violence aimed at anyone within reach to supplement, he hadn't been in a position to commit much vocabulary to long-term memory, even when his father was still living at home.
A low whistle set his teeth on edge. It was followed by the sound of someone hopping down from the flatbed's back-end.
"I see Cloud's letting you drive his truck now." The voice was good-natured, just vaguely familiar. Despite a near to full moon, the newcomer's features remained momentarily obscured, his dark hair and pale skin the only initial identifiers that Roxas could make out.
"Never thought I'd live to see the day." The voice carried, increasing in volume incrementally as he moved closer to Roxas. "I remember a time when he used to be a helluva lot more possessive about what he considered his."
At first, Roxas simply stared. Clad in the pea green of Army fatigues, blue eyes near to glowing in the dim moonlight, the young man was offering a friendly smile, he could see that now.
Roxas just couldn't find it in himself to return it.
Seeing the impassive expression, the newcomer's smile leveled out. "You remember me, right?" His voice held a note of newfound uncertainty. "Didn't think I'd been gone that long…"
"Zack Fair," Roxas supplied; the words were spoken slowly, like he was trying to bring the name up from the depths of his memory. "I remember you, yeah."
He blinked once, then again, trying to stave off the encroaching lethargy that was threatening to completely sink his side of the ship in their budding conversation. With a mind working at half its usual pace, Roxas silently acknowledged the part he'd played in his own current verbal dispassion. Just the same, something uncomfortable was working its way through his limbs the longer he looked at Zack, electric pinpricks from the sides of his face into each air-chilled, goose-pimpled appendage. "You look …young, I guess."
Dark hair shook as Roxas was treated to a quiet laugh. "And you look like you've seen a ghost."
Oh, he didn't know the fucking half of it lately.
Roxas shifted his weight between both flip-flop-clad feet before sorting his thoughts into something that would pass for a coherent, relevant line of inquiry. "You on leave or something?"
The question was asked doubtfully, like he was already half-convinced he knew the answer.
Zack's eyes could've given Sora's a run for their money regarding glowing intensity. They fixed themselves on Roxas, rooting him to the ground, flip-flops and all. "Or something," he echoed, a small smile still upturning the corners of his mouth, arms crossed and leaning back slightly like he found the entire exchange amusing.
Roxas was not feeling even an iota of entertained. Annoyed, maybe. Mentally unsteady? Yeah, definitely.
He also wasn't in the mood to play guessing games.
"Did Aerith come back too, then?" He crossed his arms in mimicry of the other's stance and felt a savage sense of satisfaction when the newcomer's expression noticeably sobered. Zack may have been older, but he wasn't the only one here who knew how to jerk people around.
Turning away, Zack's eyes rose to regard the moon above them. But Roxas recognized the pained look he'd seen and it gave him a sick sense of pleasure, even if he knew it ultimately also made him a certifiable dick in the process.
"Sure got an attitude wrapped around you." Zack's words were murmured, still looking skyward. "Your mamma doesn't, so I'm gonna hazard a guess that gem-studded personality facet came from your father before he up and left."
A rush of fluttering met his ears, of feathers, and it took all of his willpower to resist the inclination to flinch. Zack remained turned away from him, outwardly oblivious to the mental anguish Roxas' taunting mind seemed so constantly bent on inflicting whenever it sensed emotional feebleness.
He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, still eyeing the back of Zack's neck and shoulders, but refused to address the comment. It had been underhanded to mention his dad, even if Roxas figured he probably deserved it for first bringing up Aerith.
"Cloud still working that dead-end job?"
Again, no response from Roxas. This time, Zack looked back, expression arch, knowing. "Right. 'Course he is. He could've been a real great soldier, you know."
Roxas knew. He just had no inclination to follow this line of conversation to its ultimate endpoint. There were a lot of things he was at fault for and this was yet another, even if the part he'd played was the mere inadvertency of being a baby brother lacking any real father figure at the time Cloud was about to graduate high school.
His eyes wandered up, following the path Zack's had taken only a few minutes prior. A thin trail of smoke rose through the trees, a visual illustration of the ashy smell he'd perceived earlier. "Is something on fire?"
Zack shrugged. "Does it matter this close to the marsh? Everything around us is wet."
Roxas supposed he was right.
And yet…
He took a step forward, then brushed past Zack, the incessant fluttering subsiding but still persisting at the peripherals of his auditory senses. His eyes remained fixed on the ghostly tendril of smoke rising up beyond the forested tree cover. It pulled at him, and Roxas considered it a sensory hub that offered mere minor reprieve from the sounds still subtly assaulting his tympanic membranes.
Mind made up, he began to walk toward the trees, vaguely aware of the sound of army boots padding along a few feet behind him. For the time being, Roxas ignored the military man tailing him as he made his way around the final parked truck and plotted a path over toward the dense patch of trees.
The whistling resumed as Zack followed along behind him, and Roxas' expression dropped into an irritable scowl, a visual representation of his displeasure at the sound's recommencement.
"Y'know," Zack said, increasing his gait until he pulled up along one side of Roxas, "if this were Afghanistan, we'd probably be walking straight into an ambush or lure of some sort."
Considering that life already felt like one mental ambush after another, Roxas really couldn't say that Zack's words had much of a resounding impact on his decision to continue forward.
"Guess it's a good thing it ain't then." His response was cutting. Terse.
They entered the forest in the direction opposite of the Usual Spot, Roxas noting that the ground on this side of the woods was firmer. It was also closer to the road, with more likelihood of state patrollers passing by during nighttime rounds. This was probably why none of his classmates had ever suggested it as a gathering place, but Roxas had never had enough interest to bother considering the reasoning further.
He slipped into the cover of the outlying trees, picking his way through them, unmindful of the branches that scratched at the sides of his face, that snagged at the edges of his arm sleeves. Behind him, in place of Zack's clomping boots, Roxas heard the rustling of leaves. It sounded distinctly like wings, like a bird scuttling across the forest floor, perhaps injured and slow but holding its own in steady pursuit behind him.
Of all the evenings to run into a former town resident, Roxas thought. Then again, if he'd gotten his say, Roxas wouldn't have even made the trip out here in the first place. That'd been all Sora.
And, okay fine, a little bit of Xion.
By now, he was pretty comfortable in the realization that the girl wasn't going to make her presence overtly known at this time. She never did when others were present, save for Sora, but that was different. He supposed he should be grateful for Zack's presence, but Roxas wasn't one to express gratitude, especially not with someone who'd opted to defect from Radiant Hollow, even if it was under the guise of American patriotism.
Crackling sounds of kindling branches newly introduced to a youthful fire soon overtook the amorphous whisperings between his ears. Spotting a dim flicker of red-orange ahead in the distance, Roxas made a beeline toward it until he arrived at another small clearing. He paused at the final tall trees ringing its border, eyes squinting to see beyond the jumping flames and the smoke the fire was emitting in fitful plumes.
By his side, Zack stopped too, and Roxas was suddenly aware of the obvious height difference between the both of them. It did nothing to quell the irritation forming in his chest and rising up out of him, promising a sure verbal departure from his throat if he wasn't a right kind of mindful.
The fire was contained, at least to an extent. A scattering of rocks and one haphazard mound of raised clay encircled most of the blaze, and Roxas made the quick mental assessment that it wasn't an immediate threat. The smoke was thick and rising in billowing plumes into the yawning mouth of an ashen sky. His eyes followed it upward, then down again. It took him a few seconds more to realize it was originating from two sources.
If he directed his eyes to the space just slightly to the right and behind the crackling blaze, Roxas could make out the smaller trail of smoke, rising in a lazy, spiraling corkscrew from a human mouth that, in turn, was attached to a body lying prone on a tree log, just like the ones set up at the Usual Spot.
"…the hell?"
The words were muttered, his eyes narrowing as he turned back to Zack. "Is this some kind of joke? You could've just told me you'd come with others before I traipsed all the way out here."
Zack glanced at Roxas, then back to the figure smoking in repose no more than thirty feet away from them.
"I came alone," he said with a shrug. "And I'm considering leaving much the same if you keep on runnin' your mouth with such rampant profanities."
"Then fucking go." Roxas looked away from him, back into the clearing, and let the hissed triumvirate of words linger. Zack's presence was grating and he hadn't invited him along on this exploratory mission anyhow.
"Suit yourself." Leaves shifted and twigs snapped as Zack twisted on his heel. Although he didn't turn to look, Roxas could almost imagine the nonchalant shrug that probably followed.
"Give Cloud my kindest regards." The words were sarcastic but Zack's tone remained smooth, as if he wasn't particularly bothered by the welcome home he'd received from Roxas — or resounding lack thereof, as it was.
"Give 'em yourself," Roxas shot back. People who didn't ruffle easily were the ones he found most exasperating.
Zack had already moved away, without a verbal response or physical indication he'd heard Roxas' parting remarks. Roxas listened to the sound of his footsteps fading down to imperceptible levels, aimed a scowl at where he'd last been sighted, then turned and took a step forward, making his way out into the clearing.
The lounging person didn't move, didn't so much as turn to regard the new arrival. Scanning the impressive mountain of cigarette butts, tempered with a scattering of pot blunts piled at the log's edge, Roxas wondered if the stranger's inattention was the result of being full-out under the influence.
As he approached, Roxas also noted that his initial observations about the fire's confinement had been a tad inaccurate. Some of the embers were flickering off and away from the main blaze, helicoptering past the makeshift fire pit's boundaries and out into nearby landing pads of grass and dirt. Some died out as soon as they settled, but others struck something they could actually ignite on. Roxas eyed the nearest flickering derivative, then took a small step forward and smothered the flame with the heel of one baby blue flip-flop.
The noise must have traveled the distance remaining between him and the stranger. Although there was no responding full-body motion, a face tilted toward him, identifying features catching only flecks of dim light, and Roxas found himself in the direct line of optical fire emitting out of a slitted, cat-like gaze.
In the guttered light of an orange-tinged blaze, Roxas found himself staring at a genderless countenance, angles sharp, almost alien. The eyes, open a mere sliver, flickered beryl green above two blocky apostrophes, typographical and inked, and speckling a complexion that was otherwise flawless, from what Roxas could see.
He'd never been in a position where he couldn't identify a person's gender from a cursory glance, and Roxas unwittingly found himself returning to the conversation with Xion yesterday as he continued his visual inquisition. The stranger's attire was dark, an asymmetrical leather shirt that revealed one pale, tattooed arm. Legs were thin and impossibly long, and even with a back still prostrate against the log and one knee bent skyward, Roxas could ascertain that this person was tall. Height alone implied male, but it also didn't default rule out female, if the long-limbed women in the Victoria's Secret catalogue Hayner'd pinched one day for both their twelve year old selves to gawk at was any visual indicator.
Brows rose in apparent inquiry, and Roxas found himself mentally floundering in augmented green as the stranger's eyes widened in a facial movement wholly ancillary of its eyebrow-cousin.
There were a lot of things Roxas was mindful that he didn't know much about. He couldn't explain why some pickup truck exterior add-ons were preferable to others, didn't know more than a handful of words in Louisiana Creole. Keeping straight the myriad rules of American football was yet another example he supposed outright indifference on his part was ultimately to thank for. In the same vein, Roxas didn't understand hereditary genetics well enough to posit why some twins were identical in personality and others polar opposites, and he'd never sussed out how Cloud could have a bare minimum of six inches on him at the age Roxas was now when they shared the same progenitors.
There were many things Roxas didn't know, and he'd accepted this patent ignorance with considerable humbleness over the years, for the most part.
What he couldn't accept now was not being able to identify a person's gender when this guy, or girl, or what-the-fuck-ever was lounging right the hell in front of him. Roxas was pretty sure he'd already established that he wasn't in the mood for bullshit of late, of any sort; as far as he was concerned, this full-out qualified in that regard.
With a pointed look down toward the smattering of pygmy fires at his feet, then back up to the log and its current occupant still lying prone and silent in front of him, Roxas finally and officially announced his presence — in a manner of speaking.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Silence followed the languid drag of a hand-rolled cigarette, the stranger's cheeks relocating themselves to their oral interiors until Roxas could see an overhang of a distinct facial bone structure, protruding and angular. It was exotic.
No, actually, to hell with that bullshit romanticization, it was grotesque.
Whatever the case, it was over in a matter of seconds as nicotine released in a billow of misty wreaths upon the succeeding exhale.
"Meditating."
The voice was deep, resonate, evocative in its enunciation. Roxas heard the word with clarity, but his brain processed the non-verbal elements of tone, cadence, and pitch to form its own conclusion, one that had nothing to do with word meaning or etymology.
This person was male.
From there, his senses took turns. Eyes processed hair, long and lurid red, pulled back tight, up high behind the crown of his head. Olfactory and taste teamed up, tightening Roxas' throat in outright protest of the cigarette smoke lingering in a subtle cloud around them both.
These senses, so often distinct, coalesced as one to form an opinion on the situation in which they currently found themselves. This was, in turn, made into something intelligible via his mouth.
"You smell like an ashtray."
Roxas was gifted with a casual glance as the man pressed up to a seated position, cat-eyes traveling the length of his body. He took in everything about the disheveled appearance Roxas was currently sporting, before his expression settled on mock-contemplative.
"Would you say that's better or worse than smelling like sex?"
The comment caught him off-guard and Roxas took a begrudging moment to stop and wonder why it was usually impossible to smell the makeup of your own physical constitution before deciding to change the subject.
His eyes returned to the myriad sparks of glittering embers littered around the larger, licking flames of the principal fire. "You're going to set this entire place ablaze if you're not careful."
A hint of a languid smile, the tilt of one sharp line of his chin, and the stranger spoke up again.
"One can hope."
The accent was different than his, but not wholly dissimilar. Words and cadence smooth, there was nothing immigrant in the way he was speaking. Just the same, it was an intimation of foreign, and the way the sentence as a whole was presented had Roxas pondering whether the comment aspired to encompass more than a few marshland trees in the ultimacy of its meaning.
While the words were fatalist, the speaker himself seemed calm, his demeanor wry. Now that he was seated upright, Roxas could also see that what he had initially assumed was an asymmetrical shirt was in reality a completely sleeveless leather vest with a black t-shirt underneath, capping the narrow swell of both shoulders. The dark shade of one arm wasn't a simple trick of shadowy light, then. In reality, the skin was completely filled in with tattoo ink, save for a few subtle lines that shone like the negative of a photograph.
It was unusual, off-putting. Brushing his own arm subtly against his side, Roxas wondered if a solid block of body art was the solution to the self-made blemishes on his own war-torn version of what passed for flesh these days.
There were many ways he could respond to the comment he'd just been offered, he figured, most of them sarcastic. After a few more seconds of scrutinizing silence, Roxas dismissed them all, instead angling for a different tactic — redirection.
"You're Kairi's cousin."
With a subtle inclination of forehead and chin, Roxas' hunch was confirmed, and he found himself grateful he'd managed to commit to memory at least an ounce of Sora's chattering explanation from a few days prior.
The next natural line of conversation would be an exchanging of names, Roxas knew, but that seemed too congenial given his opening inquiry, and he'd never been much for polite formalities anyway. Before he could summon another sarcastic remark, however, green and red and ink in the place of pale skin beat him to it and spoke again.
"Either your sandals are too small or your feet are too big. Care to resolve that minor discrepancy for the sake of my innocent curiosity?"
It was the first time he'd been offered anything beyond a succinct response to his own words, so of course Roxas took the opportunity to consider the melodic, tonal sound by looking dumbstruck down at his feet and becoming momentarily mute.
"They're not mine," he finally said, and despite his best efforts, his voice sounded defensive. Instead of letting the words linger, wary and declarative between them, Roxas supplemented. "I had a swamp mishap. It's liable to occur when everything's pitch dark."
"Seems like what occurred involved a little more than just swamp," came the volleyed return. It was a confident, milky drawl, face still unreadable as Roxas looked up and found himself rooted in place for the second time that evening. "Of course," the man continued, lifting the half-life remainder of white paper and ash back up to his lips. "It's just speculation on my end."
It was the epitome of irony that Xion chose this moment to appear at the edge of the clearing, Roxas only getting an initial sense of her presence via the redirected flicker of the green gaze before him. He performed a half turn, neck craning over one shoulder, and wordlessly watched as she approached on silent feet.
"Another piece of the puzzle falls into place." Roxas heard a light chuckle behind him but didn't deign to acknowledge it. The guy's voice felt somehow mocking, like the mere observation that he was a teenage boy and may have engaged in what teen boys so often did when they were involved in a high school relationship was something to be embarrassed about.
Unaware of Roxas' growing frustration, it was perhaps admirable that Xion took in his smoldering look with the level of calm she did. That girl deserved accolades for her willingness to put up with him, although Roxas would never admit to that publicly.
"Where's your bag?"
The question was posed more harshly than he'd intended, but Xion merely shrugged in the face of it, not outwardly concerned by its stridency.
"I dropped it off in the back of Cloud's truck." As she came to a stop in front of him, her gaze moved past, toward the clearing's other occupant.
"Cloud?" The man leaned slightly forward, eyeing Roxas closer. There was a decided implication to the word's presentation that Roxas didn't care to currently try to investigate. "I guess I can see it now. Speak of the devil."
Roxas could count on both hands how many other things he'd prefer to speak of before talking about either the devil or his brother. With a roll of his eyes, he turned so he could see both of the people he was standing between.
"He's Kairi's cousin," he said, by way of introduction.
"With that hair, I figured as much." Nodding, Xion looked toward the object of their current conversation. Her expression was lucid, clear, and Roxas found it in himself to feel a measure of relief at the realization that the quiet moment she'd requested in the forest earlier seemed to have done the trick and pulled her out of the grey space he'd seen her mentally headed toward.
With a light rustle of dry leaves beneath his feet, the man stood, arm extended past him. "Axel LaChappelle."
Without hesitation, Xion took it, and Roxas watched as they shared a brief handshake.
"Xion," she returned, the edges of her lips curving just enough to be polite.
While they exchanged names, Roxas was busy relinquishing lesser senses to make way for observation and surprise. He'd been right. This guy was tall. He just hadn't realized how accurate the observation had been until the man, this Axel, was standing, towering right next to him.
Without question, Cloud had nothing on this guy for height. Same with Zack.
Xion looked between the two of them. "You've already gotten yourselves acquainted, I take it?"
As Roxas shook his head, Axel did the inverse, offering a definitive nod, which elicited a scowl that didn't quite mask the light bewilderment that had crept into Roxas' expression.
"Yes, ma'am, I know who he is." The smile was a gradual rising of two thin lines one over the other that made apostrophes of ink change font sizes.
Roxas' eyes narrowed as he stole another glance at the human version of a red skyscraper beside him. Oh, he knew, did he? Just how in the fuck exactly?
Nothing is real, mokin frèr. How soon you forget.
This time the assertion was a tease, a whisper that caressed the back of his neck, a lover promising more with the exercise of just a little measured patience.
And then, deep, resonate, another three words, this time in Axel's voice.
My show now…
Disconcerted, Roxas' shoulders jerked, and both people beside him turned to regard him. Eyes traveling upward, back to green and red, it took Roxas a moment to realize Axel hadn't actually said anything. They regarded each other for one second, then a handful more, his phone's buzzing notification ultimately providing a merciful excuse to look down.
He pulled out his phone, read over the directive in Hayner's message, then opened the app to his Facebook newfeed. "They're heading back to the parking area," Roxas said, voice directed at Xion. "We should probably get going."
With a nod, she and Axel turned together, and the dark shades of their respective outfits filled Roxas' peripheral vision, a yawning abyss of black nothingness on either side of his face. A moment later, Axel had stopped, looked back as if considering something. He finally moved toward the fire to begin the process of snuffing it out.
"Should we wait?" Xion's voice was quiet but it echoed in the sudden silence of Roxas' mind.
Part of him wanted to. Part of him wanted to talk with Kairi's cousin more, to see what additional oddball responses the guy would come up with to his own caustic remarks.
With an expression of practiced disinterest, Roxas shook his head.
"Nah. Let's just get going."
They turned together and entered the woods, Roxas' head down as he checked his Facebook notifications. A moment later, he snorted. "Aw, shit. It figures."
Xion looked over at him inquiringly, and he passed her the phone. As she skimmed the string of recently updated pictures, a small smile began to form. "Now, who do you think would've gone and done this?"
Thoughts returning to a particularly bouncy high school senior with a penchant for loud sounds and dancing to shitty country music, Roxas merely shook his head and stifled the rising smile as he continued leading the way back to the makeshift parking lot. "Three guesses, but the first two don't count and, spoiler alert, it was definitely Selphie."