A/N: Thanks to all of you for your reviews, follows, favorites, and messages. I'm grateful for each and every one. Much love!


Axel tilted Roxas's chin, craning it towards him, and kissed him. Roxas was taken by surprise but submitted easily to the familiarity. He didn't taste of smoke, but sweeter.

The kiss ended abruptly, before Roxas could really get a feel for it. Then Axel reached his hands lower, gliding his hands along Roxas's back. Roxas smiled. His lips parted slightly, feeling Axel's hands sliding along his waist...and then Axel pinched him. Hard.

"Ow! What the hell?"

Axel smiled a simple, unapologetic smile. "Guess that settles that. You're not dreaming."


"So, you quit smoking."

"Mhmm."

Roxas couldn't fight the torrent of emotions swirling within him. The smoke was inextricably tied with the nostalgia of Axel. It being gone made Axel...less Axel.

"Why?"

Axel smiled—a curiously abashed smile that he hid by craning his neck down. "Officially?" Axel asked, his voice lilting upwards and his eyebrows following suit. "Because my mom died from the habit."

"And... unofficially?" Roxas asked, taking the hint. He felt the answer coming, along with a rising giddiness within himself.

"On account of all the times you complained about it."

Somehow this exchange between them felt more adulterous than the kiss. But more right in just about every other aspect. It was them. It was familiar.

Still, Roxas found that he had a hard time looking at Axel. Not because it was uncomfortable or tense between them...but because it wasn't. And Roxas couldn't quite tear his mind away from the image of Tidus's unerringly trusting blue eyes.

"What's wrong?" Axel asked, yanking Roxas from his laden-with-guilt thoughts.

Roxas let out a shaky sigh, cradling his head in his hands and pulling at his hair in frustration. "God, Axel, my thoughts have been such a cheesy melodramatic shit show lately. I don't know whether I want to actually bash my brains in or just post about it on Facebook."

"Did you just call me 'God Axel'?" Axel quirked a grin.

"Oh, fuck off."

Axel laughed at that. "I forgot how much I missed your teenage angst."

Roxas let a long pause hang between them, trying to figure out how to breach the topic. What's wrong? "It's Tidus," he said finally.

"Yeah, I figured," Axel responded, his tone sobering.

"I don't know what or how you know about Tidus, but I'm not sure if I want to know either. That's actually a little weird."

"Well. I've been out of town for the past few months, confronting some of my old demons. And performing some," Axel replied, sitting up a little straighter against the trunk of the tree.

"Performing?" It suddenly occurred to Roxas that he had no idea what Axel did with his free time. Did he have an actual job? Performing. Shit, was Roxas actually right in his premonition about Axel being an exotic dancer?

Axel reached over, pressing Roxas's eyebrows back down from their place on Mars. "Yeah. Some magic shows. Opening for some music shows too—I've been the off-and-on guitarist for this shitty band called The Leg Warmers."

"The Leg Warmers," Roxas deadpanned. You've got to be kidding.

Axel raised his hands up defensively. "Listen, Larxene picked the name. Personally, I voted for Deaf Sex."

"Mm. Just offensive enough to be a band name."

"That's what I said! Whatever, Larxene is a complete bitch. She kicks me out of the band on just about once every day ending in 'Y'. Anyway, as I was saying, I was hitchhiking back here from a gig in Tulsa—"

"Axel." Roxas sighed reproachfully. "You're going to get killed doing that."

Axel rolled his eyes, leaning forward and pressing his lips in a soft peck on Roxas's forehead. He flashed a brilliant smile. "Rox, you know firsthand that usually the people who pick me up think I'm going to kill them. Not the other way around."

"Okay, that wasn't hitchhiking, Axel. I stopped at the intersection, you walked in front of my car, and then you forced yourself into my car."

Axel waved his hand in the air noncommittally. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Semantics." He shrugged. "So, I'd made it to the outskirts of Hollow Bastion and that's where I waved someone down to hop a ride. This dude tells me his name is Wakka and he's headed toward Twilight Town."

Roxas's eyes widen in recognition. Wakka is Tidus's best friend. Oh boy.

"So we're in the middle of a conversation about Chaos Theory when Wakka gets a phone call. He's all like 'Oh dude, I gotta take this.' And he answers like 'Tidus, my brudda!'"

"That is a godawful impression of him," Roxas interrupted.

"You're just a little spitfire today, aren't you?"

"Yeah, today and every day. Are you gonna get to the point of this story?" Roxas questioned.

"I would already have gotten to the point if you hadn't interrupted me. I think you're just trying to hear more of my voice that you missed so much."

Well, he wasn't wrong.

"Alright, so… I'm looking out the window, not really listening to their conversation since I can't hear half of it anyway, when I hear a certain familiar name. He goes 'Yo Tidus, are you and Roxas planning on coming down to Fire and Ice tonight?' And Roxas isn't the most common name, so I perk up a little, like maybe they're talking about my Roxas?"

Roxas couldn't help but smile at that part. 'His Roxas'. He decided not to make a teasing jest just this once. Even though he kinda wanted to.

"So I keep listening and he goes 'Ah, well tell Roxas and Hayner they should hang with us there next time, ya?' And I'm like, okay, it's a Roxas probably from Twilight Town who knows a Hayner. So I'm thinking, hell, what are the odds? It's gotta be you. So eventually he gets off the phone and I say 'Tidus sounds like a cool dude. Are you, Tidus, and Roxas all bros?' and he goes 'Ahh yeah, Tidus is my brudda from when we were kids. Roxas is his boyfriend.'"

"I'm sorry," Roxas spoke solemnly, at barely a whisper. "This isn't how I wanted this to go at all."

"You're sorry? Rox, don't be ridiculous." He sighed, softening his voice. "Roxas, you have nothing to be sorry about." He paused. "Well actually, that's not true. You had the whole lying thing and the date with the blonde girl to be sorry about, but you apologized for it."

Roxas cracked a tiny smile. "Okay, yeah, I deserved that."

"But seriously, Roxas, I wanted you to be happy. To be perfectly honest, I was relieved to hear that you were at least with a guy. I mean, I must've left some kind of impression." He winked.

There it was again. Axel's flirting. Roxas could feel a war waging inside him. He felt tears pricking at the inner corners of his eyes, his mind flitting between the images of poison green eyes and ocean blues. "I really thought you coming back would fix everything for me. That I could fix this. And then Tidus happened. God, everything is so fucked up for me." Roxas pressed his fingers hard against the inner corners of his eyes, trying to push his emotions back in.

"But, Rox, c'mon. You're happy. You found someone. Did you really want me to come back and ruin all that for you?"

"Yes," Roxas whispered, his eyes welling up with tears.

"Roxas," he murmured.

"I did."

Axel swallowed. "And now?"

Roxas nodded, the tears starting to spill over.

Axel gave him a troubled look. The look of a reluctant homewrecker, probably. He hesitated before reaching over and wiping the tears gently off Roxas's face.

This only made Roxas cry harder.

"Roxas," he said, leaning forward to look levelly into Roxas's eyes. He gently kissed one of Roxas's tear-stained cheeks. It felt nice. It felt...platonic, which tore at Roxas inside. But it felt like home.