2

So... After my little mental break down last Friday, I was taken off meds and put on a suicide watch... that was fun -_- Which is why I really haven't been on here in a long time. I mean, I haven't really read any fanfiction in quite a while, which is rare for me. Well, I guess that I have about six hours of homework a night helps as well, but...

Anyway, I'm a little sad right now... all of my old reviewers stopped reviewing :( I miss you guys... I liked hearing what everyone was thinking during those time... but oh well. Everyone has their own lives and what not, so...

Yeah, that's all I'm gonna say for this chapter, I think. I'm a little miffed at people who hate Kairi with a burning passion and call her a whiny, weak, bitchy whore, because honestly, I've never heard her whine, she isn't a bitch, she only loves Sora, and do all females really have to be strong? Okay, so most of the people who read this are female, right? Can YOU fight amazingly well and not need to depend on other people for help? I know I can't. There's nothing wrong with a female character who can't fight. *sigh* But yeah. I've had a few issues with the way female characters are portrayed and accepted in our society today...

But oh well. Enjoy, review, sorry if I seem a little distant, I know this is early (I'm going to a Japanese culture fest this weekend so this is the last time I have internet until Sunday night) and I'll see you next week in my final A/N.

Love you all :)

~Sunechirei

Full Chapter Title: I'm not useless. I can be used as a bad example

I guess you could say I was happy to be with Axel again. Extremely happy that he was laying on the bed next to me, arms holding me tight to his body. But, that would be a lie. Kinda. I was happy he was there, but at the same time, annoyed and scared.

He left for three weeks and then just came back like nothing had happened, hoping to get back to his life like nothing was wrong. Yeah, like I was going to let that happen. I didn't really want to say anything the evening before, as he'd just come back and still seemed to be in pain, plus I'd already yelled at him for quite a while.

I thought he deserved a break for a little while.

But I knew one thing for sure; as soon as Axel woke up, I was going to scold him. Not yell, this time, but just scold, then send him off to Ellie or something.

Then again, if I did that, I wouldn't have a boyfriend anymore, so it probably wasn't a good idea to do that. Maybe I wouldn't tell anyone that we were back, and the two of us could just hide out in my apartment for the rest of our lives. Except for the fact that Riku knew every single damn way to get in this place, we would be perfectly safe.

…. You know, sometimes I wonder if I have any brains or not.

"Wow, you woke up before I did," Axel said suddenly, squeezing me tighter. "That's not something you see every day." I flushed, glad he couldn't hear my thoughts. Then he would know what I was planning to say to him, and he would just counter it, or do something perverted so I couldn't speak.

Yeah, that sounds like something he would do.

Definitely.

"Well, you did just get your ass kicked. I'm surprised you're awake at all right now," I replied, trying to pull away from him because I wanted to look at him, but he wouldn't let me go. "Oi, I would like to talk to you face to face," I mumbled, still struggling against his grip. "Will you please let me do that."

"Nope."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because if I see your face, I'm not going to want to talk." I could just imagine him grinning at this. "The only thing I would be able to think about is kissing you."

Of course. You know, you'd think he would have gotten enough of that the night before... Then again, there'd been a three week gap between our sleeping together...

I wondered how long it would take for him to be satisfied again.

Maybe three more weeks? Or longer?

"Well," I said slowly, choosing my words carefully, "I wouldn't mind being kissed. You know? It does feel good, after all." I don't think that was the right thing to say. I mean, sure, it was the truth, but immediately afterward, Axel let me go and looked down, smirking. I gulped, realizing I'd pretty much just sealed my doom.

Oh doom. Why do you love to torture me so?

A warm hand cupped my chin and pulled it up slightly, not close enough to close the distance, but I could feel his warm breath tickling my mouth and he whispered to me, "I thought I was the pervert." Then he leaned down and pressed his mouth to mine, gently at first. When I wrapped my arms around his neck, however, he shifted, pushing himself off the bed so I was pressed against the bed below him, and he began to kiss me harder. I felt shivers run up my spine when his tongue pressed into my mouth, and moaned quietly.

Axel smirked against my lips, and suddenly, I could feel his hand moving slowly down my bare chest, to my stomach, then teasing at the top of my pajama pants. Those hands were so warm... it was like a heating pad was resting against my abdomen, heating my entire body.

My thoughts were lost at this point. I couldn't remember what I wanted to lecture him about, or that he'd been missing, or that I was mad at him slightly, or that the two of us really shouldn't be doing this right then, as it was about four in the morning. We'd only fallen asleep a few hours before, or, at least I had. It was impossible to know when Axel fell asleep.

Suddenly, he wasn't kissing me anymore, and his entire body disappeared from atop me. I opened my eyes and blinked, confused. Axel was sitting next to me, head resting between his knees, like he was in pain or something. Immediately, I sat up and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Axel? Are you okay?" I managed to ask as I caught my breath. "Does your head hurt? Or your cheek? I tried to clean it, but I don't know anything about being a doctor, and-"

"Roxas, you fret a lot, you know that right?" The amused glint in Axel's eyes when he glanced up at me was slightly frustrating, but also sent a warm feeling from my stomach through my whole torso. I swallowed, trying to forget the fact that I was really turned on at the moment.

"I do not," I protested, my eyes turned downward. "You just got really hurt, and I know that you were slammed against a wall, so you obviously hit your head, and if you have a concussion and we don't do anything about it you'll end up in the hospital, like Ellie. I don't know what I would do if that happened." Probably die. Or panic. Or die. Or become depressed. Or die. Or go into denial and think Axel was just sleeping. Or die.

…. Axel probably should never hear any of those possibilities.

"I don't have a concussion, Roxas," Axel said reassuringly. He smiled at me. "I'm okay, I just feel like... I don't know like this isn't real. It can't be real. Every time I look over at you, feel your body, kiss you, and I can't help but think I've died and gone to heaven."

I couldn't help but let out a small oh, and then the realization of what he just said hit. He thought he was dead. The son of a bitch thought I was some kind of hallucination or something!

Well, there goes the sweetness of what he said.

Finally, I sighed. "Wait a moment, your image of heaven is me, half naked, in my bed?"

I think Axel was pondering about whether or not to tell me the truth at first, but finally, he laughed. "Yup! Well, not necessarily here," he said, "just anywhere with you. We don't have to be doing anything sexual. Just being around you is heaven enough for me."

I blushed.

A really, really deep red.

If only Axel's sentence hadn't been so pathetically sweet...

"So," I mumbled, turning my head away so he wouldn't see the blush, "you think you're dead?"

"Hm... not really," Axel mused. "I mean, I keep thinking that I must be, as this has been way too perfect to be real life, but I also know there's no way I'm going to be let into heaven, seeing as I would have died beating up my dad, and I'm gay, so..." He chuckled.

"Well, we don't have to think about that right now. You're not dead, and you're not going to die on me anytime soon. Got it?"

"Yes sir!"

"You love your sarcasm don't you."

"Yes. Yes I do." Almost as if he decided like I meant something else by that, I was pushed down. "Now, where were we?"

"So..."

"So?"

"What do you want to talk about now?"

"I dunno. What do you want to talk about?"

"... How can you make such a simple sentence sound so damn suggestive?"

"That's not me. That's you."

"Yeah, sure it is."

"Aw, too afraid to admit that you're somewhat perverted?"

"No! I mean, yes! I mean, no! I mean... What?"

Axel started laughing after my confused exclamation. The two of us were sitting in my living room, eating pizza that I'd gotten delivered a few minutes before and talking about random shit. At first the conversations had come easily, because most of the past two days we'd spent not talking, just being near each other.

But we both figured it was time for me to get all the questions I had out. So I asked him a lot of things:

What happened to his mom.

His father's name.

How he survived for those three weeks.

What he thought about.

If he even bothered to listen to my voice messages.

It was nice to hear his answers to these, but even more than that, it was nice to just talk to him. Talk and get to know more about him.

"Look, Roxie," Axel gasped, shaking his head, "I know you think I'm nothing but a weird ass pervert, but I'm really not. I don't think about sex all the time."

"Yeah, sure you don't."

"I don't."

Axel looked like he was about to say more, when suddenly he froze. I glanced over at him, wondering what was going on, until I saw him reach into his pocket and pull out his cell phone. I was surprised to see it. I'd been convinced it'd gotten lost in Hallow Bastion, or he'd let it get broken while he was there. Not only that, but I wasn't expecting him to have it on him. I mean, who could want to call him? As far as I knew, Ellie gave up a while ago, Riku could care less, Sora said it wasn't worth leaving a ton of messages, and Kairi told me she was only going to call once to see if he would answer.

The only other person I could think of would be me, who was with him.

Well, it could have been one of his dads, but when I talked to them, they didn't seem worried at all. In fact, Saïx told me he was surprised it took Axel this long to leave, and that there was no point in bugging him. He would come home when he was ready to.

Interesting man, Saïx. Xemnas kinda scares the crap out of me, but he's okay...

"Who?" I asked, climbing over the couch to where Axel was sitting.

Low and behold, the phone said Ellie. And here I thought she'd given up.

"Hello?" I jumped, not having realized Axel answered the phone, and I nearly wanted to slap him. Didn't he know that Ellie would figure out he was back, then he would have to face the outside world again, and then I would no longer have him to myself?

Hey, don't judge me! I have every right to be selfish once in a while.

The yelling from the other end of the phone was so loud, I could hear it.

Man, Ellie has a set of lungs to her...

"Dammit Axel! What the hell are you doing picking up the phone right now? I've been trying to contact you for three weeks, and now you decide to answer? What the hell is going on? Are you going to die soon? Did you find your dad? What the hell?"

I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing. Mainly, I was laughing because she was voicing all the questions I'd had when I saw Axel lying, beat up, on the streets. I didn't want her to hear me, though. That would just give away that Axel was back.

"Um... I'm sorry?" Axel laughed nervously, cringing from all the yelling that had happened. He shrugged at me then put the phone on speaker, probably so I could hear what was going on as well.

"You're sorry? That's all you have to say to me?" There was rustling in the background for a moment, then Ellie was back on, her voice sounding higher than usual. "That's it. Where are you? I'm coming to get you!"

"Whoa! Is that really necessary?"

"Yes. It is. Where. Are. You?"

Axel didn't seem to know what to do. His wide pathetic eyes moved over to me, pleading for help of some sort. It was probably the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. Axel always knew what to do in situations such as this. He never asked anyone for help.

Maybe, he already knew what he should do, and he was asking for my permission to tell Ellie he was with me.

Honestly, I didn't want her to know, and Axel knew that. I'd already expressed to him how I just wanted him to myself for a little while, and that I didn't want anyone else to know he was back. He had laughed at my selfish request, but obliged to it. When I asked him why he did, and why he was so okay with me being possessive, his answer was simple.

"I want you all to myself too, Roxas."

It amazes me how much our relationship has changed since the first time I met him.

"Axel? Tell me right now, or I swear I'm going to-"

"He's with me."

I regretted saying those words the moment they came out of my mouth. I shouldn't have said anything. I should have shrugged at Axel and let him make up some lie about where he was, or let him tell the truth, because I had a feeling Ellie was going to murder me.

No, not just murder me. She was going to castrate me, cut my head off, then hang it like a warning sign in front of her office.

Keeping her out of the "Axel's back," loop probably wasn't the best thing I ever could have done. I mean, sure, it was nice, but the fact that he'd been with me for three days and she didn't know meant I'd kept a secret from her. You don't keep secrets from Ellie.

"I'm not going to let her kill you," I heard Axel say from the couch next to me.

"Yeah, I know. Still, she sounded really mad and-" The extremely loud banging open of my front door interrupted me, and I froze, paling. "Oh shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Hide me!"

I was not happy with Axel's laugh.

"Don't even bother trying to hide, Roxas," Ellie said suddenly, appearing in my living room. "Sure, I'm pissed at you, but it's Axel who's going to die." Yeah, that was just as bad. Worse, even.

"Now, now, Ellie, there's no need to threaten my life," Axel said quietly. He sounded slightly like he was scared, but the amused look on his face, and the evil glint in those eyes made him just look cocky and entertained.

This just irritated Ellie more, though. She stomped forward and grabbed Axel by the collar. I immediately jumped off the chair I was in and was about to help him get her off, because she looked really pissed. Axel, however, held up a hand, still grinning, and I had to stop. He would only get mad at me if I tried to stop him.

"You and Roxas here have been hanging out for, how long? A week?"

"Three days."

"Oh? Three days?" Ellie laughed hysterically and let Axel go. "You guys are such bastards you know that? You guys come back and just sit around here, probably fucking each other, and you don't even let anyone know that you're okay? Roxas, I know for a fact that your parents have been worried about you, especially your dad, because he had no fucking idea where you were."

I felt a rush of guilt. I hadn't even thought about my parents.

"And you, Axel." There was an awkward pause before Ellie started crying, burying her face in her hands. "I don't even know what to say about you! Everything you've done recently has been because you're a selfish jack-ass!"

When I left Radiant Garden ten days ago, Ellie had been upset. It had been completely obvious she was in no way happy. But now, seeing her, standing in the middle of my living room, crying, yelling at Axel, there was no way I could say that her sadness from before was actually her being upset. It was kinda nerve racking.

"Ellie, calm down," Axel said, standing up as well. He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. This sent a wave of jealousy through me, making my stomach tingle and eyes narrow. I don't know why I felt like that, though...

"Why the hell should I calm down, huh?"

"Because I'm back now, and I'm safe, and everything's back to normal."

…. Okay, that sentence pissed me off.

Ellie, on the other hand, just laughed. Crying and laughing at the same time. At first I thought she was glad to hear that from Axel, but there was something else there. Something that came out clearly when she started speaking in the dark, deep, icy voice.

"Axel Lea, you are a fucking son of a bitch, you know that, right? A fucking son of a bitch. You and Roxas so deserve each other." I jerked around to face her.

"Wait! What did I do?"

"Figure out your problems on your own, Strife."

"But-"

"The two of you are just perfect for each other," Ellie continued, voice rising in both volume and pitch with every second. "You're both selfish asses! No one else will ever be able to deal with you two idiots! You should just move in together!"

I honestly don't know where the moving in part came from, but I didn't have time to ask. Ellie huffed and stormed out of the room, then out of my apartment, slamming the door behind her. Both Axel and I stood there in stunned silence, glancing at each other, then at the place Ellie disappeared, then back at each other. It was one of the funniest awkward silences I'd ever been a part of, and let me tell you, there had been some funny ones.

Normally I hate them, but Axel has this weird way of making them so awkward I have to laugh.

This time, Ellie did that for us.

Finally, we started laughing. I was cracking up so much that my stomach started hurting and I had to sit down. I don't remember the last time I'd been so giddy and just all out laughed my ass off.

After a time, we were able to calm down, breathing heavily, still letting out bursts of laughter occasionally.

"She's right, you know," Axel eventually said, smiling over at me. I rolled my eyes.

"We're not asses, Axel. Jerks, maybe, and you're borderline bastard, but not asses."

"No," he laughed, "I was talking about the other thing she said." Noticing my confusion, Axel rolled his eyes. "About us moving in together. I think we should."