Reading the Signs

[ladynightrunner]

Title: Reading the Signs

Pairings: Axel/Roxas, mentioned Axel/Demyx, mentioned Demyx/Zexion, Riku/whoknows

Rating:  PG-13

Warnings: Boys liking boys, alcohol, illness, college, Axel, idiocy, starvation, neglect, mild violence

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to SquareEnix. The university, Cool Beans, and everything else belongs to me.

Word Count: 10644

Summary: It sucks when the fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night. It sucks even more when you're not feeling well. But it helps to find someone out in the cold who's willing to share a blanket. Roxas needs to learn to read the signs.

Author's Notes: This is NOT the other big piece I said I was working on. This is...well, it's partially what happens when the dorm you live in is plagued by morons who think it's funny to pull the fire alarms on an almost regular basis. You see a lot of interesting people when 800-odd residents are forced to crawl of out bed and stand in a dark parking lot for twenty minutes while the fire department clears the entire building. It's also what happens when I decide I want to try for a romance that doesn't really go the way it ought to, while keeping sex out of it. I think I managed that, for while there is mention of sex and sexual things, the closest the characters actually get isn't even close.

And maybe I just needed to play with the setting that I know too much about by now.

The fire alarm went off at 2:25 on a Friday morning in late October. Roxas noted that his roommate wasn't back from whatever party he'd gone to the night before, grabbed his key, and shuffled out onto the balcony.

Several minutes later he stood, coughing dryly, with the majority of his court and a scattering of others waiting for the fire department to clear the building. Roxas shivered in his slippers, pajama pants, and wife beater, arms wrapped around himself in a vain attempt to warm up a little. It was cold enough without the low fever he'd been running all day yesterday.

"Shoulda brought a jacket," a rough voice chuckled.

Roxas looked to see who had spoken. There were a lot of people outside with him, but only one was looking at him, a hunched figure perched on the curb with a blanket wrapped around their bony shoulders.

"I was more concerned with getting outside," he muttered.

"Yeah, so was I, but that doesn't mean I intended to freeze out here."

The shape extended one arm, holding the blanket out like a cape.

"I'll share."

He hesitated, but the offer of warmth was too good to pass up and he wound up sitting on the curb between a pair of bare, boney knees, his back pressed against a lean, hard chest. Long arms closed around him, bringing the blanket down like a cloak. The warm darkness inside it smelled of sweat, cinnamon, and cigarettes. Roxas dimly noted that he kind of liked that before he fell asleep.

/

Roxas woke up feeling like absolute crap. He rolled over, intending to go back to sleep, and realized that he did not have black sheets. His were blue and white. And…that wasn't his alarm clock, or his roommate's. Hell, both beds in his room were actually used as beds, and the bed he was staring across the room at looked more like a couch of some kind. Wherever he was, it wasn't his room.

"Welcome back," a rough voice chuckled. Roxas stiffened, unable to place it or the direction it was coming from. "Over here, blondie. At the desk."

He forced himself to sit up, gritting his teeth at the protests from his stiff neck and back. Clearly he'd done something wrong.

Both desks were covered in things, but the one adjacent to the bed Roxas occupied had a long, lean redhead sitting at it, chair tipped back to regard Roxas.

"Uh…who are you?" His voice was rough and scratchy, and it hurt to speak and swallow.

"Axel. You fell asleep on me last night. Or this morning, actually."

"I did?"

"Uh-huh. I offered to share my blanket 'cuz you looked cold, and next thing I know, you're out and I have no idea which room you belong in, so I brought you back to mine."

"Oh. Uh…thanks."

"Mmhm. You were running a pretty good fever last night. Been sick?"

"Getting sick." Roxas swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up. The room promptly tilted off in a weird direction and began to spin. Roxas groaned and groped around in the empty air, trying to find something to hang onto. Suddenly there were strong arms looped around his waist from one side, and he was pulled into a vaguely familiar chest.

"Easy, don't want you knocking yourself out on my floor or something."

"Th-the room's spinning," Roxas managed.

"I bet it is. You just hang on and I'm gonna set you down on the bed. Close your eyes, okay?"

Roxas squeezed his eyes shut at once. Even then, he could feel the movement of the room. Worse, he could feel an uncomfortable tightening in his stomach.

"Think I'm g-gonna be s-sick."

"Don't you dare hurl on my bed. Just breathe slow. I've got you." Axel gently eased Roxas onto the bed and settled him flat on his back. "Just sit tight." Something clattered against the side of the bed. "There's a trashcan over here if you need it."

He pulled the pillow over his head and curled up in a miserable ball, arms crossed tightly over his stomach. The mattress dipped faintly when Axel sat down, but the redhead didn't say anything.

Eventually, the room stopped spinning and Roxas stomach settled down. When it did, he lifted the pillow and carefully raised his head to look at Axel. "I'm okay now," he said softly.

Axel responded with a decidedly inelegant snort. "Yeah, and I'm really the head of the Engineering Department. You're running a fever, you look like shit, and you just spent twenty minutes waiting for the world to stop spinning. You're not even remotely okay."

"I want to go back to my room."

"That I can do. Which room are you in?"

"A517."

"Wow, you're way into jackass territory, kid."

Roxas blinked in confusion. "What?"

"Seems to be a hell of a lot of people in your court who aren't worth the scum on the lobby floor."

He had to laugh at that, because it was true. Sad, yes, but true. "Maybe, but I'm not one of them."

"Good. Lemme figure out what happened to your shoes last night and I'll walk you back."

"You don't have t-"

"You almost fainted or puked or whatever just because you were standing up. I'm not letting you out of my sight until I know you're in your own room and not in danger of passing out in a stairwell and breaking your neck or something. Where the hell did- there they are. Here." Roxas' black and white plaid slippers came sailing across the room to land on the bed just short of Roxas' knees. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Roxas."

/

Not only did Axel walk Roxas back to his room, he dropped a soft fleece blanket over Roxas' head as they left the room, insisting that Roxas keep it wrapped around himself until he was safe in his own room, and he pressed close behind Roxas in the elevator so that Roxas could feel the heat of his body through the blanket. It was strangely comforting.

Riku was sprawled under the sheet on his bed, naked and dead to the world- lucky bastard had no classes after eleven on Fridays, allowing him to stagger off to class, return, and go back to sleep without really waking up. He didn't even twitch when Axel tripped over a stray tennis shoe on his way inside and fell against Roxas' desk with a low curse.

Roxas crawled into his bed with an exhausted mumble. He had classes he was supposed to be in, but he couldn't imagine going out again until he felt better.

"Get some sleep, blondie," Axel chuckled. "And bring that blanket back when you're done with it, huh?"

"Nnf?"

"I'll leave a note. Sleep."

Roxas was more than willing to do exactly that.

/

In some weird roundabout way, Roxas wound up spending quite a bit of time with Axel. The redhead didn't have a roommate, hence the couch-bed on the other side of his room, and he liked having company over. They were part of the same college- Arts and Sciences- but Axel was double majoring in theatre tech and creative writing while Roxas was working on photography with a minor in dance. The combination was an interesting one, to be sure, but they both kept odd hours and both had plenty of opportunities to get some material off each other.

Roxas couldn't remember the last time he'd had such a close friend.

/

"You like him," Riku said casually, adjusting his tie in the bathroom mirror. He had some kind of presentation to make for his communications class and was being forced to dress a little more conservatively than he really liked.

"Who?"

"Axel. You like him."

"Of course I like him. He's my friend." Roxas consulted his biology textbook, flipping back and forth between three different pages in an attempt to finish a worksheet.

"Not like a friend. You're hot for him."

"I am not!"

"Bullshit, shortstuff."

"I don't even like guys!"

Riku turned to give Roxas a scathing look. He and Roxas had been rooming together since freshman year, and they got along just fine, operating on the understanding that Roxas wouldn't complain about Riku's string of sexual partners and Riku wouldn't try to drag Roxas to more than one party each month. They were comfortable and fairly open with each other.

"Roxas, you're so far in the closet I'm surprised you haven't made it to Narnia yet."

Roxas squawked indignantly.

"And you've said Axel's name in your sleep a few times. Not in ways that I'd associate with being 'just' friends."

That drew a blush. Roxas admitted to having dreams about Axel, but he'd had a few about Riku, too. It wasn't like he had anything against liking men; he just wasn't attracted to either sex. Not really. But he could appreciate sex appeal, and both his roommate and his friend had it in spades.

"S-so?" he managed.

"So I think you should do something about it. He's out and available, you know, but he's not going to stay on the market long."

This was true. Axel had made no effort what so ever to conceal his preferences from Roxas: he liked men, only men, and he had his pick of them. He'd just recently broken up with the last one, a lean blonde musician named Demyx who had fallen hard for a stuffy little grad student out of the plant genetics labs at the bottom of the campus, and had already mentioned to Roxas that he was getting offers from some of the single guys he knew. Had that been an invitation?

"Even if I do like him like that- and I don't- he's not interested in me."

"Whatever you say," Riku muttered. "You're missing out. And you're so fucking lucky."

"I am?"

"I would kill to have him, but he doesn't do casual relationships. It's all or nothing with him." Riku said it casually, like it didn't bother him, but he wasn't the sort to dwell on things, so if he was still thinking about Axel after accepting that he couldn't have the man, he must be pretty damn attracted to him. Roxas was surprised.

"You could try being serious," Roxas suggested, scribbling notes on one page and flipping back to a set of graphs on another.

"I don't have a chance with him. You, on the other hand, have every chance."

/

Roxas thought long and hard about the conversation over the next couple of weeks. He put so much thought into it, in fact, that Axel asked if something was wrong because of how distant he was acting. Roxas promised that nothing was wrong and took to watching Axel instead, wondering if maybe there were signs he had missed. He really sucked at noticing that sort of thing, after all. There could have been.

Two weeks before spring semester ended, Axel failed to meet Roxas at Cool Beans on Thursday morning. The local coffee shop had managed to miss the crowd of coffee-snobs that flocked to other, fancier places and was able to keep its coffee drinkable and its food cheap because of it. They always met there for breakfast on Thursday, which was the only day of the week that they both had enough free morning time in which to do such a thing. Roxas looked forward to it- now that the weather had warmed up, they sat at the table in the back corner of the patio so Axel could smoke, and he would blow the most perfect series of smoke rings Roxas had ever seen. No Axel meant no smoke rings, and no sleepy conversation over an Americano and a dirty chai.

Axel didn't pick up when Roxas called, but several minutes after he sent Roxas a text.

[Need a favor. Can you come by?]

[Sure. Be there in a few]

Axel didn't answer the door when Roxas knocked. Instead he sent another text.

[Taped the lock. Just push.]

Sure enough, the door swung open when Roxas shoved at it. A quick look at the catch revealed a strip of duct-tape over the lock and latch, keeping both depressed so visitors could get in. Not the best idea, Roxas noted, but effective, especially if Axel was home.

"Axel?" he called. The room was dark for nine in the morning, even with the heavy curtains Axel had put in over the ones the room came with. All the lights were off and none of Axel's candles had been lit- he burned candles in spite of the rule against them, pointing out that he used soy wax, which didn't smoke much, and he never left them lit when he wasn't in the room- and there was an unpleasant smell lurking under the familiar scent of cinnamon that usually pervaded the room.

"Took you long enough." Axel's voice came from around the corner that led into the closet. When Roxas followed it, he found his friend curled up in a ball in the closet, wrapped in several blankets and shaking hard enough to make his teeth click together. He was glassy-eyed and flushed, with dark shadows under his eyes.

"What happened?"

"'m sick. Listen, I need a favor." His voice was hoarse enough to make Roxas' throat hurt just hearing it.

"What?"

"Orange folder on the desk. Bring it over here? An' a pen and the Post-Its."

When Roxas returned, Axel had turned the closet light on and put on a pair of sunglasses.

"Sunglasses in a closet, Axel?"

"Light hurts my eyes." He took the folder and sorted through the contents, applying a number of sticky notes to each item and scrawling messages on them. When he'd finished, he closed the folder and held it out to Roxas, letting his head fall back against his laundry hamper. "Can you take these to the people and places I marked on the notes? Please?"

"Uh…sure, but…you look like shit, Ax. You need help."

"Just need sleep," Axel mumbled. "Turn the light off."

Roxas did. Axel took the glasses off and rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted. Roxas hesitated, then touched Axel's forehead with his free hand. The skin was sticky and burning hot under his fingers. "You're burning up," he said gently. "You really need to see a doctor."

Axel shook his head.

"Axel, this isn't healthy."

"I don't need a doctor. I need to sleep."

"Which you can't do in a closet."

"'s too bright in the rest of the room."

Roxas wound up taping the curtains shut, making sure that there was no way any light was going to get around them. Then he forced Axel into bed, but not before the redhead crawled into the bathroom to throw up; he'd been forced to use his trashcan the night before, when one of his suitemates had been in the shower, which was the source of the smell. Roxas took the trash out when he left, making sure that the smaller trashcan Axel kept near the sink had two bags in it and was where Axel could reach it from the bed.

/

The first set of papers Roxas had to deliver went to the costume workshops on the west side of campus. They were large grey buildings with various theatre-related images painted on them. Roxas tried two before he got the right one, asking everyone he could find for someone named Marluxia.

"Over there," someone said at last. "Tall guy with pink hair and a measuring tape."

"Thanks."

Marluxia was indeed tall and pink-haired, but he no longer had a measuring tape- he had pins, which he was using to make adjustments to a long, delicately green dress hanging off a dressmaker's dummy.

"Marluxia?" Roxas ventured.

"That's me," Marluxia mumbled around a mouthful of pins.

"I've got some stuff from Axel. He asked me to drop it off for him."

"Well tell Axel we have to talk about all that, so sending you doesn't do me any good."

Roxas checked the message Axel had written across three sticky-notes on the top paper. "Yeah…he said he'll call you later, and you need the papers more than you need to talk to him anyway. And he's sick, which is why he's not here."

Marluxia shuffled the pins to the corner of his mouth and snatched the packet out of Roxas hands, scanning the note and then flipping briefly though the papers.

"Fine. Tell him- no, better give you a note, you'll never remember with all those errands. Come with me."

He followed Marluxia as he weaved in and out of the maze that was a workshops, easily moving around silent crowds of dummies and ducking under hanging fabrics until they reached a quiet corner with a large desk shoved into it.

"So who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Roxas. I'm a f-"

"You're Roxas?"

"Uh…yes?"

Marluxia dropped the pen he'd been holding and whirled to give Roxas a thorough once-over. "Well. All the praises Axel's been singing about you don't do you justice."

"He's been what?"

"Bragging about you, of course. Can't blame him. You're pretty cute for such a little guy." He leaned around Roxas and smiled in a way that made Roxas feel very exposed. "Nice ass, too. He's lucky to have you."

"Wait…what has he been saying about me?"

"That you're god's gift, talented, adorable, intelligent, and the best boyfriend a man could ask for, of course. Why? Doesn't he say the same things to you?"

"N-no."

"Odd."

"But…I'm not his boyfriend, so…"

Marluxia snorted and returned to his desk. "Kid, if you do half the stuff with him that he says you do, then you're his boyfriend in everything but title." He scribbled a note on the back of a flyer, folded it, scrawled his name and Axel's across the front, and handed it to Roxas. "He wants you pretty bad if he's acting like that. Think about that, hmm? Now get out of my workshop."

Thoroughly shaken, Roxas crossed the complex of workshops in search of another theatre, this time one of the scene shops. He had a collection of diagrams that Axel had made notes on to deliver to Xigbar, a half-blind crazy man who handled everything that had something to do with set design at the campus theatres. Roxas had met him once or twice, and he liked him. Mostly.

It was clear that Xigbar was not in a particularly good mood- the pack of cigarettes in his back pocket was half empty and it wasn't even noon yet. Roxas cleared his throat politely and waited for Xigbar to notice him.

"Hey, kiddo. What're you doing out here?"

"Axel sent these."

Xigbar took the notes and read Axel's message on the front, chewing absently at the filer of the unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

"Sick, huh? 's gotta be pretty bad if he's skipping class. What's he got?"

"I'm not really sure."

"Well what's wrong with him, then?"

Roxas listed all the symptoms he knew of: headache, light sensitivity, high fever, chills, sore throat, dry cough, puking, aches, exhaustion.

"You'd better get him checked out soon as you can get him out of the room," Xigbar murmured, rooting around in his pockets for a pencil and a battered notepad.

"I would, but he doesn't want to see a doctor."

"Tough shit. Sounds like mono to me, and that's not something he should drag around."

"Mono? Seriously?"

"His old boyfriend had it a while back. After you get better, you can still give it to people pretty much forever. 's probably what happened." He tore a sheet out of the notebook and handed it to Roxas. "Here. Give him this. And tell him to let you take him to the clinic or something. He'll listen to you."

"Yeah, right," Roxas muttered, folding the note and putting it with the Marluxia's.

"I'm serious. Scoot, I've got a truck coming in here in a few minutes."

/

Roxas ran all over campus, delivering a portfolio to one office, a collection of poetry to the graduate cubicles under the English building, an essay to a tall blonde grad student in the biology labs, and what appeared to be electrical diagrams to a harried-looking professor in the engineering complex. Each person gave him another note to give to Axel, and each one of them knew who he was, having apparently heard Axel talk about him. Most of them were under the assumption that they were dating. Roxas wasn't sure if he should laugh or be furious about the whole thing.

/

He had to get to a class of his own before returning to Axel's room, so it was just after one o'clock when he pushed the door open and slipped inside. It was still dark, though Axel had lit one of the large candles on the extra desk, likely to help mask the acrid stench of the vomit in his trashcan.

"I'm back," Roxas said softly. "You awake?"

"Yeah. Got everything delivered?"

"Uh-huh. They all sent you notes. Want 'em?"

"Sure."

Roxas dumped the pocketful of tightly folded notes on the bed beside Axel's hand and scowled at him. "Xigbar says you have mono."

"And how would he know?"

"I told him what was wrong with you, and he said Demyx had it and probably gave it to you."

"Mmph. Figures." Axel unfolded the square of graph paper that had come from the engineering professor and squinted at it. "Nobody hassled you, did they?"

"No. They were all pretty nice to me. So I asked them why."

"And?"

"Most of them seem to think we're dating. Because of things you said."

Axel blinked slowly at the note, then looked up to meet Roxas' eyes. He looked vaguely guilty. "I…ah…fuck, you weren't supposed to find out about that."

"If you were just using me to keep the other guys off, then fine. I don't mind it." Roxas dropped the empty folder on Axel's desk and his backpack on the couch-bed.

"No, that wasn't…I didn't mean…" Axel groaned. "I'm sorry, okay? It was a stupid move and clearly it's just gotten me in a ton of shit."

"You can make up for it by coming to the clinic with me," Roxas said firmly. "My cousin almost died from mono when I was in high school. I don't want you croaking before I get a chance to beat the shit out of you for being so stupid."

Axel gaped at Roxas. "But-"

"Put some shoes and a sweater or something on. We're leaving."

"Roxas, I'm-"

"You are not fine, and you aren't going to get better by just lying there because you are honestly sick and you need help. You're coming with me whether you like it or not, and that's final."

Axel made a small, miserable noise. "I just want to sleep."

Roxas sighed. "I know, okay? But you need to see a doctor. You can sleep when we get back. I'll even stay here and make no one bothers you."

"Why would y-"

"I've been trying to figure you out for weeks, okay? At least now I know my roommate wasn't seeing things in us."

"Oh, god, please tell me we both haven't been assuming we don't like each other," Axel moaned.

"We haven't," Roxas said sharply. "You have. And I've been listening to my roommate tell me what we should be doing to each other since the beginning of spring semester." He scooped up a pair of sneakers and a heavy black hoodie that was more like a tunic than a sweatshirt, but since it hung to Axel's knees, it would be warmer than a shorter hoodie. "Come on, get up."

"Then what- nmph!" Axel didn't move fast enough to catch the sweater before it hit him in the face. "What was that for?"

"I don't…" Roxas sighed. "I don't get the whole relationship thing, okay? I don't pick up on flirting, I never see the cues that everyone else can see, I have no idea how to be with anyone, and I'm not going to worry about it when I have other things that are more important."

Axel wriggled into the hoodie, leaving the hood up, and started on the shoes. Roxas had a sneaking suspicion that he was sulking.

"Yeah, whatever. Finals are pretty important, I guess."

"You're an idiot!" Roxas said angrily, stamping his foot. "I didn't mean finals. I meant you!"

"Wha?"

"Augh! You're impossible! Get those shoes on and get up already!"

/

Axel managed to get through the next week without kicking the bucket, never mind that he was in no condition to go to his finals the week after. He went anyway, shivering and flushed and so very ill, and he was firmly scolded by Roxas when he returned from each exam.

Roxas decided it would be best to leave the boyfriend issue until Axel was feeling better, so he pushed it to the back of his mind and focused on making sure Axel was properly medicated. He borrowed Riku's hot pot and managed a passable chicken soup, which he forced Axel to eat whenever his stomach would allow it, and dragged Axel's things to the laundry room with his over the weekend.

Then summer rolled around. Roxas helped Axel's older brother move Axel out of the dorm while Axel slept restlessly in Reno's hotel room, and Reno helped him and Cloud move everything out of his room in return. He left early, so he could only send Axel an email wishing him a good summer. The boyfriend thing would have to wait again.

/

Riku and Roxas moved into the campus apartments that fall, sharing the four-bedroom apartment with a tall, thin blonde man named Vexen- who Roxas remembered from the biology labs the day Axel had gotten sick- and a short brunette named Sora who looked so disturbingly like Roxas that Riku began calling them the twins.

Axel moved off campus, to a loft two blocks away. He invited Roxas over the day after Roxas got back, offering pizza and beer- Roxas had turned 21 over the summer, so he wasn't worried about getting caught like he had the year before, not that it had ever stopped him- and Roxas accepted.

Axel had clearly spent a little too much time outside over the summer; his pale skin was liberally dotted with freckles and there was still some peeling on one shoulder. He grinned when he saw Roxas, and there was silver glittering in his tongue that hadn't been there before.

"Hey. C'mon in."

The loft was messy, in typical Axel fashion, but comfortable. Instead of the familiar cinnamon smell, Roxas was getting something else, something spicy and exotic that suited Axel even better than cinnamon had. There were candles everywhere, the big fat columnar ones that Axel liked, in various shades of red and purple and black. A massive folding screen made a sort of alcove to hide Axel's bed behind; the panels had a mountain scene painted on them, and Roxas suspected Axel had gotten it from or through his brother's life partner, who was Japanese and liked such things. The wood of the frame was a rich reddish color that made the paper of the screen all but glow. The bed behind it was really just a mattress and box spring stacked on top of each other and pushed against the wall, covered in the massive tapestry-style blanket with a black dragon on it that Roxas remembered from Axel's dorm and a pile of pillows. The rest of the place was pretty much open, except for one small door that looked like a closet and another that opened onto a bathroom, sort of divided up by where Axel had put furniture, shelving, or, in one case, a silvery gauzy curtain of some kind that sort of partitioned off another corner for a massive desk and accompanying office area.

"Nice place," Roxas said appreciatively.

"Thanks. I found it early and came out to finalize the lease, then spent half the summer finding stuff to put in it. Putting together your own home is a pain in the ass. What do you want on your half of the pizza?"

"Whatever. I'm not picky."

"You sure?"

"Uh-huh."

"Your funeral."

The pizza had chile on it. And a lot of other things, but Roxas was trying to wrap his brain around the fact that the little blocks of green on his pizza were actually fairly hot green chile. It wasn't bad, but it was certainly different. It went well with the beer, though, which was from a local brewery that Roxas hadn't heard of.

They ate on the couch, watching Repo!The Genetic Opera and snickering through the innuendo and gore. If Axel was scooting a little closer, then Roxas didn't notice. After Repo came the most recent version of War of the Worlds, then Howl's Moving Castle- one of Axel's favorites- and a pint of ice cream they passed back and forth. Roxas couldn't remember the flavor, but he'd had a few beers by the point so that was no surprise.

When the credits rolled on Howl's Moving Castle, Roxas stretched, his hand arm bumped Axel's shoulder, and he realized how close the redhead had gotten. Axel looked down at him.

"Up for another one?" he asked.

"What time is it?" Roxas grabbed his phone off the battered coffee table and checked it. "Shit, it's almost three. I should go." He stood, swaying slightly. "Oooohh…maybe not."

"You're such a lightweight," Axel chuckled. Roxas knew Axel'd had more to drink than he had- much more- but the lanky redhead had a fairly high tolerance as well as a lot more body mass to marinate in the alcohol. "Sit back down. You can crash here."

Roxas dropped back onto the couch with a sigh, contemplating finishing the last beer he'd been working on. He wasn't going anywhere now, so it couldn't hurt to have a little more…

/

Roxas woke up with a hangover. Groaning, he pressed the heels of his hands to his temples in an attempt to lessen the pounding headache. It didn't help much, and he decided it wasn't worth it to stay awake, so he rolled over, right into a wall that shouldn't have been there. Head hurting even more from the impact, he sat up, blinking blearily at the room and trying to figure out where he was.

There was a folding screen between him and everything else. A folding screen? But Axel's bed was…shit. If he was in Axel's bed, then where was Axel?

A door banged open somewhere on the other side of the screen. Roxas moaned at the loud noise.

"You awake, Rox?"

Roxas opened one eye to see Axel watching him from the end of the bed. He was wearing shorts and a thin grey shirt he'd torn the sleeves off of. Parts of the shirt were darkened with sweat.

"I hate you," Roxas mumbled.

"Hey, I didn't tell you to get drunk." Axel bent to root around in the heavy steamer trunk at the foot of the bed, tossing a few articles of clothing onto the bed as he dug. "And I didn't have to put you in my bed after you passed out, either. Isn't this the second time you've done that?"

"I wasn't drunk last time."

"No, you were sick as fuck and outside wearing almost nothing in November. That probably rates a little higher on the idiocy scale." The lid of the trunk slammed shut, making Roxas flinch. Axel didn't notice. "I'm gonna shower, and then I'll make you something for that hangover. Don't go anywhere."

"Not planning on it."

Plans or no plans, Roxas' stomach knotted up shortly after Axel left, forcing him to crawl out of bed and shuffle across the room to the bathroom door. It didn't occur to him to knock or announce his presence in any way, and the door was unlocked, so he stumbled inside, put the toilet lid up and bent over, one hand hanging onto the counter for support. Sour saliva spilled from his mouth as he panted shallowly, willing his stomach to settle. He knew that he'd probably feel a hell of a lot better once he'd emptied his stomach, but he couldn't help resisting anyway.

"Y'know most people knock before barging into some else's bathroom," Axel said coolly. "'specially when they know someone's in there."

"S-sorry," Roxas gasped. His stomach lurched and he jerked forward with a choked retch.

"God, I'm gonna have to teach you how to drink." The shower curtain rattled open. Axel stepped carefully out of the tub and dripped over to Roxas, laying a wet hand on his back. When Roxas' stomach showed no sign of giving up until not a trace of the night's indulgences remained, he gently pushed Roxas down onto his knees and rubbed his back until he was done.

"I hate you," Roxas said again, letting Axel heave him upright and nudge him over to the sink.

"Uh-huh. Rinse your mouth out and go back to bed; I wanna finish my shower." Axel turned away from Roxas, stepping back into the shower. Roxas happened to look his way and promptly forgot what he was supposed to be doing.

He had seen Axel without a shirt on before, at the pool, the gym, and in the dorms, but somehow he'd always only seen Axel from the front. His chest was largely uninteresting, pale and thin with a treasure trail of red hair leading down from his navel and a slash of scar tissue just below his ribcage on the left side. It looked small from the front. From behind, however, it spread from an almost straight indented line just above the small of his back, dripping down to the back of his thigh, glossy pink and impossible to miss. Above it, a pair of spiked wheel-shaped weapons was tattooed onto his upper back, offset to each other and resting in a bed of flames. Roxas recognized the design; Axel often doodled the wheels when he had a pen and a scrap of paper. He said they were based off the Chinese melee weapon called wind and fire wheels. The combination of tattoo and scar on the fine, pale skin was striking and disturbingly arousing. Roxas hurried to rinse his mouth and dive out of the bathroom.

/

Sometime later, Roxas lay limply sprawled on Axel's bed, head pounding from the hangover and whatever Axel was doing with the blender. He hated the world. He wanted to die.

"Hey, Rox, get over here."

"Don't wanna."

"Tough. Get over here or I'll make you scrambled eggs and greasy potatoes instead."

Roxas' stomach rolled at the thought.

"You bastard," he groaned, sliding off the bed and shuffling towards the kitchen.

"Yeah, I know, you hate me." Axel held out a tall glass of pinkish stuff. "Here."

"What is it?"

"Strawberry banana smoothie."

"This is your hangover cure?"

"Works like a charm." Axel had a glass of his own, and he carried it over to the couch, where he sprawled comfortably. Roxas followed him, sitting gingerly beside Axel's bony feet. Axel sighed loudly and let one leg fall off the couch. "Get up here."

"Huh?"

"Scootch your skinny little ass up here before you fall off."

"But-"

"C'mere, Rox."

Roxas got up and moved, settling down between Axel's calves. He felt painfully awkward there, acutely aware of the corded muscle and pale skin on either side of him.

Axel put his drink down, shoved his hands under Roxas' arms, hoisted him up, and plonked him down right against his chest, hips tucked snugly between Axel's thighs. Roxas squawked indignantly, earning himself a teasing swat to the shoulder.

"Relax. And drink that."

"I…okay." The smoothie was thick and almost overpoweringly fruity, but after the first few swallows Roxas found it was actually pretty good. It helped to have something substantial in his stomach.

"Feel any better?" Axel asked, setting his empty glass on the coffee table and stretching. Roxas inhaled sharply, feeling the press of Axel's groin and belly against his back, and began to cough. Axel thumped his back. "You're supposed to drink that, not breathe it, Rox."

"I was trying to," Roxas coughed. He just breathed for a minute, then cleared his throat and examined the remains of his smoothie. Eh, probably wouldn't make another attempt at killing him, so he drank the rest in three long swallows.

"Uh-huh. Feeling better?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Anytime." Axel plucked the glass from Roxas' hand and set it down beside his. "Wanna do breakfast now?"

Roxas shook his head. "I don't think so. 'm not really hungry."

"'kay." He relaxed back against the arm of the couch, one arm looping around Roxas shoulders and pulling him back with him. Roxas shivered faintly, thinking about the scar that was roughly level with his hips, but let Axel do it. He had leaned on him many times before, but this time it felt different; he realized he could feel the firm, faintly defined abs, sharp ribs, and hard pectorals against his back, warm and familiar and inexplicably tempting. "I'll eat later."

/

It was the middle of the afternoon when Axel stirred faintly, his arm sliding far enough up Roxas' chest to press briefly against his throat. Roxas jerked awake, startled, and realized he had fallen asleep lying on Axel, turned slightly into the curve of his arm.

Roxas' moving woke Axel up. Far from concerned about the position they were in, he moved his arm into a more comfortable position and hitched Roxas further up, head tilting to nuzzle at Roxas' hair.

"Hey," he murmured muzzily.

"We fell asleep," Roxas mumbled, feeling a blush heat his cheeks.

"You needed the sleep- best cure for a hangover there is. You feel better, don't you?"

Roxas nodded. He did feel better; his headache was all but nonexistent and the body aches were completely gone. "But…how late is it?"

"Who cares? Classes don't start until Thursday. Unless you had plans."

"No, I just…I dunno."

More nuzzling, getting dangerously close to Roxas ear. Roxas stopped breathing. Soft lips suddenly closed on the shell of his ear, followed by a delicate nip of teeth. Then they receded for a breath, as if Axel was waiting to see if he was going to get elbowed in the gut for daring to do such a thing. When Roxas found himself unable to do anything except take a small, shaky breath, the lips descended again, working down from his ear to the side of his neck. Roxas felt the first bit of suction, promising a hickey if he let it go on for too long, and remembered himself, reaching to shove Axel's head back against the couch.

"What are you doing?"

"Being' friendly," Axel purred. "You liiiiiike it."

"Well…yes, but…no! You don't just go chewing on people whenever you feel like it!"

"I don't chew on just anyone, Rox."

"So what, I'm special or something?"

Axel blinked curiously at Roxas. "Uh…yeah. Pretty much always have been."

Roxas sputtered. "What?"

"Yeah. After last semester I'd've thought you'd remember that." Axel's arms tightened faintly around Roxas' middle.

"Last semester? What- oh. Oh." Roxas had mostly forgotten about the mono and romantic feelings fiasco of the last couple weeks of the spring semester, largely because nothing had come of it and also because he'd been too busy with a summer job to have time to worry about Axel at all. No wonder he was feeling strange, with that still hanging over his head. Clearly Axel hadn't forgotten.

"Oh?" Axel repeated. "'s all you've got to say?"

"What else should I say?" Roxas demanded. "I don't…I've never…and then you just…" He blushed darkly, staring at his feet. This didn't help much, since Axel's feet were just past them, long and bony and pale with a small scorpion tattooed on one- Axel was a Scorpio. The tattoo-free foot shifted, drawing up to brush against Roxas' ankle. He shivered.

"C'mere."

"I'm already-"

Axel rolled over, dumping Roxas onto the couch and looming over him, supported by one bent arm. He cupped Roxas' cheek with the other hand, running his slightly callused thumb over Roxas' lips. "You're really dense sometimes, Rox," he murmured. Roxas opened his mouth to say something- anything- and never got that far; Axel bent down and pressed their lips together. He didn't try to force Roxas' mouth open, or to bite or lick at him. It was just a warm, gentle pressure of slightly chapped lips and strawberry banana cinnamon smell.

For a moment, Roxas' insides melted into a sloppy puddle of shivery goop. Then it registered that Axel was kissing him instead of explaining himself and that was not an acceptable behavior. He squirmed, finding himself unable to truly get away when he had just a touch over six and a half feet of Axel laid out on top of him, and settled for catching Axel's lower lip between his teeth and biting. Hard.

Axel made a noise very like the one a cat makes when it's been tripped over and jerked away from Roxas, clapping one hand to his mouth.

"What the hell was that for?" he demanded.

"You kissed me!"

"And you bit- I'm bleeding!"

"You deserved it!"

"How the hell did I deserve having my lip half bitten off?"

"You don't just go and kiss someone in the middle of a conversation, especially now when you're supposed to be explaining why you're being an idiot!"

"I wasn't being an idiot!"

"You were!"

Axel sat back on his heels, swapping hands so that the blood-dotted one was holding on to the back of the couch and the formerly clean one was pressed to the sluggishly bleeding cut on his lip.

"How was I being an idiot? I've tried everything else to get your attention and you never noticed even when everyone else around you thought we were already together and I am getting sick of just being fucking friends!"

That shut Roxas up. He blinked owlishly up at Axel for a long minute, then struggled out from under him, tripping over his own feet and staggering to the door. He fumbled his shoes on without bothering to tie them, fought with the lock and chain on the door for a minute, and fled.

/

By some serious effort, a little luck, and some help from friends, Roxas managed to avoid Axel for the majority of the next month. He received a lot of texts and voicemails from the redhead at first, and even a few notes taped to the apartment door, but these tapered off after a week, stopping completely within two.

Life was…quiet without Axel. Roxas hadn't realized how much noise and energy Axel had brought into his life until he had to go without it. He bought a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and took to listening to old show tunes and a lot of rock, cranked up so loud he couldn't think around it. For his coffee, he went to the nearest Starbucks, then switched to a hole-in-the-wall place on the other end of campus. The coffee wasn't quite as good, the couches not as squashy and the music not quite to his tastes, but Axel wasn't there, so it would do. On Friday nights he went out with Riku to parties and clubs, and if he wasn't hungover on Saturday, he attended back-to-back boxing and weight-lifting classes at the gym. It helped to keep busy, so he spent Sunday mornings sitting on top of a washing machine in the laundry room, reading for classes, and the afternoons roaming around town with a camera, filling folder after folder on his computer with photos of shadows and shafts of light and reflections and small children and sunsets. There had been time to add a few classes, so with eighteen credits and three campus organizations, his weekdays were pretty much booked. It wasn't the best way to live, but it worked.

/

In the first week of October, Roxas shuffled into the apartment to find Marluxia straddling one of the chairs at the kitchen/dining room table.

"Er…hi," he said carefully. "What are you doing here?"

"I actually came by to talk to Vexen, but when I heard that you lived here as well, I decided to hang around. I need to have a word with you, blondie."

Roxas didn't like the tone Marluxia was using. It made him feel like he needed to find a weapon or a hiding place as soon as possible. "I've got a lot of work to do. Can it wait?"

"No." Marluxia stood up, straightening his shirt and slacks. "Let's go for a walk- everyone else in here is asleep."

"We can talk in-"

"Put your bag down and get your ass outside before I do it for you," Marluxia hissed dangerously.

Roxas had his backpack off and was out of the apartment again in record time. Marluxia headed off down the walkway without a word, leaving Roxas to catch up with him.

"So…what did you want to talk about?"

"Tell you in a minute."

They left the apartment complex and kept walking, past the duck pond and up the hill towards the football stadium and the intramural fields. It wasn't until they were on the far side of the stadium, where the bustle of the city faded into the humming of the highway, that Marluxia stopped and turned to look at Roxas.

"You turned him down."

"What?"

"Axel. He finally made a proper move on you and you turned him down."

"Oh. Uh…um…sort of?"

Marluxia snorted. "Sort of? You don't 'sort of' turn someone down."

"But I didn't really. I mean…he never asked anything, he just...I don't know."

Marluxia rounded on him, a scowl twisting his handsome face. "Regardless of what you think you did or didn't do, you went and screwed up the founder of the black box theatre group, not to mention the only tech we have who knows all the quirks of the sound system in the Terrad Theatre and one of only three coaches we have for the improv workshops. You have ruined him completely and you have no fucking idea!"

"But I-"

"FIX IT!" Marluxia roared.

Roxas scowled up at him. "Why should I? He lied about me to everyone he knows, didn't explain himself when I found out and mentioned it twice, and he molested me! Why should I do anything for him?"

He was flat on his back in the grass before he had time to register the fist coming for his face. It took another moment for his jaw to actually start to hurt. In that shocked, numb moment, Marluxia grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him upright, leaning in to growl into Roxas' face.

"Why Axel would ever be interested in a spoiled, self-centered, heartless little son of a bitch like you I simply cannot understand. If it were almost anyone else, I wouldn't even bother."

"Then why bother at all?" Roxas made a small, pained sound, his head rocking back with the force of another punch. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

"Because he was so passionate about the theatre and everything in it that he made me feel inadequate, and I was practically raised in it. He thought he could do everything, and he could, and no matter how ridiculous the idea or how difficult the effects, he'd find a way. He was a god of theatre, but since you did whatever you did, he's become…" Marluxia hesitated, blue eyes softening with hurt. "He's someone else. The man most of the department respected isn't in there anymore. And it's your fault."

"My fault? I didn't ask for this! And it's not my fault he's sulking because I freaked out when he pinned me down and kissed me, okay? Go fix him yourself!"

Marluxia dropped him. Roxas just barely managed to catch himself, knees buckling. When he looked up, he was faced with a sleek new phone. It was too close to his face for him to be able to clearly see what was on the screen.

"Look," Marluxia hissed. "This is what you did."

Roxas pulled back enough to focus on the screen. He registered red hair first, limp and rather greasy looking- it was a very clear shot taken with a very good phone- then pale skin and dark shadows under familiar green eyes. Axel. It couldn't be anyone else. But…Axel had never been that that skinny, nor had his posture ever been that bad. He looked sick and almost emaciated, a shadow of himself. He was reaching for the phone, holding his shirt in his other hand as if he'd been caught by surprise.

"What happened?"

"He's not eating much," Marluxia said sourly. "Or sleeping. He spends hours on the track on weekends. Smoking too much, too, and no one's seen him smile in weeks. He's depressed, and there's nothing any of us can do about it."

"Us?"

"His friends. I hear you used to be one of us."

Roxas stared at the picture. Axel shouldn't have been that broken up about everything. He was smarter than this. But it looked like maybe he wasn't.

"I don't know what to do about something like this," Roxas said honestly.

"I don't care. Fuck him, beat him up, kiss him silly, yell at him…just snap him out of it."

"Can't you-"

"Don't you think we've tried? Even Demyx tried to help, and he and Axel hardly speak to each other since Zexion came along. Axel wants you, and nobody else."

Roxas swallowed. "So what if I can't…fix him?"

Marluxia shrugged. "If I think you actually bothered to try, I'll leave you alone and cart his skinny little ass to the Clinic. If I think you just blew me off, I'll arrange for some of the tech crew to explain to you exactly how closely-knit theatre people are." The threat was heavy in his voice, and Roxas didn't doubt for a minute that he would make good on it if he needed to. "He's off after seven tonight. Easiest time to catch him."

"But I have-"

"You could have to appear in court tonight and I wouldn't care. Do it tonight."

Roxas nodded dumbly as Marluxia turned away from him and stalked back across the field towards campus. He waited until he could no longer see the pink of Marluxia's hair before he headed back home.

/

Roxas walked the two blocks to Axel's apartment as slowly as he could manage. He felt sick, having spent the remainder of the afternoon wondering it Axel's present condition was really his fault. If he had just seen the hair and the bags under his eyes, he would have suspected a good makeup job and a few days without a shower, but makeup couldn't take that much weight off a bare chest. It couldn't take a healthy twenty-three year old and turn him into little more than a walking skeleton.

He'd been able to handle not having Axel around, but he wasn't sure he could take knowing that he had all but killed the man.

/

Xigbar answered the door when Roxas knocked.

"'bout time you got here," he muttered, stepping out of the way.

"Were you waiting for me?"

"Marly wanted to make sure you didn't blow him off. I told him you weren't that stupid, but he doesn't trust you. Something about almost killing one of his favorite people. G'wan, get in there."

"You're…staying?"

Xigbar snorted, pulling his cigarettes out of his back pocket and tapping one into his hand. "Staying? Hell no. I wouldn't watch this if you paid me. I just agreed to stick around 'til you showed. Good luck."

"If I can't do anything for him, will Marluxia really…"

"Have the shit beaten out of you? Sure will." Xigbar lit up and inhaled slowly, blowing the smoke over Roxas' head. "Won't ask me to, but we've got plenty of bruisers who'll do it. Just about everyone misses Axel. 's best if you try real hard. Got it?"

Roxas nodded miserably.

"That's right. Good luck with him."

"Thanks."

"You're gonna need it."

The door closed, leaving Roxas alone in the loft. The place smelled dry and stale, like cigarettes and old coffee, and it was silent. Clothing, school things and shoes were scattered around, exceeding Axel's usual state of slightly cluttered order. It was creepy.

"Axel?" he called hesitantly.

"Go away, Xigbar." The voice came form the direction of Axel's bed, so Roxas picked his way across the room and peered around the edge of the folding screen.

Axel slumped on the bed, a heavy-looking book lying open beside him and a notebook in his lap. The bed was a rumpled, wrinkled mess, the tapestry half-hanging onto the floor and the pillows scattered.

"I-I'm not Xigbar."

Axel twitched faintly, staring blankly at his notebook for a moment before looking up at Roxas. Emotion flickered across his face for a moment, something sharp and painful, before it vanished and he looked back down at his work. "What do you want?"

"I just…I came to see how you were doing," Roxas lied. He couldn't bring himself to tell Axel that he had been threatened into coming. That would probably hurt him even more, and he found he didn't want that. "Haven't seen you around campus."

"And whose fault is that?" Axel muttered. "I'm fine. Go away."

"You don't look fine."

"Why do you care?"

"You're killing yourself."

"I said I'm fine."

"Well obviously you're not fine or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Axel looked up again, meeting Roxas eyes. It scared him how dark and empty they were; he was used to seeing them bright and full of feeling, usually some variation of pleasure or happiness.

"I know someone made you come here," he said quietly. "They've been trying to get me to act the way they want for weeks. And Xigbar never comes over here, he has too much work to do and not enough time to spend at home as it is. It was pretty obvious he was waiting for you."

"I-"

"So you're here, he knows you're here, and I don't want you. Go home."

Roxas hesitated, then sat carefully on the edge of the bed. "Why are you doing this to yourself, Axel?"

"Don't feel like doing anything else."

"But…you've got so much going on. All those groups and plays and your writing."

"My writing's getting better. Prof likes dark pieces. Makes the assignments easy."

"But you don't like writing dark stories. You told me yourself."

A thin, cold smile twisted Axel's lips. "Write what you know, Rox."

Roxas scowled. "You know a lot more than that. You used to write really good mysteries."

"You were the only one who liked those. The era of the classic mystery thriller is over anyway."

"So what if I was the only one who read them? I thought you liked writing them!"

"I wrote them because you liked them."

Furious, Roxas jerked the notebook out of Axel's lap and smacked him over the head with it. "Why are you being so STUPID?" he demanded, smacking Axel again before the redhead had time to react. "It was one kiss and I freaked out and you started acting like the world was coming to an end and now look at you! You're hurting everyone around you because you didn't get your way! You're disgusting!"

He'd been expecting Axel to fight back, or at least to get angry. It would be worth a few bruises to see him more like his old self again. But he did neither. Instead, he covered his head with both hands and gave Roxas a look that belonged on a dog that had just been kicked.

"I got tired of pretending," he whispered. "It got to be too much."

"Pretending what?" Roxas demanded, readying the notebook for another swat.

"Pretending I had a chance with you. I thought maybe I did, but you never…never responded or anything."

"I told you!" He swatted Axel again, as hard as he could. "I told you I don't understand how this stuff works! I told you I don't pick up on cues and I wouldn't know flirting if it bit me on the ass! I've never been with anyone! I don't know what to do, okay? I told you that!"

"You did?"

"YES!"

"When?"

"When you were sick last spring. We talked about it right before I took you to the doctor. Don't you remember?" Roxas blinked, lowering the notebook. "You…don't remember, do you?"

Axel shook his head, eyes widening. "I don't remember much about the end of last semester. Mostly just a lot of bad dreams."

The notebook slipped from Roxas' fingers. He laughed weakly. "I thought…oh, god, I thought you remembered and were just ignoring everything I told you."

"The only thing I really remember from the day I got sick is you taping my curtains closed."

"It was after that. When I came back with the notes."

"Notes?"

"Yeah. You had me take assignments and stuff to all these people all over campus and they sent notes back with me, and…we fucked up, didn't we?"

That got him a small, awkward smile. "I think we did, yeah."

Roxas sighed heavily. "Go take a shower."

"Uh…what?"

"You smell. Go shower and we can talk after, okay?"

Axel nodded. "Okay. You'll still be here?"

"Yeah."

/

Axel took quite awhile in the shower, giving Roxas ample time to start cleaning. He couldn't help it; he liked having things tidy, and while Axel's usual set-up was acceptable, the current state of the loft was not. He made the bed, tossed dirty clothes at the hamper, piled dirty dishes in the sink to soak, located the mates for the shoes scattered around, and swept the floor. He had his sleeves rolled up over his elbows and was busy working on getting old, dried coffee out of the coffee pot when Axel shuffled out of the bathroom.

He was shirtless, giving Roxas a much better idea of how much weight he had lost. If it weren't for his unusually wide hips, his jeans wouldn't have stayed on. Roxas could count his ribs.

"You look like shit," he said honestly.

Axel looked down at himself, splaying both hands across his stomach. "Yeah," he murmured. "I do."

"I called for takeout. You need to eat."

"I'm not really hungry."

"That's because you've been starving yourself. You should eat a little, at least. And keep the leftovers for later." Roxas rinsed the coffee pot out and examined it critically. Deciding it was clean enough, he set it upside down on the counter to dry and shook his hands over the sink, trying to get as much water off as he could- the only dish towels he'd been able to find had been dirty, so he would have to dry his hands on his jeans.

Rather unexpectedly, Axel stepped up close behind Roxas, arms sliding around him and pulling him close. Roxas felt lips moving in his hair.

"I've screwed up twice with you already," Axel said quietly, his voice half muffled by Roxas' head. "So…this is gonna sound stupid to me, but I guess it's the best way to go with you, since you don't get flirting. I've wanted you for ages. Since you came over to bring my blanket back. I was just…I was with Demyx then, and I don't believe in just dropping someone for another person right away, so I stayed with him, and we wound up friends first- which is a good thing, I guess. I tried to hint, I swear, but…eh, maybe I suck at it. I don't remember you telling me all that stuff last spring, but I do remember thinking that I was supposed to be honest with you, so when you came over when you got back, I thought I'd try again and be more obvious with it. Guess I thought you knew the whole time and were playing hard to get." He sighed heavily. "I could say I love you, but I don't think I've ever really been in love, so I won't say it. I just…even if you don't want me romantically, I want you in whatever way you'll have me. Okay?"

Roxas was still and quiet for a while. He'd had plenty of time to think about Axel since he'd stormed out of the loft at the end of the summer, and had come to the conclusion that being with him in almost any aspect would be nice. The memories of the way Axel had touched him had been replayed over and over in his dreams. "Axel?"

"Yeah?"

"Let go."

"Okay." Axel's voice was so soft it was hardly there at all. He released Roxas, taking a step back. When Roxas turned around, Axel was staring at his feet, looking embarrassed and a little disappointed.

"I feel silly having a conversation with you when I can't look you in the eye," Roxas said gently. "You can hold me in a minute."

"I can?"

"Uh-huh. Just let me talk first."

"I'm all ears."

"Like I said, I've never done this kind of thing before, so I don't really know how I'm supposed to act when I'm with someone that way, but…" Roxas blushed. "You're a great friend, and you're hot, so I guess that's a good place to start. Just take it slow, alright?"

Axel's face lit up with an ear-to-ear grin, and for the first time since August, Roxas saw the man he'd been missing. He hesitated, then cupped Roxas' face in his hands, long, thin fingers curving up the line of Roxas' jaw.

"I'm going to kiss you now," he said softly. "Please don't bite me."

"I'll try not to."

It was more than the kiss that had started the whole mess, but less than Roxas had been expecting; Axel was clearly trying to be as careful and slow as he could manage. That was sweet, in a way, but Roxas wanted to be kissed properly, whatever that meant for Axel. He struggled free, earning another hurt, frightened look from Axel.

"Kiss me like you mean it," he ordered.

"What?"

"I really doubt you kiss like that when you aren't afraid the person you're kissing is going to bite you and run away again. I won't, so don't treat me like I will."

Axel smiled, almost in the way that meant he was going to laugh. "Alright."

Roxas nearly has time to demand that Axel get on with it, but Axel leaned down again and he promptly forgot how talking actually worked. Axel kissed the way he did everything else Roxas had ever seen him do: wholeheartedly, throwing himself into it and making sure Roxas knew exactly how badly he had wanted it.

It lasted as long as they could manage before breathing became an issue. Axel drew back, a familiar smirk playing on his lips.

"You're gonna need some work," he teased. "No technique at all."

Roxas groaned and shoved Axel away from him. "Way to ruin the moment. Go put some clothes on while I finish with these dishes."

"Yes, mother."

He wished for a dishtowel so he could whip Axel with it, but had to settle for shoving Axel again. Axel resisted, stepped forward, and bit a spot on his neck that apparently turned off stability in his legs. Roxas' knees buckled. Laughing evilly, Axel put him down carefully and vanished behind his folding screen.

"I hate you!" Roxas howled, blushing furiously.

"Whatever you say, Rox!"