Gentian Blue
By mocha
Standard disclaimers apply. Axel/Roxas, BL, AU-setting.
Chapter One
A great rush of stained tea smoothed out the scratchy surfaces in his throat and released the stress on his vocal cords. He coughed, gurgled the liquid until it turned bitter, and then gulped everything down below. A few fingers were used to massage his jaw loose, then down to his jugular to ease the stress.
"Fecit locutus est," Roxas said, pronouncing the old language off his dry tongue. He picked up his score and rubbed his eyes. It was too late to be singing Bach's preaching. "Fecit locutus est."
He dropped the score back onto the bed and practiced his memory. "Omnes, omnes," he sung to the wall. Then to the window: "Gloria parti…"
It was in that moment when the echoes of his voice swerved to man next door. It was strange at first because the man sported a splattered apron and droplets of blue paint on his hands and face. Roxas observed him through the window, watching the man pace his room with three paintbrushes sticking out of his mouth in a worrisome jiggle. Within the year that the man had taken residence in the neighboring house, Roxas figured that he was a college student, an artist in the making, and that his fellow buddies with whom he shared the rent were the ones responsible for the occasional parties and loud music. Sometimes he believed the houses were built too closely together for comfort, but the artistic paces of the man revealed no threat.
Roxas took another great swig of tea in such a movement that it caught the attention of his neighbor. The man chewed the tips of the brushes, gave a wave and concluded his midnight greeting with a thumbs-up on Roxas' singing. Roxas shook his head and gave in. He released the hatches and pushed his window open. The man did the same.
"Young and fresh-minded teens such as yourself should be asleep at this hour, shouldn't they?" his neighbor said through a mouthful of brushes.
Roxas leaned on the windowsill and circled his shoulders. It was ridiculous that their houses were built so close. "I would but extra practice for choir is more important. And your friends make so much noise that sleep would be impossible anyway."
The man plucked the brushes out of his mouth and laughed. "Dear old Demyx says that it's not worth playing unless it's loud and proud. And as physics majors, Xigbar and Xaldin have rights to some insanity."
Roxas watched the blue gentians rustle against the August breeze on the trellis below his window. "What year are you guys?"
"We're all in our third year. We go way back to high school. You?"
"Just started my third year of high school."
"Excited?"
"Not really." He turned to the clock again. "I guess I should sleep."
"You do that then." The man reached for the windowpanes and winked again. "And a very good night to…?"
"Roxas."
His neighbor took a painted finger and tapped it against his forehead. "Axel. Pleasure's all mine."
Living was too tough in those modern times when the well-being of the children was placed after finances and international affairs. Such instances compelled his parents to stick him and his siblings in a tiny two-story house sixty miles away in a town with nothing more than a good school, a good college, and an excellent ice cream parlor. His parents worked furiously in the city to keep the money even in fifty-story buildings, and what little money was left in the end was dropped in a carefully-watched account to ensure that all four of them were comfortable and safe in their small home with only elderly people and college students around for parental supervision. They were fortunate that the twin girls were studious and creative and the twin boys were strong and musical. Roxas only needed two more years of studies and straining his baritone voice, and then he would be free but stuck in the same place perhaps.
"We need more food. And tea."
Sora tapped his foot on the waxed floor tiles of the school. "You'll blow all of Dad's hard-earned money on packets of leaves. Why do you need to drink so much?"
"It helps my voice from getting shot," Roxas explained to his elder twin.
"Or you could quit singing," Sora joked.
"Only if you quit soccer."
"Not a chance." Sora waved at their sisters down the hall, who still had three years left. "Fine, we'll go shopping for your leaves."
Kairi waved her perfect test papers in Roxas' face on the way to the market and poked fun at how she was taking twelfth grade math and he was too busy stuffing his nose in music books instead of math books. Sora picked at clumps of mud on his cleats before entering the store and Namine whispered one of her story ideas into Roxas' ear in front of the milk. Roxas threw his tea boxes at Sora to test his reflexes until Kairi threw one at Roxas and told him to stop. Namine only laughed and ushered them to the check-out line so they could go home and eat and if they got home early, maybe Mom would call.
On the way to their tiny two-story house, Sora tripped and nearly smashed all of the tea boxes on the sunset-streaked sidewalk. Roxas caught him in a headlock only to be deceived when his sisters grabbed the paper bags and ran off, taking his tea hostage. They finally made it to the kitchen just in time for Mom's phone call. Namine told her that the townsfolk were nice, Kairi proudly declared her latest grades and how the boys were being silly again, Roxas said that the choir teacher was impressed, and Sora, being the oldest, ended the conversation by assuring her that everything was overall good.
Roxas swung his feet nervously under the kitchen table, trying to remind his reflection in his bowl of chicken soup that everything was indeed good and that he was only apprehensive about learning his new part, but the rhythms of his heartbeat told him otherwise.
It became a habit to arrange evening discussions with his too-close neighbor when he needed someone to knock some clarity and reality into his head and onto the notes of his scorebook. It was only a month into the school year and already he was feeling the strains of a future he didn't even know about. Axel was the closest thing to a parent when Roxas needed the words of an elder, even if Axel did leave the impression that he was just as insane as his physics major friends.
"It comes with the occupation of an artist," Axel explained, leaning on the windowsill with one arm and tapping his forehead again with the other. "Only so many of us are crazy enough to sit all day and paint. Did you know that Van Gogh licked his paintbrushes?"
Roxas tried to focus on the music sheets. "And do you follow his example?"
"Can't say I'm too inclined to do that."
"Really."
He was forced to turn away his music when Axel suddenly jumped up and laughed. "You don't believe me! Woe is me, for your responses are so cold toward this emerging artist. Have some compassion. Aren't all singers supposed to be sympathetic?"
"Well, sorry to say that this singer isn't so nice," Roxas sighed. He dropped the music onto the floor and rubbed his eyes. "I just don't get art."
Looking back on that evening, Roxas realized that it would have probably been better if he made no comment on art whatsoever, because keeping quiet would not have given Axel the obligation to climb out of his window and down the vine-covered trellis and then climb up the trellis underneath Roxas' window. Looking back further, he also realized that he shouldn't have just stood there and watched in astonishment.
"The hell are you doing?"
"Gonna teach you art, what else?" said Axel. "Hope you don't mind at this hour. I'll be quick."
"No wait-" Roxas started, but it was already too late to go back and stop Axel from ever leaving his house. Two steps later brought Axel to a two-story fall worthy of a fractured leg and Roxas close to smashing his head against his windowsill.
He knew that Sora would twist the situation into something terrible, but flowers were the least he could do for an idiot climbing the side of the house. At least his twin was kind enough to help him pick out a small bouquet of white dittanies and keep his imaginative mouth shut about a secret girl.
Roxas visited Axel at their usual window rendez-vous, but this time he was the one to climb the trellis up to Axel's room successfully.
"What a show-off," his neighbor said, hunched over crutches and weighed down by a tan wrapping on his ankle. "Not fair, man. Once I'm healed, I'll go to your window and strangle you myself."
"Like this was all my fault." Roxas dropped the dittanies on Axel's nightstand and observed the room. One could say that it was so messy that it was artistic, with stacks of canvases and newsprint in the corners and paintbrushes and pastels by the bucket on the bookshelves. On the side of the window was an easel and painting in the works.
Axel wobbled over to his bed. "I'm just glad I didn't break an arm. Man, these are exhausting."
"How long will you need them?"
"Not long. A week maybe. It's not that serious." Axel tossed the crutches onto the tarp-covered carpet. "So did you want to talk or are you just here to give me flowers and kiss me goodnight?"
Roxas wished his neighbor didn't laugh at the face he made. "I'm sure the physics geeks are crazy enough to do that for you."
"Probably, but I bet I'm crazier than all of them combined."
"Yeah?" He leaned in at the canvas on the easel and saw a smooth combination of blotches of flowers.
"I told you, it's an artist thing." Axel grabbed the small bouquet and waved them dramatically. "Being such is a constant state of dissatisfaction! We draw and paint and write and sculpt but once it's done, we still shake our heads in shame because we could have done better."
"What a terrible way to live," said Roxas. He took the flowers back and frowned at the freed petals on the floor.
"And yet, at the same time, it's the most wonderful thing." He reached out for the flowers again but Roxas stepped out of arm's reach. "It gives you the most intense and heart-shattering passion of all. You're creating something and you can't stop because it's like you're in a trance." A wink. "You follow?"
"You really are insane."
Axel laughed and stood up again. "Aren't you a singer? That's an art form; you should know that rushing feeling when you're singing away."
"Then I guess," Roxas stated, now climbing out of the window after he found an empty bucket for the dittanies, "that means I don't have any rush or passion in me. Just dull, old me."
All he wanted was to curl into bed and hope tomorrow would pass by quicker than yesterday, but within the month he knew Axel, he had figured out that Axel always had to have the last word that wasn't supposed to slow his thoughts and time but did anyway.
Axel leaned over him above the trellis and said with that paint-slick smile of his, "A life without any rush or passion is so much worse than a life too full of it."
Things were bugging him when they weren't supposed to and for some reason it compelled him to sit next to Namine on the floor and try to see through her pencil sketches of nonexistent animals and handwriting that resembled an ocean wave. Roxas felt that everything he denied before was creeping back on him, thus it was best to discover the root of the problem and solve it before it became too distracting.
"If you paid attention to Dad when he was reading us children's books, you would understand better," Namine said, rolling her eyes.
"He always read the same thing to us, though," Roxas argued. He flipped through his sister's storyboards, weighted down with crayons and markers. She would be something great like her twin sister, who would be something great like their eldest brother. And here was Roxas in the middle with nothing but a few strings in his throat tuned well enough to produce a few good notes.
Namine plucked her drawings from his hands. "Maybe when I'm famous from making children's books and cartoons, I'll call you up and you can sing for some of the characters."
"A good voice isn't much these days." He turned away at the pictures of dragonflies ascending toward the stars.
"Why not? It's all you do these days. You obviously love it." She pulled out more papers with more flying creatures. "Go to the city, get a job at the theater, and sing all the big parts that'll have the ladies swooning for days."
Roxas laughed and shook his head. "I'm not sure if I'm cut out for stage life."
"Well, at least it's a life worth having." Namine tucked the papers back into their files and smiled. "Right?"
A blurry future was only natural for young adults his age, but it could only get so tolerable when everyone else looked clear and confident while staring straight ahead. He had his music books and his vocal cords – didn't the biggest stars start small and unseen?
Axel was humming something terribly out of tune and twiddling a blue paint tube in his hands. Roxas was convinced the annoyance next door would eventually bend his pitch pipe out of tune.
"Can you shut it for just a moment, please? I'd like to sing my part in the right key."
"Do forgive this unworthy soul, Master Roxas." A few more paint tubes went flying around his neighbor's room. "Please spare me any harsh punishments and I'll prove my worth."
"Be quiet for a few minutes and your life shall be spared." Roxas let his breath race through one of the square holes in the silver instrument and mimicked the note. He sung out his lines, not too loudly in case Axel was listening too intently and not too softly so that he couldn't find himself. With two swigs of tea and a cough later, he told himself he was finished and nearly did not notice the rush of blood that suddenly escalated through his veins.
He turned to the window to see Axel leaning on his own windowsill and eating his paintbrushes again. "Beautiful, man. You almost got me crying in my expensive paints."
"What a shame." But he was showing a new smile anyway and looking back, it wasn't so bad.