chapterone
ironingboards

---

"I am not so sure about this, Kairi," Sora announced as the two six year olds entered the dark depths of the garage.

"Shhh!" Kairi whispered, pressing her finger to her lips in a dramatic we-are-in-a-scary-movie-exploring-haunted-mansion kind of way.

Sora's eyes widened, then he nodded extravagantly and pressed the back of his hand to his forehead and swooned.

"Oh, noooo!" he cried, with an I-am-a-feeble-princess-in-no-immediate-danger-but-you-must-come-and-save-me-anyway-oh-chivalrous-knight-ish tone to his voice.

Kairi frowned in confusion, and Sora blushed.

"I thought… that we were being… in… movies…" he mumbled, rubbing the tip of his oversized butter yellow shoe on the floor.

"Shhh!" Kairi hissed, forcing her finger to his lips again, this time pressing so hard her finger almost bent backwards.

Sora nodded eagerly, and the whole process began again.

"What are you two doing in here?" a voice echoed around the cobweb-ridden garage.

The two kids spun around quickly.

"Nothing…" Kairi replied hastily.

"Yep yep yep nothing nothing nothing at all!" Sora beamed, before stretching out his arms and embracing his big brother in a hug. "Roxieeeee!"

"Err…" Roxas muttered, looking down at the miniature figure clinging to him.

"Roxieeeee!" Sora repeated happily. "I haff not seen you in ageeees! Where haff you been, Roxie?"

"Training, stupid," Roxas snapped. "Now get out of my way. You better not have messed with my skateboard."

"Roxieeeee!" Sora cried yet again, squeezing his brother with glee.

"Yeah… whatever…" Roxas scowled, peeling Sora off of him, a method that would normally require a several pliers and a crane (Sora was not one to lay off the cake), but today only took a few seconds as they both knew for a fact that there were plenty of power tools to hand. Roxas contemplated picking up a drill and waggling it in the air anyway, just to scare his younger sibling and his younger sibling's little friend as far away from him as possible.

However, seeing as there were plenty other power tools nearby, he opted not to do anything his mother might disapprove of. Tifa knew her way around a chainsaw.

"Nope nope nope, Roxie!" Sora replied gleefully, bouncing up and down. "Me n' Kai did not mess with your skeeeetbooooooard cuz we knows that you dun want us to mess with your skeeeetboooooooard Roxie!"

Roxas scowled at them. "Can't you go bug someone else?"

"Hehe!" Kairi giggled. "Roxas is being silly!"

"Go away, both of you," Roxas snarled. "I need to train."

"What for?" Kairi asked angelically.

"Struggle On Wheels…?" Roxas answered stupidly.

When it became clear that the two six year olds were not familiar with this annual tournament, he opted for another route.

"Skateboard," he sighed. "Skateboard. Struggle bat. Hit. Whack. Kill."

"Kill!" Kairi shrieked. "Oh no! You can't kill people, Roxie!"

"That is naughty!" Sora added. "And mummy won't be very happy!"

"If you tell her-"

"We won't tell her, Roxie!" Kairi beamed happily, then her face turned solemn. "If you let us play on your skateboard."

Roxas scowled.

"Why can't we tell her, anyway?" Sora queried. "It's not like you're really going to be killing anyone, are you, Roxie?"

Part of Roxas wanted to tell his little brother that of course he wouldn't really be killing anyone, and that it was actually Leon who didn't want his son to enter the tournament, not Tifa. In fact, Leon didn't want Roxas or Sora to do anything except lean against walls with their arms folded looking all grumpy and emo like he did. It was fun for a while, but as Tifa liked to point out on a daily basis, "It does not pay the bills, Leon. Get a job you lazy bugger."

However, the other part of Roxas thought it best to lie and scare Sora away. Purely for the sake of it.

"Why yes I am," he grinned evilly. "And I will bash their tiny little heads in with my Struggle bat so that they cry out in pain and then I will steal their skateboards and sell them for lunch money, and then I will steal lunch money from other kids so that I have even more lunch money, and then you'll see. You'll see! You'll ALL see!"

The eerie silence in which the two younger kids ought to have been quivering with fear and terror was instead interrupted by Sora bouncing up and down squealing, "YAY! What will you do when you have all their money? Will you buy us some cake?"

Roxas scowled. His devious plan (carefully and laboriously planned out in the space of thirteen seconds) was not working as it was supposed to.

"No!" he snapped crossly. "I will make you into a cake!"

Kairi and Sora looked at him with blank and confused expressions for a moment.

"Dang," Sora remarked. "I woulda just bought my lunch."

Roxas growled loudly, then scooped his beloved skateboard up off the floor and cradled it in his arms. At least Derek understood how he felt. Derek was kind and nice and loving, and comforted Roxas when he was down. Derek didn't stress over things like what people thought of him, because he cared only for Roxas.

Well, Derek would do. Because Derek was a skateboard.

Kairi and Sora had discussed many times the topic of Roxas's sanity, and had parallel-parked at the conclusion that he needed to get a life.

O --- O

"Go Roxie!" Kairi squealed like a hyper fangirl, waving her arms around in the air. "YAY!"

"Well done, Roxie," Sora remarked. "Very good, Roxie."

Roxas glared at them. "Shut up," he snapped. "You made me lose my concentratio- OWWW!"

"Roxie!" Kairi cried, as Roxas toppled off his skateboard and rolled down the ramp backwards, scraping skin of almost every part of his body in the process. He swore fluently as he stood up.

"Are you okay, Roxie?" Sora asked with concern. "Did you hurt yourself?"

The top of the ramp was higher than Roxas himself stretched out to his full height, so he could lean against it without digging his aching back into the ledge.

"Roxie!" Kairi repeated. "Are you hurt?"

"No," Roxas grimaced, gritting his teeth. "Just get out of my way."

He pushed the two six year olds aside and stormed down the garden path to the back door of the house.

Tifa and Leon had provided well for their family. Their house was large, with pretty shutters and flowerboxes, perfectly pruned hedges and trees with neat rails fenced around them. Kairi thought it was a pretty, dainty place to live, but Sora and Roxas would rather reside somewhere more… dirt-friendly. Tifa had turned into a clean freak since Aunt Yuna had gone round for tea and stuck her nose up at all the hmm-well-I-suppose-it's-clean furniture. But that was Aunt Yuna all over. She sat with her back straight and stuck her little finger out when she drank tea. With beer she just sort of flopped over and giggled at the carpet, but the day after the New Year's Eve party nobody had had the heart to tell her that.

"Aww, that sucks, hun," Tifa sighed sympathetically, as the three kids sat in the kitchen. "Does it still hurt?"

Roxas shrugged, but that hurt him even more so he nodded instead. "Ow," he whined as an example.

Tifa pouted sadly. "If your back hurts that much, Roxie, then maybe you shouldn't compete in the Struggle On Wheels tournament," she suggested.

"No way!" Roxas exclaimed. "I'm not dropping out now! All I've been doing the past three months is training!"

"I know you have," Tifa smiled. "And I am very proud of you, but I don't think you should enter. You'll just hurt yourself even more."

"NO! It's all their fault!" he shouted, pointing accusingly at the two six year olds with a menacing gleam in his eye. "They blew my concentration!"

"No we didn't!" Sora objected. "We didn't do nothing."

Kairi thought for a moment and Sora watched her, expecting her to back him up. "We didn't do anything," she corrected her friend. "Not 'nothing'. That's double negatives, Sora, didn't you know?"

"Of course I knew," Sora answered hastily, his cheeks flushing. "We did not not do anything! Nuh-uh! Nothing!"

"Well, if that's what they say happened, Roxie, maybe you just… lost your footing?" Tifa suggested.

"Me? Lose my footing?" Roxas fumed. "I don't lose my footing! Not ever! I'm a professional. Professionals don't lose their footing because we're so… professional!"

"Okay, if you say so!" Tifa chirruped, then indicated towards a warm baking tray on the kitchen table. "Would you like some cookies?"

Roxas scowled.

"Fresh out of the oven!" Tifa continued merrily. "C'mon, Roxie, you know you want some!"

Roxas glared at his mother, then promptly stormed out of the room.

"Mummy!" Sora cried, bouncing up and down, waggling a sheet of paper in the air. "Can you sign this bit of pappy-er? Its for a school trip!"

"Of course, Sora," Tifa smiled. "Cookies?"

Sora and Kairi grinned. She flashed him a glance that said, "Does she even hafta ask?"

Sora hadn't quite got the secret-eye-contact thing yet, so he batted his eyelashes in a way that rather unsubtly proclaimed that he was wearing too much of his mother's mascara.

O --- O

"Damn," Roxas remarked as he catapulted himself onto his bed in the typical teenage drama-queen style. The only thing missing that could've made that scene more chick-flick-y would be if he rolled over, buried his head in his pillow and cried as loudly as possible something along the lines of, "OhEricHeLeftMeHowCouldHeDOThatToMeAmIHideousOrSomethingHowWillIEverGetOverHimIDon'tKnowWhatToDoMyLifeIsOVER!"

Except that Roxas was not a girl, he was not in a chick flick movie and he did not know anybody called Eric, except Tifa's friend Ariel's ex-boyfriend Eric, the one who had a motorbike and wore tight leather trousers.

Thinking about it, crying into a pillow was probably exactly what Ariel had done when Eric dumped her. Maybe she cried so much there was a river of tears, and she could swim back to her natural habitat- the gutter. Stupid self-obsessed tramp.

Roxas gazed at the Struggle poster on his wall. There was something about the picture of the two neon blue bats clashing together that made him want to win the tournament more than anything. He had nearly won the Struggle competition the previous year, but Setzer had accidentally got his face stuck to his handy pocket mirror and got disqualified, so no one bothered to watch anymore and the competition finished. Winner undecided. This had angered young Roxas very much, so he had trained without mercy for weeks and months on end.

This year he had been training even harder, because the Struggle competition had sprouted wheels and rolled away, making it even more difficult to win- or something along those lines. Roughly translated, it meant that the contestants would have to fight each other while on skateboards, or roller skates, or anything with wheels. Plus there would be no danger of everyone leaving because Setzer left; apparently people were only going to see the fat commentator ride a full lap of the Sandlot on a unicycle.

O --- O

"I am not so sure about this, Kairi," Sora remarked for the second time that day. "What if Roxie catches us?"

"He won't," Kairi insisted. "We'll be quick, right?"

Sora pondered for a moment, then nodded happily. "Okay! I don't suppose he'll mind that much anyway," he agreed. "It's only a skateboard."

"Exactly," Kairi grinned as they jogged to the end of the garden and out of the gate. A skate park was located a few steps away. Handy, that, seeing how Roxas was obsessed with skateboarding.

"He left it here somewhere," Kairi murmured, peering at the tarmac spread across the floor. "Where?"

"My thoughts exactly," a redhead announced, leaping from the bushes.

"Whaa-" Kairi blinked.

"Axel, got it memorized?" the redhead grinned.

Sora blinked again. "Ack-sell," he repeated. "Yah, I thinks I got it!"

"Are you looking for this?" Axel asked, indicating towards the ironing board tucked under his arm.

"Nope," Sora answered. "We're looking for something for my big brother."

Axel raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?" he smirked. "So you won't mind if I throw this board in the river?"

Kairi shrugged. "Nah," she replied carelessly. "We don't really mind."

Axel frowned. "What?" he scowled. "You don't want to offer me money? Beg me to give it back?"

"Why would we want to do that?" Kairi asked. "It's not like it's our ironing board."

"But I thought…" Axel stared at the two kids. "You're kidding, right?"

"How d'you mean?" Sora asked. "Of course we're kids, like DUH!"

"Just take the damn ironing board," Axel hissed, shoving the thing at them. It clattered to the floor when neither of them snatched it up.

"What was that all about?" Kairi wondered.

"I think he was holding it hostage," Sora remarked. "He seems the type."

"Yes," Kairi agreed, giggling. "But who would hold an ironing board hostage?"

"I don't know," Sora answered, shrugging. He turned to the board lying mangled on the tarmac. "Shame we want a skateboard, not an ironing board, or we could take this home."

"Indeed," Kairi nodded. "But let's set about finding the skateboard first."

"Yes," Sora finished, and they wandered around the park.

"Look!" Kairi cried after a while. "A shoe!"

Sora blinked. "A shoe?" he repeated. "What the hell are we gonna do with a shoe? Who needs shoes?"

"People with… feet?" Kairi suggested.

Sora shook his head. Where did Kairi get all her crazy ideas?

"Here it is!" he chorused upon discovering the skateboard wedged under a bush.

"YAY!" she squealed. "Okay. You go first, and I'll push you."

"Push me?" Sora repeated. "I don't think so. I'm a pull door, Kai."

She blinked for a moment, and then smiled broadly. "Okay! That'll work too. Just watch out for the brambles."

"Brambles?" the brunet winced.

"Yep," Kairi grinned. "Don't worry, you won't fly into them. Hop on, Sora!"

Sora quite literally hopped onto the skateboard and readied himself to be dragged and thrust in the general direction of some thorns, as opposed to an actual skate ramp. Kairi had thought this the safest option, as Axel the redheaded ironing board (this description suited him rather well, actually) was still hanging around the ramps, watching them. She shivered when he winked at her. Why didn't he just go away?

"Wheeeeee!" Sora exclaimed as he skittered towards the brambles.

"Yay, Sora!" Kairi cheered. It was only a matter of time before Kairi's stupidity took form and kicked both their sorry asses into the thorn bushes. Somehow Sora had managed to snatch the strap of her top and pull her into the mess of thorns and leaves with him.

Kairi was less than happy with this arrangement. What gave Sora the right to grab onto her for moral support in his time of need of some form of assistance in the face of danger?

"Ew, get off me Sora, you pervert!" she screeched, leaping up from the floor.

Sora picked himself up too, his limbs smarting from all the thorns. He managed to scoop up the skateboard before he collapsed against Kairi.

Not because he was severely injured or because he was passing out. Purely because he was a lazy sod, just like his father. On that subject…

"Sora!" Kairi cried, her eyes flicking over all the scratches that now adorned her best friend. "What are your parents gonna say when they see you like this?"

"They won't notice," Sora murmured. "Mummy will give me cookies!"

"Don't be silly, Sora," Kairi sighed, shaking her head in disapproval. "They'll ask questions. They might find out that…" (she whispered this bit) "…we borrowed Roxie's skateboard!"

Sora's mouth formed a small 'O' shape.

"And we might have to tell them about the creepy ironing board boy," she added, glaring at Axel, who was still gazing at them with a demented look on his face.

"I guess," Sora mumbled. "What are we gonna do instead, then?"

"Let's go to my house!" Kairi beamed. "Daddy won't mind. He'll be watching documentaries on Channel X."

Sora patted Kairi sadly. He knew exactly what sort of documentaries were featured on Channel X from all his years of sneaking up on Roxas when he was watching them. Roxas hadn't found the situation quite as funny as Sora, who had been using his big brother's Channel X viewing habits as blackmail ever since. Sora wanted to explain to Kairi that her father was not in fact watching documentaries on history and the Thousand Heartless War (which Cid himself had probably fought in anyway, considering how old he was. Ha! Imagine that!), but instead he was watching-

"You leaving?" Axel called, leaping up from his spot on one of the ramps and running towards them.

"Yeah," Kairi answered. "What's it to you, anyway?"

Axel grinned mischievously. "Just wanted to say goodbye, is all," he winked. "Say hello to your brother for me, right?"

"Who, Roxas?" Sora questioned.

Axel smirked as he answered, "Yeah. Roxas…"

Sora and Kairi raised their eyebrows at each other and then ran off. Once they were round the corner they stopped to release the peals of laughter bubbling up inside them. By the time they started walking again they were practically crying.

When they reached Kairi's house, she opened the door and let them in.

"Daddy?" she called.

"Yer," Cid grunted. Kairi followed his voice into the sitting room, where he was sat sprawled in front of the television with a can of lager and a jumbo packet of crisps balanced on his beer belly. She gave him a quick kiss on his cheek.

"Hi, Daddy," she beamed. "Me n' Sora are hungry. Is it okay if we get some food?"

"Yer," Cid muttered, carelessly shoving a fistful of crisps in his mouth and chomping on them.

"Love you, daddy," Kairi smiled.

"'Ere, look at this," Cid snarled, waving his hand limply at the television box.

"What is it, daddy?" Kairi asked sweetly.

The two six year olds turned to the telly for closer inspection. The news reporter was shifting anxiously in her seat as she clattered the papers together on the desk.

"We are unsure as of yet who or where this man is or what he wants, all that we can be sure about is that his chosen method of action is to invite people in for tea and scones, then locks them in a room. We do not know his reasons, but he lets them free within a few hours, and they do not bear or claim to bear any scarring or damage."

"What's that got to do with us, Daddy?" Kairi queried.

"The lady," Cid grunted. "The news lady. She 'as funny 'air, dontcha reckon?"

No biscuits were visible amongst the junk that was Cid's kitchen, so Kairi skipped the bribery-with-food part and went straight to scrubbing Sora's legs with disinfectant while he winced in pain.

"Ow, Kairi, that hurts!" he whined.

"Shush," she muttered. When she was finished she stuck multiple plasters all over him until no scratches were visible, then gave him a spatula as a reward.

Sora sucked the spatula contently until he remembered about the skateboard.

"Oh no!" he remarked. "I have to be getting home soon and we haven't fixed Roxie's skateboard yet!"

"Let's ask Daddy for help!" Kairi suggested, but they soon dismissed that idea, as that would involve Cid leaving his chair. And they figured he wouldn't be very happy about doing that.

"It can't be that difficult," Sora observed, standing up to stretch his legs. He winced as the cuts were still painful, but managed to kneel down next to his friend and observe the skateboard.

"Ah," Kairi pouted, as one of the wheels fell off and rolled across the kitchen floor. "Never mind!" she chirruped brightly. "The wheel might make a nice… err… car… or… sculpture for some mice. I don't know. What do you think the wheel would serve best as for some mice, Sora?"

"A cabbage," Sora answered. "Or a pretzel. It has that pretzel-y look, dontcha think?"

"Or a mouse," Kairi observed. "It could be another mouse. They could dress it up and push it in a pram and call it Twinkletoes."

Sora frowned. "If I was a wheel I would not want to be called Twinkletoes."

"Really?" Kairi blinked, puzzled. "What would you want to be called?"

"Intellectual Trevor," Sora mused. "Or Elroy Jemima McBiscuitbarrel."

Kairi shook her head and tutted at her friend. "No more sugar for you," she decided.

O --- O

a/n: Yep, folks, this is the best I could do. Review, because... because... because of the wonderful things that he does! Dee la la la la la la la LA!

Err.. no... crap. Just ignore me.. bob. It might be a while 'til I update, 'cause I want to nearly finish the whole thing first. I only put this first chapter up because I wanted to see if anyone liked it, or if it was destined to become one of those annoying crappy fics that just take up space and no one ever reads.

Much like a/ns at the end of chapters...