Summary: He had lost everything and then suddenly Roxas found it all. His friends, his life, his happiness. He couldn't thank Axel enough.

Roxas's parents died while he was eleven and he moved in with his relatives.His Aunt and Uncle are wonderful but his cousin is another story. His only escape? To go to a University away from his home. Once in this new city, Roxas meets four new people and he finds the friends he had always wanted. Life seems to be good again and after four years of being ignored Roxas finds that one, beautiful red-head seems to dote on him a lot.

Pairings: AxelxRoxas & ZexionxDemyx.

Warnings: Alternative Universe, Slash, Language, Sex (Oral & Anal), Rape, Violence & Ridiculous Amounts of Angst.

Author's Notes: ...This is my attempt at NaNoWriMo. It's at approx. 10 000 words right now and I'm hoping I continue to write with such fever. It's a wonderful feeling, having 10 000 words done in the first three days. Delightful! Anyways, this pretty much means all my other fics will be on a one month hiatus as I NEED to write 50 000 words for this fic before I stop. I wish to finish it. But I'm pretty sure it's not going to end with just 50 000 words...so maybe 100 000? We'll see.

Anyways, the format for this fic is a bit different. I plan to split the fic into parts rather than chapters. Each part will have parts within it that you can treat like chapters. I'm going to post each of these sub-parts as chapters. I'll be posting three sub-parts every time I update. The amount of words that goes into each sub-part differs completely on what I'm trying to convey in the sub-part so don't expect a set amount of words in each sub-part. Thanks.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Kingdom Hearts. It belongs to Square Enix and the Walt Disney Company. I'm simply trying to write 50 000 words for NaNo.

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The Incident with the Blond

Those Lost Things

in which we:

meet the blond – learn of guests – see the dancing – hear the laughter – dream of friends – find the first link in the chain – smile – watch rain – eat ice-cream

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i. Meet the Blond

Sometimes when Roxas sat in the park by himself he would almost be able picture himself, a few years younger, laughing it up with his friends. But they'd parted; his friends and him and now he'd spent almost four years in a high school without any of them. He'd lost them, in other words. Lost touch, lost contact, whatever anyone wanted to label it with.

They were gone and he had almost finished high school, living through every day somehow. He'd never realised how horrible loneliness was. He'd forgotten it some time ago, when his relatives had so happily taken him in after his parents had passed away.

But everyone seemed to get sick of Roxas. And Roxas had no clue as to why. His friends ditched him because they thought he thought he was better than them and his cousin had turned out to be a lot more trouble then he had wanted. Things just happened and Roxas couldn't stop them.

Maybe it was the helpless feeling he got sometimes. It forced him to look at himself and pick out his flaws. His best flaws and then he'd start hating himself for those flaws. But wasn't it ridiculous? So Roxas tried to ignore those flaws instead, focusing on his drawings, forgetting about his ex-friends, his cousin, his parents…

The world seemed kinder that way and Roxas felt less breakable.

Or maybe it was the fact that Roxas really couldn't get over things quickly. He had such a horrible habit of clinging to people and somehow he managed to cling without them noticing until one day it would dawn on them. And things usually fell apart after that.

He wasn't, rather he didn't, want to hold on to people and things and nouns like that but really, personality was personality and it was a hard thing to change. He didn't give a fuck about what those stupid books said; it was hard to change.

So Oprah and Dr. Phil could go to hell. They had no idea what they were babbling about. No fucking idea.

That's why boyfriends were a no go and friends just didn't happen any more. He liked to think he didn't care but who was he kidding? Certainly not himself.

That was another problem. Roxas was too fucking perceptive for his own fucking good. And that always landed him in trouble. With the people around him. Especially since most of those people around him were around his age and were walking, talking, breathing stereotypes who loved to think themselves all that. But that was high school for you.

He also liked to think that he was getting along just fine. Except that when he tried to sleep at night he found his cousin crawling in with him and he felt cold hands sliding all over his body. And when he got to school the morning of, every single person would walk past him as if he didn't exist.

Maybe he was in a bit of a pickle. Just maybe.

But Roxas had always liked pickles. So maybe it wasn't a pickle but rather another fruit…or were pickles vegetables...?

He had never really liked pears. So pears it was. He was stuck in a bit of a pear.

A really long, hard, utterly gross…pear.

But that's life for you.

--

Roxas's eyes skimmed over the sketch, and his heart sank. It wasn't good at all. He had never seen such a horrid sketch come out of the tip of one of his pencils. He ripped the page right out of the book, throwing it off to the side. It landed without a sound and Roxas tried again, not noticing that he'd made a small pile of balled up paper on the ground. Apparently every picture was horrid.

Roxas had never found it so hard to sketch a vase before but somehow that one petal on that one yellow tulip was just being anal with him. Roxas almost believed that some force of nature was fucking with him and altering where the petal was every two seconds so that every time Roxas finished the sketch it didn't look right.

The urge to shove the vase off of the table and walk away was strong in the front of his mind but Roxas pushed it back just a little, enough to get him sketching again. It was sitting right behind the thought that was saying, a little to the right, yes, right there. Make the line there.

Which really meant that Roxas would have that vase lying on the ground, shattered into tiny little pieces in a few minutes if his sketch turned out just as awful as the last few. (By last few he really meant eighteen.)

Roxas had never noticed how quickly his hand moved across a page when he was concentrating and he was suddenly seeing it. The flick in his wrist, the movement of his hand up and down, right to left across the page, the small amount of pressure he exerted on his pencil as he drew. It was positively enchanting.

Roxas couldn't help the little smile that formed on his lips, loving the feeling of the paper underneath the edge of his right hand. Loving the feeling of being incontrol.

He didn't get to feel that a hell of a lot lately, not since high school had started. But it didn't matter. He still had art. And it worked out just fine, sketching, painting, drawing his time away. Because when he saw a finished painting, colour filling every corner of the canvas Roxas felt the accomplishment rise into his throat and sit there, leaving him utterly speechless.

He always felt awed by the end, always wondering how the hell he had put something 3D onto something 2D. It was a strange feeling and he loved it. In fact it was because of that feeling that Roxas would never stop until he reached perfection. Because life was good when there was a pencil in his hand.

He glanced up at the vase, quickly adding on the little features, the sketch looking nothing like the vase but more a blur of lines and grey. Except that Roxas could see the vase in the curve of the line, in the lighter shade of grey from the left where the light shone down on the actual vase. He could see it. The tulips at the top, toppling out of the vase, with only a few more days to live.

Sucked to be flowers though, especially the really nice ones. They got picked, stuck in water and were left to be admired but they would eventually die. It was like they were being murdered.

Roxas looked at his sketch eyes staring at the petal of the tulip he was having trouble with; he looked back at the vase and back down. It was perfect. It was finally perfect. All the shades and the shapes and the lines. They were all perfect. Roxas smiled softly to himself, closing his sketchbook and shoving it into his messenger bag. He stuffed his pencil and eraser into his jean's pocket and swung the strap of his bag over his shoulder. Giving the vase a final look Roxas headed for the door, sweeping down to pick up his mess of forgotten papers. He threw the papers into the recycling bin and walked out of the empty classroom. Lunch was always nice in the art's classroom.

There was no one there ignoring him.

--

His feet padded down the hallway of the empty house. He liked it when he was alone in the house, with no relatives to be wary of. He loved his relatives — don't get him wrong—but his cousin. He couldn't survive in the house with his cousin. Which was why he worked at the small bookshop at the corner of Howler Street and Davidson Lane; it was the perfect excuse to come home late.

Besides, he liked the bookshop. The owner was kind and was possibly the closet thing Roxas had to a friend. His conversations with Laxaeus, the owner, were always amusing and they were partially the reason why Roxas hadn't given up on life altogether. He would smack himself mentally whenever he thought that he was worthless. If there was one thing he did know, it was that thinking little of himself wasn't going to get him anywhere.

Self-hatred was a no-no. And a rather large waste of time.

It had been more an issue when he was younger. Rather when he was going through high school all by himself without any of his friends. He was almost out of the house. Almost. He'd been accepted at the University of Twilight and was planning to live on campus, away from his cousin. Who, thankfully, was going of to some university on Destiny Island itself and Roxas didn't need to worry.

He didn't need to go to bed hoping his cousin wouldn't crawl in afterward so he could enjoy himself.

It hadn't been such a problem until high school. Then Roxas didn't know what happened but Will just went crazy and something obviously snapped and suddenly Roxas was the only way to get the frustration out. Or at least Roxas's body.

Which Roxas found to be disgusting.

He'd get over it though. Eventually. He'd try to erase it from his memories, like he had his parents and friends. Maybe it would be easier once he was gone.

He'd miss Laxaeus but Roxas had this small hope somewhere deep down that University would be a new start. University would be his big break and he'd get to meet a few people. A few people he could possibly call friends.

That's all he really wanted. Nothing more. And he promised he'd try and give them as much room as possible. He'd try. He'd try his very hardest.

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Author's Notes: ...Review?