This Time, It's Personal

Understandably, Roxas was never into love-hate relationships. With Axel, he reckoned he made a damn huge exception. (Not your typical Valentine's Day AkuRoku)

Author's note: Oy. Qwerty says hello. And, and, and… warning? Very crackish. :D Also, major references to a whole load of random snap. See if you can get any.

In retrospect, he actually had a pretty good day.

Well, mostly.

He had woken up at the crack of dawn, as soon as the first bubblebirds had started to twitter elatedly in the lemon willow tree by his bedroom window and did hardcore pinwheels through the pastel purple sky. In that one waking moment, he silently reckoned it would be an awesome day, especially since he had awoken to the perfect, soft, delightful warmth emanating from the body sleeping beside him half hidden underneath the covers of the relatively small, squeezy bed. His grainy, half-lidded eyes had found his lightly-snoring companion in the semi-darkness and he had slowly, affectionately angled his neck and kissed him on the forehead. Then, he got up to get ready for the day's humdrum activities.

He'd met the gang on the hill by the rainbow fountain early in the morning. The Grassless Hill. Their usual spot. Or at least what used to be their usual spot, before graduation and The Split. Olette had given him a bouquet of eight roses from her very own self-tended garden (in which everything grew wild and housed venomous snakes and possibly wareleopards, too). Rich kid Hayner had graciously bought him a Gold Seat ticket to the official screening of Final Fantasy: Aerith's Haunting, a packet of Marlboro Lites and a tube of glow-in-the-dark multi-purpose lubricant ("For emergencies," he'd said seriously, with a badly-timed wink that earned him a whack on the head from Olette). Pence handed him a large box of Cocoa Nut Delites and informed him that he had paid for a month's supply of them to be delivered to his doorstep. Naminé had written him a card made out of paper towels with an endearing note that said: "Dear Roxy. Lalala. Love like winter, honey bunny! I gots your munny! :)" Because it was Naminé, it was inevitable that Roxas would come to believe the note to be some kind of forewarning. He kept a close eye on his wallet after that. Oh, and the sickly sweet girl had also handmade him some mouth-watering (but pretty much inedible) apple-cinnamon cakes.

This odd bout of generosity from his long-time childhood buddies came about because Roxas Reagan was the most popular nineteen-year-old teenage kid on the block in this dinky part of the Kingdom of Twilight (ULTRAVIOLET District 813-Y401), and he had more admirers than was legally healthy. Some say he attracted pink mosquitoes and pesky black magicians, especially that sinister Vivi Ornitier fellow from the even dinkier X-RAY District 101-3M0Z.

Also, it was Valentine's Day.

But in the world in which they lived—a largely fluffy puppy world where Demons shook hands with Angels and gave them strawberry-flavoured condoms for their birthdays with suggestive grins on their faces—Valentine's Day hardly had any meaning at all. Well, that was if you didn't count the fact that it was a special day founded by the fortieth president of the Kingdom of Twilight and was unique to this planet within our ever-expanding universe. On this day seventeen years ago, a beautiful man named Vincent Valentine had heroically vanquished the Dark Faerie Queen just before said queen could bed aforementioned president and rule the world with evil babies that held the power to darkness.

All pretence and moronic folk tales aside, Valentine's Day was just that. A day. February 14th. A bright and sunny Saturday in this case. And it was like any other day, except someone had started running a rumour and patented the fact that V-Day was much like Friday the 13th. Only worse. Much, much worse.

But Roxas didn't believe in that myth until much later in the day (sometime in the afternoon), when he returned to his pristine three-room apartment from his little social event with his old posse, eight blue roses, tube of lube and box of Cocoa Nut Delites in hand, outdoor theatre ticket to FF:AH and pack of Malboros in his jeans pocket, apple-cinnamon cake crumbs embedded in his blond hair and Naminé's weird V-Day card clenched between his teeth (which was now slowly dissolving in his saliva).

He thundered towards his room as soon as he kicked his shoes off, ready to dump all his newly acquired paraphernalia onto his bed and have a nice, warm soak in a bath full of orange-scented potpourri and neon pink-hued soap bubbles. Instead, the stuff he was holding in his hands? He dropped them to the floor in horror as soon as he reached the entryway to his room. His jaw plummeted in the direction of the ground, almost completely unhinging itself, and Naminé's card fluttered off a short distance and landed behind him somehow.

Roxas stared at the mess in his room from the narrow doorway, his eyebrows riding up, and up, and almost flying off his face entirely.

What lay before him was the most gut-wrenching thing he'd ever set his not-so-innocent eyes on. Well, the most gut-wrenching thing since that day he brought his brother to Theme Park Oblivion and the retarded brunet had puked all over his not-very-waterproof sneakers after that Viking Ship ride. Case in point: Roxas' usually-orderly room was in utter chaos. Utter goddamn chaos. And he was gaping into it with a madly twitching eye and a clenched fist by his side. He wasn't going into shock so much as he was plotting a murder. Shredded paper was scattered all over the floor, stacks of books were toppled from their place on his previously-immaculate desk, distinct ink stains were visible on almost every flat surface and broken crayons lay innocently on the carpet by his bed. Hideous, ugly scratch marks could be seen on his deliberately ruined CD collection… and, and, and his underwear was everywhere—dangling precariously on each of the four ceiling fan prongs, hanging halfway out the open window, strewn in tattered shreds on his unmade bed…

How the blue hell…?

No way. The bastard had not just gone through his damn underwear drawer. No. Way. In. Hell.

In his blind rage, the blond turned on the spot, facing the hallway. And then, he let rip a sharp scream.

"AXEL!"

He was greeted with a long moment of quiet. Even the stiffening silence seemed startled and perturbed by this sudden, pop singer-esque outburst. Then, as if late for his cue, Demyx, one of the creeps Roxas shared his rented apartment with, came running into view, a panicked look filling his face, a black toothbrush tucked behind one ear, violin bow brandished in one hand. "Roxy Reagan! What's wrong? Did someone pour soy sauce into your shampoo bottle a… gain…?" Demyx trailed off when was near enough to notice the state his friend's room was in. "Oh…wow," he breathed, awe overriding his previous expression of alarm and distress. "Awesome."

Oh wow awesome?

Roxas was not amused. "WHERE IS HE? THE BASTARD DESTROYED MY ROOM. HE – DESTROYED – IT. AND HE WILL PAY DEARLY."

Demyx looked a little sheepish. Or maybe he was just playing dumb. "Er. Who? Axel?"

"YES, AXEL."

Now, Demyx managed to look thoughtful (quite a feat, what with the army face paint he was currently wearing distorting the seriousness of his expression), reaching up to grab his toothbrush and sticking it in his mouth contemplatively. "Weeeell," he mumbled, swinging his violin bow around and nearly poking Roxas' eye out. "Gee, Roxy-Ree. Ax... er, he kinda… left. A few moments ago."

Silence.

Silence.

A little more silence.

Roxas was, at this point, quite obviously nigh incredulous. "HE WHAT?! BUT HE WAS HERE THIS MORNING. IN BED. WITH ME."

Rarrrgh. Shit.

Demyx raised an eyebrow at this and was about to say something. Probably something to do with the potential health hazards of sleeping with a sleazeball like—

"WHERE'D HE GO?"

"Stop screaming and calm down, man!" Demyx exclaimed, fingers pulling at his mohawk.

Roxas just glared like he wanted his friend to explode into a trillion spherical cubes of cotton candy. So Demyx backed off a little and stuttered. "W-well, uh, Cuh-Cloud drove him up to VISIBLE District 7H3-F1X. Apparently Ax looked a little sick, was throwin' up and stuff. Bet you it was 'cuz he ate the two-week-old barramundi spaghetti Strifey reheated this afternoon for lunch. Anyway, he's gone now. Hopefully the poor guy doesn't need to be hospitalised or anythin'."

Roxas blinked. Blinked again. And then he glanced back at his ruined room, from the damaged CDs (oh no, his new Jesse Em album! GODDAMMIT), to his tattered Calvin Klein briefs. And then, as though all forms of compassion had evaporated, the blond started to seethe again. Oh, that bastard didn't know how lucky he was to be away right now.

Demyx shook his head, reading his friend's mind like a telepathic, wish-granting sea unicorn. "Don't worry, Roxy Reagan. Hopefully, he'll be back by dinnertime, if he isn't dead from the spag. You can, uh, wring his neck, or whatever, as soon as you see him."

"Trust me, it'll be grievous bodily harm this time," Roxas snarled, kicking Pence's box of Cocoa Nut Delites several feet into his room. It hit his bed with a crackle-thump and spilled Cocoa Nut cookies everywhere.

Demyx looked semi-amused at this for awhile. Then, he spotted something on the ground and squawked excitedly.

"Sweet, a tube of toothpaste!"

It was a couple of hours before dinner. Demyx was in the kitchenette, busily preparing a Chocolate Moose. And Roxas was still fuming.

Apparently, the only thing that hadn't been wrecked in his room was the little photoframe on his bedside table, next to his upturned fish lamp and flattened box of anti-anxiety pills. The photograph in the green-blue sea creature themed frame was taken two years ago, the year he'd been seventeen and had first met Axel. Oh, the two of them had hit off almost immediately as soon as they'd laid eyes on each other (somewhere down some shady alley in THETA District 1-L0V3-U). Despite what Roxas thought now, he couldn't deny that it was a day of pure awesomeness. In the picture, him and Axel, plus that goofball Demyx, were posing dramatically with huge smiles. Roxas was grinning, bunny ears behind his unsuspecting head. Demyx's laugh was frozen in place. Even Axel was smiling. And it was a cute smile. In a freaky, green-eyed-stare sort of way.

Roxas sighed, looked away and righted his fish lamp. He could never stay angry at Axel for long. Damn.

Bending over to start clearing his floor of the broken non-toxic, apple-flavoured crayons, he recalled how he introduced Axel to his step-mom those couple of years ago. He'd brought Axel home during dinner one night to see his family, and after much reluctance and scepticism, Mrs. Reagan had accepted Axel for what he was, weird permanent markings under his eyes and all. She could see how much Roxas liked Axel, and she had no (noticeable) qualms with her queer (for lack of a better word) son having such a keen attachment. And his twin brother, Sora, didn't mind Axel in the least, either. In fact, Sora thought Axel looked cool ("in that scruffy, badass kind of way"). So it was okay for Roxas to have Axel over and, well, alone in his room with him… so long as he kept his door open. It was a necessity. Duh. Mrs. Reagan had insisted that she wanted to know of any and every kind of business that went on within the room.

That kind of changed after Roxas moved out of home at eighteen and decided to split the rent of an apartment with a couple of near-strangers.

Roxas discovered then how sly, annoying, impish, ill-behaved and immature the rat bastard could actually be.

Even now, during dinner, Axel would steal food off Roxas' plate discreetly when he thought Roxas wasn't actually looking (usually meat or fish or mashed potatoes, because Ax didn't like vegetables and figured anything green and leafy should suffer the wrath of hellhounds). It was exasperating the first few times. But then, to Roxas, the gesture turned into something endearing, almost charming. It was… adorable, the way Axel would pick at Roxas' plate when Roxas had his head turned and was say, doing something like arguing with Cloud about who had the biggest and/or longest… sticks. Or whatever.

Oh, without a doubt, Roxas loved Axel.

Most of the time.

Kind of.

Maybe.

Yes…?

The fact that he liked it when Axel slept with him in the same bed should mean he did, right?

Oh fine, Axel was fucking cute. Especially when they were alone in Roxas' room and he would stop whatever he was doing and just stare at Roxas with those intense green eyes whenever Roxas was changing out of his clothes and getting naked to get ready for a shower.

Exhaling disconsolately, Roxas shook his head and gathered his shredded underwear and dumped the ones he could no longer use into his waste paper bin.

Fine. He would forgive the stupidhead. But he wanted to know why the asshole had decided to comb through his room as though searching for one of Madame Reno's—the landlady's—ticking time bombs. Not that said stupidhead would even know how the hell to diffuse one of those, anyways.

Aye, forgiveness was divine, was it not?

Roxas sighed again and reached into his pocket, tapping out a cig from Hayner's Marlboro pack.

Then at last, after a few insufferable moments of cleaning up later, he found out quite belatedly that the sea-salt flavoured lollipop stash he kept under the extremely loose tile under his bed was empty of said sea-salt flavoured lollipops! Not only that, it was littered with the neon blue wrappers that those delectable sweetmeats came in!

No…

So that was why his room looked like a war zone.

No, no, no…

He was searching for my candy stash! Roxas shouted inwardly at no one in particular. And he found it! And ate everything!

Roxas was, to put it mildly, quite devastated.

And he decided that he would kill Axel the first moment he set eyes on him. And execute a painful death by way of his phallic, yellow Struggle bat.

The black BMW (customised rego # C10UD-R-1337) pulled up onto the driveway and parked itself into one of the empty lots by the bay. The engine died. Roxas was leaning against some random stranger's 19-seater Toyota, waiting. His eyes reflected the last rays of the setting sun dangerously. He smiled menacingly when he spied Axel fidgeting in the backseat of the car, his wide green eyes darting left, right, left, anywhere but at Roxas, whom he could see quite clearly through the half-open window. And really, he did look quite sickly. And nervous.

Very nervous.

Roxas grinned a devilish grin. Oh yes, the bastard knew what was coming alright. He knew. And he feared.

(Or that's what Roxas sorely hoped, anyways.)

In his shaky hand, he held the broken CD cover of his newest, dearly loved album (Jesse Em's Nobody's Key). Axel had somehow managed to break it in half.

The back door of the BMW opened, courtesy of Cloud, who was being very nice to the sick bastard. Too nice. And Roxas was already there, ready to start a goddamn catfight.

He lunged at Axel as soon Cloud stepped back in impassive alarm. But Axel, blessed with super speed, was way quicker. He bolted out the car and streaked down the street, legs a blur.

"OH, NO YOU DON'T."

Roxas threw the wrecked polyvinyl CD cover in his hand at the escaping ginger tabby. It clocked the cat soundly on the head.

"THAT WAS FOR EATING ALL MY CANDY, BITCH."

Axel just got up, shook himself, and kept running in the opposite direction.

"COME BACK AND FACE ME LIKE A MAN, YOU STUPID CAT!"

Axel hissed back angrily, narrowly avoided being run over by a speeding bicycle, and ran off into the sunset.

Roxas was murderous.

He'll be back, he told himself. He always comes back.

"Yeah. And I'll be waiting," he spat, earning a very odd look from his good mate, Cloud.

He stormed back into the house.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, DAHLINGZ. 8DDD

/flings rainbow-coloured roses in your general direction and feeds you Demyx's chocolate moose thing.

Thanks for reading.

Review? :)