Authors' Note: Some of you may or may not be aware of the fact that Casey V. and I have been busting our brains cranking out a Halloween-themed fanfic this month. Well, regardless of whether or not you knew, the Mako Shark and I are pleased to inform you that we have finished this beast of a story, clocking in at 32,000+ words written in three coffee-laden weekends. Now we've just gotta get started on that Christmas fic...

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts is owned by SquareEnix, Disney, and others who aren't the Mako Shark and the Pilot Fish.

Freaks and Fools, by Mako Shark and Pilot Fish of the Aquarium

Roxas figured it was a good thing he had the foresight to line the entirety of the dining room floor with newspaper before they even left for the pumpkin patch. If newspaper could defy gravity, or had adhesive properties, it would probably have benefited if he had also lined the walls, ceiling, windows, furniture, and the cat as well, but Roxas was only human after all.

After fifteen minutes of careful preparation, Sora had had enough and waved for Roxas to hurry it up already, shoving a Swiss Army knife into his backpack before opening the door. "Let's go before all the good ones are taken!"

They'd waited until the last minute to journey to the pumpkin patch, busy with mid-trimester exams and projects, and now Sora was anxious about finding something that was big enough to really be worth carving, Something that would sit on his porch and wait for trick-or-treaters to walk up and say "now that's a jack o' lantern." He'd been talking about as much for the last two weeks, practically non-stop, colorful descriptions of perfectly round orange pumpkins, ten feet tall, big enough to swallow five-year-old candymongers whole. Sora's imagination was vivid.

Roxas, however, Aerith's car keys jingling in his pocket, was anxious about finding pumpkin seeds crusted to the light fixture two months from now. Newspaper crinkled under his feet as he considered the door, and the impatient way his little brother hovered in it, hopping from one foot to the other. "Right, Sora. Because they're all going to disappear in the next five minutes."

Sora, unable to think of a precedent right on the spot, simply scowled and readjusted the strap on his shoulder. "They could, what do you know?" He swung the door back and forth with his free hand, rocking on his heels. "Can we just go? It's not like we're making bombs or anything." He threw in a pout for that little bit extra, just to get Roxas to agree that maybe two layers of old newspaper was enough to protect the linoleum of the dining room. "We can mop up anything that misses the paper too, right?"

In Sora's hands, anything could be a bomb. Water could spontaneously combust and Roxas would barely be surprised enough to blink. "We?" He straightened anyway, tossed the last sheet somewhere in the center and dug the keys out, palmed the bill Aerith left along with them on his nightstand, because Roxas was the older one, the responsible one. Things didn't magically become bombs in his hands. "Fine, go get in the car."

Sora let out a "whoop!" of exuberance, throwing a fist-pump into the air for good measure before spinning around on his heels and sprinting outside for the family car in the driveway. Roxas found him there after locking the house, in front of the passenger side door, rocking on his heels again and looking up at the clouds rolling across the sky.

Roxas drove Aerith's car in a state of forced calm, hands at ten and two, needle carefully on the speed limit, repeatedly stomping down the teenage instinct to go a few miles over, run that yellow light, take that curve a bit faster, spin the wheel one-handed. It was Aerith's car; he didn't dare bring the pristine Forester home with a bruised fender, or with a speeding ticket in his hand.

Roxas didn't cause her trouble. He waited patiently in the turn lane, listening to Sora huff and pout from the passenger seat for not daring to take a chance at a dodgy opening, until traffic cleared and he turned onto the little rutted dirt lane, hand-painted signs pointing to the U-Pick Pumpkin Patch.

Sora visibly tried his best to reign himself in while Roxas took the safe route, compensating with an imaginary gas pedal, fingers twitching to yank the wheel over and pass that old man. When Roxas finally eased the car into a parking space nearly a full lot away from the pumpkins to ensure that no cars were on either side to scratch the paint, Sora threw open the door and ran across the tarmac, dodging through parked cars like they were part of a maze.

"Come on, Roxas!"

Roxas took his time, sighing like a put-upon parent because some days that's essentially what he was, yelling out reminders to watch out for cars, like they were going any faster than ten miles an hour. It wasn't that he was uptight, like Sora seemed to think; he was the responsible one. Someone had to be.

It wasn't that he wasn't excited, either. Roxas just manifested his excitement in more discreet ways, with careful thought and planning, time laid out for the morning specifically to pick out a pumpkin for himself, and when they got them back home and on the newspaper, he'd carefully pick out a stencil and spend an hour or so carving out something on the shell of his jack o' lantern.

Sora could stand to wait, and he would. He had something approaching patience, when necessary. So long as he got to pick out a perfect pumpkin, that is.

Once they were out of the parking lot, Roxas kept one eye on Sora, who was mostly a head of spiked hair and a moogle backpack bobbing up and down among the rows of dusty green squash vines, dodging between other patrons and their broods of offspring, flitting from one potential jack o' lantern to the next like a kid on Christmas morning who couldn't decide which present to open first.

Roxas grabbed a pair of clippers from the booth and wandered the rows with hands in his pockets, checking each pumpkin for size, color, and symmetry. Half a smirk on his face, waiting for the inevitable cheer that would come, halfway across the garden plot, when Sora found the biggest, roundest pumpkin available.

It came approximately five minutes later, with an exuberant, "YES!" loud and triumphant enough to catch the attention of everyone present, followed a moment later by, "Roxas, I found one!" as though that needed to be specified.

The moment Sora did his pumpkin-victory-dance, Roxas abandoned his search, leaving a mental bookmark in the third row where there were two promising candidates, and went to fetch a wheelbarrow. Sora was in the second to last row, hunched protectively over a pumpkin almost half as tall as he was, as though someone else would come along and try to take it—and attempting to saw through a vine as thick as his wrist with his Swiss army knife. "Holy fuck. That thing's bigger than you."

"Is not! I can get it home just fine," Sora insisted, frowning when he pulled the knife away to find he'd maybe cut through about a fourth of the vine's width. "I think this might break my knife."

"Here." Roxas sighed and practically climbed onto the pumpkin to help out, and after some awkward grappling with the clippers, both of them squeezing the handle in tandem, the vine finally gave way. Getting the monster into the wheelbarrow was an entirely different issue, however, and took both of them, and two dads from nearby pumpkin-hunting families, to get it off the ground.

Roxas eyed the size of the thing, once it was settled in the wheelbarrow and Sora was happily propelling it out of the patch, and cast a dubious stare at the price list posted at the booth. He frowned, fingering the bill in his pocket, and went back to row three, clipping off the smaller of the two he'd found. It was just fine for his purposes, and Sora didn't need to know.

He paused en route just in time to see Sora nearly collide with a little girl, laughing nervously and waving at her frightened mother. He rolled his eyes and waited until Sora looked up at him, sheepish, teeth worrying his lower lip, and mouthed, very clearly, "SLOW DOWN," then pointed to the booth. Sora lived in a constant state of Now, everything done in immediacy and exuberance, because if he didn't it would all disappear. Roxas lived in a constant state of safety and security for the same reason.

Things disappeared all the time.

The aisles were starting to clog as the day got later, and by the time Roxas worked his way out of the patch Sora had left the wheelbarrow with the clerk and was flitting around the booth ogling the other merchandise; weathered stalks of corn tied into bundles, bushels of miniature squash, small round sugar pumpkins for baking, and then, just as the clerk nodded and rang up their sale, he crowed and flailed his arms over a basket of homemade candy corn.

Roxas frowned at the price, and at the total on the clerk's farm-dusty register, and sighed. "Get a small bag."

Sora looked back at him, lips pursed uncertainly as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "You sure?" he asked, even as his fingers twitched next to the dispenser of small, clear bags.

"Just one. A small one. SMALL, Sora."

Sora scowled again. "I know what small means, Roxas."

"All evidence to the contrary."

Sora reached his hand out over one of the larger bags just to be contrary, watching for Roxas's reaction. "What? My pumpkin is just fine." He rolled his eyes and snatched one of the smallest bags of candy corn, tossing it over.

Watching the clerk count back his change, Roxas grit his teeth behind his lips and hoped Aerith wasn't hoping for more back. Sora was happy, though, and that was usually more than enough to placate her. And Roxas, too, for that matter. He sighed, candy corn stuffed in one pocket and pumpkin cradled in one arm, and left the booth to chase down his little brother before he plowed over any cars in the parking lot.

"Hurry up, Roxas! I want to get mine done before Riku sees it."

And really, that was enough to divorce any of Sora's concerns with the real world. Roxas jogged the rest of the way to the car and unlocked the hatch, and between the two of them they managed to half-lift, half-slide the pumpkin from the wheelbarrow to the trunk. Roxas sat his own pumpkin in the back seat, where it was in no danger of being crushed by Sora's behemoth. While Sora returned the wheelbarrow (under stern orders not to run) he sat in the driver's seat, radio on low, and wondered how they were going to get the thing from the trunk to the porch, let alone into the kitchen. Roxas figured he really shouldn't humor him as much as he did.

It was Halloween, though. Mom's favorite holiday. When Sora climbed back in, Roxas tossed him the candy corn, and started driving.

Sora ducked back into the car and caught the bag of candy corn Roxas tossed to him, buckling up his seatbelt while Roxas pulled out of their parking space and started driving home. Sora's tongue stuck out in concentration as he figured out which way to unravel the twist tie holding the bag closed. When he deciphered the puzzle of paper-wrapped wire, he tossed it aside and dug his fingers into the candy within, pulling out a few pieces and popping them into his mouth so he could suck on them slowly. Once they were reduced to a sugary goo, Sora smacked his lips in appreciation and offered the bag to Roxas. "Want some?"

Roxas's eyes remained fixed on the road ahead of him as he shook his head, only a little distracted by the car ahead of them stopping suddenly and turning on the right blinker for a turn at the last second. "Nah. I'm not really a fan of candy corn."

Sora hummed, swallowing the grainy sweetness and digging into the bag for a second helping. "Thanks," he said simply, selecting a few particularly large pieces. More for him to savor; the good candy corn only came once a year, after all.

"Dork," Roxas muttered without malice.

Sora just grinned around another mouthful, chomping down on the candy this time until it stuck to his teeth in pulpy bits. He stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back in the passenger seat, staring out at the road ahead as he waited for Roxas to drive the car home like he was practicing for grandparenthood. It wasn't until three stoplights later that he frowned and leaned forward in his seat, cocking his head toward the sound system. "Are you… listening to Celine Dion?"

"WHAT." Roxas turned the radio up loud enough to hear it properly, made a face and blindly slapped the five button, which was programmed with his own station for the occasions he drove the Forester. Stopping at the next light, he exchanged a look with Sora. "Aerith's car."

"Of course." Sora's smirk was a bit hampered by a cheekful of candy. Roxas had just enough time to cuff him over the head before the light changed, the impact jolting Sora forward so he nipped his tongue with the tip of his teeth. "Gah! Roxas!" Sora jabbed his fingers into his brother's ribs.

Roxas hunched forward, hands clamping harder onto the wheel. "Gah, driving," he corrected, briefly removing one hand from its steadfast position in order to blindly push away Sora's face.

Sora pried his brother's hand off of his head and shoved it away, laughing. "Then get both of your hands back on the wheel, you douche."

"Brat."

"Jerk." Sora prepared for his third mouthful of candy corn and ducked out of the way when Roxas took another swipe at his head before turning onto their street. He leaned forward in his seat and chewed slowly, perusing the surrounding houses as the neighborhood came to life in the early morning.

The first house on the right, the one with the shiny new siding and the manicured lawn was Kairi's; her dad hired out annoying landscapers that dropped in to fix up the yard and crack dirty jokes once a week. Second house on the left was Cloud and Riku's, plain brick ranch, no bells or whistles, a lump of black and red on the lawn among drifts of orange leaves. Sora's eyebrows drew together in a frown, and out of the corner of his eye he watched Roxas do the same, attention hovering just a bit too long before returning to the road. Olette's place was right across the street, neat and tidy, postage-stamp lawn lined with military rows of pansies—nothing out of place.

Aerith's house—their home, Sora still had to correct himself once in awhile—was right next door, simple cream-colored, old fashioned, two story affair surrounded by a lush but simple garden, a few late peonies blooming white and pink around the porch. As Roxas pulled into the driveway, Sora's gaze strayed further down the road to houses that were older, less tended, less appealing. The one two houses down from Cloud's was in particular need of repair, paint peeling, screen door rusting and loose, habitually squeaking in the wind. A bit further was an old double-wide on a lot mostly covered in gravel, outdated curtains in the windows, split up down the middle to form a duplex: Yuffie and Leon's place.

At the very end of the cul-de-sac was an old but strangely optimistic little house, moss stains on the lower walls, paint just starting to chip, warm glow eternally present in the windows, and that was where Pence lived. Right next door to Hayner's, whose low brown ranch was only notable by the fact that there were never any cars in the driveway except on a Saturday night. The house next to Hayner's seemed to be shoved into the neighborhood almost as an afterthought, converted from an old trailer, small and compact and stationed length-wise between the yards on either side, with a few patches of wildflowers scattered here and there amongst the weeds: Naminé's. And finally two houses over, next door to Roxas and Sora's place, was Demyx's, the only other two-story in the neighborhood. Most of the structure was taken up by the three-car garage, but the family car was usually parked in the driveway—when it wasn't absent altogether.

Sora's eyes returned to the body sprawled out on Cloud and Riku's front lawn, craning his neck as Roxas pulled into their driveway. His eyebrows drew together in a frown, and he leaned forward against the side of the door so he could get a better look through the window. "Looks like Axel slept in Riku's yard. Again," he observed, mouth turning downward in a scowl as his gaze flashed briefly to the squeaking screen door to the right. He popped another handful of candy into his mouth and chewed pensively, checking for any signs of life behind the unscreened windows of Axel's house.

He heard Roxas issue a sound that was a lot like "tuh," then turned around in time to watch his brother cut the engine, trademark frown in place as he opened his door and pocketed the keys. "Whatever."

Sora watched his brother exit the car, objections on the tip of his tongue, but he bit them back and shook his head, opening his own door and stepping out onto the driveway. It was better to keep things like this to themselves, safer not to think about what it had been like with those before Aerith, the ones who spent the state's money on beer while they complained about compensation, the woman with the time-out chair and the belt. Instead, Sora closed the car door and went around to the trunk, waiting for Roxas to throw open the hatch. "Want to invite him over to help scoop out the pumpkins?" he asked, remembering just in time not to lean against the freshly washed car as he looked at Axel's sleeping form one last time. To be honest, he wasn't so sure he wanted to share his pumpkin-gutting experience, but he was pretty sure that Cloud would try to rope Axel into raking leaves if he stayed out on his lawn much longer.

"No." Roxas pulled the hatch open and let out a breath, threw a look over his shoulder at the boy on the grass before dropping his tone so it was less biting. "Just… let him sleep. The last thing I need is to try and fend him off and carve at the same time." He left the hatch open, tapping it twice and smiled at Sora, leaving him to the behemoth in the trunk while he ducked back to collect his own pumpkin from the back seat.

Sora paused in front of the trunk, eyes darting from Roxas bent over his pumpkin to Axel rolling over onto his side on the grass, and took a moment to picture the resulting scene of Axel hanging around his brother while he handled carving tools. "Well, at least we have the newspaper," he said under his breath, snorting in amusement as he turned to look at his monster of a pumpkin. Right… the pumpkin. His mouth settled into something that was more of a straight line as he puzzled just how he was going to lug the giant squash to the front door. After a few moments of studying the bright, orange globe, Sora smiled in triumph. "Hey, Roxas," he called out to his brother, who was just approaching the lawn, "help me get this onto the ground without smashing it?"

Roxas halted, hesitated for a second, then sighed in resignation and put the house keys in his pocket, setting his own pumpkin down on the driveway. "Okay, fine." He walked back to the trunk, expression set in a way that showed Sora he'd been set to leave him all alone to the mutant in the car. Very slowly and carefully, muscles straining and palms slipping on the waxy surface, they managed to lower the pumpkin onto the driveway without assuring its untimely destruction. Roxas groaned and wiped his forehead while Sora grasped the stem of the gourd and guided it onto its side with a few careful tugs and shakes. He looked up from his efforts briefly to catch Roxas gauging the distance from their position on the driveway to the front door, resting on the five steps of the porch as his lips issued an almost-soundless "fuck."

Sora grinned up at his brother, then proceeded to gently roll his pumpkin up to the dreaded porch. "At least we only have to worry about these, right?" He glanced up over his shoulder to take in Roxas's frown, looked back down at the size of the pumpkin at the bottom of the narrow but steep steps, then scratched the back of his neck as he stood up, wishing for the millionth time—at least—that he'd thought things through a little better. "Sorry." He sighed, lifting his hands in a shrug and gesturing widely to include the scene in front of them as he tried to come up with something positive. "I mean… it's not like it'll be this heavy when all the stuff inside is scooped out, right?"

"One would hope." Roxas sighed again and dragged his feet over to Sora's side, crouching down with him to help push the pumpkin up the porch steps. After all, now that it was bought and just in front of their door, there was nothing to do but follow through. About halfway up the steps, Roxas grunted, "I don't know why I'm being so damn nice, you're the one who insisted you could bring it home." He gave the pumpkin one particularly enthused shove, preparing for the maneuver up over the last step. "Dork."

"And I can." Sora issued a grunt of his own, putting his weight into his shoulders as he helped push the squash up onto the landing. "With your help," he added, his grin smug as he stepped back and wiped the sweat off of his forehead, waiting for Roxas to unlock the front door, or possibly cuff the back of his head again.

"Presumptive," Roxas huffed, nudging the pumpkin with his toe and shoving Sora without much strength, just enough to rock him back on his heels. He circled the pumpkin to unlock and open the door, holding it wide. "Wheel 'er in."

Sora threw Roxas a sloppy salute, arms still tingling from the strain of lifting, and bent over to roll the pumpkin through the door and onto the carefully placed newspaper—which actually had been a good idea on Roxas's part; having to do his best to clean up the mess and still have Aerith enter the house after a hard day's work with more to do didn't sit well with him. He flipped the pumpkin over so the stem pointed ceiling-ward, then stood up straight and lifted his arms into the air in a 'V' of victory. "All set!" he exclaimed, wide grin on his face.

He lowered his hands onto his shoulders, preparing to get started on the best part of the jack o' lantern ritual. Upon feeling only the fabric of his shirt, his smile wavered. He slid his fingertips up and down his shoulders for good measure, checking to make sure that the usual straps that resided there were indeed missing, and even tried to look at his back. "Shit," he swore, feeling the beginnings of panic settling in his stomach, crawling up toward his throat. "Roxas!"

He ran out of the house to find his brother, thoughts whirling around a moogle backpack that anyone could snatch up and claim at any moment. He realized his fear was probably over-the-top, but it was his backpack and he didn't care. "Roxas!" he shouted, his feet hitting the driveway just as his brother lifted his smaller pumpkin up into his arms again.

Roxas blinked, straightening from the driveway. "What?"

Sora choked up on his words, caught up in anxiety and the realization that he had to look ridiculous right about now. "My backpack," he explained, hopeless; how could he have even left it behind in the first place—he never went anywhere without it.

Roxas rolled his eyes, hefting the pumpkin and turning to the porch. "Damnit, Sora, when are you going to stop dragging that dirty old thing around everywhere?"

Sora was used to the jibes, was no stranger to the nagging from his brother to get rid of the moogle he'd had since he was a little kid, but right now there was only fear and loss and everything that he normally kept bundled up in his safety net that wasn't with him. "Fuck you, Roxas," he snapped and stormed past him down the driveway with every intention of walking all the way back to the pumpkin patch on his own, each step further wounding his pride as he broke down in front of his big brother, who he thought was supposed to understand at least a little better than everyone else, even if maybe Sora was kind of a handful sometimes.

He heard Roxas calling after him, following behind him as he passed the car and continued to walk down the driveway, but by this point he could feel warmth pricking the back of his eyes and he didn't want to be the little baby who cried over a forgotten backpack. Roxas spoke again, his voice softer, probably for the sake of keeping the rest of the neighborhood out of it just as much as it was an apology. "Sora! Come on, let me lock up and we'll go back and get it, okay?"

Sora went down a few more paces, more to ensure that tears weren't going to slip out and embarrass him than anything else, then drew to a stop and cleared his throat. "Fine." He waited a little longer for his throat to feel a little less thick, not wanting it to crack while he spoke. He turned around, eyes fixed on a spot on the driveway a few feet from his shoes. "Sorry." It wasn't like Roxas planned for him to forget his backpack, after all, and he hadn't even gotten his pumpkin through the door yet.

Roxas just took a few deep breaths, sort of tilted his head in a kind of nod, and gestured vaguely. "Yeah, get in the car. I'll be right back."

Sora nodded, walked back up the driveway to the car, keeping his eyes in front of him as he passed Roxas, who just sort of stood there and watched him until he was approaching the bumper before he went to take his pumpkin inside and lock the door. Sora stopped in front of the still-open hatch of the car, and sighed as he watched his brother's retreating back, silently vowing to wash the dishes for him later or something to make up for the events of that morning. Hopefully nobody else in the neighborhood had noticed.

He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself and his dependency on a ragged, mottled, kid's backpack, and reached up to close the hatch so they could get on their way. Just as his fingers wrapped around the handle, his eyes caught on a patch of smudged white, shoved into the corner of the trunk. "Wait, Roxas!" he called out, leaning into the car so he could grab the moogle and wave it up over his head. "It was in the trunk!" He tucked the backpack against his side with one arm, brushed his bangs out of his eyes with the other before closing the hatch, and waited for the eye roll or teasing or whatever came with carrying around a moogle backpack for the better part of his life. "I… um… guess I'm just used to having it on my back." He laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

Roxas stared at him for a quiet moment, then let out a huff, once again hefting the small pumpkin in his arms and tromping up the porch steps. "Come on, dork," he called out behind him. "You have a gigantic-ass pumpkin to carve and I'm not gonna help you."

Sora chewed on his lip, waiting until Roxas was inside before he cracked a smile of relief, and slipped one of the straps of his backpack over his shoulder and bounded back up the driveway and into the house. "Like I'd want you to help me," he retorted once he was inside, closing the door behind him.

"Of course you wouldn't; if I did it might actually look good."

Sora just stuck out his tongue at his brother and dropped down to his knees in front of his pumpkin, backpack still over one arm as he traced a circle around the top of the giant squash with his index finger, estimating the cut he'd make. Roxas already had his supplied lined up neatly on the kitchen table, a pattern of an old-fashioned ghost at the ready. Sora didn't need patterns. Once he was done gauging just how much of the top to take off, he snatched the carving knife from the table and ran the tip of the blade over the surface of the pumpkin before plunging it into the shell, pushing it down deep and sawing around the stem, his tongue between his teeth as he focused on keeping the circle as even as possible.

When the ends met, he yanked off the top and set it aside, then promptly dug his hands as far down as he could into the gooey mass of slime and seeds inside. He pulled out handfuls of stringy pulp and cackled evilly, yelled "pumpkin guts!" and dropped the mess down on the newspaper with a wet, plopping sound.

Roxas made another tch sound from his seat at the kitchen table. "Just keep it on the newspaper, okay?"

Sora issued a noncommittal grunt, digging back into the pumpkin for a second helping and wriggling his fingers so he could feel the cold seeds slip and slide against his skin. Each handful was thrown with a little less care, the pile threatening to reach Roxas's side of their workstation.

"Sora."

The younger of the two paused in his pumpkin massacre, shoulders squaring at Roxas's tone. "Huh?" he said, looking up slowly, eyes flickering briefly over the traveling pile of orange guts on the newspaper.

Roxas threw a pointed look of his own at a clump that landed just a few inches from his shoe. "Reign it in."

Sora's brows drew together, rebellion turning his lips downward just before they tilted up in a sly smirk, and he grabbed a clump of pumpkin innards and dropped it just in front of his brother's shoe, closer than the last bit but still not quite touching. Roxas frowned at this, midway through removing the top of his own pumpkin, pattern traced over the surface in little pinpricks. He looked from the clump, to Sora, to the supply of pumpkin goop, reached in a hand, and flung a glob at Sora's monster squash.

Sora's grin only widened as he watched orange slime slide down the side of his pumpkin, then flashed white teeth at his brother in a mischievous smile before he scooped up a little more with his fingers and plopped it directly on Roxas's hand with a wet squelch.

"Ew." Roxas shook his hand, inadvertently flinging a glob back at Sora, landing on his shoulder with a smack. "Whoops," he laughed, reaching into his own pumpkin again to finish cleaning it out. "Serves you right, brat."

Sora laughed, picking the slime off of his shoulder as best he could. "Gross, you jerk." He let it flop onto the newspaper next to his pumpkin, then went back to hollowing out the rest for carving, settling back into the easy rhythm that came with being brothers. After the inside of the gourd was hollowed out, Sora took a minute to stare at the shell, figuring out where best to cut out the shape he had in mind, then set to work slicing out the eyes, nose, and mouth of his jack o' lantern. He finished his in a fourth of the time it would take Roxas to carve out the spooky-looking ghost, even if he had cut the nose a little to close to the left eye, leaving the pumpkin with a drunken, lazy eye with its crooked-mouth grin.

Just as he was placing the top back on the finished jack o' lantern, half-hearing Roxas's reminder to clean up the mess as he prepared to carry the finished piece out onto the porch, the door opened and Aerith entered, her large, hand-woven bag slung over one arm as she kicked off her shoes in front of the door. "Hey, Aerith!" he called, taking a moment to collect the enormous pile of seeds into something a little neater.

Roxas looked up from his pattern, holding one of his knives aloft. "How was work?"

Aerith set her coat and her bag down on the nearby armchair, taking a moment to stretch her limbs. "Fine," she said, padding into the kitchen. "Just had to cover for Tifa until she could get back from the dentist's. How did the pumpkin hunting go?" She rested her hand on Sora's shoulder, leaning over his head so she could peer at his and Roxas's work. She oohed over Roxas's slowly emerging ghost, and Roxas assured her that the pumpkin was big enough to support the pattern. Her lips twitched in amusement as she took in the elongated left eye of Sora's jack o' lantern. "Nice and classical," she said, tracing the hole with her index finger. "They both look great, guys." She gave Sora's shoulder a pat before retreating further into the kitchen for a glass, filling it with water from the tap. "And that newspaper will make an easy clean-up… this year."

Sora's grin was sheepish as he joined Aerith in front of the sink to rinse off his carving knife. "Roxas found a bunch under the sink," he said, glad that his brother had the foresight to prevent last year's pumpkin fiasco—nobody could figure out just how pumpkin seeds had managed to dry to the ceiling fan.

Aerith plucked a Halloween-themed cookie out of the jar on the counter next to the sink, hummed in approval as munched on a bite. "Are you going over to Riku's?"

"Yeah, he should be awake by now." Sora set the knife in the sink. He licked his lips, quelling any nerves about the possibility that Riku would decide that their annual routine was suddenly stupid. "I'll be back in a couple of hours." Aerith smiled, her eyes understanding in a way that Sora wasn't used to seeing very often from too many people, and took another bite out of her cookie as she passed him on her way to the stairs.

Sora went back to the table so he could fold up his half of the newspaper and throw it out on the compost pile. When he was finished cleaning up his side of the workstation, he paused in front of his brother, watching him work for a little while before slipping the free strap of his backpack on his other shoulder. "I'm going over to Riku's now." He waited, wondering if Roxas would point out something he may have forgotten to take care of. His brother only grunted, intent on finishing off a particularly tricky swirl. Sora rolled his eyes, pivoting so he could go across the street to see his best friend. "Try not to spend all day in front of that thing," he called out behind him as he opened the door. His answer was another grunt, this time with a little more emphasis and something that could've almost been an actual word or two.

Why Cloud's mother ever decided planting two maple trees was a good idea, he would never know. Trees, he had decided early on in his young life, were evil. They had bugs, they trapped cats, they ate kites, and worst of all, every year in October they dumped the lot of their leaves all over the front lawn. Leaves that never stopped falling, no matter how many hours Cloud spent raking them into neat piles and bagging them up for compost in the spring.

Cloud armed himself with a thick pair of gardening gloves and a windbreaker, preparing himself for another battle with fall foliage. Sighing, he tied up the laces of his boots and tromped out to the foyer, passing Riku on the way, slumped over the kitchen's breakfast nook with his face threatening to drop into a half-empty bowl of crunchberries. His brother offered him a bleary blink as he passed, which was early morning Riku-speak for "WHERE THE FUCK IS THE COFFEE?!" but Cloud had no time for trivialities, and Riku drank the last of it himself, and thus he ought to know where the fuck the coffee was. The grocery store was down the street, to the left.

Determined to proceed with his mission, he merely saluted once, smartly, and opened the front closet to retrieve the rake, before opening the door and surveying the cold autumn morning. There appeared, he noted shortly thereafter, to be a strange growth on his lawn, just beside the porch. Cloud sighed again as he closed the door behind him, crossing the distance between himself and the spiky, red leaf-catcher at his feet, directing a frown at the house two over to the left before reaching out with his foot and toeing the intruder's ribs. The lump shifted, grunted, rolled over until a bleary-eyed face presented itself, blinking a few times. "Again?" Cloud asked, setting the rake down on the grass and leaning against it. "Your house is two doors over," he said, pointing for emphasis.

A long, languid yawn, and then a nasally reply, "But your lawn is right here."

Cloud looked skyward, watching more leaves fall from the trees above as Axel stretched his limbs until they popped. "Just keep out of the way," he mumbled, trekking to one corner of the yard, preparing to work his way from one end to the other. From this angle, he could also keep an eye on Axel's house for any signs of… whatever. "Maybe you can even help out a little," he added over his shoulder, seeing Axel was already facedown on the lawn again.

He heard Axel roll back onto his side, movements muffled by his oversized sweatshirt, and then, "Here, man," his words punctuated by another jaw-popping yawn. Cloud pivoted to find Axel's hand extended toward him, holding a leaf. He flung it in the general direction of the pile Cloud had just started forming, then stretched back out on the grass. Cloud looked askance from the sky yet again, then returned to his work, thinking about spraying Axel with the hose coiled up near the porch. He flicked another glance to Axel's would-be place of residence, wondering exactly when he'd left the rundown dump of a house last night and decided that crashing on his lawn would be preferable. Fucking pathetic excuse for parents," Cloud muttered under his breath, pulling over one clump of leaves with a particularly vicious swipe of the rake.

Almost in response, somewhere behind him there was a soft snore. Cloud sighed a third time and went about clearing out the first half of the yard, throwing silent threats up at the trees every time the wind blew through their branches. When his rake began drawing precariously close to Axel's left boot, he kicked it lightly with his own to wake him up. Axel mumbled something nonsensical into his arm, tilting his head just enough to acknowledge Cloud's presence. Cloud toed him again, further up his leg, more persistent. "Riku's got cereal inside."

Something emerged from under Axel's elbow that sounded like, "Cereal schmurmedurf murphorfuerder," but might have not been some archaic form of gobbledygook and, in fact, speech, but Cloud didn't bother attempting to translate. Presently, the skinny ball of teenage boy unraveled enough for Axel to blink at him again. "Coffee?"

"Grocery store is down the street, on the left."

"Motherfucking Riku." Axel yawned again and curled upward, stretching like a cat before almost approaching a sitting position, blinking in the sunlight and staring at his surroundings. He paused, rubbing the sleep out of his left eye while staring down the cream two-story across the street. "Bet Roxas has coffee."

"Then why don't you sleep on his lawn?"

"I'd rather wake up again."

Cloud's lips stretched in an almost imperceptible smirk. He cast a glance over at his neighbors, noticed Sora's spiky head moving about in front of the window on his way out the door, and looked down at his considerable pile of leaves. Damn—he'd been hoping to get everything bagged up before the Leaping Menace made an appearance.

He was deep in contemplation of how best to defend his leaf pile against the encroaching threat, when some yet-unraked leaves crunched at his side and a plastic-bagged roll of newsprint appeared under his nose. "Here," Axel announced.

"What?"

"I fetched your paper."

Cloud stared, first at the paper and then at Axel. "Should I pat you on the head and offer you a treat?"

Axel snorted, letting the paper drop into Cloud's free hand. "What treats? I have to get my own coffee. Bad master, bad." He grinned, briefly and with evil intent, and then gestured over his shoulder with a quick jerk of his head. "Better get that bagged up, Sora's on the move."

Cloud considered, before Axel turned on his heel to slink into the house and join Riku in slumping over a bowl of cereal, the possibility of whacking him on the nose with the paper. It would have been satisfying, he supposed, but Axel would probably have thrown some kind of girly fit about his beautiful face, so it was probably for the best that he didn't. Besides which, he had a leaf-jumper approaching at six o-clock.

He waited for the tell-tale rustling to draw nearer, listened for the precise moment when footsteps crunched through stray leaves, came to a speculative stop at the end of the lawn. After a few seconds of silence, when he could feel an anticipatory shimmer ripple through the air and prickle against the back of his neck, Cloud issued a terse, "Don't even think about it," not looking up from his task.

"Think about what?" Sora asked, kick-started into movement again. He drew up alongside Cloud, kicking a leaf at the pile and staring down at it for a moment.

Cloud snorted. "You know, you could always help out and rake up your own pile to destroy."

Sora's nose wrinkled up in distaste. "'S Riku awake yet?" he asked, circumnavigating the suggestion.

"You could say that. You could also say he's slowly drowning in his crunchberries."

"He finish all the coffee again?"

Cloud merely rolled his eyes in response. Sora shrugged and turned to go inside, throwing one last look of longing at the growing pile of leaves at Cloud's side before walking up to the front door. Victory! The Leaping Menace was foiled and the lawn was safe for another day.

Cloud began humming to himself as he crossed the front walk to begin work on the other half of the lawn; perhaps he had to do all the work himself, but so far he'd managed to remove all his potential obstacles, which assured he'd at least get done relatively quickly. He felt his shoulders stiffen again, however, at another slam of the screen door at the cream two-story across the street, followed by feet crunching over pavement at a soft jog. Cloud breathed out evenly, continued working, reassuring himself that there was no reason for Roxas to want to stop and talk to him today. No reason whatsoever.

"Morning."

Fuck. "Good morning," Cloud said, without stopping in a very pointed manner, as though yes, this was merely a polite and friendly greeting, now please move along, I'm busy. "Sora's inside."

"Yeah, saw him from the window." Roxas still wasn't moving inside. This didn't bode well. Cloud resolutely moved onto another patch of lawn, refusing to clench his jaw as his instincts would normally allow. There was some amount of shuffling, and then, "Was that Sephiroth's car that circled around the cul-de-sac this morning?"

Little bastard. Cloud's jaw finally ticked involuntary, his fingers gripping the handle of the rake just a little tighter as his eyes darted up and down the street for any sign of the fellow high school senior who'd recently taken to following him around after working together on some godawful English project; go for a coffee break and suddenly a guy thinks you're soul mates.

"Yeah, I'm sure it was him," Roxas continued. "He was driving really slow, especially in front of your place. I think he stopped to grab a few leaves."

Cloud scowled, wondering how hard he could hit Roxas over the head with the rake without actually killing him. Instead, he turned his back to him, almost ripping up grass with the leaves as he continued to pile them up.

"It wasn't too long ago, actually—I was carving my pumpkin in the kitchen so I could see everything through the window. It was right before you came out to start raking, actually. Which, you know…" Roxas feigned thought, feet shifting on the sidewalk as though he was looking around. "Oh, shit, I think that's him parked up the road.

Cloud's focus broke for just a second, pausing fractionally in his raking before he picked it up again double-time, refusing to give in to Roxas's juvenile game of "made you look".

"He could be in your house, man! Doesn't that freak you out? He could be going through your underwear drawer or something. He could take Riku hostage. What'll your parents think?" He shuffled again, turning a small circle on the sidewalk, and then paused, dead silent for an instant, and then gasped, "OH FUCK, THERE HE IS!"

Cloud stopped raking altogether, leaning against the tool for a second and closing his eyes in preparation for a moment he was sure he was going to hate himself for. "Shit," he swore soundlessly, then turned around to see if his stalker was indeed about to run away with a handful of his underwear.

Behind him was Roxas… with a mocking smirk the size of the jack o' lantern Aerith had put out on the front porch earlier that morning. Cloud scowled murderously, hand ready to snatch up the rake and wield it like a club. "I'll send everyone over to finish off your coffee, you little shit."

"If you're too uptight to let my brother have a little fun, then that's probably for the best. You should lay off the caffeine."

Cloud wished his eyes had the ability to kill. "He can jump if you rake."

"The leaves are not the enemy, Cloud." Roxas tapped a finger against his forehead, backed a few steps along the walkway before turning to hop up the porch stairs and into the house.

Cloud watched his retreat, then dropped his gaze onto a freshly fallen leaf that landed in the spot he'd just cleared. "Tell that to the leaves," he muttered.

He heard the voices approaching while just in the middle of bagging up two piles of leaves, black plastic limp in his hand. It wasn't voices, actually; just one voice, but that one voice tended to always have a certain other party accompanying it in a far more silent manner.

When the voice drew close enough for Cloud to make out actual words, he heard it call out his name, and he paused in the last of his yard work to look up and see Yuffie and Leon, Yuffie walking with that usual bounce that wasn't quite a skip, and Leon lagging behind just enough to be considered aloof, usual somber expression on his face.

Cloud realized that maybe he was staring at Leon just a little too long, snapped out of his reverie when Yuffie called his name again. "Uh… hey, Yuffie," he muttered, tying off the last of the garbage bags. "Leon." He picked up the bags and tossed them toward the left corner of the yard. "Good timing," he added wryly.

"Hey, don't look at me; me 'n' Leon just finished getting all of the leaves over at my place." Yuffie gestured toward the duplex down the road, frowning and muttering something about parents, before flashing her usual grin at Cloud once again. "Oh well, got everything done in time for tonight, right?"

Cloud spared a bare moment to wonder why Leon had never come over to help him rake leaves (especially seems how nobody else ever wanted to) before daring to ask, knowing he'd regret it, "Tonight?"

Sure enough, Yuffie tapped his forehead with her index finger, prompting his eyes to cross temporarily as he tried to figure out why someone was poking him. "Duh, the party, remember?" she explained, beaming smile still in place. "You can't call it Halloween without a party."

Cloud's gaze immediately flickered over to Leon, who remained as stoic as ever, even if there was… maybe the tiniest hint of a smirk twitching at one corner of his mouth. "Uh…" Cloud looked at Yuffie again, resisting the urge to lick his lips. "Yeah, I guess?"

Yuffie seemed to gain three inches in height as she angled toward him, excited. "So you're coming then?"

Cloud's mouth worked soundlessly, brain scrambling to keep up with Yuffie and come up with an excuse at the same time. "I… um…" He looked to Leon for help, but—that was a smirk. "I don't know…"

"You should come," Leon muttered in a tone that suggested he could care less whether Cloud actually did or not, but that smirk was still there.

"You totally have to, Cloud!" Yuffie flailed slightly as though to emphasize the words with her entire body. "The before-party's gonna be great, Hayner has a list of all the school principals living in the entire tri-district area and we'll have toilet paper and silly string and eggs and shaving cream and—and Leon's coming!" She made this announcement with a grand gesture towards the boy himself, as though she just remembered he was there. "You two can stand against the wall together and frown at everyone. It'll be great!"

Cloud's brows drew together for a moment, frown just barely settling on his lips as he wondered if that's what everyone in the neighborhood really thought of him, someone who just stood and scowled like an old man on the porch. "Um… I mean…" He drew in a deep breath, not quite sure why Leon being there too was such a deciding factor but choosing not to think too much about it. "I guess."

"Awesome!" Yuffie offered him a massive grin, while Leon… did that smirk get just a little bigger? "We'll come by to pick you up, okay? Seven pm sharp, don't forget! Come on, Sir, we've got supplies to get." She hopped out of the yard, knowing that Leon would follow in her wake—which he did, with a brief nod, and then they were gone.

The kitchen was still a mess. The living room needed to be vacuumed. Riku needed supervision—it didn't matter how old he was, Riku always needed supervision. He supposed someone ought to be home to pass out candy for the trick-or-treaters… but would it really be so bad? To take just one night off?

Cloud hefted the rake in one hand and turned to the porch, two steps up and paused, attention darting to the side to where Leon and Yuffie were in formation. And it happened that, at that moment, just as they were turning the corner, Leon looked back over his shoulder. Back at Cloud. Okay, so… fun. He could do that.

"Riku."

The interior of Cloud's house was a testament of compulsive organization and guided entropy. Teenagers lived here, but you almost wouldn't know it, aside from the shoes that weren't quite lined up neatly by the door, and the couch pillow strategically hiding a grape soda stain (Cloud's cleanliness was no match for Sora and his penchant for accidents). There was also Riku, slumped over the breakfast bar and falling asleep over his bowl of crunchberries, hair nearly making contact with the unfortunate contents.

"Hey, Riku."

Riku inhaled quickly like coming up from underwater, blinking out of a doze and staring for a moment at the soggy red and yellow cereal floating sadly around in the bowl under his face. Cereal. The cereal had spoken to him in Sora's voice. He clearly needed coffee.

Or maybe—

He turned slightly and blinked again, willing his eyes to stay open this time, and sure enough, Sora was leaning over the stool at his side, moogle backpack slid down to the crooks of his elbows, smile kind of yellow and refreshing like orange juice. Sunny Delight. Some kind of morning drink that was good for you but wasn't coffee. He felt marginally more awake, suddenly. "Hey."

"No coffee, huh?" Sora kicked his heels against the legs of the stool, leaning against the counter on one elbow. Riku's hair was less in danger of dipping into the milk, but still hovered over the rim of the bowl precariously, and Sora occupied himself by playing with the nearby napkin dispenser.

"Cloud is a bastard and won't go get any." Riku frowned at his bowl, prodded a few of the yellow puffs experimentally, and made a face, straightening just enough to push the bowl to the side so he could focus all his attention on Sora. Sora would have to do as a coffee replacement this morning. Staring at him for a while, in fact, might serve to get his blood to actually flow. Riku blinked, yawned, and resettled on his elbows, watching Sora from behind his bangs. Something fluttered in his stomach, which Riku figured was a good sign of life. "So. What's up?"

"Just finished carving a jack o' lantern. It's huge." Sora spread his arms wide to illustrate. "Roxas had to help me get it into the house." He leaned forward in his excitement, teeth showing in his grin, eyes glittering. "Jack Skellington's got to show up this year; that pumpkin patch is perfect." Sora slid forward a little on the stool, fingers resting on the straps of his backpack settled in the crook of his elbows. "We can head over there tonight after it closes, around six?"

"Pumpkin…?" Riku said, blinking, voice trailing off until his brain started to make connections. Halloween. Sora. Pumpkin patch. An old story Sora's mom had once told him, recounted word for word, about the fabled King of Halloweentown. Riku had been going along with this for years, at first—when they were young—eagerly, and then as time wore on, it was mostly to humor Sora. Now, though…

Sora. Pumpkin patch. All night. Alone. In the dark.

Oh hell yes.

"Of course," Riku said, grinning as much as was humanly possible, in the morning without coffee. "Can't break our Halloween tradition, can we?"

Sora's grin was a little wider, a little more self-assured in response to Riku's agreement; it was adorable and ridiculous, how happy it made him when Riku supported his ongoing whims. "Great!" He lifted his arms to draw attention to the moogle dangling from them. "I've got everything we'll need to stay there all night."

A little thrill ran down Riku's spine at the thought, again, but his shiver of anticipation was rudely interrupted when a snort and a mottled something about "not knowing what to do with that time" were mumbled from the sink. He looked to his left to see Axel slumped back against the cabinets, arms folded and eyes slitted at half-mast.

"Oh! Hey, Axel," Sora chirped pleasantly, and Riku wished they could bottle that kind of pep. He felt his mouth dropping to a scowl, glare aimed at the boy he'd forgotten was sitting on his kitchen counter, empty cereal bowl at his side. Well. What did Axel know, anyway. These things needed time and delicacy, he wasn't going to just throw himself at Sora the way Axel did at—

Speaking of the devil.

The front door creaked open a second time—not that Riku had heard it the first, but he might as well keep count—and footsteps followed Sora's path through the house, arriving with a tap of feet on the linoleum.

"Well, aren't we all bright eyed and bushy-tailed this morning?" Roxas quipped, settling into the stool behind Sora, casting a protective glare from behind his little brother's shoulder, straight at Riku. Like he knew exactly what he was thinking. Roxas always fucking knew.

Sora turned around on his stool. "Oh, hey! How'd the pumpkin turn out?"

"Think I outdid myself." Roxas looked pleased, elbows on the counter, turning from side to side on the stool.

Axel somehow managed to lean back further on his own stretch of counter, arms spread out behind him as he smirked. "I'll bet you did." His grin widened at Roxas's expected glare.

Roxas glared (as expected), then closed his eyes, hand moving to rub his ear. "Sorry, Riku, I thought I heard your dog talking."

Axel only hummed and slid off the counter, hands still planted on the fake granite behind him, fingernails tapping against the surface. "I love it when you scratch behind my ears."

Roxas slid off the stool with a growl that sounded sort of like, "I'll give you a scratch behind the ears," or something to that effect, stomping around the breakfast bar and into the kitchen. Riku looked away before the inevitable noogie that Axel was doomed to receive, turning back to Sora to trade eyerolls. Honestly. One of these days, those two were going to give up and admit it.

Hypocrite, a little voice somewhere deep in Riku's stomach murmured, but he staunchly ignored it. He gave Sora a placating smile instead, flicking his moogle's red pompom. "This is gonna be the year."

Sora's laugh was an agreement, and the same place in his stomach did a little cartwheel.

Axel braced himself as Roxas stomped around the breakfast bar, drew in a breath and kept his smirk in place as he inwardly cringed over morning breath and the smell of lawn still clinging to his sweatshirt.

Roxas radiated irritation like a dark aura, mouth pulled down in an exaggerated scowl, eyebrows drawn together, intoned "Scratch," just before his fingers dug into the sleeve of Axel's sweatshirt, tugged him down until he was stooped over at an awkward angle and raked his knuckles across his scalp. One pass over his hair, and Axel watched a stray leaf fall from his head to the kitchen floor—he had to remember to start carrying around a brush or something when he slept outside.

Roxas's other hand was still fisted in his shirt, warm against his arm like a brand, and Axel bit down on the inside of his cheek to counter the shiver that threatened to travel down his spine. Instead, he purred, loud enough to get an eyeroll or two from the peanut gallery, and grinned. "Can't keep your hands off me, huh?"

Roxas let go of Axel's sleeve with an abrupt jerk, like it had burned him, retreating just enough to lean against the counter, scowling at the floor, avoiding Axel's eyes, arms crossed over his chest. "Whatever, freakazoid."

Axel stared at Roxas, watching his face closely for something he thought he saw there, some flicker of uncertainty. Any sign that what they were doing meant more to him than he usually let on. But Roxas's eyes stayed on the floor, and when Axel realized he was still leaning over towards him, he drew in a breath as slowly as he could, tried to keep it from shaking, and straightened. Leaned against the counter himself and turned to Sora, letting his smirk settle back in place, where it was supposed to be. "So, another exciting night, huh?" He let his gaze slide to the right, where Riku was sitting, letting his grin widen into a leer, eyes at half-mast. Like he knew what Riku had planned, and waited for the scowl that would inevitably appear. Anything that could shift the tension from what was going on inside the kitchen. Hyperaware of Roxas still at his side, afraid to look back and catch him staring, seeing through his defenses to the fear of rejection beneath.

"What—again, Sora?" Roxas kept his arms crossed, moved further away as he fixed an exasperated glare on his brother as Sora bristled, already preparing to retort. "You know Aerith's gonna be pissed if you don't come home with me after the party again."

Sora frowned, brows drawn together in defiance. "Aerith? She already said I could go out." He stood up and planted his hands on the breakfast bar, standing as tall as he could manage. "'Sides, I'm fifteen, Roxas; 's not like I'm your twelve-year-old shadow anymore."

Axel's eyes darted from between one brother to the other, noting the wounded look that stung Roxas's features just before, "Fine. Whatever. But he's not going to come, you know. Mom just told you that story to get you to shut up and go to sleep."

Sora swallowed, and Axel winced right along with him, knowing that Roxas wasn't really attacking his brother's beliefs, was only speaking from the part of him that had just been hurt, and his eyes were already flickering with guilt, lips pursed together as his nails dug into his elbows. But it still brought home more issues that Sora shouldn't have had to think about on a day that was supposed to be fun for everyone. "What the hell do you know about what Mom told me?" he snapped. "And you don't know anything about the Pumpkin King: he could show up this year, he just doesn't like to be around nonbelievers. Right, Riku?" he asked, voice tinged with just a tinge of desperation that had Axel's chest twanging with sympathy; he couldn't write off Sora's need for something larger than life without being a hypocrite.

Sora threw one more determined glare in Roxas's direction, shouldering his backpack. "I'm going to see him this year." He spun around and made his retreat. "C'mon, Riku, I've gotta buy some granola bars before we go to the pumpkin patch."

Riku's smile was fond, made Axel feel a little less useless about just standing there, and ruffled Sora's hair once before climbing to his feet. "Of course he'll come this year. We'll just have to stay up extra-late." He shot Roxas a wicked glare and followed Sora to the door, leaving Axel to wonder if this year really was going to be the year that Riku finally made his move already.

Axel watched Riku follow after Sora, confident that Riku would be able to help the situation blow over, knowing that Sora's disposition wouldn't let him stay angry at Roxas much longer than the walk to the pumpkin patch. But out of the corner of his eye Roxas was slumped against the counter, frown heavier than usual, something more defeated. Axel turned to look at him, rubbed their shoulders together in some semblance of reassurance. "Let him have his fun, huh? He's not hurting anyone." And then, to ensure that Roxas's mind was distracted from any drama, in lieu of the holiday, Axel nudged a little harder, leaned in a little closer, hovered a little longer, trademark leer in place, and murmured, "So, you're going to be alone tonight?"

"No," Roxas corrected, pushing against the counter to remove himself from Axel's side, voice flippant. "I'll be at Hayner's party."

Axel snorted and leaned back on one elbow against the counter, pivoting so he was eye to eye with Roxas. Looked down his nose at him with an air of indignance that was only half a joke. "What's he got that I don't got, huh?" Relieved that they could slip back into their old standby routine, the Axel and Roxas Show.

"He wears color, for one." Roxas shifted sideways, further away from him, and started moving towards the entryway. "And he's not desperate."

Axel barked out a laugh, falling into step behind Roxas, keeping a steady pace like they were both used to. "Sure, he's got plenty of color; too bad he doesn't know what to do with it." He kept his tone light, glad that Roxas couldn't see the sneer tilting his lips that was a little less than easy banter. Thinly veiled flash of jealousy, over and gone before Roxas even knew it was there.

"Yeah, well, why don't you ditch the whole Castle Oblivion routine for one year?" Roxas paused just long enough to look over his shoulder, not quite out of the kitchen and into the living room yet. "Come help us lay waste on some school officials instead."

Axel stopped behind Roxas, keeping a comfortable distance between them, and reached up so he could rest his arm against the fridge, lean casually and examine his fingernails. "Sorry, no can do. Everything I do is for you, babeh." He made sure to keep the grin in place, kept his eyes on his nails. He didn't want to open up to something that was bigger than a night on the town, something that was waiting for him two houses over in a run-down shack that his parents like to call 'home'. Before the pause could settle into silence, Axel dropped his arms, slumped forward, batted his eyelashes. "Why, you gonna miss me?"

Roxas let out a little 'tuh' of disbelief, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. "You wish," he growled, reached out and shoved at Axel's shoulder without any real force, just enough to make him sway back over against the fridge.

Axel laughed and retaliated with a shove at Roxas's chest, just enough to send him back a step. No real intention behind the action other than having fun. (Making contact.) Voice high and lilting, he teased, "You know it's true, you miss me."

"Oh, get over yourself." Roxas offered another shove that didn't do much aside from move Axel's shoulder, scowled, and when Axel tried to shove him back yet again Roxas quickly blocked it and pushed him harder.

Axel felt the shift from play to something a little more competitive, and used his longer reach to cuff the back of Roxas's head. He took the moment that Roxas was stunned by the blow to shove him back, adding a little more force to match the other's. "I'm good with myself."

Roxas hissed and narrowed his eyes, mouth pursing, and reached up for another push, both hands this time. He misjudged, though; Axel's left side wasn't as solid as he expected and he overbalanced, left foot slipping and squeaking on the linoleum, and the momentum sent him toppling sideways into the fridge.

Roxas's hand slipped off of Axel's shoulder and he instinctively grabbed for it, used the other to reach out and keep Roxas's head from smacking against the fridge. The moment of surprise passed and Axel realized he had now, essentially, pinned Roxas up against the refrigerator. Eyes closed, both breathing a little harder than normal. He stopped himself and looked down to meet Roxas's eyes, and thought they were too close for this to be normal.

Roxas froze in place, and Axel felt his mouth draw closer, involuntarily, lips almost set to brush against each other, nerves bunch up and bristling on his fingertips against Roxas's hair, shooting up his arm from his hand still gripped on Roxas's wrist. Why hadn't it moved yet? He could feel Roxas's heart beating faster, pacing his own. Why hadn't he moved yet? In some part of his mind he remembered that he still had morning breath, he smelled like Cloud's front lawn, and he wondered why that fucking mattered. Did he really think something was going to happen, did he really want it to? Why wasn't he fucking moving?

The refrigerator clicked on, whirring to life and the sound seemed to jolt through both of them like a thunderclap. Roxas jerked away, completely removing himself from between the fridge and Axel in one quick, stuttered movement. He stood for a moment, turned away. Axel felt the sudden loss of Roxas's presence like ice water, the cold metal of the fridge against his hand instead of Roxas's hair, woke up from the moment that was like fog around his thoughts. Scared awake, faltered as his mind tried to catch up to what just happened. Had they really almost just…? Did Roxas really…? Axel shook himself—don't go there, can't afford to go there. He took a calming breath, slow and deep, so it was almost inaudible. His face slipped back to his default smirk, and when in doubt… "Didn't you have a date with Living Color?"

Roxas met his smirk with his usual scowl. "I did, didn't I," he muttered, low and sharp. He didn't look up, just moved past Axel and out of the kitchen, into the living room. Axel hung back in the kitchen, watching Roxas's retreat, wondering why this feeling of rejection resounded so strongly in his chest, up in his throat, and he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. It was just supposed to be their usual routine, it wasn't supposed to sink down deeper like this. He wasn't supposed to be left there wondering if he could follow after Roxas or not.

Then Roxas paused a few paces from the door, turning just a bit, just enough to look back over his shoulder. "You coming, or did I finally get one up on you?" The material was easy, an obvious opening. Axel let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, grin of relief easing his features where they'd pulled taut, and he drew up from the slump he'd fallen into, finally following Roxas out into the living room. "You wish you could get up on me."

There. That was it, years of practice plotting out their careful dance, easing both of them back into place. Roxas rolled his eyes, because that was his next step, shook his head and kept walking. Axel fell into his usual place behind him, slipping back into the steady back and forth rhythm that was their own Axel and Roxas Show. No awkward pauses, no need to stop and wonder if they had to be anything more. No need to feel like he had to be anything more.

"Toilet paper."

Hayner nodded and ducked down behind the couch, reappearing a second later with a clear plastic garbage bag in each hand, loaded with individually wrapped rolls of cheap bath tissue. He dropped both on the cushions with a broad grin at Roxas, who ticked off the first item on the notebook page. "Check."

"Eggs."

"I got it." Pence began stacking carton after carton on the coffee table, exchanging a smirk with Hayner. "My uncle hooked me up, the supermarket had a few racks that were out of date."

"Sweet. Check." Roxas ticked off the next item. "Silly string?"

"Here!" Demyx pushed the piles of toilet paper aside enough to plop down on the couch, plastic bag landing on the table with a clink of cans. "Some new and some leftover from New Year's."

"All right. Shaving cream?"

The room fell silent. Roxas tapped the heel of his pen on the notebook propped on his knee, frowning. "Where're the girls?"

"Nami's helping Olette convince her parents to let her go out tonight." Pence shrugged a little, attention focused towards the floor, eyebrows together. "They figure it'd be better if I wasn't there."

Hayner made a 'tch' of disapproval from behind the couch, ducked again to collect a few stray rolls, tossing them over the back. They bounced off the bags and cushions and rolled across the floor, under the coffee table. "Forget it, man. In a couple years we'll all be eighteen, then the two of you can elope or something and there'll be nothing they can say about it." His blond hair, forehead, eyebrows, and then sparkling brown eyes appeared over the back of the couch, glittering at Pence, brows arched in suggestion and amusement. "Right?"

Roxas rolled his eyes and scratched something down on the list. "Well, Pence, hopefully your bride-to-be remembers her cut of the supplies. So…" His pen landed on the last item on the list and he looked up and around the room, finally stopping on Hayner. "Map?"

Hayner shrugged, straightening, nodding towards the kitchen table. "Your freak boyfriend's fucking with it."

"HE'S NOT MY BOYFRIEND."

Axel threw both hands in the air immediately, backing away from the table and the spread of paper across it, flattened neatly and marked with flags, green plastic soldiers set up at strategic points. "I touched nothing."

"Whatever, freak boyfriend. I saw you moving shit." Hayner stalked into the kitchen, his posse following, trailed by Roxas and his flaming indignation.

"HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND."

Roxas really did protest too much. Hayner rolled his eyes, stopping at the edge of the table with hands on his hips, and surveyed the map with a frown. "Why is Mr. Hogan humping Mr. Frederickson?"

"Oh. Sorry." Axel hurried over and picked up the two plastic army pieces, carefully reversing their positions and resettling them on the table. "There."

Hayner sighed, even if the corner of his mouth twitched in amusement at the thought of Hogan and Frederickson bumping the ugliest of uglies, and put them back in their designated places on the map. "Only those who will actually be participating in the attack can touch the map."

Before Hayner could launch into any sort of game plan, hands shot out from his left and Demyx lifted Hogan from his cozy home and stuck him back in prime humping position before settling down into one of the straight-backed chairs at the table. Hayner eyed Demyx, stared down his wide-eyed 'innocence' for all of five seconds before letting out a single snort of laughter, then borrowed Roxas's pen to make a little tick over Hogan's house and left the green soldier in place on Frederickson's ass.

"We'll be starting with Thomas and Hogan, since they'll be taking up most of our ammo." Hayner capped the pen and used it as a pointer, tracing out their route on the map. "I want Thomas picking wet buttwipe off his awn in the morning this year, guys." He exchanged a glance and a nod with each of them in turn, not needing to further explain; fucker suspended him two days into the school year for getting decked in the temple by some fuckwad senior passing him in the hall. Zero-tolerance policy for fighting, Thomas said, but Hayner hadn't even done anything. "From there we'll move on to Frederickson, and we've got a couple rolls reserved for Mrs. Bright's garage on Naminé's request." He tapped both locations, careful not to disrupt the humping soldiers. "Then finally," he announced, pen stopping at the last house on the route, marked with a Power Ranger board game piece, hands on its spandex-clad hips, "Mr. Shdo."

Before they could engage in a game plan for Shdo, Roxas interjected. "Hogan. He needs to pay: shaving cream on the paint job, smashed pumpkins, stink bomb in his mailbox, the whole deal." He settled a scathing glare on the randy Army figurine on the map, as if the real Hogan would feel the heat of his vengeance as well.

Hayner nodded, the others giving their own grunts of agreement, even Axel: the asshole of a principal had taken things too far when he'd confiscated Sora's backpack "under suspicion of paraphernalia," and all because some idiot student had implied that maybe Sora was too happy-go-lucky. "We'll pull out all the stops on Hogan," Hayner reassured as Axel repositioned the principals into something even more crass. His eyebrows raised momentarily at Axel's imagination, wondered if you could actually do that without breaking or at least spraining something, then shook his head and waved the redhead away, stomach slightly unsettled at the sight of him doing that to the toys he used to play with as a child. "Okay, so… Shdo." He gestured to the red ranger on the map.

"No eggs for him," Pence said, arms folding. "Car chalk and silly string."

"We should give him all of Thomas's pumpkins," Demyx suggested, finger twirling around the red ranger as though to demonstrate. "Sit them all around the tree once the TP's in it."

"Redecorating. I like it." Hayner nodded and handed Roxas his pen back, then rapped his knuckles on the table. "Gentlemen, we have a plan."

Just then, two knocks sounded at the door, which swung open without pause for an invitation—not that Hayner's house wasn't a sort of shelter anyway, with his parents in Costa Rica. Again. Hayner carefully kept his features from dropping to a scowl, half-turned to see Sora and Riku enter. General greetings and waves were thrown back and forth, Riku resorting to something that was more of an all-encompassing grunt—he must've run out of coffee—before pausing in front of the coffee table. He pointed at the pornographic plastic on the northwest region of the map. "Which are those two?"

"Hogan and Frederickson." Axel's voice dripped with lazy satisfaction from his recently acquired spot next to Demyx at the table.

"Nice."

Hayner noted how Sora and Roxas didn't quite look at each other, how Roxas dropped his notebook and pen on the table next to the map and addressed the carpet when he spoke, gathering up loose toilet paper to shove back into the bags. "You get your granola bars?"

Sora grunted an affirmative, shrugging, and Hayner repressed a groan. It was always something with these two, just like it was always something with Roxas and Axel. He figured that one way or another Roxas was to blame, being the common factor in both cases, but he did his best to ignore it. One of these days, Hayner figured, he was going to walk in on Roxas and the redhead making out, and despite the brain bleach that was going to necessitate, at least that would be the fucking end of it. Hopefully.

He dropped a sock that was more of a love-tap on Sora's shoulder in passing, moving to the side to help Pence box up his cartons of eggs. "You want to help out this year? Throw the first roll?"

He was no stranger to the contemplative pull of Sora's lower lip between his teeth, torn between hanging out with the rest of them and his loyalty to one Jack Skellington, and once again, Sora's resolve kicked back in and he shook his head. "Nah, we just came over to tell everyone we were on our way to the pumpkin patch." He paused, scratched the back of his head and tapped the heel of one shoe against the toe of the other. "What… um… did you have in mind for Hogan?"

Everyone in the room flashed Sora a collective smirk, eyes glinting with anticipatory malice. "He's got it coming to him," Demyx sing-songed, throwing his head back for a pronounced cackle.

"Maybe we can convince Nami to draw something suggestive on the hood of his car," Pence suggested, throwing a look out the window as if Naminé and his girlfriend would appear. There was some laughter and jeers of agreement, Sora grinned, and Pence sighed, but the next knock and shove at the door wasn't his girlfriend, either. It was Yuffie, bouncing through the entry with a grin that could power a city grid, followed demurely by Leon and even more demurely by—

"CLOUD?!" Riku exclaimed, and the room fell deathly silent.

Cloud's resident scowl offered its usual light to the room. "What?" he asked, arms folding against his chest.

Yuffie offered her typically cheery brand of explanation. "Cloud's going to join in this year! Isn't it great? We haven't all been together in forever."

"What about the 'enemy,' Cloud?" Roxas quipped from his spot against the wall, as far away from Axel as he could manage.

Cloud flashed a tiny smile, just a brief upward curve of his lips, and Hayner figured it probably was ridiculous that everyone almost choked on their own tongues at the sight—it wasn't like Cloud was actually incapable of having a good time; they'd known him most of their lives, after all. "They're mourning their dead," Cloud explained, tone comically dramatic.

There was a snerk from somewhere around the kitchen table, and Hayner's eyes darted to the side to catch Leon's grin of approval before slipping back into his usual blank slate—was anyone ever going to make a fucking move in this neighborhood? It was enough to make Hayner want to rip out some of his hair.

Fortunately, Hayner's carefully gelled hair was saved by yet another entrance, punctuated by a frustrated groan and a throwing of hands into the air. "I can't stand them sometimes!" Olette exclaimed, immediately striding to Pence's side to slump against him. "You'd think I was asking if I could buy illegal drugs and shave kittens or something." She gave one last huff, then relaxed as Pence pressed a kiss to her temple, began stroking his fingers through her hair.

Naminé found a place in the corner of the room and kept her hands clasped behind her back, foot braced against the wall behind her. "Sorry we're late."

Hayner waved a dismissal. "'S fine, we're just outlining the game plan. Speaking of which," he turned to Olette. "Shaving cream?"

Olette blinked, mouth falling into an 'O' and then her face fell down into one hand. "Oh, damn it, I totally forgot! Kairi usually gets it." She turned slightly towards Pence, looking from him to Hayner and back. "Can we go to the store?"

"Sure, we've got plenty of time." Hayner looked at Sora, who seemed to be contemplating a new position for Hogan and Frederickson. "Any word from Kairi?" he asked, mostly because he hadn't heard anything about her 'vacation' with her mom, and partly because the Army men had been moved around enough, as far as his childhood memories were concerned.

Sora looked up from the map. "Huh?" He blinked once, shook his head to clear it. "Oh, yeah. Um… she's basically hiding in her room as much as possible, told me she wanted everyone to text her with updates." He frowned. "Why'd her mom have to get her to come over in October anyway?" he muttered.

"Parents," Demyx spoke up from his chair, legs stretched out under the table as he sprawled out in all of his teenage wisdom, "exist to make their kids miserable." His eyelids were lowered to slits, mouth working in a silent argument he had yet to actually have with his own parents. Hayner just as silently agreed with his statement, even as he rolled his eyes and groaned: tonight was about escape, freedom.

Axel stretched his arms over his head, faked a yawn and rose to his feet. "This is enough Halloween cheer for me," he announced, rolling his head on his neck, shoulders, joints popping. "I'm out."

Sora looked up, interest lighting his grin. "The usual plan this year?" he asked.

Roxas stiffened against the wall on his side of the room. "Sora," he murmured in warning.

Axel nodded slowly, tilted so he could stage-whisper like a mustachioed villain in a play. "And something more." He shot one pointed glance in Roxas's direction, then looked back down at Sora. "I have something special in mind for Vexen."

"Oh god," Roxas groaned, hands raising to rub his temples. "STOP."

Axel's answering smirk oozed something that made Hayner's nose wrinkle, something that made him want to go against his best judgment and yell "KISS HIM ALREADY!" Instead, he kept his mouth shut as Axel cooed, "You don't have to worry about me; I'll still make it to the party."

Roxas just wound tighter, hands curling into fists, not quite flailing in fury yet. "Why would I worry about a freak like you?"

Axel shrugged, pivoting to stride to the door. "Dunno, really, but whatever the reason is, I can handle myself, so you just try and enjoy yourself until I get back." He exited with an exaggerated wink before anything else could be said, and Hayner caught his bright red spikes ambling away from the house in whichever direction his "mission" would be executed.

Yuffie's voice popped up practically right in Hayner's ear and he nearly jumped out of his skin, turning and blinking at the girl, wondering how she'd crept up on him. Yuffie and silence didn't quite go together. "What's he got against Vexen?" she pondered, and off to the side Riku chuckled.

"Ah, so you didn't hear about what happened in chemistry last week?" Riku tossed his hair out of his eyes for dramatic effect, deliberately keeping his gaze on Yuffie, and not anywhere near Roxas, whose hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles were beginning to turn white.

"Riku," Roxas hissed in warning. "Don't you dare—"

"OH," Sora interjected neatly, evil grin spreading across his face. "You mean that thing when Vexen asked Roxas if his burner was hot enough—"

"SHUT," Roxas bit out, voice rising to an ominous point, "UP."

Instead of acknowledging the inevitable explosion that was Roxas's fury, Riku pressed on, voice offhand, casual. "Yeah. Wonder what he's got in store for the guy, after hitting on his boyfriend like that…"

Hayner had enough time to sigh, wonder if he should anticipate the destruction of a small part of his parents' house and how much he ought to care, before Roxas bellowed, "HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND," at the top of his lungs and lunged across the room. Riku cackled and Sora flailed and yelled in mock fear, the two of them grabbing each other's shoulders and booking it for the front door in tandem.

Laughing as they disappeared, even the moogle on Sora's back bobbing in a mocking fashion. Hayner grabbed Roxas by the back of the shirt as he passed, bringing his pursuit to an abrupt halt. "Save it for the vandalism, man."

The tension in Roxas's shoulders bubbled up, threatening to spill over, then gradually fizzled out as he muttered once more, "He's not my boyfriend."

Hayner punched his shoulder once, just a best friend sort of bump, and offered a "Sure, man." Roxas stormed off to the kitchen to get something to drink, Olette said something about getting to the store for the shaving cream and tugged at Pence's arm, Yuffie seemed to be even closer to him than before for some reason, and Cloud was trying so hard not to look to his left at Leon it was painful to watch. Hayner looked up at the ceiling, mentally issued a prayer to whatever force of nature that was out there that someone would make a move soon, for the sake of his sanity.

Cloud wasn't sure how they all ended up at the convenience store; he was pretty sure, at first, that just Olette and Pence were going to go, then Demyx said something about needing Chex Mix, and Yuffie wanted gummi worms, and Hayner figured some extra supplies couldn't hurt. The end result was the entire group tromping down the street to the store on the corner, Pence following with the supplies loaded in his car, and Cloud found himself hovering around the coffee and wondering if Riku cared whether he got Folgers or Maxwell House or some mysterious off-brand with an exotic label.

Eventually, Cloud decided that buying a brand name wouldn't kill the family's budget, and if their parents wanted to actually take notice for once then they could buy their own damned coffee. He grabbed a can of Folgers off of the shelf with a determination that was probably comical to anyone who might've been watching, and began to weave through the aisles to the check-out.

Pence and Olette were in the next aisle over, and didn't appear to be shopping so much as giggling, heads close together as they (supposedly) pondered various options in shaving cream. In the aisle on the other side, Yuffie had broken away from Leon's side yet again to follow at Hayner's heels while he and Roxas loaded up at the hot dog station, with Demyx close by checking out the mini snack bags up for grabs while Naminé filled up a clear plastic cup with cherry-flavored ice from the slushie machine.

Which left… Cloud looked around carefully, making sure he appeared disinterested while wondering just where Leon was at the moment. His cursory search was interrupted by someone suddenly calling his name, someone who was drawing closer to his place in front of the breakfast cereals. He recognized the guy… he knew him from government, he thought, but he couldn't place the name. "Uh… hey," he said, mind shifting focus from where Leon was to how he could duck out of conversing longer than necessary without appearing rude.

"What's up, man." The guy raised a hand laden with a pillowcase and a bottle of Gatorade. He was dressed in one of those cheap department store costumes, some kind of ninja-like thing, hood and mask pulled down around his neck. "Government, huh? You finish those essay questions? I can't believe we got homework over fuckin' Halloween weekend, man."

Cloud briefly considered pointing out that, to him at least, it was more believable than an eighteen-year-old guy running around town in a cheap ninja costume with a sack of candy, then decided against it. "Uh… yeah. Finished mine last night."

"Really? Damn, man, you're on the ball." The guy was flailing for a topic now that his first avenue had failed, grappling to keep Cloud's attention. "Oh well, nothing like the last minute. So, like, all the kids on your block are here, huh? Except that one guy, you know. The nutjob with the red hair. I heard he runs around playing make-believe all night on Halloween. Like a fuckin' five year old, am I right?"

The guy was chuckling, moving like he wanted to nudge Cloud with an elbow and get him to join in on the joke, but he didn't seem to realize how loud he was talking. How quiet the store had gone, how Roxas's shoes were squeaking on the linoleum over by the soda fountain and how it took Hayner and Demyx to hold him back. How Yuffie and Naminé were glaring daggers into the guy's head on one side and Olette on the other.

Cloud drew up to his full height—inwardly shot down anyone, namely said "red haired nutjob," who would've cracked a joke about his lack thereof—and stared down the punk who thought he was hot shit, watched in satisfaction as the guy gradually realized that he was not pleased before finally speaking. "You," he said softly, dangerously, "don't know jackshit. Besides, you're older than Axel and yet here you are, trick-or-treating like a ninja wannabe."

The guy faltered, opened and closed his mouth and then seemed to realize what was going on around him. That Leon had appeared out of nowhere over Cloud's shoulder, that Roxas was trying to worm out of Hayner and Demyx's grip, fists balled, as Naminé seemed to be plotting his murder as she took a calm sip from her slushie; that Pence and Olette were slowly moving out of their aisle towards him. He quailed suddenly, muttered a quick and defensive, "Okay, sure, man," before hurrying away to the counter, digging through his pocket for cash and bolting out the door before the clerk could count back his change.

Leon's voice was quiet at Cloud's side, and Cloud pressed his tongue against his teeth to quell the sudden fluttering in his gut. "Cloud, defender of all freaks and fools," he teased lightly, but the hand that clapped his shoulder—aside from making the fluttering even harder to ignore—ensured that Cloud's ire wasn't undeserved.

Cloud frowned all the same, swallowed at the close contact and hoped that Leon wouldn't notice. "That idiot better be prepared to cough up some of his stash of chocolate tonight."

Principal Hogan's house was sickeningly clean, bright white in a neighborhood of more white, his front yard adorned with two cherry trees and three medium-sized jack o' lanterns. Leon smirked in anticipation, observed as Hayner delved into a trash bag to hand out rolls of toilet paper, Pence took out a carton of eggs, and Olette shook up two cans of shaving cream. Hogan wouldn't know what hit him.

Demyx was the first to receive a roll of toilet paper, and he backed away from the circle and proceeded to mutter under his breath about cheap convenience store toilet paper and how it wouldn't unravel to save a life. Olette and Pence muffled giggles with their hands when they realized they'd bought shaving gel instead of something that would immediately lather out of the can. Okay, so they weren't exactly the alpha team, but they made it work.

Leon took the carton of eggs from Pence and handed them to Cloud, not trusting Yuffie anywhere near them. Oddly enough, he felt confident in her abilities to wield a tire iron instead, and she wielded it with a silent jump in the air before sneaking up to the front of the yard to have fun with the pumpkins. Naminé rose to her feet from where she'd been kneeling on the ground, a box of car chalk in hand. "I'll take the car on the right," she declared softly, preparing to draw some of her best work yet on the hood of a red Toyota.

Olette eyed the can in her hand, then followed Naminé, her other hand in Pence's. "We can lather up the windows—we'll just whip it up on the glass." Pence choked on more laughter, following his girlfriend.

Leon watched everyone's progress from the sidewalk, briefly pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head in disbelief. Yep, they made it work. Somehow.

Cloud was hefting one egg in his hand, watching the progress as Hayner, Roxas, and Demyx draped the two cherry trees in toilet paper. "So, this is what trick-or-treating gives way to, huh?"

Leon kept his appraising glance brief, let his smirk warm for just a moment, then took an egg out of the box for himself, deciding his position as look-out could be dodged long enough for one missile. "You gotta grow up sometime." Almost as if in reply, Yuffie let out a whoop that was almost too loud, caught up in the middle of her jack o' lantern decimation.

Cloud laughed, and the sound was mysteriously bright, breath puffing out in the chilly evening. He gestured briefly, fingers around his egg, towards the second car in the driveway. "I think the SUV could use some decoration." He drew close to the car, hunched over and ready to retreat if Hogan decided to take a look at his front yard.

Leon watched his progress while he took in everyone else, Demyx dancing around Roxas and Hayner as he threw rolls of toilet paper around the branches of the cherry trees; Yuffie beating the pumpkins to pulpy bits with her weapon; and Naminé, Pence, and Olette choking on guffaws as they tried to keep quiet, covering Hogan's car with lewd images and shaving cream.

Leon's smile was genuine, hidden partially as he ducked his head, eyes settling back on Cloud, who stopped at the perfect throwing distance from the silver SUV in the driveway. They hadn't had fun like this in a long time, hadn't had many chances to. A frown touched Leon's face for just a moment, fingers brushing over the scar across his nose, but he shook it away when Roxas sauntered back up to the mailbox, preparing to slip in a stink bomb. "Cloud, throw your eggs now so we can get away before this thing gets bad," Roxas called over his shoulder.

Cloud nodded, tossed the egg up and down in his hand a few times, gauging the trajectory before nodding to himself, drawing his hand back, and throwing. The egg spattered perfectly across the tinted rear windshield, at the same time that a deafening screech sounded, all the SUV's lights blinking on.

Cloud jumped and shrank back, covering his ears against the siren, car alarm lighting up the rig like a Christmas tree. Someone was cursing in an incomprehensible string, the entire crew racing back to Pence's car, motor turning over frantic amid the frenzy.

Roxas flung the stink bomb into the mailbox and dove in through the open rear hatch just before Cloud and Leon, the last of the crew to find a seat or handhold before the late-model wagon jumped off the clutch and raced away from the scene, night air streaming cold all around them.

Cloud finally righted himself about the time Pence swung a wide turn onto the main drag, reaching up to grab the still-open hatch so they didn't get pulled out by the cops on Halloween patrol. Unfortunately, this obscured the very nice view Leon had of his back, narrow hips, and nicely curved ass, but after securing the hatch Cloud looked up at him instead, eyes round and reflecting the passing streetlights.

"Oops," he murmured, a wry, apologetic smile curving up one side of his mouth.

"Smooth move there, Ex-Lax," Hayner drawled, shoulders shaking as he laughed, leaning against the side of the car for support. "Holy shit!"

"Yeah, nice shootin', Tex," Olette teased from the front passenger seat, turning to throw Cloud a wink before facing front again to direct Pence to their next location on the map.

Leon watched Cloud's cheeks flush with embarrassment, his eyes lit all the same in exhilaration, and he wondered what would happen if he leaned in and kissed him.

Riku figured most people knew better than to spend an evening sitting in a pumpkin patch in the dead of October. He could see his breath hanging in the air, floating up towards the darkened sky and the twinkling stars, moonlight washing the sea of tangling vines and hunched squash in silver. It was kind of pretty, and really fucking cold.

Most people would know better, probably, but most people didn't know Sora.

The boy in question was sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, hands in between to keep him warm, alternating between resting his chin between the two little hills his kneecaps created, or sticking his nose between them to warm it up, only his eyes visible at that point, blinking and crossing at Riku until he laughed. At which point Sora would laugh too, muffled by his position.

"It's a perfect night," he reflected after a while, leaning back just enough to tilt his head up and look at the sky. "No sign of rain, not like last year."

Riku chuckled, remembered Kairi laughing and smearing mud on the side of his face because he splashed her with a puddle when they ran for shelter, the three of them huddled in the empty booth while Sora shivered and thumbed at his cell phone to get Aerith to come pick them up. "I definitely prefer being dry."

"Mm," Sora hummed in agreement, turning his head to look at Riku fully, lying against his knees. "I wish Kairi was here."

"Yeah." It wasn't that he didn't agree, really; Riku loved Kairi, she was his best friend, too, but… she was always there, and when she was there it was hard to. Well. Make progress, Riku's brain supplied, and he mentally rolled his eyes. "But… it's kind of nice getting some time to ourselves, right?"

Please agree, he prayed silently. Please, please, please.

Sora's smile lit up the night as bright as day. "It kind of is, isn't it?"

Riku hid his grin by hunching up inside his coat and curling up a bit tighter, hands inside his sleeves.

"But, Riku."

"Hm?"

"I'm really cold." Sora grinned softly, then straightened, eyes lighting up, and shrugged off his backpack. "I think I have a space blanket."

Riku blinked, watching him shuck off the moogle and unzip it to rummage around its insides. "What, really?"

"Yeah. Here." Sora dropped a handful of granola bars in his lap and continued the search, tossing aside a bungee cord, then a pack of gum, then a first-aid kit. "Hold on, it's in here somewhere."

Riku blinked and unwrapped a granola bar, stuck it in his mouth and sucked at the chocolate chips. A swiss army knife came next, then a magnifying glass, a packet of military C-rations, goggles, water purifying tablets, a pocket rain poncho. He watched all of this land in a small pile in the dirt and bit off the end of the granola bar, chewing thoughtfully, wondering how the hell all of that fit in a little plush moogle, anyway.

"Aha!" Sora crowed, emerging triumphantly with a flat plastic package in his hand. "Found it!"

Riku, being a fairly demure kid, didn't say anything about the fact that there was only one blanket. But he thought it. A lot. He thought it and smirked to himself when Sora wasn't looking, pulling the package open to unfold its silvery contents. He finished off the granola bar and shifted close enough that Sora could drape the plastic sheet over both of their shoulders, smirking again when Sora bent over to gather up his supplies and stuff them back in the moogle.

After a few minutes, he was fairly warm aside from one foot and one knee of his crossed legs, which didn't quite fit under the blanket. He was particularly warm on the other side, where his shoulder was squished up against Sora's. The other boy was crosslegged, too, knee overlapping his, backpack settled on his lap like a stuffed toy, tucked under his chin while he stared ahead over the twisting pumpkin vines, fingers scratching the top of its head like a cat.

For a few minutes, seems how Sora was oblivious, Riku just stared. First at the spikes of his hair, then his profile, the line of his nose, the curve of his lips. Riku licked his own, imagination too good at calling up the idea of what it would feel like, taste like, to kiss him. Once he'd willed the image away enough and was staring at Sora's hands instead, chewed-down fingernails and dirty knuckles, he let out a breath. "Hey. You haven't told the story yet."

"Oh yeah!" Sora's bright eyes turned towards him, grin playing over his face, and he cleared his throat with a flourish. "Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, is permitted entry to our world one night a year when the portal opens on Halloween night. He has from sundown to the witching hour to roam the earth, pulling pranks and scaring anyone who ventures beyond their own front porches; jack o' lanterns are a symbol of respect to the Pumpkin King, and anyone who doesn't put one out permits Jack to enter their nightmares." Sora bared his teeth and made little claws with his fingers like he was going to pounce; Riku rolled his eyes and batted his hands away, which was Sora's cue to continue.

"Legend says that Jack also appears in pumpkin patches that best represent the spirit of Halloween, and if you can catch him lurking in one, look into his eyes and show no fear, then he will grant you one wish—just one, and you have to be careful what you wish for because Jack's tricky and if there's a loophole, he'll find it. But anyone who's ever managed to find the Pumpkin King has never been able to look into his eyes without screaming or passing out in terror."

Riku was smiling and chuckling by the time he finished. "Is that so?"

"It's totally true, Riku!" Sora scowled, feigning offense, then grinned and tried to sock him in the shoulder, which didn't work out too well, as curled up as they were together. He just ended up jostling them and rustling the blanket, which necessitated resettling, and somehow after that they were even closer than before.

For a few more minutes, Riku sat and soaked up Sora's warmth, almost but not quite daring to lean their heads together, almost but not quite daring to reach down and slip his hand into Sora's. He poked the moogle's nose instead, and was wondering out loud before he could stop himself. "Why do you carry this around everywhere, anyway? I mean," he amended when Sora's mouth turned down in an honest frown, "I'm just curious."

For a few minutes, Sora was still and silent, and Riku worried that he really had offended him, that he was about to get kicked out from under the blanket and maybe out of the pumpkin patch, too. But then, after a protracted pause, Sora sighed, curling tighter around himself and his little plush backpack. "It's in case me and Roxas have to leave again."

Riku found himself swallowing and feeling incredibly small, thinking about being ten years old and kicking the rungs of a stool at the breakfast bar, back when Dad was still home most of the time, and Cloud coming in to sit down next to him, back when Cloud was still just his annoying older brother and not his caretaker. The announcement of Hey, the lady across the street just got some new foster kids. Riku had to ask his dad what foster kids were.

"You know," Sora said, voice low, face mostly hidden in shadow and his arms, "my mom used to tell me that story every year the night before Halloween. She used to tell Roxas, too, before he decided he was too old for that stuff. You know…" His voice caught and he cleared his throat, continuing. "What Demyx said. That parents exist to make their kids miserable. I think—I'd rather she was alive to make me miserable. I'd take that over the alternative."

Riku figured that most people wouldn't be out here in the cold on Halloween night, huddled under a space blanket, but most people weren't Riku. He was, and being Riku, he figured the best thing to do was exactly what he did. A slight shift to the side, relocation of his arm—the one pressed against Sora's, first, and then the other one, gathering the smaller boy up and pulling him close. For another moment in which Riku was slightly terrified and Sora was completely silent and still, again, he wondered if that was exactly the wrong thing to do. Then Sora breathed out, and wrapped his arms around Riku's waist, and—yeah. It was perfect.

Nose in Sora's hair, breathing him in, Riku wondered what it would be like. Eyes closed, he thought about the back of his bedroom door and turning his music up to deafening to drown out the fight in the kitchen. Thought about how Dad was never home anymore and Mom was only home sometimes. Tried to remember the exact moment when Cloud stopped being his annoying older brother and started being the head of household.

Then Sora shifted, slightly closer, turned his head to nuzzle against Riku's neck, breath on his collarbone, and he started thinking about different things entirely.

He thought, at first, about moving his hand just so over Sora's shoulder, tilting his chin up and brushing their lips together. He thought about the feel of Sora's skin under his thumb, the taste of salt and candy on his lips. It would be easy, and simple and perfect, and then Sora's eyes would blink open, questioning, and Riku would cup his cheek and say something cheesy and perfect like—

I think I'm in love with you.

Riku swallowed, felt his pulse speeding up. He was going to do it. He really, really was—there was no better opportunity. His hand was moving, it was en route. He was licking his lips, wondering if Sora's were chapped, too. He was closing his eyes, because he didn't think he could go through with it if he caught Sora's gaze beforehand. Almost.

"And in this exhibit," Hayner's voice called, cutting through the chilled air like a machete, "we have the slightly hormonal and confused Freshmen. It seems that the silver variety is attempting to make what observers might refer to as a move."

Riku, abruptly, was as far away from Sora as he could get without actually leaving the confines of the blanket. Hayner, Roxas and Demyx were approaching them down one of the rows, and in the parking lot Pence's car was idling, headlights cutting through the night. How had he not heard them pull up?

Roxas was staring directly at him, eyes slit, dark scowl pulling down his mouth. Fuck. He fiddled with the edge of the silver plastic, if only to keep his hands in plain view and possibly reduce that glare a few notches. How the hell did he always know?

"Is that a space blanket?" Demyx asked, blinking, just as they all came to a halt. Sora chuckled nervously, whether due to the question or the position they'd just been caught in, Riku couldn't tell. He grinned in a flash of teeth. "Cold enough for you, or is it just a good incentive?"

"Shut," Riku grit through his teeth, "up."

Hayner made a great show of looking around. "Has the Pumpkin King been by?"

"Not yet!" Sora replied brightly, awkward moment forgotten with a brilliant grin. "It's still early, you know. How'd the annual vandalism go?"

"Thomas is gonna be picking toilet paper out of his grass until summer vacation." Hayner grinned, rocking on his toes. "We got Hogan good, too. Gave him the classic treatment."

Riku blinked, noting how Sora went still, looking over at his brother. He remembered the incident, not a week ago now, Sora practically sick and trembling on the bench outside the principal's office and they took my backpack, Riku, they took my backpack… He might have been imagining things, and it was pretty dark out, but just for an instant he thought he saw Roxas's eyes soften.

Demyx was the one to finally break through the moment, easily bringing everyone back around. "So, you guys wanna call it a night and come to the party?"

Riku exchanged a look with Sora, noting how the corners of his lips curled up, like maybe he… nah. Riku shrugged, space blanket crinkling in punctuation. "That's okay."

"You have your traditions, we have ours," Sora affirmed.

Demyx and Hayner shrugged, sighed, turned to wander back to the car with "Okay, see you guys tomorrow," called over shoulders. Roxas hovered a moment longer, expression caught between irritation and the narrow glare Riku always seemed to earn, until Hayner doubled back and bumped their fists together, clapping him on the shoulder until he turned and went along. "Come on, he can take care of himself. He's probably got an arsenal in that backpack."

At the car, the back hatch had been thrown open, and as Riku watched them walk away he noted that Cloud was seated on it, watching. When Riku looked his way, he made a little salute, two fingers from his forehead, and Riku grinned, returned the gesture. He had the rest of the night, still. And… maybe. Just maybe.

…something. Riku took a deep breath, and settled back in.

He was swimming in them, shadows oozing out of doorways, pouring around corners in droves, scurrying around him in packs; the neighborhood was crawling with Heartless, all ripe for harvesting. Axel watched them all from behind a rusted pick-up truck, waiting for the opportune moment to attack, to collect. All he needed was patience.

When his moment came, Axel held back, watching the group pass him, huddled together, captive hearts clutched protectively against their chests, all weak and counting on safety in numbers: useless. He waited until the last two stragglers drew even with his side of the truck, then jumped out dramatically, arms wide and extended like claws, hunched over to bring an intimidating grin closer to their faces.

"Trick-or-treat," he said softly, silencing their surprised shrieks with more success than he would have if he'd shouted. "None of you would happen to be a Keyblade master now, would you?" he asked, keeping his voice just as mellow, still crouched down as if about to strike. Upon taking in their puzzled, nervous faces, Axel straightened, held out one hand, palm up, toothy grin still in place. "Then hand over an offering and maybe I won't destroy you."

The heartless continued to look confused, now shuffling apprehensively, shooting each other furtive glances as they sized up threats and any possible routes of escape. Axel snapped his fingers, once, angling his head and raising one eyebrow, just enough action to let them know he was on to them and their little half-cocked plans weren't going to work with him. "Come on, let's make the best choice for everyone: you give me one little piece from your stash and you get to walk away, no harm done, got it memorized?" He leaned in so he was inches away from a black and yellow-striped heartless, and flicked its bobbing antennae with his index finger, watching it swallow and hesitantly reach into its trove.

The movement was enough to spur the others into action, each digging anxious hands into pillow cases and plastic pumpkins. "Oh, and anything that isn't chocolate will earn you a slow and painful death," Axel added offhand, smirking as he heard something lollipop-like fall back into a bag. Soon, he was presented with seven captive hearts, which he promptly shoved into the pocket of his sweatshirt before winking at the heartless, dismissing them with a wave as he turned and slinked away to find a new hiding place.

He listened to them scurry away behind him, trying to keep their voices down so he wouldn't hear their false bravado about how someone could've taken him if a little sister hadn't been present, and chuckled, slipping his hand into his pocket to brush his fingers over his prize. Victory. He found a row of hedges a few blocks away, crouched down between two and pulled up his hood to wait for his next set of unsuspecting victims.

An hour and eight hold-ups later, Axel's pockets were stuffed full, and he was ready to move on to the next phase of his mission. He kept away from the street lights, slumped over with his hood up as he slipped through yards, crowds, navigating four blocks and a corner mart before reaching his destination: Castle Oblivion. A cursory glance right, then left, and Axel hurried down the cracked, mossy walkway to the rusted screen door, easing it open and holding his breath every time the rusted springs threatened to creak. Once he was through, Axel closed the door just as slowly, ears open and intent on any signs of life on the inside; he couldn't afford to be caught, not tonight.

Inside, the white walls were tinged light brown with smoke and grime, made darker by cheap, fluorescent lighting. The coffee table was laden with old, musty magazines and stale coffee cups, all slanting at a slight angle on one of the unstable legs on the shaggy carpet, which harbored the threat of a squeaky floor. Axel leaned forward cautiously, peered around the corner into the dingy kitchen, saw no sign of the slicked back, greasy hair of a woman who would rather smoke and stare out the window to scrutinize and bitch than wash the dirty dishes piled in the sink and spilling out over the counter tops and stove.

"No Larxene," Axel whispered, venturing two steps into the narrow room. He reached out with his left hand, still easing forward as quietly as he could manage, bringing his fingers closer and closer to the refrigerator. Just a little further and he wrapped his hand around the handle, pulled open the door just as carefully as he had the screen. Inside was what he'd been looking for: ammunition. He threw one more glance over his shoulder, holding his breath to listen for the heavier footsteps of the man who could foil his plans, strike first and ask questions later, but Marluxia seemed to be intent on his own schemes.

Shaking himself out of his momentary lapse of focus, Axel scowled in determination, pulling out the Styrofoam box of deadly, white weaponry, and closed the fridge as quickly as he could before sneaking back out of the castle, the first part of his objective complete. Axel paused on the porch, swept the land outside with a critical eye, settling briefly on the cream fortress across the street, inhabitants all out on missions of their own, then spurred himself into motion. He threw one fist up into the air in victory; he'd successfully eluded the lords of Castle Oblivion, and now all he needed was a target to strike—and Axel knew just the target.

He ambled along the sidewalk, stealthy in his casual movements, holding his weapon protectively at his side, hiding the box as best he could with his sleeve. His destination was two blocks over the other way from where he'd come, toward the cul-de-sac and far enough away from the streetlights to be cast in relative shadow. Inside was Vexen, the nerd who'd had his eye on Roxas ever since they'd been partnered together in chemistry by that poor excuse for a teacher; Vexen was creepy, someone Number Thirteen didn't need lurking around and getting in the way.

Axel drew up to the car parked in the driveway, the used sedan he knew Vexen drove back and forth to school, circling it and checking for possible alarms or nosy neighbors. Fortunately, the neighborhood was relatively empty, avoided by the heartless for its notorious lack of hearts to capture. He smirked and crept over to a nearby tree, leaning against it so he was partially hidden by leaves and branches, and popped open the box. Pulled out one shiny, white round and held it in his fingertips for one anticipatory moment before throwing it viciously at the car ahead.

White shell broke open against metal, and runny yellow splattered over metallic blue in satisfying rivulets. Axel halted before lobbing another, waited to see if he'd be discovered, then grinned and threw more until the car was covered in messy yolks: another objective accomplished, yet another successful year. Axel was still undiscovered, and Roxas was still safe. Time to go join the rest of the Organization. He left the empty box of used ammunition in a crook of the tree and fled before anyone could spot him.

The Organization was gathered back near Castle Oblivion, where Axel ran the risk of facing the wrath of Marluxia and Larxene, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care in his sense of elation. He cut through a couple of yards, jumped one fence and snagged his sweatshirt hood on a split board, overbalanced, and promptly fell to the ground, sprawled out for a few seconds as a whoomph of air was knocked out of his lungs on impact. He sprang back up onto his feet as soon as possible, looking around to see if anyone had witnessed his slip-up.

Then he saw the figure in partial silhouette in the doorway across the street, dark hair in his face as he leaned back casually, arms crossed: Axel knew smug when he saw it. Then the figure pushed off from the doorway, stood up straighter for whatever jeer was about to come. "Aren't you a little old for trick-or-treating, Axel?"

Axel snorted, brushed a clump of torn-up grass from his sleeve and retorted, "Aren't you a little pathetic to be home alone on Halloween, Zexion?" There wasn't any real animosity between them, or at least there hadn't been until rumors of Axel's mission had begun to circulate around the high school at least a year ago, and suddenly Zexion was running with a much more popular crowd, and what had once been what Axel thought a solid friendship had become suspicion and insults in the flimsy guise of innocent banter whenever their paths happened to cross.

Zexion drew in a breath to retort, and Axel braced himself, ready for any sign that brought his old friend's betrayal out into the open. But instead, Zexion avoided the issue, never one for tackling these sorts of situations head-on. "How are things with Roxas?" he asked, angling his head to the side so his posture was just sly enough to still be considered good-natured. Axel grit his teeth all the same, one eyebrow shooting up in challenge. Zexion's lips pulled into a smile, shoulders lifting and falling with one simple, pointed shrug. "When the time's right, I guess?" he said softly, and then he was slinking back into the house before Axel could draw their feud out into the open. The bastard.

Axel stood rooted to the spot, seething, fingers clenching and unclenching as he pictured them adding pressure around Zexion's little neck. Barging into his home and socking him in the face was bound to get him cuffed, or taken back "home," which could very well be the equivalent of a death sentence. Better to take a page out of his ex-friend's book and handle things indirectly. His ears perked up at the sound of another group of heartless meandering down the street, still searching for more hearts: opportunity.

"Hey, you, kids!" Axel called out, meeting them halfway up the street. "See that house down there?" He pointed at Zexion's place, waved grandly when heads nodded tentatively. "The guy there is handing out king-size candy bars." Just a couple minutes of convincing, reassuring, and then Axel sent his little attack force on its way. He hurried over to the last fence that would drop him in Demyx's back yard, grinning in triumph when he heard the chorus of demanding heartless on Zexion's doorstep. Score.

He sprang over the fence quickly, pumping one fist into the air when he stuck the landing, and double-checked for any grass or lawn-like debris that might've clung to his clothing. He fished around in the pocket of his sweatshirt for one heart in particular, pulled it out and rubbed his thumb against the shiny orange surface: perfect for Number Thirteen. His annual mission was a success; all he had to do now was celebrate.

There were weekends when Hayner had keggers. Loud, boisterous parties that went on late into the night, sometimes busted by cops, sometimes broken up by enough neighbors who knew their phone number that he finally sent home anyone he didn't know. There were weekends, and sometimes Roxas went to them and sometimes he didn't, but he always went on the weekends when it was just them. Just the baker's dozen of kids who living in the neighborhood, and no alcohol in sight. Halloween was a tradition in that regard.

He was leaning in the archway between the kitchen and the hall that lead to the living room, open can of Pepsi sweating in his hand, when the Reeses peanut butter cup hit him in the back of the head, bounced off the carpet where it fell and landed on the toe of his right shoe.

Roxas let out a long breath, inhaled another one, before reaching down to pick up the foil-wrapped candy. "Axel."

Everyone else was in the living room, conversation and music spilling into the hall, and the hardwood kitchen floor creaked behind him; Axel had snuck in the sliding door, into whatever structure he imagined Hayner's house to be on Halloween night.

Axel stretched out against the wall behind him, long and easy, and grinned as he took a bite out of a fun-size Milky Way. "Hey there," he spoke through his mouthful of chocolate. "You seem to be over some mistletoe."

Roxas breathed out one more time, a long sigh, and held up the candy in the palm of his hand. "This is not mistletoe, an I'm not going to kiss you. I refuse to put myself in a position to catch your freak germs."

"Which kind of position would you prefer?" Axel's comeback was like breathing, as routine as an exhale as he brushed past Roxas, elbow just barely making contact with his shoulder on his way to the living room. "Time to mingle, give the people what they want."

There was an instant, as Axel passed, of warmth, a smell like night air and cut grass, there and gone like a breeze a moment later. He wasn't blushing, it was just that his cheeks felt hot, fingers closing around the candy, hand dropping to his side. He wasn't thinking, not at all. Wasn't thinking about the hum of a refrigerator against his back or anything to do with that same warmth and smell close and tight against him. Not at all. He did think, presently, that the candy was going to melt, curled tight in his fist like that.

Then any thoughts Roxas may or may not have had were interrupted by Axel's voice in the living room, low and hushed as it addressed someone in the room, and Roxas tried to angle his head to pick up on whatever he was saying, inot/i considering how he could know when Axel was speaking over everyone else Iand/i Hayner's stereo. Shortly thereafter, Roxas cringed at Yuffie's excited cheer, and then eyed the Reeses with deadly intent when he realized that she was agreeing that a game of 'spin the bottle' was, in fact, a great idea.

"He's going to fucking kill me," Roxas muttered to the slightly smooshed peanut butter cup in his hand. Then, for no particular reason, he pocketed it, sighed, and walked down the hall to the living room, like a man to his execution. Or someone else's, depending on who got the upper hand first.

On nights like these, Naminé didn't have to worry about unfamiliar faces in Hayner's home, someone cornering her and keeping her up-to-date with the latest cheesy pick-up lines. These gatherings, she could just relax and have fun, know that everyone in the house really knew her and that she could talk to anyone, be noticed. These friends were her true family, not the parents who probably didn't even know she wasn't in her room right now, who may or may not have made enough dinner to include a meal for their daughter.

Naminé was making rounds through her friends, her brothers and sisters, camera held in front of her as she caught funny faces and witty insults, recording the events of their evening to video. Hayner managed to get Demyx into a particularly vicious headlock close to the start of the party, Demyx picked away at his sitar off and on in harmony with songs on the stereo, Pence and Olette remained blissfully unaware as she took a couple of still shots of them kissing on the couch, and she managed to get one great photo of Cloud and Leon almost talking over by the wall with the standing lamp. Judging by the contemplative look in Leon's eyes, Naminé wondered if they just might end up coming to their senses at some point before the night was over and just kiss already.

She finished up watching Yuffie attempt to crush an empty Coke can with her forehead, proof of the event captured by her digital camera, when Axel sidled up to the brunette and put out the brilliant suggested of 'spin the bottle.' Upon a brief glance to the kitchen, where Roxas was strangling what looked like might've been a candy bar, Naminé predicted that the holiday would either end horribly, or with some of this ongoing tension finally resolved.

So when Yuffie exclaimed her approval, Naminé gave a nod of her own and took a place on the floor. "Who's in?" she asked.

One by one, everyone started sitting down. Hayner and Pence moved the sofa against the wall and the coffee table out of the way. Leon and Cloud, after staring contemplatively at several things, including each other, moved almost in tandem and sat down at opposite ends of the circle. Axel plopped down next to Yuffie, gangly limbs crossing over each other. Roxas walked in eventually, a murderous expression on his face, and dropped down to six next to Hayner, never looking at Axel directly.

Something was going on with them, she mused, folding her legs while Yuffie and Hayner argued over whether to use a plastic or glass bottle. There was always tension between Axel and Roxas, but usually, even in a situation like this, they would be right next to each other, bickering the entire way. This silence and avoidance was new, a bit unsettling.

Naminé's inner debate over whether or not the game was still a good idea to encourage was interrupted by Demyx's awkward shifting next to the stereo, which he'd turned down to a lower volume. "Uh… I don't know if I should play," he said uncertainly, tapping his index finger against the head of his sitar.

"Come on, man, live a little." Hayner tried to wave Demyx over, followed enthusiastically by Yuffie, but he shook his head and climbed onto the loveseat off to the side, content to provide background music to the whole affair. Yuffie plopped the bottle into the middle of the circle and sat back, beaming at the group. "So. Who wants to go first?"

Olette settled back into Pence's one-armed embrace, legs stretching out to her side to partially rest in Hayner's lap. "How about Axel spins first, since it was his idea?"

Naminé watched Axel carefully, caught the way his eyes darted in Roxas's general direction, where Roxas was still making it a point not to look at Axel at all, even if there was a tic working furiously in his jaw as the redhead reached out to place his hand on the bottle. One little bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed, and then Axel flicked his wrist and the bottle spun wildly on the floor.

Normally, in almost every other circumstance Naminé would have her fists curled on her knees, silently praying under her breath for the bottle to land on Roxas. Maybe it was a little wishful and selfish, but it was for their own good, really. Now, though, she thought, watching the bottle spin, feeling Roxas tense at her side—maybe this wasn't how it should happen. She bit her lip, curled her fingers in the hem of her skirt, and prayed that the bottle stopped on someone else.

The bottle came to a halt, friction working its magic, pointed squarely at Hayner. The boy in question stared at the bit of shaped glass in their midst for a long moment, before making an odd noise and muttering, "The fuck."

Naminé's eyes darted from Hayner's wide eyes; to Axel's tongue nervously licking his lips, about to crack some sort of joke; to Roxas's white-knuckled fist digging into the floor, and she wondered just how this scene was going to end as she frantically searched her mind for something that would break the tension.

And then Yuffie solved the problem for her by darting forward before Axel could make a move, arms clasping around Hayner's shoulders and drawing him in for a sloppy, almost violent kiss. She was back in her place before anyone could react, legs tucked under her like nothing had happened.

There was along moment where nobody said anything, where Hayner looked like he'd just been lobotomized, Yuffie looked smug and prim, and everyone else blinked. Then there was a sound like a camera shutter clicking, and Naminé twisted her head around to see Demyx behind her on the loveseat, phone flipped open.

Roxas snickered, and when Hayner turned his wide-eyed zombie expression directly on him, he started laughing.

"The fuck are you laughing at?" Hayner ground out, moving on from Roxas to the boy on the couch. "Dem."

"Your face," Demyx cackled, thumb navigating the phone's keypad quickly. "It was priceless."

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU SENDING THAT TO, DEMYX?"

"Kairi has to see this." Demyx grinned at the phone, tongue stuck out between his teeth.

Naminé's voice was a little choked up by laughter, but she made her best effort to keep a straight face as she held her hands out toward Hayner in placation, worried that the look on his face might mean something very painful for Demyx. "It's just Kairi, right?" She cleared her throat, hoped that Hayner wouldn't particularly notice the fresh bout of giggles slipping out from between her teeth before she could stop them. "Okay, so… since Yuffie just took her turn, I guess that mean's Olette's next."

"Awesome!" Olette pumped a fist in the air triumphantly, but instead of leaning out into the center to spin the bottle, she just turned in place and wrapped her arms around Pence, proceeding to kiss him soundly. Without stopping.

Roxas snorted and tossed his empty Pepsi can at Pence's back. Olette flipped him off over his shoulder, and a string of sighs and groans sounded around the circle.

Since Olette forfeited her turn, Leon was next in line for a spin of the bottle. He was the epitome of cool and casual as he reached out and settled his fingers on the glass, even if his eyes did flicker in Cloud's direction for just a moment before spinning, sitting back and watching the bottle intently as he waited to see who it would choose.

When the neck of the bottle slowed to a stop, angled just enough to the right to be on Cloud, instead of Axel, Leon smirked wide enough to actually show teeth, and Naminé held her breath as he took one 'step' forward on his knee, bent over enough to cup either side of Cloud's face in his hands as the blond looked up at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. Then they were kissing, and Naminé was able to breathe again when Cloud's eyes snapped closed and his hands rested on Leon's shoulders.

And soon she was laughing and Yuffie was making catcalls as Leon yanked Cloud up off of the floor by his shirt collar to drag him off into another room, neither of them saying much of anything other than a mumbled "g'night" while Hayner threatened to maim if they thought they were going to use his bedroom for that. Another flash and a click, and Naminé looked up to find Demyx leaning back on the couch, a grin on his face bright enough to be in an Orbitz commercial as he sent the latest pic update to his girlfriend.

Once the laughter died down, Hayner was still muttering, low, annoyed things about his house becoming a brothel and how Pence and Olette were still kissing, but he dutifully leaned forward for his turn with the bottle. It spun once, twice, three times, before stopping with a slight list to the side, pointed at Pence's left foot. Hayner scowled, folded his arms and glared at the couple still deeply engaged with each other's tonsils, and finally huffed, "Fine, I didn't want to kiss you, anyway," which started off another round of tittering and laughter.

Naminé wasn't entirely sure what sort of bug had infected everyone tonight, but Yuffie seemed to think that Hayner didn't deserve to get away from his turn without a kiss. She was across the (now rather lopsided) circle in an instant, and had kissed Hayner senseless and returned to her seat just as fast, although this time during her retreat, the kissee was flailing and wiping his mouth. "God DAMN it—you SHUT THE FUCK UP, BLONDIE," he added, glaring at Roxas, who had fallen over backwards laughing.

Naminé clutched her side as she laughed, caught up in the fun that she and her friends hadn't experienced in way too long. When she felt a tap on her shoulder, she looked up into Demyx's smiling face. He held out his cell phone so she could see the screen, on which Kairi was sitting on the edge of her bed, blowing him a kiss. "Looks like I got to play too," Demyx beamed, saving the image. Naminé grinned back, still broken up by fits of giggles. Maybe tonight would turn out for the best after all.

The laughter died down, Hayner's face returned to something that was more like his natural complexion, and then it was Roxas's turn. Axel made sure he didn't lean forward, kept his eyes from widening, ensured that his breathing remained steady and even: this was it, the bottle could prove that they were meant to be.

Roxas might have had just a bit of a shaky touch when he reached out to take his spin. Might have swallowed a little harder than usual. Might have looked everywhere in the room that wasn't at Axel. He might have, aside from being the picture of cool and confident, sitting back on his heels and watching.

Then the bottle spun, and the air seemed to crackle around Axel as tension coiled in his gut. He remembered just in time not to bite his lip, to chew on the inside of his cheek instead, and his nails dug into the palm of his right hand. Come on, come on, come on, in his head like a silent mantra.

Naminé, at least, had the grace to look startled when the bottle slid to a halt, pointing at her.

Maybe it wouldn't been easier if there'd been a grimace, if there had been stiff limbs and shut-tight eyes. But there wasn't, there was only Roxas laughing—even if the sound was probably harsh, nervous—as he leaned in, gave some semblance of a little bow before leaving a quick, sweet peck on Naminé's lips. And the tension in Axel's gut sprang, shot up into his throat like a claw lashing out to rip, tear.

"Oh. How sweet," Hayner intoned with an eyeroll, elbowing Roxas in the ribs, receiving one in return, Naminé laughing softly, embarrassed, and then it was her turn. Her hand on the bottle, another spin. The world kept turning, damnit.

The bottle pointed at Hayner again, despite Axel's mental screaming for time to just stop for a little while so he could get his fucking head straight, stop plotting a Naminé-centric death because nobody hurt her without getting strung up and castrated, and when Yuffie wriggled on her bent legs like she was going to tackle him again, Hayner jumped to his feet and held out his arms defensively. "I think this has been enough fun for tonight," he stated, voice threatening to crack in a way that normally would've had Axel smirking and wise-cracking before he even had to think about what to say.

Hayner scrambled around the loveseat to escape Yuffie, still advancing on him, broad grin showing her canines and intent. He jostled the two lovebirds out of their extended lip-lock en route, the few kids still on the floor in what could no longer be properly called a circle cracked into laughter, Demyx snapping pictures of Hayner running away.

Roxas's eyes locked with his just for an instant, face carefully neutral, mouth open. A fraction of a second, and then his attention jerked away, falling into a conversation with Naminé and Pence. Calm and easy, like the world hadn't just ended.

That released coil of tension froze, just crystallized in Axel's throat, making it hard to swallow. Fuck. It. All. He wasn't sure what exactly he was doing as he rose to his feet, took the two strides to join Demyx on the loveseat, but before he could stop himself, his arm was stretching out over the other boy's shoulders and his lips were definitely a little too close to his ear when he spoke, voice soft.

"So, Dem, written any new songs lately?" It wasn't his most inventive pick-up line, but Axel knew enough to register it as one and it was directed at someone other than Roxas. But he had just made it pretty damn apparent that he didn't want that sort of attention, had finally driven it home to Axel after years of protesting, and he was reeling, not quite sure how to pick himself up again. He just prayed Kairi wouldn't rip out his throat while he tried to figure it out.

There was a point, when the bottle was spinning, where something in Roxas's stomach had twisted up, something in his chest throbbed, and he wasn't sure if he was going to be sick, or if he really wanted the bottle to land on Axel. He tried not to think too hard about it, seems how that hadn't come about, after all, pecking Naminé in a cool wash of relief, dull ache somewhere deep inside easy to ignore.

What he really wanted, Roxas told himself, was for all of this to pass, to blow over. He wanted things to go back to normal, wanted him and Axel to go back to normal, wanted the questions and wonderings to stop popping up in his head. He tried to ease away form the whole event, laughing at something Pence said, and in a brief heat of silence in their conversation, somewhere behind him he heard Axel chuckle. The flirty chuckle, the one that was usually delivered right in Roxas's ear.

He turned just enough to look back at the loveseat, frowning in confusion, and there was Axel, sure enough. But he was sprawled out far too close to Demyx for comfort, the latter curled around his sitar, frantically punching buttons on his phone, eyes wide and alarmed, regarding Axel sideways.

He wasn't sure what this was—the watery, painful jerk in his stomach, the way his throat felt tight and hot. Roxas blinked, but the scene remained the same only Axel was moving closer, murmured words hard to hear over Naminé's bright laughter, Demyx chuckling nervously and trying to wave him off. What was it? Why were his hands shaking?

It was all wrong, that was it. That was their game, Axel was his crazy, persistent stalker. It was their show. That was supposed to be him on the couch, rolling his eyes and shoving Axel away, trading jabs and insults and one-liners. It wasn't fair, that was it. Wasn't fair for him to decide he wanted to play with someone else.

Roxas felt selfish, childish; he felt like that ache deep in his chest was cracking, breaking apart. He scowled, climbed to his feet and stormed over to the loveseat, grabbed Axel by the shoulder and hauled him up, away from Demyx and whatever ridiculous idea had led him there to begin with. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Axel shrugged out of Roxas's grip, took a step back and tugged his sweatshirt straight, the action stirring something weird in Roxas's gut—he was usually the one who pulled away first. "Talking to Demyx. He's our friend, right?" His voice was harder than usual, tone cold in a way that he rarely used when he was talking to Roxas.

Roxas swallowed, feeling something like the bottom falling out of the world. This was all wrong—why was everything going so wrong all of a sudden? What was this? Rejection? He curled his hands into fists as his sides, jerking his head towards the hallway. "Kitchen."

There was a moment where Axel just stood there, arms crossed, eyes hard on him and jaw clenched tight, and then he let out a snort through his nose, shook his head and made for the kitchen without a brush against his side, without a suggestive comment about what they could get up to in there.

It was all wrong.

The shake had moved from Roxas's hands, into his torso, his shoulders, down to his knees. He walked down the hall feeling the world tilting on its axis, watching the stiff line of Axel's back, wondering what had happened, what was going to happen. What the hell did he say?

Axel continued to keep his distance in the kitchen, bracing one hip against the sink on the far side of the room, opposite Roxas. His eyes were still hot with anger, trying to burn a hold through the wood floor while he remained silent, waiting for Roxas to make the first move.

Roxas hovered in the doorway, swallowing because he thought he really might throw up, now, and he was shaking and hurting and he didn't know why and the more he stood there, the more he tensed his shoulders to keep himself still, the angrier he got. At Axel, at everything, at his trembling knees and the cold pain in his chest. "What the fuck," he said, softly, hissing through his teeth to keep his voice even. "The fuck are you doing, Axel, he has a girlfriend. What—why are you—" He started and stopped, opened and closed his mouth, but he didn't even know what he was angry about. What Axel had done that was so wrong. "What? Wha'd I do? You're—what, you're pissed because I kissed Naminé? It's a fucking game, Axel, you're not supposed to be doing that to Demyx, you're supposed to—" Roxas stopped, abruptly, realizing what he was about to say.

Axel finally looked up, his gaze scathing, defensive, and wounded in a way that he usually wouldn't allow himself to be, and he pushed away from the sink to move closer. "To what, Roxas? What?" Another step. "Oh, keep flirting with you while you shove me away? Make a freak out of myself and not get anywhere for it?" His laugh was sharp, humorless. "If that's not it, if things aren't that fucking pathetic, then please tell me what the hell you actually want from me out of this, because I'm sick of it."

He glared down at Roxas, upper lip twitching, bearing white teeth, and then he blinked, drew back. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, seemed to think about shaking his head clear and then stopped himself. "I'm out—gonna quit while I'm ahead on this fucking celebration." He spun around on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen, throwing open the sliding glass door with a grunt and stalking off into the night, hands buried in his sweatshirt pocket.

Roxas stood frozen where he was, breathing out through his mouth, something catching in his throat, skin prickling, stomach twisting. That wasn't right, that wasn't—it was a game. It was their game. Axel didn't really mean it. He was just teasing. All the jokes, the lines, the almost-touches and the definite-touches, the suggestions, the chuckle in his ear. He didn't mean it.

He couldn't have. Not really.

Right?

Roxas was falling apart piece by piece, right there on Hayner's kitchen floor, and when someone made a noise behind him he spun like a puppet off its strings, and he had to blink to clear his vision, eyelashes damp.

"It's okay," he told Naminé in a voice that sounded too hoarse to be his own. "I'm gonna go home," he told her, pretended that the rest of the house wasn't standing there in the hallway, Leon and Cloud further back, Hayner against the wall with his arms folded, staring straight ahead. "Get some dinner. Go check on my idiot brother and make sure he doesn't freeze to death."

Demyx was in front, mouth turned down, Yuffie flanking him in the entryway and he pushed past them both, exchanged a look with Hayner, accepted a pat on the shoulder from Olette and grabbed his jacket off the stairs. He wasn't quite sure how he ended up on the sidewalk, hissing out a clouded breath in the cold air, and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

He pulled one out, after a moment, opening his fingers to reveal a smooshed, foil-wrapped peanut butter cup.

The wind had picked up since Axel had slipped into the back of Hayner's house, chilling the already cold night air and stinging his eyes. He rubbed tears away with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, blaming the weather and telling it to fuck off, and hurried away from the lights of Hayner's house.

When he drew level with Leon and Yuffie's place, he slowed down, reluctant to open the screen door of his own house and deal with another dose of chain-smoking and thinly-veiled insults in one corner, and another sharp smack or two to the cheek in the other. He wasn't all too sure about crashing at Cloud and Riku's place either, uncertain of where he stood at this point in time after the events at the party and the memory of Cloud's frown when he'd left, but it was better than the alternative.

He trudged up the street, hunched over and swallowing over and over again, trying to get rid of the fucking lump in his throat, but it wouldn't clear. He hadn't really meant to say all of those things to Roxas, make him look at him like that, but… he had needed to say them. So maybe he just… wished he'd said them differently, because Roxas had looked like a deer caught in headlights, and then he'd looked more like his stomach was falling out on the floor. And looking back on things, he really had been on edge when he kissed Naminé, had dug his fingers into his shoulder painfully when he dragged him into the kitchen, like Axel had betrayed him.

Axel realized he'd stopped walking altogether, and he looked down at his shoes, swallowed again. Maybe Axel had fucked up, but Roxas wasn't completely blame-free either: all of these years of not just coming out and saying what they were to each other… or at least what he thought they might be. It was ridiculous, really, how he had to piss Roxas off or run around fighting an Organization, but god forbid he told him he…

Axel sighed and looked up at the sky, clouds rolling in to cover up the stars. He wondered, briefly, how much longer the party at Hayner's would go on, how late it would be when everyone went home, and then he decided he didn't really care. He wiped his eyes once more and turned his back on Cloud's house to cross the street to Roxas and Sora's, jumped up onto the porch, skipping three of the steps. He sat down opposite the jack o' lanterns to wait for Roxas to come home.

So they could talk. Really talk, no side-stepping, for once.

While he was waiting, a few groups of kids ventured up the steps for candy, which Axel handed out to them from the bowl that Aerith had left next to the pumpkins, her reputation enough to keep any enterprising trick-or-treater from upending the whole thing into his sack. One group he'd already encountered earlier while he'd been running around stealing candy, and he eyed them sourly but gave them an extra piece or two of candy all the same to send them on their way.

After roughly a half hour, another set of footsteps hit the pavement, coming from the other side of the street, and Axel kept his head down, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, only his eyes slowly traveling up just in time to take in Roxas's ascent up the driveway, to the bottom of the steps, where he stopped and met his gaze; Roxas's eyes were as red as his own must've been, cheeks just as raw.

Now or never. He cleared his throat, relieved that lump wasn't lodged quite as firmly, and licked chapped lips before saying, "I'm sorry." His voice was still a little rough, so he cleared it again. "We're both to blame for this mess, but I'm sorry."

Roxas shifted to one side, then back, uncertain, before settling just enough to drop his arms to his sides, fingers curled around the cuffs. "Yeah. Me too." His voice was too hoarse, puffing from his mouth in little white bursts of breath. He shifted again, swallowed hard and climbed up just enough steps to sit down on the top, leaving a demure but not unfriendly distance between their shoulders. Fingers picking at the seams of his jeans, settling and moving and resettling on his knees, he finally pushed the hood back, tilted his head just enough to look at Axel before biting his lip and looking down again. "Did you ever… I dunno. Think about asking?" He swallowed again, let out a shaky breath that froze in the air.

Axel paused, thinking for awhile before he answered, the exposed feeling that came with just saying what was on his mind something alien. "Sometimes," he said eventually. "You'd be… I don't know, sitting there on the couch and I'd be staying over late, and you'd throw popcorn at me or something and I'd think about asking you out." He made sure to catch Roxas's eye. "You didn't give me much to convince me you would've said yes though."

He stretched out on the porch so he was almost lying on the steps, elbows braced behind him. "I know… I know I handled everything wrong, we both did. But I…" Axel swallowed, brows drawing and warmth prickling at the backs of his eyes again. "I'm not really good with telling people about my shit, and you've always just had everything so together." He bit his cheek again, looked up at the underside of the eaves and closed his eyes. He didn't trust himself to say anything else without breaking into an embarrassing squeak, so he just breathed and waited.

He could feel Roxas shift next to him on the porch, lean forward on his knees, probably wrap his hands around his arms like he did when something managed to shake him. The silence seemed to stretch on, almost too long, enough to make Axel want to get up off the porch and run. Then, "You can ask me now."

He almost didn't hear it at first—the roaring in his hears, his thoughts, was deafening. But Roxas's voice sort of broke through the negativity, the belief that maybe his parents were right and he really was a worthless waste of space, and his eyes snapped open before he could stop them. "Um…?" He looked over at Roxas, eyes working over every bit of his expression to see if he was being set up for one hell of a fall.

But really, this was the problem, wasn't it? He just had to get over himself and his issues and maybe give Roxas something definite, that way it'd be out in the open and they wouldn't have to dance around it anymore: acceptance or rejection, deal with it, run with it, acknowledge it's there. "You… uh… wanna go out sometime?" He winced a little. Okay, so maybe it wasn't the best, but he didn't have to call Roxas 'Number Thirteen' in his head either, and instead of plotting a mission to battle a heartless, he was actually wondering if they could swing a Friday night date to Red Robin.

It only took a brief space of time that didn't even give Axel that moment or two he needed to doubt himself again, his heart beating fast and loud in his chest, and Roxas said, "Yeah." Then his hand reached down and tangled his fingers with Axel's before either of them seemed to know it was happening.

Axel's gaze dropped to the hand that was suddenly in his—Roxas's hand, his mind kept chanting, then back up to his eyes before resettling on their entwined fingers. This wasn't a joke or a game or anything that meant that they'd have to time the interaction, worry about letting go. He clasped Roxas's hand in his own and let a smile spread on his face—not a smirk or a leer, but something warm and open that he didn't allow very often.

After a few seconds, he laughed softly, more of a hum that tickled his lips, and scratched behind his ear with his free hand. "Not sure what the next step should be," he admitted studying the toes of his shoes.

"S'okay," Roxas murmured, his own mouth tugging up on one corner. He laughed, soft and brief, free hand coming up to cover his eyes for a moment, then his mouth, before he looked at Axel again. "I don't," he swallowed, licked his lips, "actually have it all together, you know." He smiled, apologetic, slid just slightly closer. "Just don't tell anyone, okay? They have to keep thinking I'm a coldhearted bastard. It'll be our secret." Roxas smiled softly at their clasped hands, then lifted them up, turned Axel's over, and dropped the peanut butter cup in it.

Axel looked down at the candy in his palm, the Reeses he'd thrown at Roxas's head earlier that night, that he'd been insisting was Halloween 'mistletoe' for three years. He rolled it up to his fingers, held it between thumb and index, and chuckled some more. "Maybe it wasn't my best idea to choose a candy bar with peanut butter in it, huh?"

"It'll do."

He knew but didn't know when Roxas was about to kiss him, cold hands on his face somehow making him shiver with warmth, fingers pressing against his scalp in a way he'd thought he'd like when he sprawled out on his back at night, about to sleep—this was so much better than his imagination. Roxas's lips were damp against his, emptied his head of everything else, and it was fantastic; liquid fire straight down to his toes.

Axel kissed back, just enough for it to be their first kiss and not a reason for Aerith to suddenly show up and spray him with a hose in forty-degree weather. When they broke apart, Axel opened his eyes first, watched Roxas slowly open his, then looked down at the peanut butter cup in his hand, a hint of his usual grin twitching his mouth. "Guess it worked."

"I like peanut butter," Roxas said, his voice low and a little breathless. "You must've lucked out…" His voice trailed off, eyes wandering from Axel's to his lips, back up, his arms almost but not quite around his neck.

Axel's grin melted into that easy smile again, something he was beginning to feel like he'd be able to show to Roxas a lot, and he slipped an arm around his waist, the other curling around the back of his neck to draw him in a little closer. "Nah, we're probably just meant to be together or something," he said softly, lips brushing against Roxas's as he spoke.

Roxas's eyelids fluttered, shivered, and his warm exhale tickled the ridge of Axel's ear. "Tease," he murmured, voice just as warm against Axel's lips, and Roxas wrapped his arms tighter around his neck, forcing him to kiss properly.

It was precisely then that the chorus of "Trick or treat!" erupted somewhere behind them. Roxas jumped, knocking their noses together.

Axel swore and clutched his stinging nose with one hand, the other still around Roxas's waist. He looked up at the kids coming up the sidewalk, didn't care much that they couldn't have been older than thirteen and one of them was dressed up like an angel. "Trick, kids. Beat it." He gave them each a scowl for good measure, and would've flipped them off if he was sure they'd know what it meant.

Roxas blinked a few times, a blush spreading across his cheeks as the trick-or-treat squad continued to stand there, bags open, one of the boys in the back muttering something about eggs. Before Axel could snap something about showing the brat exactly what he could do with a couple of eggs, Roxas pulled away gently, digging his keys out of his pocket and handing them over to him. "Here, go on inside."

He watched Roxas grab the bowl of candy, but decided not to stick around for the rest just in case, for some reason, Roxas decided he didn't want to go inside anymore after the coast was clear. He unlocked the front door and stepped inside, left it open a little and heard the angel claiming boys weren't supposed to kiss other boys, and Roxas telling her that she'd dig it when she was a little older. Yeah… Axel was pretty sure he loved him or something.

He waited inside, just past the foyer so he could lean against the back corner of the sofa. He'd spent years in this living room, gaming, pigging out, passing out on the cushions or underneath the coffee table from sugar highs. But this time felt different, brand new, like he'd never run his fingers over the clean, slightly worn fabric; like he hadn't dug his knuckles into the upholstery.

Axel wasn't exactly sure why the couch looked brand new to him, but he had an idea that it was something to do with the fact that he and Roxas could very well end up making out in the crook of the arm, sprawled out over the seat. Not that he was picturing it in his head in high-definition surround sound or anything.

What was taking Roxas so long? Were the kids demanding hard cash?

It wasn't too much longer before Roxas finally tromped inside, locking the door behind him and toeing his shoes off in the entry. He paused there, socked toes curling in the carpet, and just sort of stared at him for awhile, which didn't really bother Axel all that much since he was staring right back. Roxas's cheeks were still a little flushed, his eyes were making the rapid transition from annoyance to something that made Axel's spine tingle and his breath catch.

This wasn't one of their usual late nights of gaming where Axel could boast about kicking Roxas's ass and grab a Pepsi from the fridge, but the difference was… excited. Sort of made the hairs on his arms and neck crackle with static. He wasn't quite sure how to go about getting onto the couch in a way that wasn't completely pathetic, so…

Axel shrugged, grinned and let out a snort of amusement, and tilted into the back of the couch, leaned over until he could slide over and down the side onto the cushions. He let one foot fall onto the floor and stretched the other out over the couch, draped one arm of the back and rested the other on his knee. "So… nice place. I like what you've done with it."

"It's exactly the way it looked the last time you were here. Yesterday." Roxas said it with a roll of his eyes, but the corner of his mouth tilted up anyway. He shifted side to side, stuck his hands in his pockets and circumvented the couch to sit next to Axel.

Axel could've told him that he was going to ask him that first, but instead he watched Roxas sidle up in front of the leg he had stretched out on the couch, putting himself more or less between Axel's legs in a way that made his breath stop in his throat. He contemplated the various scenarios rushing through his head, how best to get back to a place where they were kissing again, then decided the best way was to fucking do something about it.

He leaned forward, bent the leg on the sofa so his knee was propped up between Roxas's back and the cushion, and threaded his fingers into the softer hairs at the nape of Roxas's neck. "I notice you didn't put in the usual Abbot and Costello monster feature," he murmured, searing his lips on the warmth from Roxas's cheek. Before he could answer, Axel kissed the corner of his mouth, just once, pressed a grin into the side of his face so he'd feel it. "Not that I'm complaining or anything." He waited to see if Roxas was still okay, took a moment for himself to get caught up to things as well.

Roxas turned into him, leaned against his touch, and Axel felt a thrill run through him, mirrored by one of his own when Roxas chuckled, the sound soft against his lips, hands settling on his shoulders and heating up his skin through the fabric of his sweatshirt. "Not like we'd watch it anyway," he murmured, voice dropping to breath, turning his head a little more for a kiss, nose rubbing against Axel's cheek.

"As long as we're on the same page…" Axel caught Roxas's lips in his own, brushed them together, nibbled a little on his lower lip because he'd always wanted to try that, and gave himself a mental pat on the back when Roxas shivered and did that little moaning thing again, not that he'd ever call it that.

He watched his parted lips and closed eyes, and when they opened again, Roxas tugged at his collar and crushed their lips together, sent bursts of heat through Axel's blood with little brushes of tongue, pushing forward, shifting up, tugging a little until Roxas was on his knees, sinking into the couch, one hand awkwardly keeping his balance on the back cushion.

Roxas's weight was pushing him back into the arm of the couch, knees between his thighs, and Axel had to take a moment to reassure himself that this was real, then immediately kicked himself for waiting so long to make this happen. His hand traveled from Roxas's neck to the hollow between his shoulder blades and pulled him down to get close, closer, while he let the fingers of his other hand ghost over Roxas's neck, up under the collar of his shirt so he could press his fingertips into the smooth slope of his shoulder.

Axel wondered what this would be like in a car, if the windows would be fogged up yet; or if they were in a bed would the mattress be squeaking. Then he wondered why his mind was jumping around to these places and yelled that they only had a limited amount of time to enjoy the couch before someone walked up to that door with a house key. Which brought up the question… "Uh… what time does Aerith get back from that party?"

Axel was saying something that might have been important. It filtered slowly through the fog that kissing Axel wrapped around him, shifting one knee into the slip of space between Axel's hip and the back of the couch to even out his weight, just knowing that one of Axel's legs was between his sending a shiver through his body. Axel's fingers were tracing over his collarbone, Axel's palm was sliding down his back and Axel himself was solid and deliciously warm beneath him, fingers tangling one with the sweatshirt and one with the arm of the couch, all his breath gone with gasping for air, all sound gone beneath the pulse in his ears. He leaned against Axel's forehead and remembered how to breathe, eyes just open enough to see him. "What? Late. Why?"

Axel shrugged, flicked one glance over his shoulder at the locked door, then laughed and shook his head. "Doesn't matter, thinking too much."

"Stop thinking and kiss me."

His grin was a little devious, even if it was still soft. He didn't bother with the quips, just stretched out on the couch so he was almost lying down, brought his hand up from Roxas's collar bone to tug him down by the nape of his neck, and kissed him. Sucked in his lower lip and bit down gently, laved his tongue over the tender spot and dipped back for more.

There must have been a point where Roxas was just too oversensitized to make out anymore. Skin tingling, lips reddened, emotionally exhausted, he slid to the side between Axel and the couch, safe and secure there with Axel nuzzling the hollow of his throat. Eyes closed and breathing steady, he let the world right itself.

He should probably have explained himself more than he did, Roxas figured. There were a lot of things to be said, a lot of things Axel deserved to know, like the fact that he'd imagined this before—on the bad nights, the ones where he couldn't sleep, in the most dark and secret parts of his mind. No hormones, no hot teenage fantasies, just this. Axel being serious and him being honest. Arms wrapped tight around him.

There'd be time for that, though. Later. Time for talking, time for real honest to god dates. Time for more of Axel's kisses, hopefully. Now though, now was quiet, and comfortable, a little bit lazy and almost perfect except in a few places, like Axel's bony hip digging into his side. "S'getting late," he murmured, nuzzling Axel's hair. It smelled flowery and girly and somehow that didn't surprise him. "I'd better go get Sora or he'll stay in that goddamn pumpkin patch all night."

Axel chuckled, lips tracing over the jut of his collarbone. "I'm sure they'd either be ecstatic or blocks of ice by morning," he murmured, vibration of his voice making Roxas shiver. "I'll go with you."

There was absolutely no hurry in getting up off the couch, shifting in the direction of getting up interrupted by soft touches, a nuzzle, a brief kiss, Axel sucking on that jut of Roxas's collarbone until Roxas threatened to deck him if Axel left a hickey. Axel claimed abuse, right before declaring it was too late anyway.

At some point, though, they made it to the door, both hovering like they didn't want to leave just yet, break the spell of discovery they were both under, and only knowing that it wasn't over would make it possible to even open the door. Roxas paused anyway, turned and leaned in until his face was buried in Axel's sweatshirt, hugging him tight and breathing in the smell of Cloud's goddamned leaves and lawn, Axel holding him back just as tight.

"We're probably going to fight a lot," he murmured, and Axel chuckled in agreement, breath ruffling his hair. "Sometimes I say things I don't mean." He closed his eyes tight and almost hoped his voice would be too muffled for Axel to hear. "Just… don't disappear, okay?"

"Okay," Axel murmured, and Roxas exhaled until all his muscles unwound.

They left the house side by side, not really touching aside from a bump and brush of shoulders. There was a kind of ease and understanding in the way they moved around each other now, though, something buoyant to carry their bickering back-and-forth. They could still be the Axel and Roxas Show, just with something real underneath it. Something people were going to notice. Once in a while, Roxas figured, smiling to himself while he unlocked the doors to Aerith's car and pretended to ignore Axel grinning at him over the roof and saying something about going for a drive, they'd have to hold hands. Just to see what happened.

Sora couldn't be entirely sure, but he had an idea that something had almost happened between him and Riku, something new and great, but then his brother and their friends had shown up. Now he wasn't sure how to get back to that moment, or if there really had been a moment to begin with. All he did know was that they'd spent an evening together in the pumpkin patch, and Sora hadn't felt this good in awhile.

Things were perfect, or almost there, something else just needed to happen and then he'd be at that point where things couldn't get any better, he was sure of it. So Sora sat there under the blanket next to Riku, kind of reveled in the way his soft hair occasionally brushed against his neck when the wind picked up, and wondered what would happen if he said what had been on his mind for awhile.

Something along the lines of "I love you" or "would you be my penguin?" Then he wondered if perhaps it was too soon to blurt out anything about lifelong commitment.

It was around this time that Sora 'tched' at himself, and when Riku half-turned to look at him, question marks in his eyes, he opened up his backpack and began to fish around for something he knew he'd put in there a couple of days ago, something important.

Eventually, his fingers closed around what he was looking for and he pulled it out, hiding it in his fist until he could present it under Riku's nose.

Riku blinked, stared down at him, at the hand just in front of his face. "Yeah?"

Sora bit his lip for just a moment, looked at his closed fist in consideration, then grinned, simple and open up at his best friend, and opened up his hand to reveal a Hershey's Kiss. "Trick or treat?"

Riku blinked, one more time, and then smiled easily, chuckling. "I'll have the treat," he decided, plucking the little candy out of Sora's hand and staring down at it, contemplating. "Guess we missed out again this year, huh?"

Sora watched Riku toy with the tail of the wrapper, his grin turning sly in his anticipation, and he shrugged. "I don't know… depends on the treat, I guess, huh?" Before Riku could react, before Sora could change his mind, he leaned in and kissed Riku once, right where lip met cheek. He pulled away, but not too much, a little nervous to look up and see if maybe he'd misjudged Riku's earlier intent. "Happy Halloween," he said, issuing a nervous laugh.

Riku was quiet for a good second or two, eyes wide and face frozen somewhere between stunned and confused, and then it seemed to warm up like someone had lit a candle, and he closed his mouth, swallowed. When he spoke, his voice was small, "I'm good with that treat."

Sora gulped down a sigh of relief, grin back to its usual brilliance, and moved over so his side was flush with Riku's, feeling his breath on his cheeks and thinking about his own breath at the same time and whether or not he should've grabbed one of the mints he had in his backpack. "Yeah?" he looked down at Riku's mouth, soft lips and strong jaw, something so... handsome it made him feel kind of flowery and fluttery inside. "We've missed out on a lot of tricks-or-treats…"

Riku's mouth opened, closed, opened again. Then, "Sora, you…" before trailing off, mouth sort of parted a little but not completely closed, like he had a lot on his mind too: what next, were they going to go out, were they going to go steady, did they have to do girly things with pop tabs and dandelions and letterman jackets—even if Sora was vaguely curious to find out what it'd be like to slip into the warmth of Riku's jacket sometime, wrap himself in it. Then Riku shook his head a little, like making a decision, and leaned forward to kiss him square on the mouth—yeah, definitely a good treat.

He'd spent plenty of time imagining what it would be like to finally come out and tell Riku about how he felt, but this was so much better than anything he managed to cook up in the middle of algebra. Riku's lips were a little chilled from the cold, a little dry and chapped, but his probably were too and they would most likely warm up fast. He gave a little nod to himself, certain that his idea had been a good one, right around the time his hands settled on Riku's shoulders, then relocated to his hair, carding through it and then brushing against his neck, trying to feel as much as he possibly could in case this actually was a dream. Or a trick.

He hummed in approval when Riku cupped his cheek, palm warm and calloused against his flushed skin, loving the way his breath sort of stuttered when Riku's other arm wrapped around his waist just to draw him closer, and closer. He was caught up in the moment, everything coming together to shout "you're kissing Riku! Riku's kissing you!" The wind was still blowing tendrils of Riku's hair against his skin, the cold making it all the more apparent that his cheeks were warming as they leant back together, braced their weight on their elbows a bit more so they weren't sitting quite as upright as before, space blanket rustling as they shifted.

It wasn't until Sora's head rested on the bunched up hood of his sweatshirt that he really registered that they were lying next to each other in a pumpkin patch, pressed close together, Sora's hands now running up and down Riku's spine, Riku's arms around his waist in a way that made that warmth in his cheeks rush through his veins, flood his body with heat.

Eventually, Riku broke away, leaving Sora a little confused, a little stuck in the moment but still liking the way Riku's eyes changed shades, sort of like molten turquoise right now, and how Riku's breath seemed to shudder just as much as his did when he inhaled. Then Riku swallowed, sat up brows furrowed. "I dropped the kiss," he said, distracted, feeling around on the ground for the candy, then snatching it up and unwrapping it triumphantly as he settled back down at Sora's side.

Sora eyed him a moment, not quite sure how he ever came up with these ideas but also not resentful of them in the slightest, and plucked the silvery, crinkly space blanket up off the ground, wrapped himself up in it until only his face was poking out, and leaned up against Riku, popping up in front of him with wide eyes and rounded mouth in the way he knew would make Riku laugh. "Found it?"

Riku sputtered a laugh at Sora's face, playing at pushing him away initially and then allowing a smirk to slide onto his face, holding up the unwrapped chocolate and tugging at the space blanket to indicate that he wanted back in. "Come here."

Sora leaned back in until they were close, until he could feel the energy radiating from Riku's body, until he noticed that Riku's eyes sort of melted into something darker when he smiled like that. Then he grinned and dipped his head down to snatch the chocolate out of Riku's hand with his teeth, holding it there for him to see before he closed his lips around it, let it start to melt on his tongue. "Hmm?"

"You brat." Riku dove after the candy, forcing Sora's mouth open with his tongue in a way that made Sora almost swallow the chocolate whole when he tried to hum again. The whole attempt was interrupted by laughter, on both their parts, before the candy and the struggle finally dissolved into just kissing, slow and deep and shivering.

Sora determined that he really liked where they'd been moments ago, just spread out and a little tangled together on the ground, so he leaned into Riku until they started to tip back, letting his arms slip out of the space blanket so he could bury his fingers in Riku's sweatshirt. Riku, in turn, slid his fingers into Sora's hair, exploring his scalp in a way that made his stomach sort of bunch up and his legs twitch, sensations intensifying as his other hand slid around his hip, over the small of his back.

It might have been that first kiss, or the way that they were still having fun, or how it was quiet in a way that meant you didn't have to say anything, or maybe just because Riku's hand was almost reaching past that last bit of distance to grope his ass, but Sora was pretty sure this night was pretty much perfect. Definitely perfect.

Then he heard it.

A rustling, somewhere over on the far right end of the pumpkin patch, maybe a hundred feet or so in the wide-open quiet, and drawing nearer. And he wasn't quite sure, but he thought he could see long, dark, gangly limbs low to the ground, lurking in the vines. "I… Riku…" Sora whispered, temporarily forgetting how to breathe as his eyes widened, straining to see more in the dark. "Riku," he said more urgently after a moment. "Can you… can you see it?"

Before Riku could answer, Sora was crawling up onto his knees, hands planted in front of him on the soil so he was on all fours, still straining forward to catch a better glimpse of the shadow creeping closer. "Is it… is it him?"

"Sora…" Riku's voice was wary. "I don't think…"

"It's… it has to be…" Sora continued, excitement roaring loudly in his ears. "Oh god… it's…" he reared up, putting his weight on the balls of his feet, ready to spring up at a moment's notice. "Jack Skellington." The name was almost a question on his lips, something filled with wonder and apprehension and nostalgia and resolution and maybe just a little bit of "in your face" to anyone who'd doubted him. "It just has to be, right?" he murmured, nerves humming, on edge.

And then, "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" and bright red hair and leering green eyes leapt up from the ground and darted toward him. Sora yelped and fell back as Axel came into his field of vision, blocking out the moon with his smirk as he spread his fingers like claws. "I'd say your wish has been denied…" He glanced pointedly in Riku's direction, where the other boy was tentatively wielding the Swiss Army knife from his moogle backpack, then back at Sora. "But I think you already granted that one yourself."

Sora could've felt disappointment, choked on a lump in his throat or blinked away tears, but Axel's grin hid something understanding, that need for escape they'd always seen in each other, and he realized that it didn't really hurt at all knowing that he didn't need Jack Skellington to be happy. "How did the mission go tonight?"

Then Axel's grin was something bigger, brighter, and he spread his arms wide and spun on his feet like he was on a dance floor, looking over his shoulder at the car Sora just noticed was parked in the lot. A car that looked awfully familiar. "Your brother kiss me, so… guess you could say it was a success." He winked at the car, miming a kiss that was clearly intended to get Roxas out from behind the wheel.

Sora stared up at Axel, snapped his gaze to the right to see Roxas flipping him off in the distance from behind the windshield, looked back at Axel with his mouth open in awe, and was pretty sure that Riku was going through the same motions, judging by the sound of the knife thumping against the ground. He eventually settled on a soft "wow," smile in place as he slowly looked back over in Roxas's direction. So his brother had finally let go a little.

In the parking lot, the driver's window of the car rolled down just enough for Roxas to lean out and yell, "Get your asses in the car, now!"

But only a little.

Sora got up onto his feet, stooped over to collect the items scattered on the ground and fit them back into the bottomless depths of his backpack, which he zipped up and slung over his shoulder. "You should get your boyfriend to lighten up a little more," he joked, grinning up at Axel as he reached back to grab Riku's hand, just an impulse, squeezing it a little. He started walking toward the car, ready to call it a night, knowing Roxas would feel better if everyone just slept in their bed for once on Halloween. Well, in their designated area of sleep, in Axel's case.

Axel's eyebrow lifted, his eyes fixed on Roxas through the windshield. "He's all right, just a little rough around the edges," he said, tone dipping just a little to much into innuendo than Sora was quite ready to hear in regards to his big brother.

Once inside the car, with the gear still in park and the dome light still on, Roxas turned in his seat, just enough to rest his elbow against the back, enough to stare diagonally at Riku as he fastened his seat belt, until he realized he was being stared at and looked up, confidently at first, then with shrinking countenance as Roxas's eyes narrowed, scowl deepening. "You realize that now I have to kill you on brotherly principle."

Riku cleared his throat, once, loudly. "I did nothing."

Sora rolled his eyes, his own seat belt clicking loudly in the silence of the station wagon. "You should probably start driving now if you want us all home before sunrise," he said wryly. Then after a pause, "Did you deck Axel for that hickey on your neck?"

Roxas stared at Sora, then his attention slid over to the redhead in the passenger seat, disarming grin already on his face, before returning to Riku. "You're getting off light this time," he said, before turning to shift the car into drive.

Sora counted a grand total of twenty seconds of driving before, "I love the way you handle that stick" from Axel in the front passenger seat.

"Remind me why I like you again."

Axel only reached out and flicked the hickey on Roxas's neck, which Sora noted his brother was trying his best to hide by hunching his shoulders a little.

The drive home was this mix of the usual back-and-forth banter and something that was deeper, happier in a way that warmed Sora to the bone more than the blasting vents could. Even when Axel's euphemisms started getting a little too personal, and especially when Riku's fingers settled on the seat right next to his thigh, just barely touching the fabric of his jeans but somehow searing straight through the denim all the same.

"This is actually really good news," Riku murmured under the noise from the front seat. "he probably won't kill me when I take you out on Friday, now." A glance at the front seat, followed by a patently Riku smirk. "Because I totally am."

Sora wondered if his grin would actually end up splitting his face in two, leaned back in the seat and let his hand fall on top of Riku's, casual, twining their fingers together loosely. "Can't wait."

When the car came to a halt in Aerith's driveway, Sora ambled up to the door, taking his time to prolong his sort-of date with Riku, house key in one hand as he went up the steps, Riku following closely behind. He unlocked the deadbolt, nerves humming under Riku's gaze, and pocketed them again before looking back up at him with the grin that was still there.

Riku cast a glance back quickly, assuring that Roxas and Axel were still quite occupied with their bickering, then grinned back, leaned in and stole a quick, sweet kiss, lingering there on his lips before breaking apart without pulling away, his smile soft and close with words puffing over his skin. "G'night."

Sora sidled in closer to Riku, chests almost flush as their lips brushed. "Yeah," he murmured, grinning at the way Riku's eyes very quickly, probably unconsciously, shot back to the side to check on Roxas's status again—Sora had faith in Axel, and kissed Riku back. "G'night."

Riku grinned for a moment, then his grin vanished as he blinked, attention shifting sideways. "Suddenly, it's really quiet over there."

"Yeah." Sora swallowed, made sure his eyes were wide enough as he whispered, "You better watch out, Riku, my brother might go out and buy himself a shotgun." He jabbed the other boy's collarbone with his fingers, then slipped inside his house with a hasty, "See ya tomorrow!" and a cackle he couldn't quite hold off before the door was closed all the way.

He pressed his ear against the door, pressed his knuckles against his lips to keep from laughing as he listened to Riku's sputtering, could see the eye roll clearly in his mind as he heard Riku descend the porch steps and announce loudly that he would leave his front door unlocked for all of ten minutes for anyone who wanted to sleep on the couch in his living room, unless "someone" would be relocating to his new boyfriend's couch instead.

Sora wondered what sort of bribes Axel would take in order to keep Roxas distracted on Friday night. They'd be worth it, he figured.

Roxas blew out the candles in both pumpkins before coming inside a few protracted minutes later, still shivering a bit, cheeks pink with something other than cold. He cast a look at Sora from the entry, shrugging out of his coat, and his eyes narrowed instantly. "One word, Sora, and I swear to god I'll put slugs in your bed."

Sora just grinned, mimed zipping his lips shut as he turned and went upstairs to his bedroom, humming whatever tune came to mind on the way. He listened to Roxas hanging up his coat, then following him up to their bedrooms, and nodded in agreement with Axel: he'd granted his own wish.

He might have thought that the morning after a night like that Halloween, everything would have changed. The world had been turned around in one eventful evening, Riku and Axel barging into the house sometime after midnight, arguing about Friday nights and bouncing off the walls in the aftermath of respective make-out sessions. Cloud himself was nursing a very small, perfectly hidden hickey on the curve of his shoulder, under the collar of his t-shirt, and didn't say a word.

He would have thought that everything would be different, but in reality he found himself outside in a jacket and scarf, air crisp and clean all around him, raking leaves while the wrought-iron railing of the porch behind him creaked under Axel's weight, punctuated by long, annoying slurps, Riku cradling his precious coffee under his hose.

A few swipes of his rake, and Cloud determined from their conversation, which gradually increased in volume—seemingly due to Axel's replies—that Riku was trying his best to convince Axel it was for everyone's benefit if he could get Roxas out of the house on Friday night, that way everyone could date and be happy. Axel, being Axel, was pretending to hold out for better bribes, despite the smirk on his face that told he had distractions in mind already anyway.

"Two hours out of the house, huh? Well… that's gonna cost ya."

"…You son of a… how much?"

"Cost of the tickets and some popcorn."

"You don't even eat popcorn."

"What kind of date am I if I don't buy my boyfriend popcorn?"

More finagling, almost enough to make Cloud pull out the last twenty from last month's paycheck and throw it at Axel just to get everybody out of the neighborhood and give him a break, when the idea just sort of hit him broadside in the fact that maybe he could get away for a little while too. His raking slowed, drew to a complete stop as his eyes settled on the duplex down the street: maybe he could get away with Leon.

"I'll give you five bucks and a roll of breath mints."

"Throw in a condom and you've got a deal."

"…What exactly are you—never mind, I don't want to know."

"And it better either be flavored or lubricated."

"WHY WOULD I HAVE ANY KIND OF CONDOM LET ALONE A FLAVORED ONE?"

Yes. Cloud figured it was the perfect time to take a little break and visit Leon, maybe try his hand a little more at what they'd been doing last night in Hayner's bedroom—he briefly wondered if Hayner had happened to find the sock he'd lost somewhere around the vicinity of the bed.

Plus, Leon probably had coffee already made, stuff he didn't have to wait for to heat up: there was always a fresh pot steaming on the kitchen counter of the Leonhart residence, mostly for reasons unpleasant that involved a mother who was constantly in the process of sobering up, sleeping it off. Maybe Cloud could convince Leon to go out for coffee—there was that independent shop a few blocks over. They could walk, take a couple of hours.

"Well, that's too bad, guess Sora's gonna—dude."

"Don't you EVEN—what?"

"Cloud stopped raking."

Cloud broke his gaze away from the faded gray paint of the duplex, fixed Axel and Riku's wide eyes and open mouths with an eye roll, debated flipping them off. Then he grinned—smirked, really, and held the handle of the rake toward them, making a decision. "Finish the lawn," he told them, dropped the rake on the leaf-covered grass and walked down the street to Leon's. That was probably enough difference for one year.