Title: The Best We Know How
Rating: M (language, explicit mentions of sex)
Word Count: 5,443
Summary: Four times Axel left before Roxas woke up, and one time he didn't.

Author's Notes: The title comes from the Margot and the Nuclear So and So's song A Sea Chanty of Sorts. You can download it at my livejournal posting of this.

I feel like I need to apologize for something called This Frenzied State; consider this a go-between. Chicago did its trick, really. This is like everything I do, mainly: fragmented, relying heavily on different interpretations, and nothing very concrete.

I don't do well with present tense; I have no beta, but I have had this finished for a few weeks and I've combed it, so hopefully there's nothing extremely glaring. Any mistakes are mine.

As usual, constructive criticism is always welcomed.

Two Valentine's Days ago I wrote something very sappy for the holiday. This year, not so much.

1.

The box of cigarettes is crushed in a way that makes him fear for the safety of the rest inside. Cellophane and fragile paper, marked with red and with a big black X scrawled across the top, X marks the spot, buried treasure. Broken metaphors weren't much richer than that.

"You're as subtle as a bag of bricks."

"I prefer doorknobs."

The cigarette in his mouth was jutted at an angle approximately between disgusting and take your pants off, and Roxas peers at the ground, sees the shadow bleeding onto the pavement, and then back up in time to recoil from a cloud of smoke curling around his face.

"I'm talented like that," Axel says, in a way that's supposed to be final.

"I don't want to have sex with you," Roxas says flatly, turning away from him, intending to escape the way back the way he had entered from. It had been a mistake, one he wouldn't be repeating any time between now and the time of his death, really.

"Everyone wants to have sex with me," Axel advises, maybe a little wisely, though it could have been the wracking cough that seemed to overtake him in a second.

"You're a pretty cocky guy, you know."

"I've got a pretty big cock, I ought to be."

"Good bye," Roxas says, completely disgusted.

"Don't come knocking on my door when you change your mind," Axel calls, over the hissing air from the vents underneath their feet. "Because you will."

Roxas doesn't think about him anymore; he walks onto the sidewalk, sets a path for his home. He thinks about going to the beach, or the shooting range, or twisting in circles around the blocks until the coffee shops open in the morning, but in the end he just goes home, watches the television all night, drawing patterns with the shadows currently moving across the walls. When it's light out he takes a shower and goes down to the ocean, listening to the waves, as they hit again and again, twice as nice, three times in a row, a turkey on a big print screen in some smoky bowling alley.

If there's permanence in anything, it's probably permanence in this.

"You really ought to be more careful," a voice says behind him, and he turns around, startled, as the red-headed fellow he had been not thinking about all morning drops into the sand beside him, lights another one of those goddamn cigarettes.

"You're a fucking stalker," Roxas says, already shimmying away in the sand.

"I'm a fucking stalker," Axel says, agreeably, blows smoke rings into the open air, into the bright, brimming ocean, a thousand bright lights reflected like diamonds through a glinting sun.

"I don't want to have sex with you," Roxas says guardedly.

"Sure you don't," Axel says casually, runs a hand through that rumpled, look at me getting some and you're not sex hair.

"One word out of your mouth—"

"You're thinkin about my mouth awful hard, ain't you pretty boy?"

Insulted, Roxas stands up, starts striding away through the sand toward the sidewalk, ready to go home and pitch another day away of staring at the television, listening for the phone, jacking off and looking at pictures that would make his mother blush, talk in that godawful tone to nobody at all.

Axel doesn't follow him, and so Roxas does just that, speaks to the walls about unspeakable acts he'll never commit, things he'll never see, places he'll never go, and for the better, it's like a line of cocaine, disaster written out in every pure crystal he's ever seen, just as addictive. He draws red circles and black boxes onto the white wallpaper, peers at the checks that keep appearing through the mail slot every two weeks. He says he'll never cash them, that blood money's as good as seaweed, but he needs to eat, he needs soft pretzels and bloody red wine, and so he eats and drinks, and one day, Axel's back on the beach in the morning, after another night spent looking at blank walls and emptier ceilings.

"You a fucking regular night owl, they oughta load you up with a gun and let you shoot at rapists," he says immediately, sitting on the ground and holding the fragile paper cigarette box in his hands, the cellophane glittering faintly in the never ending sunlight.

"I oughta shoot you," Roxas says, kicks his foot out, sand heading outward in a grainy shield. "Why the fuck—"

"It's a bet," Axel says, lazily leaning back, one hand shielding those emerald eyes from the glare.

Roxas goes very still, body stiffening, and he thinks of chalk and square boxes with numbers in them, the back of a building and stairs that lead to a blue sky that has no promise, no hope, he's a fucking purveyor of desperation or neediness, and says, "A bet?"

The tone might have clued Axel in, or hell, maybe it had been the icy blue gaze that could probably be felt in fucking Ireland, because he sits up, peers at Roxas. "A bet. With myself. You wandered down my alley, so why not?"

Roxas is still very still, rigid like walking off a plank, and says, "Is that so?"

Axel shrugs. "You're cute. You're over eighteen. You can think for yourself. You've got that tasty little stench of someone who needs it, so why the fuck not?"

Roxas thinks of butterflies and line of white spread throughout eternity, like a map he's doomed to follow, and nearly knocks Axel off his ass from the speed he grabs his head, crashing their lips together. It's swallowing fire whole, it's throwing your head back and knocking it against the wall and seeing glass chandeliers, so Axel makes him stop, and they go back to Roxas's place, where Axel sees the drawings on the walls, the ceilings, the empty bottles of wine, but he doesn't care, he's getting what he wants, what he needs, what he's getting paid for.

Roxas is a good little fuck, Roxas takes it like the little bitch he looks like, and he's cute too, cute and desperate, and Axel would like to see that pretty little mouth some other time, maybe a little ways down the road, like in Axel's truck or down on the beach – when it's dark, mind, because Axel's gotten arrested before for showing a little ass when it was too light out. All in good fun, life wasn't fun without a little danger, a little danger wasn't fun without a little disaster.

He fucks Roxas, leaves a slip of paper with his number on the counter next to the only full wine bottle, kisses his lips like a real sweetheart, like a real gentleman would, and goes down to the bar, congratulates himself, wonders briefly over the fluttering in his chest, dismisses that, and gets another shot.

Roxas wakes up, gazes at the walls, and goes down to the water, tries to drown himself, but that never works, and then puts himself back in bed, and sleeps for what feels like days.

2.

Buying flowers for a funeral was like buying new ink for a broken printer – what the fuck were the dead going to do with flowers, fucking wear them around their pulse-less necks and look pretty when they showed up to Jesus? Jesus didn't care about prettiness, if Jesus cared at all.

"As far as I'm concerned," Axel says, drunker than fucking skunk, and hanging over Roxas's outstretched arms, "Jesus ain't nobody but a fucking man named Hay-sus, who can suck my dick, you know? Jesus is all forgiving, Jesus thinks I can be all I can be, right? He can suck my dick then."

Roxas is smoking, blowing not very distinguished puffs of white smoke out his mouth, because blowing smoke out his nose makes him sicker than dog. He was surprised to see Axel at this funeral, even more surprised when Axel seemed to even care. There wasn't any wine here though, so Roxas is sober, listens to people crying in the distance over someone dead that Roxas had been waiting a long time for, someone dead who still signed the checks pushed through his mail slot like some damn Lazarus. Fucking French, the man was French, Roxas remembers, because he can hear that pretty little accent all over the encompassing white tent.

"At least Jesus isn't French," he says, because he has nothing else to say.

Axel is still rambling to himself, mouth slobbering all over Roxas's black suit jacket, so prim and kept and polished, and Roxas is slightly discontented, but it's not his suit anyway, and besides, sometimes you needed to just slobber it all out. Roxas was good at that- some people fought it out, some people painted it out, some people slobbered and spit and told God he was a fucking Mexican named Jesus.

"The French have class!" Axel cried, trying to light a cigarette while waving the lighter in a circular pattern that wasn't going anywhere near his mouth. Roxas took the lighter, stuck the cigarette between his lips, moved forward and held it to the stick hanging from Axel's lips; Axel nearly burns his lips on the tip of the flame, but sways back incredibly fast.

"The French have omelets," Roxas says, because he's not particularly fond of the French, particularly after his incident.

"What do the Mexicans have? Tortillas? Fucking burritos? Let me tell you, the French have fucking crepes, you don't get better than a fucking crepe man, you know what I mean?"

"No," Roxas answers truthfully, trying to push Axel away from his neck, but Axel seems to be losing the fight to keep himself off Roxas, because he's trying to push him onto his back, and fuck, the sand was cold.

"You know, I had a really good time last time sweetheart," Axel slurs, pawing at the edge of Roxas's shirt, but Roxas patiently pushes his hand away.

"Last time was for a bet," he says calmly, lying in his back in the sand, with a twig of something pressing into his spine.

"If you don't fuck me, I'm going to go and fuck a dolphin," Axel says, haphazardly blowing smoke into Roxas's eyes.

"I think you're gonna die if you do that," Roxas says pointedly, but looks at the water, and down the beach, toward the white tent where there was music now, the waves lapping gently and persistently at the edge of land. It's dark out, the stars are hidden behind clouds, the moon's playing hide and seek with the sun, and the sand's cold. Axel's warm, but Axel's also blowing smoke into his open mouth and eyes, and he's coughing, hard.

"Jesus, I'm sorry," Axel says, finally rolling off Roxas and looking up at the sky from the flat of his back. "I mean, I'm thanking our Mexican Jesus over here I met you again Roxas, because come on, I'm really a one fuck kind of person over here, but come on, I can afford to be, can't I? But you're too cute for your own good." He wasn't speaking to Roxas, was instead looking and speaking to the darkness that was up high above, the sound of the waves crashing in both their ears.

"I get that all the time," Roxas says, idly scraping one shoe in an arc through the sand, one eye going back to the tent; he really doesn't want Axel running across the beach, stripping off his shirt, diving into the waves to find a dolphin to fuck.

"That's not fair," Axel mumbles. "I bet if I were French I'd get fucked more."

"You're a whore."

"Takes one to know one sweetheart," he says, and Roxas can't take it anymore; he's thinking of white walls, spangled stars across a banner of suffocating black and curtains pulled down, red tipped linings brushing the surface of a hardwood floor; he's 15 again, flat on his back looking at the endless blue sky, head bleeding against a curved step, and someone's laughing. He's thinking about the drawings on his walls, red boxes and blue spades, and when he kisses Axel, he's thinking about white lines stretched through an eternity, broken glass, sidewalk splinters arching fast through cement and stone.

Axel kisses him back, he thinks about prison, but life's not fun without danger, life's not life without disaster, and Roxas is a disaster, three times the beauty of a wave against the morning sun, and he's got blue eyes like unforgiving ice, and so that's forgivable, to let Roxas fuck him against the sand, sand everywhere, in his ears, eyes, mouth, tongue when Roxas kisses him.

Roxas wakes up on the beach, and Axel's gone, but there's an empty paper box that's meant to hold cigarettes on his chest, delicately wavering on his billowing skin, and inside is the same number Roxas keeps held up on his fridge. Roxas pockets it, goes home and washes the sand from his ears, and spends the next few days sleeping through the phone ringing and the constant thrumming of the sea.

Axel eats a crepe alone on the boardwalk, watches the sun never fall.

3.

There's a wolfwhistle, and Roxas doesn't turn around, knows that in this part of town, those are common, like mating calls for sluts. The skateboard's rough against his fingers; he ought to be riding it, but too much traffic negates the speed anyway, and so he carries it, braces his hand on the side, thinks about how much force it would take to send someone sending into that oncoming bus if they decided to get too touchy feely.

"Roxas!"

It's his name, and he turns around, and there's Axel, wearing a crumpled suit, wearing wire rimmed glasses, that goddamn cigarette hanging from his lips. He's panting, the distance he's run from the end of his building to catch up with Roxas obviously having worn him out.

"Cigarette users never win marathons," Roxas says, because he never bought into that propaganda when he was fourteen and never looked back.

"Neither do fat people, so shut the fuck up," Axel says, because he never makes any sense, but that's everything Axel does, and so Roxas lets him fall into step with him, though he's quiet, thinking about the cardboard box up on his fridge, and the slip of paper with a hastily written scrawl.

"You never call," Axel says, running a hand through his hair; they've reached a crosswalk; there's a congregation of people, suits and skates, heading deeper into the city. The bell embedded into the light rings, and Axel takes Roxas's arm, gripping him and leading him forward so they're not separated.

"I lost your number," Roxas says.

"Bullshit," Axel counters, releasing him once they've reached the other side. "You don't lose something twice sweetheart."

"Why don't you call me?" Roxas says evasively; he thinks he's being coy.

"I don't have your number brilliant one," Axel says easily, that grin on his face. "Besides, you're the one that wants me, remember."

Roxas snorts. "That reverse psychology ever work on anyone?"

"It ain't reverse psychology if it's true," Axel answers, again passing a hand through his rumpled looking hair, trying to fix his suit. "Besides, you're a cute little thing. I know you want me."

"You're a slut."

Axel dips his shoulders in an almost obliging fashion, and Roxas realizes that they're far away from where they've started, and Axel's not carrying anything, not a briefcase, just what's probably a bulge in the side of his pants that's a wallet. He wonders if Axel is following him again, wonders if it's a bet – a bet, a bet, only idiots makes bets, let's see who can make him cry the longest- again, though he doesn't ask, because asking doesn't help anyone, especially not people who cry bleeding on sidewalks and try to make peace with their god for five hours, wavering in and out of consciousness and filthy cigarette smoke.

"You follow everyone like this then?" Roxas tries, wondering if he can run the skateboard into traffic, and how much it would hurt.

"Only the pretty ones," Axel said condescendingly.

"And yet I want you."

"You know you do."

Roxas is angry, very suddenly, angry and wanting to bash his skateboard and the wheels into Axel's head, into those red curls that are dangling past his ears, into that cigarette, so he can knock it away from that goddamn mouth and into the gutter, right where it belongs.

"Stop following me," Roxas says, angrily, and moves away, throws the skateboard on the ground, and leaves. He sees Axel's surprised look, but he doesn't care. He finds his way home, stops his sleeping only to add to his collection of empty wine bottles, and then shoots them down with the .9mm Glock he got for Christmas that one year that he keeps underneath his mattress, ready to go, because boys didn't wait for other boys to grow up, boys stole and hit when you weren't looking and left you bleeding on stairs and looking into the sky for a Mexican looking Jesus.

He's at the grocery store in line when Axel slides up behind him, takes the bottle silently and buys it. He's still wearing that suit, still with the wire rimmed glasses and the look at me, I just fucked someone and you didn't hair. Roxas wants to stick a cigarette into his eyes, but Axel follows him home, up the stairs, and Roxas hides the cigarette box and the paper with his name on it before Axel fucks him in the kitchen, put him up on the counter next to the wine bottles and fucks him so hard that his skull hits the top cupboard. Roxas yells for awhile, but it's not out of anything but pent up frustration and anger and pure electric wanting, and so when the neighbor knocks on the door, Roxas has that same I just fucked someone and you didn't hair. Roxas closes the door, Axel grabs him and fucks him on the couch this time, Roxas's leg held up and over Axel's shoulder while Axel bites his neck, the other gripping his hip to keep him still. Roxas watches the ceiling, closes his eyes, and kisses Axel's messy hair.

This time it's the label of Roxas's favorite wine bottle, held open by a book and the remote for the tv, with Axel's name and the number again, and a scrawled reminder not to lose it. The door's shut, not latched, which makes sense, so Roxas gets up and latches it, locks the top and the bottom and examines the marks on his neck in the mirror, red and angry, and when he smashes his fist into the glass it doesn't break, but he needs ice to put on his hand anyway. He drinks another bottle, thinks about the stairs in the 10th grade and his forehead open and bleeding and lying spread eagled across some stairs while two boys laughed and did what Axel had done last night, only more roughly. When he goes into the kitchen for more ice, the mail's through the slot, with another check, and Roxas goes to the store again, invests in more pretzels and wine bottles and a wrap for his wrist, and sits in his living room, watches the shadows steal across the ceiling to find home on his wall. The paper's been replaced a few times, but he writes a few words there anyway. There's a knock on the door at midnight, and he answers it without looking.

It's Axel, and he says, "Here, I brought you another bottle of wine."

Roxas takes it silently; Axel lets himself in, stands awkwardly near the door for a moment, tries to smile that suave smile, but Roxas just stands on his tiptoes and kisses Axel's forehead again, and this time Roxas fucks Axel, but it's not hard, it's smooth and soft and Axel's panting harshly, but he's breathing Roxas's name, smooth and soft and sweet, and when Axel gets up to leave in the morning, he goes into the bathroom, sees the shattered pieces of glass that didn't come from Roxas's fist, and cleans that up, like a sweetheart, like a real gentleman, and goes back to Roxas's room and looks at the wrist with the bandage. There's no blood on in the bathroom though, and he doesn't leave anything this time, just moves the paper on the table to the one in the bedroom, and leaves.

Roxas wakes up an hour later, goes down the ocean, and draws hearts in the sand.

4.

"Real men like guns," Roxas says, smirking so bad Axel though his lips were going to fly off.

"Real men realize that peace can only be achieved through peaceful means," Axel answers, takes a drag from the cigarette and throws it into the ocean, where the waves pick it up and toss it out further. Roxas makes a face; Axel throws another one just to piss him off.

"What the fuck ever," he mutters, because this never got anywhere with Axel. "You're a fucking idiot."

Axel tilts his head in that same agreeing fashion; Roxas wants to punch him in the face. Instead, he walks to the sidewalk, Axel following leisurely.

"I'm really more like Buddha," Axel says, and the notion is so ridiculous Roxas nearly says something so derogative the birds would take offense, but there's an old lady walking by, and she's already looking at Axel with a look so derogative that maybe Roxas doesn't need to. Axel doesn't seem to notice though, like he hardly seems to notice anything, and carries on, "I'm all about peace and white doves and candy for everyone and all that shit. I mean, honestly, I am like the most perfected person in the history of the world. Honestly."

Roxas says nothing, glances up into the gray sky, wonders if it's going to rain and how he's going to make it back to his place by then; he hates the rain, a reason wrapped up into something like a blue sky, but he loves the ocean, and he loves how it looks when the drops hit the surface, and he likes watching it from his apartment, but not here.

"I'm going home," he says, cutting off Axel's tirade.

"You said you were going to take me shooting," Axel says, sharply, and Roxas glares.

"It's going to rain."

"You can't shoot people in the rain?"

Roxas snorts, walks faster, thinks he can lose Axel at the light but Axel runs to catch up, paces himself and matches as they cross the street. There's the sound of clapping overhead, and Roxas winces, jumps, nearly eats it when they reach the curbs; Axel grabs him, looks at him in such a bemused fashion that Roxas wonders if setting his hair on fire will teach him a lesson, and then Axel lights a cigarette and blows smoke into his eyes.

"I'm going home," he says again, feeling the first tiny splash of water across the ridge of his nose and he grimaces, nearly screams. "I'm going home," he says to himself, mainly, but Axel moves closer, blowing a near perfect smoke ring around his head this time. He wants to run, because Axel is getting closer, and they're not drunk now, and Axel doesn't have to make amends for anything, so why is Axel here, and Roxas wants him gone, he wants to go home, watch the rain and the gray sky and the wind, but Axel is trailing him, won't let him go.

"Stop stalking me," Roxas tries, but Axel shakes his head as they pass the clock tower, underneath a black blanket of ravens on the poles above.

"Just trying to help you find your Mexican Jesus," Axel says in a very placating fashion. "Or your Buddha. He's more perfect than your Mexican Hay-sus will ever be."

Roxas ignores him, shakes his head as the rain falls faster. They've still got blocks to go, and the street's deserted now, the neighborhood quiet as though bracing for an outburst, a giant torrential suffering lived through the backs of raindrops and sprinkled down from the only things that have ever come close to any sort of imaginable heaven. It hadn't rained that day, and he liked clouds, but he remembers a blue sky with fractures, a hand on his hip, in his hair, mouth, and it's suffocating, it's crashing, burning.

They're passing an alley when it starts pouring, and Roxas starts running, and Axel is right there, panting and snorting and trying to keep his smoker's lungs above water, when Roxas can't run anymore, when he can't even think beyond the roaring in his ears. They're two blocks from his place when he grabs Axel, shoves him into the empty alley bracketed by gutters pouring heaven's water onto the cement and grime, and kisses Axel, and when he kisses Axel, the water running over his eyes and into Axel's mouth doesn't taste like tears. It just tastes like rain.

Axel kisses him back, grips his hips, lifts him up, presses him against the opposite wall, grinds their hips together. Roxas clutches his hair, bites his neck, and Axel bites his lip, drawing blood, blood that drips into Axel's mouth with the rain. It's dark, and Axel is soaked in a matter of minutes; he hates the rain. It ruins his hair, darkens his mood, but Roxas is sweet, and Axel breathes, "Come on sweetheart, this is how I make people religious."

Axel is soaked and Roxas is soaked, but Axel fucks him anyway, his shoes and socks and pants wet, and it washes away the evidence, washes away the way Axel is pinning Roxas up against the wall, washes away the way that Axel almost chokes him, washes away the way Roxas draws blood in Axel's neck, washes away the tears that won't stop falling. Axel kisses Roxas's mouth, Roxas kisses Axel's throat, and when it's over they're soaked through to the bone. Roxas takes them back to his place, lets them inside, dries Axel's clothes, and then Roxas fucks Axel, but there's no rain inside because he hasn't drawn clouds on the ceilings just yet.

When Roxas opens his eyes, Axel is gone with his clothes, and the note this time is in Roxas's pocket, the name and the phone number. Roxas puts it with the others, walks out onto the deck with the fallen leaves from the wind, sits on the balcony and watches the sky change colors, turn from gray to dark to orange to gone. He watches the lines curl in the sky, from the line of clouds to the line of blood. He goes inside and drinks another bottle of wine; soaks some bread with it, throws it out on his deck, watches the gulls come in and waddle off drunk. One flies in the road. One flies out into the ocean in a crooked fashion. One perches on the roof of his house until Roxas shoos it away, where it rests on the house next door. He does another round of laced bread, makes them all fly away, and draws them on his walls and when he sleeps, it's under a canopy of dark sky and naked bird feathers.

5.

"You've got a fucking eye like a fucking cowboy," Axel says, and the grin in his voice is evident. Roxas doesn't turn around, takes a breath and steadies his arm, shoots down the can across the end of the roof. "You're a regular fucking cowboy you know, regular fucking cowboy, goddamn."

Roxas ignores him, shoots down another can, puts the gun into his holster and ignores the way Axel asks to shoot too.

Axel, realizing he's being ignored, takes out his own gun and hits the board behind the cans. Roxas tries not to grin.

"What the fuck ever cowboy," Axel growls, finally holstering his own weapon. "Not all of us are fucking cowboys. Some of us got to be robbers too."

"Cowboys shoot robbers," Roxas says, playing along.

"Not any regular cowboys. You gotta be fucking Chuck Norris to take a robber like me down."

"I think you're overestimating your abilities," Roxas says reasonably.

"Fuck I am. Look at me." Axel primps that hair, that look at who I fucked and you didn't hair, and pats his own cheek in that indulgent, handsome boy way. "Nobody's man enough to take this shit down."

Roxas rolls his eyes, sits on the ground, and watches an ant scurry along a fallen leaf. Axel stomps on it when he sits down next to him, bumping his leg, and lighting a cigarette, blowing smoke into Roxas's hair on purpose.

"Stop," Roxas says, but doesn't try to make him.

"You smell better like smoke," Axel says indulgently, trying to pass a cigarette along, but Roxas declines. Axel shrugs, blows more smoke at him, not around him, at him, and then looks over at the cans Roxas has so recently shot down.

"Fucking cowboy," he says again, a little disgustedly. "I could take you if I wanted."

"Yep," Roxas says, leaning back to look at the sky; he closes his eyes at the blue. "Yep."

Axel gets bored and looks at Roxas's closed eyes, tries to imagine something, but it's a little out of reach; tries to imagine what's going on inside his chest, because it better not be a fucking heart attack, he wasn't old enough for that shit yet. It's got to be something though, because looking at Roxas's face shouldn't be so difficult, shouldn't make any of these disasters any worse; he looks away, at the cans, thinks about fucking cowboys – and fucking cowboys- and grins, the smoke puffing from his lips and nose like venom. He's breathing smoke, living smoke, a ghost of here and then, gone today, here tomorrow, and he wonders would happen if he sets the cans on fire.

Roxas takes them back to his place, where Axel fucks him against the wall and Roxas fucks him in the shower, leaving marks and cuts and bruises, and when Roxas falls asleep, Axel sneaks into the bathroom, looks for something to leave a note on, but there's nothing worthwhile. He sits on the toilet, lights a cigarette even though Roxas hates it. He wonders about staying. He wonders about the morning and Roxas's eyes. Roxas probably had good sex hair. Roxas had a face like that. Made for taking cock and looking precious, and Axel grins around the cigarette, laughs so hard he coughs, and wonders about staying and the kid and what he's doing here and the pictures on the walls.

Roxas lays on his side, blinks at the wall when he hears Axel go into the bathroom, and then cringes when he hears him laughing. Roxas looks at the picture he made yesterday, the fire, and the birds, and something catches so hard in his throat he nearly cries out. He wanders into the kitchen, where he keeps Axel's notes and the letters, and Axel's loopy handwriting and the numbers. The wine bottles sit there, and his bag is on the floor, ready and waiting. He thinks of Axel's hair, and Axel's bare shoulders, and Axel when Axel's fucking him, Axel when Axel's kissing him, Axel when Axel's being Axel.

He picks up his bag, tries to think about why his throat is closing, why he drew fire on his walls.

Axel smokes another cigarette, blows a smoke ring, thinks about staying in the morning and waking up next to the kid. He laughs, his throat hurts, and he goes into the bedroom. Roxas is gone. Axel calls for him, searches, but there's only a piece of paper on his jacket, with Roxas's name, but there's no number. Axel is perplexed, Axel looks around, and then he leaves.

Roxas doesn't go home; Roxas hops the first plane to New York.

Axel looks and looks, and look and looks, and there's only a line like cocaine spreading from one disaster to another, and in New York, Roxas draws on empty walls and dreams of blue skies and disaster and red hair, and tries not to think, tries not to remember concrete steps and the way Axel's hair never quite gets away from that messy, I fucked your mother look, and why nothing in his life, not even Axel, feels as good as running away.