I'm only four or five months late
I've decided to chapter this thing


1: One Direction

With empty energy drink cans rolling noisily and dangerously around his feet, the youngest of the Peach family rocked his death-metal physique out to One Direction. Properly. With every piece of his soul. Bashing the steering wheel in time to the beat, hollering the lyrics as loud as he could over his car's (pretty decent, for the piece of crap it was) sound system, windows down, not a single fucking care in the world. He was, in the purest of forms he could manage, living while he was young. And he was doing so at about fifty miles an hour down the dusty back roads of the very armpit of America, not another sentient or maybe sane being in sight. Utter bliss.

About a month and a half go, Axel had resigned from his boring-ass job, boring-ass home, and boring-ass everything. Messaged his mom on Facebook; telling her that he was going on a journey, handkerchief and all, and not to worry about any preggo chicks or drug lords showing up to look for him. Again. Because, jeez, who even does that. He knew she'd check it in a couple of weeks. So he dropped hat, dyed his hair, packed his shit, and jumped in his hand-me-down Cooper to drive off into the proverbial, actually overcast and pissing it down sunrise. Jammed a ratty iPod into the speakers, and simply rolled away. It was heaven. It started out as just a one, maybe two week long break away from everything, to search and dig through muscle and bone to discover himself or what-the-fuck-ever, bag of weed and enough SoCo to leave a sweetly bitter and kind of tingly feeling in the base of his spine. But who cares, he was passing out on the roof of the car again, too lazy to find a motel and too preoccupied with chatting away to the stars about any and everything. After the joints fizzled out and the bottles dried up, he found himself deciding to extend his holiday. He bought more drinks.

Fast forward three more weeks - or was it four? who was keeping count anyway - and here he was: speeding to a bubblegum-pop boy group, sweat drippping from the pits of his wifebeater in the heat of the stuffy car, and totally loving it.

Fast forward again faster than the soft wheels of said car to the far off sight of a speck on the horizon. He rubbed his eyes, hissing when a bracelet caught on his eyelashes, figuring he still had sleepgunk in them, being there was likely to be neither sight nor sound of human life for another sixty-seven precise miles. According to the sign a couple minutes ago, anyway. As he continued rolling along the tarmac, he realised the speck was, in fact, the shape of a short male, arm quickly being thrust out into the negative space designed for the wheeled, thumb sticking proudly up in the universal code for 'I need a ride'. There weren't any bags at his feet. Axel raised an eyebrow as he came closer, the thought of picking him up skating through his head, followed swiftly by a niggling voice reminding him to be wary of axe murderers. They locked eyes - sweet Mother were they blue - and he felt a twitch in his lower lid. He shook his head a little, cranked the music higher, and continued past.

He made it maybe another few yards before a tug in his thoughts nearly knocked him breathless. He was just a kid, no way older than seventeen. He was alone. In the skankiest parts of nowhere Axel could fathom, where it didn't matter what gender you were to some people. It was hot. Were there coyotes? Or bears, cougars or something? He didn't know, so it was likely the kid didn't either, because he knew everything. What about drunk drivers, holy shit he could totally die out here. The (damn fine, in his opinion) mug of Axel Peach could well be the last face the bottle-bright blond would ever see. That therefore made him responsible for anything that happened to him. God would so hate him for leaving behind one of his squishy-faced cherubs. Chuck him into Hell, again.

He stopped the car, and turned down the music. He stared into the wing mirror for a while, seeing the slumped and no longer thumb-wielding figure of the kid watching him. He stuck his own gangly, lanky arm out the window, and sighing, gave him a jaunty wave. It took all of two seconds for the other to start jogging towards him. When he reached the car and tried to to open the door, Axel had to reach over and unlock it from his last nap session.

The door was yanked quickly open, and a faintly sweat-stenched blond fell into his passenger seat, huffing air through chapped lips and scoffing at the bottles and cans at his feet. He was dressed in some faded and artfully ripped jeans, and a tee depicting what he was pretty sure was Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse. It looked like it was signed. Those so-blue-there-are-a-thousand-cliches eyes flicked to his, and a tan hand was thrust towards him.

"Thanks, man. Roxas,"
He ignored Roxas' hand, and shifted the stick to start driving.
"Axel,"
"Axel, Axel," Roxas repeated his name a few more times under his breath as he clicked on the seatbelt.
"Yeah, Axel, got it memorized?" He glanced over, seeing the 'are you fucking kidding me' look on the blond's face, before smirking and bursting into laughter.
"How much am I going to regret picking you up?" He asked, settling back for the long stretch of road before him.
Them.
"Not as much as you did those things on your face. When'd you get them, when you were like, fourteen? And were you listening to One Direction, of all things?"
"Hey, I'll drop your ass back on that road, kid. Try me." He forced a sigh at the loud, guffawing laughter that followed his threat, turning away to smile.