kingdom hearts: wish you were here (1/3)

[keldjinfae_moon]

Title: "Thirst to Get Away Far"
Author: kel_fish
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Pairing: Axel/Roxas
Rating: NC-17 for later parts (suffice it to say there's sex, alcohol, rock 'n' roll, and shoplifting)
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to SquareEnix, Disney, and others who aren't I.
Author's Note: And here it is, my first (independent) Axel/Roxas, just missing the boat for AkuRoku Day. Oh well, better late than never, right? I have to issue all of the thanks I've got to caseyvalhalla and obstinate_fate for the beta jobs and the headdesk-worthy number of emails, as well as onee_omi for the rambling phone calls and instant messages. Finally, this baby is getting some 'net time.
Summary: Escapism at a bus stop to nowhere, roads leading everywhere but where you needed to be; sometimes finding yourself meant coming back to find the starting line.



The heat wave wasn’t sudden, wasn’t anything unexpected or especially unbearable, just there, creeping up on thermostats until it was everywhere, dragging down limbs and dulling thoughts so everyone moved with a slow, languorous air in an already sleepy town. Those blessed with air-conditioning hid away in their dens while others huddled together in patches of shade or ran through sprinklers. Families and friends with free time and cars packed up and drove past the all but deserted novelty shop and the small convenience store at the outskirts of town before turning onto the road that would take them Somewhere Else.

Just one block to the right of the convenience store was a bus bench, inoperative since the commute system decided years ago that there just weren’t enough patrons in Traverse to keep the stop active; the irony wasn’t lost on the town’s residents, merely ignored after everyone cracked the same joke to each other at least twice. The stop continued to be inactive even after the snide remarks trickled to eye rolls or the occasional long-suffering sigh, but the bench and its vandalized cubicle remained on the sidewalk, providing shelter from the elements or the opportunity to loiter relatively unbothered by passersby.

A resource that was currently hoarded by a lone teenager, shoes planted firmly on the hot cement as he hunched over to ward off any stragglers who might have approached, elbows digging into his knees, fingers curled in a way that implied they just might clench in irritation but were otherwise barely kept in check-maybe twitching every now and then. The defensive stance was mostly a precaution: there weren’t many in Traverse who attempted a conversation with Roxas these days and walked away feeling like they’d made a lifelong friend. To the town, Roxas was unsociable in polite company; otherwise he was just considered an asshole.

Normally, Roxas could sit alone in the bus cubicle and lose himself in the relative silence at the edge of town, let his mind dwell on the heat; on the sweat pooling at his temples and trickling down his face to collect at the collar of his shirt; the thick air that seemed to stick in his throat on the way down to his lungs and fog up his thoughts until his head was murky enough to stand getting through the rest of the day. Usually Roxas was alone.

Then there were moments like these when Axel was there, coming and going at different times of the day, tripping up Roxas’s desired lack of awareness with his unpredictability. His movements were deliberately unassuming, slow as he passed the bench to and from the convenience store, relaxed as he slouched against the bus sign to the right of the cubicle. Everything about him screamed nonchalance, grating against Roxas’s nerves until his jaw clenched, but he refused to acknowledge the other boy’s presence, to admit that something was actually bothering him. Instead worn, faded, black clothing contrasted with a head of wild red hair, glinting under the sun in Roxas’s peripheral vision.

Axel always seemed to be in the corner of the public’s eye, skulking about, enshrouded in a bad reputation fueled by rumor and speculation; he’d always been around throughout school, in the small community park with his circle of similarly dark-clad friends, in the checkout line at the grocery store. Meetings were coincidence, enough words exchanged between them so that Roxas knew Axel liked cheap whiskey and Pall Malls, and maybe Axel remembered that Roxas preferred “piss-water” beer and he only bummed drags off of other people’s cigarettes. And now after years of circling, exchanging the high school student equivalent of “lovely weather we’re having,” Axel was just there, no small talk made while he invaded Roxas’s private space like he knew something, and it was pissing Roxas off.

Roxas merely braced himself, shoulders slumping forward but squared in checked anger, refusing to make the first move as Axel went through the motions of something that had become routine, as much as Roxas hated to admit he expected the redhead’s presence. While he could normally tune out everything around him, sink back into his own empty trance, Axel drew attention to himself with offhand noises that would have been unwitting to anyone else, the snick of his cheap lighter as he lit the cherry of a new cigarette, the slow inhale and exhale of a long drag, the scratching of heavy boots on concrete as he crossed one leg over the other. When these began to sink into white noise on Roxas’s ears, Axel caught his eye instead, hands moving whenever they could find a reason to, slipping the lighter into his back pocket, hooking his thumb into his belt loop for just a moment, rising to pluck the cigarette from his lips and hold it aloft on the exhale, tap away the ash, take another drag, look over the nails on his other hand. Roxas knew that if he turned his head just a fraction to the right, he’d catch a bitingly sardonic smirk and poison green eyes.

But Axel was quiet antagonism, silent in his roadside smoke break commentary. Back in town, everyone else was waiting for Roxas, ready to greet him with sympathetic words laced with judgment, eyes following his every move, watching him like buzzards. Town meant people who thought they knew, and town also meant some people who actually did. So instead of turning his head that precarious three inches and shooting Axel that glare that would get them somewhere new, Roxas kept his eyes down and continued to hold onto the idea that everything was the same, nothing was going to change.

Then something did, Axel discarding a spent cigarette and lighting another as if he always stayed for two, humming softly under his breath while he went through the same motions with a second cigarette. It left Roxas’s nerves humming, his muscles knotting until he thought his bones would creak if he didn’t remain completely still. When Axel finally left, more smashed filters left in his wake, Roxas stayed behind until long after he normally went home, tension slowly ebbing from each limb as he used the time to ensure that nobody else was going to bother him for the rest of the night.

The journey across town was brief, punctuated by the muggy quiet of midsummer and a sun that was finally sinking below the horizon. Despite his best efforts, Roxas’s mind continued to race, worry drawing his mouth thin and lowering his eyelids. His stride grew longer and quicker until his breathing was labored, audible and ringing in his ears as hot breaths wet his chapped lips. He threw himself into the effort, the exertion, following each step with his eyes until each pace seemed to take off just a little bit of the edge that he hadn’t been able to smooth out all day. Red hair became inhale, exhale, and long limbs and a smirk a mile wide became left, right.

By the time his worn shoes scuffed over the threshold, the sun had set and the sky was slowly darkening from teal to a deep, rich blue, stars coming out of hiding from the blazing heat. He winced when his hurry let the screen door slip his notice, creaking shut and announcing his return home with a final slam. He heard his mother stirring in the kitchen, and sure enough he had just enough time to kick off his shoes before she was around the corner, brandishing a spoon and a half-gallon of ice cream. “You’re late,” was all she said, brows and mouth cast downward into a frown. She dipped the spoon into her dessert, popped a mouthful of chocolate past her lips and waited.

The minimal amount of calm that Roxas had been able to achieve immediately vaporized, leaving him sweaty, breathless, and pinned under his mother’s scrutinizing gaze. He stamped down the irritated scoff pressing against his teeth, rankled at how her sloe eyes could cut through her bifocals and flyaway bangs to hit him with her disappointment, put him on the spot. She kept the spoon in her mouth, poised for whatever response he might give, and Roxas bit down on the inside of his cheek before he could square his shoulders. “Sorry,” he mumbled, hands digging into his pockets. “Didn’t know there was a curfew.”

Whether or not there was a hidden barb in his words, his mother continued to watch him, digging her spoon into the carton for another mouthful as her lips pursed and her eyelids lowered, going through the motions of a sigh. “You’re later than usual,” she amended, spoon tapping against the rim of the container. When no further explanation was forthcoming, she sighed again, set the ice cream on the entertainment center nearby and brushed long wisps of fading brown hair from her eyes, holding it in place as her gaze flitted over his. “Where were you?” she finally asked, voice soft and whisky-smooth, the way it used to be when Roxas was little and up late with the flu.

Roxas paused, took his time toeing his shoes off to the side so they weren’t in front of the doorway, and waited until he was sure the undercurrent of bitterness he felt churning in his gut wasn’t present in his tone. “The usual,” he offered, daring a sidelong glance at his mother and finding a crease along the bridge of her nose, an indication that his “usual” could have been the women’s restroom in the diner for all she knew. “The bench by Cid’s store,” he supplied when her mouth only moved soundlessly to start dozens of sentences that would leave them with nothing but another restless night. She didn’t need his ire, not tonight-tonight she was only worried about her son.

Her eyes finally warmed, the fine lines around her eyes and lips disappearing as her features softened. “You shouldn’t be out in the sun so much, sweetie,” she chided, closing the distance between them to curl her index finger under his chin. She tilted his head up to look him over, gaze level with his. “You’re burnt.”

Roxas ducked away from her hand, shrugged off her concern; she’d always been fond of touching his face, letting her fingers transmit emotion when she couldn’t figure out how to talk to him. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, eager to hide away in his room and sleep the day away into desired oblivion, but unable to leave his mom behind with that feeling of defeat that was all too familiar to the both of them. If he left this open-ended, he’d peek out of his room in the earliest hours of the morning and find her still awake, cigarette in one hand as she decorated the house with more baskets of fake florals, hummed along to the classic rock playing low on the stereo. He couldn’t do that to either of them tonight, the thought of it hollowing his stomach.

“Your nose is starting to blister,” she pressed, now a mother with a problem to fix. “Go get some Eucerin out of the medicine cupboard, then… come and have some ice cream with me?” Her suggestion was a veiled plea, something in it just as desperate to be recognized as the everyday as the company at Roxas’s bench. She grabbed the nearby ice cream and held it out in front of Roxas’s face, gently tilting it from side to side to entice him.

Roxas watched the carton, glanced over the flavor before finding his mother’s fingers on the hardened paper and following them until they met her hand, then her wrist, slowly traveling to rest on her face. He reached up to brush against his nose, feel for the blisters she said were there, and studied her through his fingers. Her eyes were washed out after nights of crying, her fine hair gathered up messily and thrown into a clip, and her lips were chapped and pressed together until they were pale, sort of ebbing away; she was tired, lonely. The least he could do was listen-something he’d been doing a lot of lately.

“I’ll go get some lotion,” he said finally, conceding. His mother’s smile was weary but thankful, pleased. She hummed under her breath as she parted ways for the couch in the living room, her voice that same, deep hickory tenor that he used to love to listen to when they’d sing hymns in church. He almost supplied the harmony like before, but instead swallowed down the song on the tip of his tongue and ambled down the hallway to the cabinet in the bathroom; the timing was off, inappropriate.

The shelves in the little apothecary were marked by the efficiency of a woman who was prepared for an adventurous family-plenty of bottles, boxes, and packets for cuts and bruises and burns, for headaches and upset stomachs and runny noses. There was also an ever-present package of chamomile tea on the kitchen counter, a bottle of honey in the pantry, an ice pack in the freezer, and a heating pad in the linen closet. Even if his mother couldn’t be there every time a migraine kept him in bed until the sun went down, she left him with plenty of creature comforts to get him through the day.

Roxas brushed aside a half-empty box of Band-Aids and a bottle of Advil to grab the travel-size bottle of medicated Eucerin, squirted a generous amount onto his opposite hand and put the bottle back on the shelf. He closed the cabinet and looked at his reflection in the mirror: an angry sunburn was beginning to take form on his cheeks and nose, the patches of more sensitive skin threatening to peel before the morning came. He dipped his fingers into the lotion in his other hand, dabbed at the places that were more affected by exposure and wincing as it stung on contact. He relaxed as the lotion did its job shortly after, cooling and soothing, leaving his face tingling and feeling a little less dry than it was before.

He wasn’t too thorough about rubbing it in, letting it coat in places, and when he was finished he opened the cabinet again and took the bottle with him, sure he was going to need to reapply several times before his skin stopped peeling and his mother wouldn’t fuss over it. A part of him did want to see just how long this moment between them would last; they weren’t at odds, they weren’t estranged, they just simply hadn’t really had to talk to just each other in a long time unless they were teasing or relaying something amusing and fun, and now it was happening at a time when Roxas wasn’t in the mood to speak at all.

He gripped the bottle of lotion more tightly than was needed, the cap pressing firmly into his palm as the grooves in the sides of the plastic dug into his fingers. He didn’t like the sudden rush of nervousness he felt, that tensing in his throat that prompted him to swallow and lick his teeth behind his lips. His eyes rolled of their own accord, finding his apprehension about spending some late-night quality time with his own mother ridiculous, and his hand automatically switched off the bathroom light as he made his way back out to the living room.

His mother had already made herself comfortable on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, sitting at an angle on the cushion so her elbow dug back into the arm and her thigh just barely intruded on Roxas’s side of the furniture. The stereo was on, the subwoofers turned off so the music could play softly without being drowned out by too much bass, and Roxas recognized “Child In Time” as another invitation for a sing-along, a number that he felt he couldn’t do, not without someone who thought he could hit the high notes dead-on. He dropped down onto his side of the couch, carefully maintaining his space so his leg only brushed against his mother’s, too hot and too uncertain to allow any further contact.

Roxas’s mother proffered her spoon, and he took it for one halfhearted dip into the tub of Mudslide ice cream, too spent to be hungry for much more. He kept the spoon in his mouth as he let the frozen chocolate melt on his tongue, savoring it like his mom had until he’d gotten everything out of it that he could, then handed the spoon back over. They went back and forth for a few bites, silent as Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar built up Ian Gillan’s vocals from near-whispers to shrieks that seemed epic.

Roxas watched the ice cream in the carton become sort of a smoothie, creamy and viscous, a little too syrupy for him but just perfect for his mother’s tastes. He gave the spoon back to her and waved away her offer of more, leaving her to finish it off by herself. Tonight seemed to be made up of rituals they used to do, routines like late-night ice cream talks, an unspoken round of “remember when…”

He kept his eyes on her painted toenails, content to remain quiet for as long as she wished and just ride out the nostalgic calm before they remembered that talking never seemed to get them where they wanted to go and Roxas made his daily trek back to the bench at the end of town; his mother would read another romance novel and paint a wine bottle for a window display, then drive to work. Their rhythm would be broken, and they’d have to wait, count out the beats before they tried to start up again. He tapped his fingers against his knee, listened to his mother’s lips smack around one last spoonful of ice cream before letting the spoon hit the bottom of the carton with a muted thunk and leaned back even further on the couch.

For a few minutes, they just breathed, sat back and listened to the last strains of Deep Purple, and Roxas felt the peace stretch out into something that had to break into sleep or branch into a discussion. Sure enough, his mother seemed to feel it too because she turned and asked, “Have you been drinking a lot of water, honey?” Her hand stretched out toward him again, and this time Roxas held still, winced when her fingers brushed against reddened skin before she recoiled and settled her palm on his shoulder instead. “It’s too hot out there; you shouldn’t be out in the sun so much.”

The joke was easy on Roxas’s lips, “Aren’t moms supposed to tell their kids to get some fresh air?” His eyes met hers with an ease that came with trading quips, something they could do without having to worry about misinterpretations, about digging too deep and bringing up things left unsaid.

A short burst of laughter, quiet amusement in two quick chuckles and she smiled, her left hand going through the motions of tapping the dead ash off a cigarette that wasn’t there. “The fresh air is baked,” she complained, her legs stretching out until her toes ruffled Roxas’s jeans before she dug her heels back down into the worn carpet. “How ‘bout I give you twenty bucks for a trip to the movies? You could go with Naminé-she has a car, right?”

She nudged his shoulder with her thumb when Roxas remained unresponsive, reluctant to bring their diversion to a grinding halt but reacting immediately all the same, tension building in his spine as that desire to avoid, avoid, avoid came crawling back. His mother noticed the change in the air and her hand stopped moving, still against Roxas’s clothing, too warm now that Roxas was paying attention. “I don’t think she’s called lately… are you two okay?” Her tone was gentle, cautious, just as hesitant as he was to ruin the mood.

Roxas shrugged again, the motion managing to jar his mother’s hand from its perch by his neck, and she let it fall tactfully to her thigh, patient while she waited. Roxas swallowed, knew that whatever connection they’d started to bridge was now temporarily burned, the old mistrust and pettiness he hated to feel rising in his throat until it left a sour taste on his tongue. “I’ve been keeping to myself,” he said, careful to keep the bite out of his words. “I don’t want to put up with the casseroles or church invitations yet.”

His mother laughed again, longer this time, harsher. “We already have three in the fridge, Roxy; what do you think we’ve been eating for the past week?” She shook her head and pushed away more hair that was too fine to stay in place for very long, streaks of gray more prominent under the strands that were pulled back. “And why would we go to church now? We haven’t been since you were twelve.” Her fingers twitched around her phantom cigarette again, and this time she gave into the craving and reached into her pocket for one, slipped her Zippo out of the other.

Before Roxas could interject, make promises to bring a bottle of water and wear sunscreen, his mother grunted, one quick exhale for quiet as she lit up, then took a drag off of her menthol before saying, “Just don’t overdo it; you could wind up with heat stroke.” She rose from the couch, made her way over to her purse, the backs of her legs that weren’t covered by short denim cut-offs marked by the stitched patterns in the couch. She pulled out a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet and placed it on the end table by the door, tucking a corner of it under the lamp. “You can go to the diner if you want, get yourself something to eat that doesn’t have seven layers and melted cheese.”

Roxas sighed and stood up, muscles and bone protesting the swift change after becoming accustomed to the sofa, still tensed and with no way to expel the energy short of going on another walk. He nodded, shot a glance at the money to let her know he understood the hidden command, then looked up again, met exhausted brown eyes one last time for the night and offered some semblance of a smile. “G’night, Mom.”

“‘Night, Roxy,” she said on another exhale, waving an arc of smoke in the dim lamplight as she returned his smile.

Roxas turned and trudged down the hallway, making an about face at the last room to the left before his eyes could adjust to the dark and get a good look at the sticker-laden door at the end of the small stretch of carpet and plaster and hanging photographs. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him, taking care to keep the action slow and controlled, no need for slamming, despite how much his bunched up limbs wanted him to. He wriggled out of his jeans, tossed off his sweat-dampened tee-shirt and fell back onto his bed in his boxers, taking several moments to stretch and breathe and stare blankly at the popcorn ceiling above his head before he toed off his socks.

His position on the bed was off-kilter, leaving his head at an angle away from his pillow and one arm and both legs curving down toward the floor, but the muggy air and the whirring in his limbs that never seemed to go away now made him less than concerned about a crick in the neck. His brows were drawn in a frown that he’d been holding back all day, lips moving in soundless curses as he slowly shook his head from side to side on the scratchy mattress. He should have left before they could talk; he would’ve been able to fall asleep with a clearer head, could’ve undone the mess that Axel had made earlier.

Roxas’s scowl deepened as Axel’s image sprang unbidden into his mind, imprinting itself in the patterns of the ceiling like a Rorschach test that made Roxas want to growl in frustration. He’d known Axel for much of his life, talked to him plenty of times before, and never had the other boy ever occurred to him as anything more than a guy who went to the same school and wasn’t unbearable to hang out with. So why was he present so much now? He’d shown up one day randomly for cigarettes and now he came to drive Roxas over the edge. Over the edge of what, that was what Roxas didn’t intend to find out anytime soon.

He finally allowed a long, angry snarl to penetrate the stifling silence in his room, and flopped over onto his side to turn on the clock radio on his nightstand, face digging its way into the pillow at an angle that he would still find uncomfortable in the morning. He’d do it tomorrow, blank out his mind and forget Axel was there; there wasn’t much else the other boy could do, after all, before nothing caught his attention anymore. He burrowed his arm underneath the pillow to prop it up, give his head more support, and did his best to quash the sinking suspicion that this wasn’t the case, that Axel was just getting started; after all, he’d had experience with people who lived to make sure he was “really living,” whatever the hell that meant.

The next afternoon, Roxas left the house before his mother came back from work, sidling past any attempted damage control and pocketing the twenty dollars by the door when it seemed to blink at him like a neon sign in a bar window. Seeing a movie was out-while the theater would be air-conditioned, it was in the next town over and he didn’t have a car to drive. So was the diner, which presented the issue of dealing with other people, and he wasn’t about to give up on his efforts to avoid doing that anytime soon.

A solution presented itself to him on the way to his bench, providing him with a reason to spend a minimal amount that would satisfy his mother’s need to give him something to do as well as assuage the typical hang-ups he always had when dealing with other people’s money. When he drew level with the door to Cid’s convenience store, he stopped, peered in as best he could through the glass without seeming interested in who was inside, then slipped through as unobtrusively as possible and ambled back to the long stretch of sliding-door fridges. He selected a bottle of water, something his mother couldn’t disapprove of, hung back behind the bags of chips until the two other customers in the store had dwindled out, then paid for his ridiculously priced two-liter and made sure his exit was just as inconspicuous as his entry.

What awaited him on the other side of the door slowed his pace for one or two beats, his legs temporarily uncertain of his desired course of action: Axel was sitting on his bench. After weeks of denying that any sort of afternoon ritual between himself and Axel existed, the other boy was turning it on its ear and taunting him with a silent is that so? There was no smirk present on his features, just that same controlled calm; instead, his amusement was evident in his nonchalance, in the cigarette perched precariously between two fingers, in the tilt of his head as it rested back against the bench.

This was the line drawn in the sand, the one that Roxas had been dreading to cross. Instead, he found his stride easy as it evened out, brought him to closer to the bench he was now supposed to share; meeting a challenge was familiar, almost comforting in the way he could push back. Now the only step left for Axel to take was to talk, something that Roxas was adept at shutting down, sidestepping-he didn’t have to be nice to Axel, didn’t have to come up with an excuse for ending the conversation.

He dropped onto the bench resolutely, ignoring how Axel’s legs seemed to stretch out for miles, sprawled out just enough that much of the available space was occupied. While Axel smoked his cigarette, Roxas uncapped his bottle of water and sipped, both staring out at worn out pavement, worn out yellow paint, worn out town. They matched each other tit for tat in stoic quiet, until Axel’s cigarette burned down to the filter and all he had left to do was tap it out, drop it on the ground. He stood with one last exhale of smoke, his long back arching as he reached back with his left arm and peeled his damp shirt from skin that was worse off than Roxas’s in the unforgiving sun.

His departure was just as pointedly understated as his arrival, simply sliding his hands into his pockets and slinking away, boots audible against the sidewalk but the footfalls measured and light. Roxas swallowed a scoff with a pull from his water bottle, eyes and mouth schooled to remain impassive; his head wouldn’t empty today, he knew that much, too preoccupied with Axel and his sidestepping agenda. He stayed behind until the street lights came up, and tossed his empty plastic bottle into the nearby trash can as he walked home as quickly as the previous evening, a part of himself too satisfied from successfully meeting a dare to be overly anxious about what would come next.

The smallest hint of a grin played at his mouth by the time Roxas let the screen door ease shut behind him, almost giving into the habit of singing along to a stereo that was turned up loud, the way it was supposed to be in this house, the bass thrumming from his heels to his sternum as Rob Halford preached about metal gods. He could smell fresh traces of Febreze and Pledge, giving away his mother’s current mission in the house, and something about it felt too familiar to register as anything other than right.

He could pick up on the mechanical roar of the vacuum cleaner as he toed off his shoes, just barely audible under the sheer volume of hard rock. It wasn’t until about the time he drew close enough to pinpoint the location of the vacuum that the tension that hadn’t quite been present all day announced its arrival with a small tingling in Roxas’s palms; his mother wasn’t cleaning out her own bedroom and it was one of her household policies to never be anyone’s maid, leaving out his room as well. Pledge wasn’t needed in the hallway, and he hadn’t smelled any Comet so the bathroom was still untouched, which left the back room-the spare room.

All efforts to remain closed off, withdrawn, crashed to the floor as he ran down the rest of the short hallway and stopped in the doorway. Small pinpricks were evident in the walls where posters had been taken down, all of them stacked on the bed and ready to be bagged up and labeled, the mattress underneath stripped of bedding. Clothes were removed from the closet and sorted in piles, also ready for storage.

His presence caught his mother’s eye and she paused in dragging the vacuum back and forth over the farthest corner of the room, waved tiredly before she maneuvered the machine around the desk, edged the single chair out of the way with her leg. She’d obviously been cleaning for awhile, her hair falling around her shoulders in messy torrents, skin tinted a light pink from the exertion and breathing labored as she said, “Hi, honey, where were you?”

Whatever thought Roxas might have put into being civil, understanding the night before was gone, replaced by disbelief and betrayal and panic, and his words were choked and guttural coming from his mouth, “The bench.” His fingers jerked at his sides, itching to grab the posters on the bed, his eyes roaming the rest of the room for any more changes before he had to close them, breathe in and out, calm down.

His mother seemed unaware of his inner struggle, pushing the vacuum under the bed, the cigarette between her lips muffling her speech. “I hoped you’d go to the movies with Naminé.” She tapped the ‘off’ button of the vacuum with her toe, then grabbed both sides of the bed’s frame and began to pivot it away from the wall, set on getting the dust and dirt out of every square inch of the carpet. She set the bed down with a grunt, then noted, “She’s probably just waiting on you to make the first move.”

Her suggestions to borrow the car and pick up Naminé for a trip to Radiant Gardens or get some popcorn and watch movies at home like they used to faded under the roaring in Roxas’s ears. The more his mother urged him to spend time with Naminé, the harder it became for him to breathe. His hand reached up to brace himself against the open door, nails digging into the thin, impressionable wood underneath the biohazard sticker and the drawing of Donald Duck in a towel and a shower cap. Was she going to take them down, too?

She was vacuuming between the bed and the wall now, cigarette dangling between her lips, and Roxas noticed how out of place the ash tray she’d brought back with her seemed on the bureau, marking how empty it seemed of personal touches like a picture frame or a fish bowl. Her cleaning was manic, he knew, marked by too much time keeping to themselves, but Roxas was in no mood to cater to her frenzy, not when he was caught up in his own. The urge to scream at her would fall on deaf ears, leaving her feeling victimized and unwilling to hear whatever he had to say, and if he said nothing then she’d continue to ensure that everyone else dealt with her personal problems.

And ultimately all of this meant nothing to him at the moment, because he was a teenager and she was supposed to be Mom. She wouldn’t look up and see her son staggering against the door, wide-eyed and slack-jawed as she wiped the walls clean of memories and proof of existence. Her voice trickled back into awareness, assaulting Roxas’s ears as he tried to get his bearings, and at the sound of her still talking about Naminé and what a “sweet girl” she was, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Is that what this is about?” he snapped, hands pushing against either side of the doorway as if he could make himself look bigger, more noticeable in his mother’s selective line of sight. “That you can just pack everything away so it doesn’t exist?” His laugh was sharp, wounded. “I’m gay, Mom. Naminé is just a friend, and one I’ve already told you I don’t want to see. Can’t you just remember that sometimes I can do what feels right to me?”

His mother’s eyes were wide, shocked, cigarette threatening to fall from her mouth as her lips trembled, then pressed together firmly. Her head dipped, chin angled toward her sternum as she inhaled, and when her gaze met his again it was tearful. “I know that, sweetie; she’s your friend and you’ve been alone for a month now. I don’t… I don’t know what’s going on with you or where you are--nobody does any… anymore.”

She sobbed, the pitch too high for her husky smoker’s voice, and she leaned back against the wall. Roxas’s own breathing was just as ragged, broken by pants as his shoulders slumped, his hands dragging down until they fell at his sides. Then his mother was almost too quiet to pick up over the stereo, “It was so stagnant in here… I thought…” Her fingers burrowed into her hair, smoothing it back only to muss it up again. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Roxas was coming back from his freefall, ready to at least offer his help in getting the disorder of the room put back together when his mother asked, “Roxy… you don’t do drugs or anything when you go to that bench, do you?” His face went slack again in shocked disbelief, convinced now more than ever that they really didn’t know each other at all anymore and smarting from it.

“No, Mom, I only get those from you,” he spat, part of him immediately regretting his words, but riding on a sense of vindication for the moment that would at least get him to the next morning before he’d want to apologize. He spun on his heels, stormed into his room and closed the door with a final slam that he’d been ready to throw for weeks. He turned on his own smaller stereo so he wouldn’t hear any demands to come back out to talk, and was thankful even amidst his resentment in the knowledge that his mother wouldn’t follow him into his bedroom.

He kept his light off, crouched on the bed in the dark, and stared out the window at the last remaining bit of twilight. His sense of righteous anger lessened with each song on the radio, and finally dissipated into regret and loneliness when he switched it off to sleep, the sound of his mother trying her hardest to muffle her cries on the other side of the thin wall.

The following few days were uneventful enough to draw Roxas’s attention after bracing himself for more change. Instead, his mother threw herself into her job and drove to her friend’s afterward to paint birdhouses and smoke joints in the attic, seeing Roxas infrequently enough to remind him of jokes that weren’t quite funny told in school about how she was a cameo role in the family’s sitcom. The routine was familiar, but still hard to fall back into again after she seemed so intent on forging some sort of reconnection.

And then there was Axel who, despite staking a claim on his territory, was back in front of the sign the day after, leaving the bench to Roxas. Then he was on the bench again, and finally he walked out of the convenience store, paused next to the bench as if the action were some sort of afterthought, lit a cigarette and promptly left. Roxas stayed until the stars began to poke through the sky, stewing over whether he should be relieved the other boy had given up or if he was only planning something else.

Roxas left the house later than usual the next day after an overdue shower and a play through of Dark Side of the Moon and David Bowie, working his way through the music collection his dad had left behind. Art rock flowed through him, soothed his wired nerves like a hand rubbing his back, and let his thoughts lift and float lazily in a stream of consciousness. He locked the door behind him, feeling hollow but smooth, prepared for any eventuality.

The sun sank behind buildings and trees as he walked, stretching his shadow like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. The air was just as stifling as ever and Roxas’s shower was undone by the time he reached the bench, grimacing at the oily sheen of sweat he could feel from the damp hair covering his scalp to the toes crammed into his shoes. He hunched forward, elbows on his knees, and let the heat creep up his limbs to seep inside, muddle his mind.

As the sun dropped closer to the horizon, Roxas found it more and more difficult to repress a scowl until it finally drew his brows, making itself evident in the squint of his eyes. It was nearly nightfall, and there had been no sign of red hair, no trace of acrid smoke or boots that were too heavy for the season. Somewhere along the way, Roxas had come to expect Axel to appear and disrupt his quiet; the fact that he probably wasn’t going to show up tonight got under his skin more than having his bench taken over. The bastard.

He was startled into swearing under his breath when his phone went off; he’d kept it with him all summer but never used it after ensuring that everyone in town would leave him alone. He grabbed the phone from his back pocket when he recognized the ringtone he’d programmed for his mother, flipped it open and waited for her to talk first. “Hey, sweetie.” Her voice was mellow, lilting; she was already high as a kite.

Roxas bit down on his tongue, reminding himself that trying to talk any kind of sense into her now was useless and would end in tears and more days of circling around each other until he apologized for everything. Like her good son’s supposed to. “Hi, Mom.” His words were low, careful of cracking as he dug into his thigh with the nails of his free hand. “What’s up?”

She giggled, snorted, then giggled some more about snorting. Then, “The ceiling.” Raucous laughter rang out from several people on the other line, and Roxas inhaled deep and counted to ten, found himself just as pissed off and counted again. “Listen, Roxy,” his mother continued, oblivious to his silence, “I’m probably going to spend the night here. Could you pick up some groceries for me? You’re not doing anything special, are you?” Her tone was distracted by some other activity, confident that he wouldn’t shrug off her request.

“What do you need?” Roxas asked, mind scrambling to discern what time it was, how long he’d been sitting there. The anger that seemed to be a constant with him had dropped abruptly, falling out through the bottom of his stomach and leaving him with empty apprehension, a different kind of tension that was just as unwelcome. He worked evenings now, didn’t he?

“Just get some milk, some eggs, bread, a bag of lettuce… maybe some bacon bits; those might be nice-get a little salad in with our casseroles, huh?” Her words were slurred; she’d probably been tossing back Coronas as well. She broke away from her end of the line for a moment to laugh at a joke someone else had cracked, then cleared her throat. “I’ll see you later, sweetie. Say hi to Riku for me, if he’s there!”

The line dropped before Roxas could reply, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed to close the phone and slip it back into his pocket instead of throwing it down on the ground and smashing it to bits with his heel alongside the numerous filters scattered in front of the bench. His lips moved in as many curses as he knew, and some he invented, all uttered without a sound as he walked toward the grocery store, making sure his feet never stomped on the concrete. His mom wouldn’t remember even if she were sober that Roxas hadn’t been saying “hi” to anyone in weeks, let alone Riku. Especially not Riku.

His time in the store was quick and painless, from his entry through the automatic doors up until it was his turn in line to pay for the items in his basket; he’d had to fend a few people off with disinterested grunts and one “I’m busy,” but otherwise most left him alone for the same reasons nobody tried to sit on his bench anymore. Well, no one other than Axel. The loaf of wheat bread in the basket received an undue glare from Roxas, who schooled his features back into something more aloof when he realized the cashier taking the bread out of the basket to scan it was beginning to eye him nervously. “Uh… you paying with that?” He gestured toward Roxas’s hand.

Roxas looked down at the debit card he was holding and started. “Yeah.” He reached out to hand it to the cashier and stopped, sound cancelling out and vision zeroing in on the cashier one aisle over. He’d paused in the middle of ringing up a jar of mayonnaise, holding it aloft just over the scanner as he met Roxas’s gaze; long, platinum hair pulled back to show sea-green eyes that were roiling with pent-up aggression, his glare returned just as furiously by Roxas as they stood in a silent stand-off.

Don’t you dare say a goddamn thing, Roxas willed, nerves screaming like they hadn’t all summer as his hands clamped onto the counter in front of him like talons, ready to spring over the conveyer belt and knock Riku to the ground if he so much as opened his mouth, spectators or no. He’d spent weeks avoiding him, especially him, wanting nothing to do with the one boy who everyone expected him to talk to-the one who was supposed to understand him somehow. Well, fuck that, past trips to the lake or childhood birthdays in the ball pit of McDonald’s be damned, he was there for groceries and that was it.

“Um… sir?” Roxas’s cashier asked, jarring him back into real time. He blinked, dazed as his line of sight took in the rest of the store again and noticed the man in front of him holding out his hand expectantly. “Your card, I need to scan your card, sir.” There was a faint edge to his tone as his eyes darted over the customers still waiting in line.

Roxas mumbled an apology and quickly handed over his debit card, giving Riku a last once-over and noting with a little satisfaction that he seemed equally disoriented as he looked down at the jar in his hand and realized he’d accidentally scanned it twice. He saw, rather than heard, Riku’s murmured “sorry” before the other boy quickly punched in the code to strike the doubled price off his customer’s bill. They made eye contact for an instant, then the woman behind Roxas coughed impatiently and started to tap the counter with her long nails.

The ominous black cloud that had generated over their heads dispersed, leaving Roxas in a state of confusion and frustration, and something that welled up in his chest and pushed a little against his throat before he bit down on his lip and jabbed his pin into the pad, mentally stabbing the sudden burst back down with each press of a number until he could ignore everything other than the resolve to continue to avoid Riku.

His trip home was quick, one thing after another with Axel, his mom, and now Riku hastening his step until he nearly broke into a run. He almost slammed the door open upon his arrival, for once thankful that his mom was staying out for the night as he threw the bolt home and barged down the hallway into his bedroom. The need to reign in his temper was gone now that he was alone in the house and he flung himself onto his bed, nowhere near ready to sleep but too caught up in the brewing storm rising in his gut to do anything else with his freedom. His legs wanted to kick, to run, his arms wanted to pull, push, punch, all of his limbs suffering from his anticlimactic brush with Riku. A groan tore from his lips and Roxas’s fist came down hard on his nightstand.

Roxas’s eyes snapped open wide at the sound of glass cracking, a breath tripping up in his lungs and holding still as he turned his head. Under his white-knuckled hand was a picture frame lying on its face, the photo pushed down and hidden weeks ago. He didn’t have to lift up the frame to know who was in the picture, what they were doing-the image was one he knew by heart, but his fingers curled around the simple metal frame anyway. He tilted it up away from the nightstand, hesitant to see how much damage was done, only a plain glass sheet covering the photo but as a whole representing a time that wasn’t… how it was now.

The breath in his lungs expelled shakily, and Roxas wasn’t quite sure if it was relief: only one, single crack along the upper right side of the glass, seeming to split Riku’s face in two. He was watching the person behind the camera with a knowing gaze peering from under his bangs, no interested invested in being in the picture, but coaxed into it all the same. Naminé was on the opposite end of the group, unmarred by the fragmented glass, her smile sugary sweet but reserved, almost hidden behind blonde hair as she waited for the Kodak moment to be over; she’d never been a fan of being in front of the camera.

Her older sister, Kairi, was making an obvious effort not to laugh in the picture, leaning forward with sparkling eyes and a bright grin while she draped one arm over Riku’s shoulders to ensure he stayed put, the other wrapped in a teasing chokehold around Roxas. He was making his best effort to appear sullen, protesting his appearance in the photo but unable to not smile with Kairi’s giggles turning into snorts as Roxas glared at the goofy face behind the camera. They’d been visiting Radiant Gardens for the day, and the ‘capture’ button had been hastily clicked right as Riku smirked, finding them all with smiles on their faces.

Roxas swallowed convulsively, lifted the frame and held it closer. They were broken now, separated just like they were behind the ruined glass. Roxas frowned, stubborn as his index finger ran along the crack. No, not broken, he just didn’t want to be the one to fix it right now. He sighed and set the picture on the nightstand again, still face down, and flopped back onto the mattress feeling more drained than he had in days; he wouldn’t dream tonight, but he wouldn’t wake up any less empty either. And for the first time in weeks, he wasn’t so sure that was what he wanted.

The following afternoon’s trip to the bench was made more out of habit than any real desire to go, shoes already on and door locked behind him before Roxas could register that he was on his way and that he was just a little reluctant to leave the house. He was certain that Riku was as set on avoiding him, but Roxas still felt something changing, gathering around him and in him even as he fought to hold everything still, calm. There was a pressure beginning to weigh on his shoulders, pressing down ever so slightly and keeping his thoughts grounded no matter how much he wanted to let them go. He glanced up at the sky as he walked, brought his gaze hastily back down to his shoes at how blue it was, sharp and infinite and cloudless, beaming down on him with possibility and the urge to move forward, do something.

His stance on the bench was almost practiced, elbows in their usual place on his knees, feet on the ground, back hunched and eyes trained on sun-baked pavement. He felt like he wasn’t just warding off anyone in town who thought they needed to say something, but what was known as the human condition as well; there was no need for him to be productive, no gain to be had for delving deep into his emotions and discovering he thought his hometown was deadweight. Everyone knew it-everyone dreamed about getting out and making a name for himself Somewhere Else.

A chorus of giggles sounded from somewhere nearby, approaching from the right. Roxas’s eyes darted over long enough to place them as people he went to school with before fixing them straight ahead again, fairly certain that the group of girls would have no reason to talk to him. Sure enough, they passed by the bench and walked into Cid’s store, still laughing as the door swung shut behind them. It figured that other people would start showing up now that Axel was keeping his distance.

As if on cue, the girls poured out of the store in a fit of raucous laughter that only drew Roxas’s attention when it tapered off and the air seemed to charge. He debated whether to remain aloof, then decided on giving the area a once over if only to protect his territory. The girls were gathered in front of the door, just a few paces away, ice cream bars poised near their lips as they stared down…

Roxas’s eyes flitted to his right and caught the telltale red hair, and he blinked once, surprised he hadn’t heard Axel approaching. But why this standoff was happening, Roxas had no idea; they’d all been to the same parties, after all, even if they’d never been close friends. He’d always spent more time with people like Axel, who preferred dark, removed corners and back porches just as much as he did, while these girls were closer to the social type.

But this was a lot more than some sort of clique war; the girls were one tension-breaker away from ducking back into the store, and Axel… Roxas didn’t even have to know his name to realize he was furious. A longer study of his returned trespasser revealed a deadly glint in venomous green eyes, a sneer tilting the side of his face into something threatening. Roxas wasn’t sure what happened between these people, but he did know that one of the girls stepping forward and asking Axel what the hell his problem was definitely not a good idea.

Axel’s eyes narrowed to slits, his already tall body drawing up and into itself like a serpent about to strike, and then he grinned, showing white teeth that lacked any humor. “Bitch.” His voice was low, crackling with restraint. “Get lost.”

The girls lost all sense of bravado and skittered away quickly, leaving laughter dead in the air and Axel standing in empty triumph. Roxas was frowning at the aftermath of the scene, irritated with himself for caring; it wasn’t that Axel seemed ready for a fight that caught his attention, it was that when the girl asked him what his problem was, she immediately seemed to recoil in shame. He didn’t get too much time to think about it before Axel thumped down on the bench next to him, all effort that would have been put into riling him up abandoned in favor of mental exhaustion and the need for a cigarette.

This time Roxas struggled with his curiosity instead of his usual desire to snap. Why? was on the tip of his tongue, and Axel seemed inclined to smoke his way through another Pall Mall and take off as tradition warranted. Then Axel did the unexpected yet again and swore on an exhale before, “Can’t wait to leave this place.” He sounded so final, so sure, that Roxas was inclined to wonder when he was leaving, not how. He started when long, pale fingers were suddenly in his face, a cigarette directly in front of his nose.

At this point, Roxas recognized a line when he saw one; he could either continue to ignore Axel and let their pattern taper off into nothing, or he could acknowledge Axel’s offering and take a drag off of his cigarette, let him know that his presence was more tolerable than cliques who gabbed about closets with nothing to wear amidst a jungle of shoes. Roxas hazarded a sidelong glance at the other boy, who was leaning back with his head tilted so he could look straight up at the sky, stuck in his own head for once as his free hand tapped a lazy beat on the bench.

Maybe Axel had been trying to get away from something too. He took the cigarette and inhaled the bitter, sharp sting of nicotine and arsenic and everything else mashed up into cheap paper to bundle up his nerves and hold them still for awhile. They remained silent as they passed the smoke between the two of them, occasionally grunting in appreciation. When yet another filter met its end at the heel of Axel’s boot, he tapped the carton of cigarettes against the bench a few times, as if contemplating another, a frown accentuating the black diamond tattoos under his eyes, and then rose to his feet with a tired sigh. This time, though, he gave what seemed to be a nod over his shoulder as he left, a goodbye of sorts, and Roxas was actually watching him leave to see it happen.

The next few days were strange, something that wasn’t quite a stalemate, not quite a draw as Axel would join him. While Roxas kept his gaze straight ahead, Axel would look out to the left, past the convenience store at the stretch of open road beyond, his mind on Somewhere Else. His face was pensive, planning as he burned through a new pack of cigarettes; the wanderlust was calling out to his blood, a song that everyone in a small town could hear-Roxas felt it like an afterthought, but it seemed to tug at Axel’s consciousness, pull his attention away from everything else to wonder things like what a cheeseburger tasted like in another state.

The more Axel seemed to move toward the idea, the desire to leave, the more his longing seemed to pull Roxas after him, like they were in the middle of a discussion and Roxas wasn’t finished talking to him yet. Like Axel was the only person in town who was actually giving him the opportunity to talk, like he would really listen if he did. Or maybe it didn’t matter if he paid attention for now Axel was stuck in the same moment with him, and Roxas was waiting to see who would try to claw his way out first.

Axel didn’t show up for a few days and Roxas would have been surprised at how difficult it was to fall back into his old routine if he hadn’t accepted by now that the other boy was adept at social mayhem. He knew Axel was still around, hearing from his mother about trash cans being lit on fire-one belonging to the family of the girl at the convenience store, about lyrics sprayed on the brick walls of the school and street signs rearranged. Roxas simply continued to travel to the bench, waiting for Axel’s desperation to build, to wind, coil tight, and finally release, and wondered what would happen when it did; if he’d be there to witness it.

The days had begun to blend together long before Axel’s sudden appearance and just as sudden disappearance, and Roxas couldn’t be sure how much time had passed between when he’d last seen Axel and when a sharp knock on the screen door brought him out of a heat-induced doze on the living room couch. Since the last time he’d seen Kairi smiling and goading him into a day at the arcade, and now, arms folded against her chest and violet eyes piercing him through the ratted bug screen as he stood there dumbfounded, hand still on the front door.

Loaded silence stretched between them, cocked and pulled, and then, “Oh, I’m sorry, I came to greet the new neighbors.” Her voice cut like it rarely did, sharp in the way it was when she had finally had enough. “I mean, we never hear from you anymore, so we just assumed you moved.”

Roxas only continued to stare, expression blank as his head tried to grapple with the fact that someone was poking at his personal space, and Kairi’s arms dropped to her sides, body tilting forward to get closer to him, get her point across. “Naminé sits in the window staring at her phone all the damn time waiting for you to call her back for once, and now I have to browbeat it out of Riku that you guys nearly had a smack down in the check-out aisle?”

Her right hand opened, closed, twitched like she was about to yank the screen open, and Roxas snapped out of his stupor. “It’s not like I went there to make life miserable for him,” he defended, irked that he couldn’t quite use the he started it excuse. “And I just don’t have anything to say right now; it’s not like I talk for hours on the phone as it is.” His posture curled itself around his grip on the door as his hackles rose, anger pale in comparison to the memory of Riku’s pinning glare at the register.

“You’re avoiding us now,” Kairi threw back, one hand on her hip as she tossed her hair out of her eyes to scowl up at him. “We’re supposed to be friends, Roxas-I always thought we were, unless it was all some kind of generous act.” Her voice trembled and her teeth clamped down on her lower lip as she rolled her eyes at the ground in annoyance with herself; if Roxas hadn’t been itching to slam the door in her face, he would’ve acknowledged the familiar warmth that flared up at Kairi’s persistent strength, her determination to prove that she didn’t have to be “just as good” as the guys because there was no weaker sex in the first place.

“This… we’re worried about you, Roxas.” Her tone was softer, but her eyes still sparked, shining with concern and indignation. “This isn’t good, what you’re doing. It’s hurting everyone.”

Roxas tched, taking his turn to roll his eyes. “Sorry, that’s the last thing I’d want to do.”

Kairi waved away his sarcasm impatiently. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. We need you, and you need us, too. Whether or not you’re ready to deal with that, it’s the truth. You’re not…” She swallowed, this time unable to bite back the shudder that ran through her, sorrow darkening her eyes. “You’re not the only one who lost something.”

Roxas could feel his eyes darkening, too, rage and the black well of depression he’d been shoving aside for weeks threatening to spill over, but he remained silent. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Roxas, and you’ll see that. You will,” she insisted when his mouth opened to scoff again. “When you’re ready to. And when you are…” Her mouth was set in a grim line of disapproval, eyes watery, but she offered him a crooked smile all the same. “I’ll be waiting for a damn good apology.” She took a second to look up at him, study his face, then nodded once for emphasis. She spun on her heel and walked down the porch, sandaled feet stomping on the splintered wood before she hurried down the driveway and up the street.

He watched her leave until trees hampered his view, and then his eyes traveled up, peered into the deep blue sky. It still bore down, hot and clear as ever, and Roxas caught himself nearly sticking his tongue out in response. He shot one more glance in Kairi’s direction, amazed yet again how she could breeze by and leave him floundering, then closed the front door with a sense of conviction that wasn’t quite as present as it usually was. Damnit.

He shuffled back to the couch and flopped down in front of the television, letting time drift by until the sun was going down and the blue of the sky was fading, giving him enough of a respite to go out for the afternoon and carry on as usual. He muttered along the way, arguing with Kairi now that he knew what he wanted to say, and realizing after awhile that he’d been speaking aloud and his voice had been growing in volume until it jarred him out of his diatribe. His mood was dark as he hunched over on the bench, waiting to see if Axel would show up; he didn’t, and Roxas trudged home criticizing himself for feeling even worse.

Two more days of solitude, two more days of his mother choosing to go out with her friends, two more days of stubbornly avoiding his phone and cursing how blue and bright and encouraging the sky was, and Axel still didn’t appear. Roxas let himself sink into the probability that he wasn’t coming back, and then in true Axel fashion, a beat-up late model of a car that had never seen days outside of comfortable suburbia pulled up on the side of the street in front of the bench. The engine grumbled beneath the hood softly, eager to be moving along, and Axel was in the driver’s seat, one arm draped over the wheel in a manner that seemed almost carefully casual.

Roxas looked on without a word, waiting on the other boy. After what seemed like minutes, Axel’s hand lifted from the wheel to scratch a scalp of wild red hair, posture uncertain, and his grainy voice purred along with the motor, “How’d you like to escape from it all for the low, low cost of broke?” It took Roxas the span of maybe ten seconds, taking into account friends and family, a lack of responsibilities, before he stood up and closed the distance between the bench and the passenger’s side door.

Axel waited a grand total of three seconds for Roxas to open the door and sit down before he pulled away from the curb and sped out of Traverse, and Roxas chanced a look in the side-view mirror to see if they were actually leaving a trail of dust behind them. The car raced along the stretch of road that would lead them to the next town over, and halfway there Roxas started to think that letting his mom know he’d be away for awhile would probably be a good idea. “Any specific place we’re going?” he asked, pulling out his phone and flipping it open.

“Nope.” Axel’s response was immediate, insistent in a way that demanded no plans be made. “I want to cross a state line,” he amended after a moment. “That’s about it. What about you?” He shot Roxas a glance, curious as he navigated the car around a family in a station wagon.

Roxas frowned down at his phone, pausing in the middle of texting out a vague sort of timeline that was mostly made up to look up at the sky through the windshield, still pure and blue as ever, bearing down on him like it wanted him to stay in Traverse. “Rain would be nice,” he muttered, throwing his attention back into the message on his phone.

Axel snorted, nothing derisive about it, and nodded. “Yeah. Can’t really make sure that happens, but we’ll look for it on the way.” And with that, he turned on the radio, ensured that the volume was turned up as high as it would go, and pressed his foot down harder on the gas to pass a guy in a truck who gave him the finger. Roxas buckled his seatbelt, felt around for the lever that would tilt the seat back, and closed his eyes, wondering if Axel’s crazy driving would get them into a town he didn’t recognize by the time he opened them again.