FIRE STARTER.

[luxumis-blog]

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 ( 65 )            

            The phone call comes on a Monday. Of course it does – what business would it have coming on any of the good days, or a day that matters? Roxas has gotten so good at ignoring them that they hardly come anymore. Allowing himself to be lulled into this false sense of security is his unsuspecting folly, because for the first time in over a year, he answers the goddamn phone. Thinking that it’s Axel, or Xion, or Olette – any of the friends he’s made in the recent weeks, the ones who give a damn about him, he thumbs over the accept call button without checking the number. 

            WHO DOESN’T CHECK THE FUCKING NUMBER? 

            His attention is fully on the TV in front of him when he laughs out a cheerful, “Hello?” into the receiver. The voice on the other end of the line is none of the people he’s expecting it to be. None of the people he wants it to be. When his mother chokes out his name, the fake one, the one he fucking hates, the one that does not belong to him, Roxas’ breath catches in his throat, and he is helpless to her crying, her begging, her pleading, his father screaming in the background. “Come home, sweetie.” She says. “We miss you.” She says. “We only want the best for you.” She says. 

            She says, she says, she says: but she does not mean any of it. Roxas has seen the newspaper headlines. Politician’s Daughter Flees to California Under the Guise of A Boy. He’s read the nasty articles online about how he’s “one of those transgenders” and “how could her father allow something like that? Why, if that were my kid, I’d knock some sense into her!” All his parents want, all they care about, is their self image. On and on and on she goes, until finally Roxas can’t take it anymore, hanging up the call just in time for Axel to come in through the door. 

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[luxumis-blog]

            Axel. It’s a ridiculous name, for a ridiculous guy. The streetlamp situated on the other side of the half pipe, the one furthest from Roxas and, by association, Axel, offers a flickering, yellow luminescence, faded light that illuminates Axel as he comes into the full, eerie shine of it. Roxas stares down at him for a long moment, a cicada crying in the distance, shrieking like a woman giving birth to a half-baked son, loitering in skate parks and smoking himself into an early grave. But Axel’s not wrong: he really is harmless. There’s never been much of a threat from him – that Roxas knows of, anyway. 

            Ignorance is bliss, right?

            That’s why Roxas, hefting himself and his board up, makes the slip-sliding descent down the pipe, heels dug into wood as he fumbles his way down as gracefully as possible. From a distance, Roxas hadn’t put any correlation into their respective heights. Up close, though. The guy towers, popped-cherry red hair cascading over his shoulders like a fucked up hero’s cape, little purple tear drops under his eyes, and Roxas wonders what this guy deemed sad enough to cry eternally for. Maybe himself. He looks like he’d be full of philosophical bullshit that way.

            “Your name is ridiculous.” Roxas says, dropping his board to the ground, listening as it clatters about. Roxas doesn’t bother packing any heat behind his words; he doesn’t say them to be mean, they’re just an observation. He used to be Roxanne, before the binders, before the circus runaway act minus the circus. Before his father had stared him in the eyes and told him to put the goddamn fucking dress on, stop pretending, playtime is over. Before his mother had broken down crying in the living room because, no, mom, you don’t have a daughter. You have a son. You’ve always had a son.

            Maybe Axel’s name is like that, too. Maybe they’re both just made up people in a made up town with made up goals, dreams, aspirations. Fake, fake, fake, until everything becomes real. Roxas dreams about being real, one day. A real boy – like Pinocchio, but not.

            “Why are you here?”

[mvtchstick]

     “Bummer. I actually like my name.” He’s proud of how he’d coined it, using his original backwater name and twisting it into something partially interesting. Lea was the poor Catholic boy, trapped in a house with a God he didn’t want and a family that didn’t want each other. Axel, on the other hand, didn’t squander his time on things that weren’t worth the effort. So yeah, it’s a little 80′s metal band-esque, but it’s something to hold onto. It’s why he doesn’t question a name like Roxas, as odd as it is, uncommon and never before heard in his current lifetime.

     Then comes that loaded question. He even thinks he’s ready to give the hefty answer to it, but rethinks that decision the second it comes to him. Did he want to give out the reason he was blackening his lungs beyond their original organic composition, thoughtfully alone in a park long after the hours say anyone should be on this side of the fence? Just like you can’t stop a hurricane on its path, Axel could not just bottle his thoughts up and hand them over, a simplified answer in the palm of his hand. It’s not a good time, not yet. They’re still strangers balancing precariously on the line of becoming almost more and while he could hit the mental rewind and view every single step that’s brought him to this city, to this skate park, this spot in front of Roxas-- Axel vows to save it for later. 

     Because he’s convinced, at this point, that there will be a next time. Why wouldn’t there be? An all powerful deity in the sky didn’t set this meeting up, because They didn’t exist, but the universal forces that bring unlikely people together do. Fate or whatever the kids called it these days, he wasn’t up to date with all the trends. That existed. It was real and it had to have been what possessed this wholly uninterested skater into spilling meaningless commentary that would naturally catch Axel’s interest. This conversation that otherwise would have never happened, did, and it was too late to take it back. On Axel’s side, at the least. Which meant he was going to pursue this, even if all he got in the end was a familiar living body passing the night hours away with him.

     It would just be too hard to discard this, all of this. This being what kept his eyes trained on that youthful face, unmarked like his own. Even when the board had noisily hit the ground, he hadn’t broken contact to glance at it. Axel was too busy thinking, too busy committing the details of this encounter to memory. He had to speak eventually, though, and if he couldn’t yet tell the whole story, he’d tell the truth, as much as that surprised him. “I’m not working tonight and sleep would elude me anyway. Thought I’d shave off a few more years of my life with the nicotine while I waited for the sun to rise. Gonna kick me out?”

[luxumis-blog]

            Once upon a time, there used to be a sign at the gate of the park, yellow and obtrusive, big black letters screaming: NO SMOKING. But it had been knocked down by belligerent young people hellbent on tarring their lungs with nicotine. Roxas remembers being there the day they’d taken a metal bat to it – beating it into submission, laughing, screaming profanities with reckless abandon. Watching this guy chain smoke like his very life depends on it has always taken Roxas back to that moment, watching as tiny, white assholes aggressed an innocent sign until all that remained of it was a stub of metal sticking up from the concrete. 

            “No one said that I spend a lot of time thinking about you.” Roxas corrects, flipping his board over to observe his deck. Some people like to buy theirs pre-designed, but Roxas himself prefers to decorate it on his own. Stickers, decals, spray paint, scratches, and dents. There’s character in his board, stuff that can’t be mimicked by a Plan B, or a Zoo York. He prides himself in this thing. “Just think it’s weird as hell that some washed up has-been loser spends a lot of his life people watching in a skate park. Your life must be pretty boring if this is what eats up your spare time.”

            Roxas isn’t looking at him to see the confusion on his face, studying his trucks, the wheels they’re attached to. He flicks one of them just to watch it spin, a blur of bright, lurid pink, and thinks he might actually have to buy new ones soon. These wobble too much, worn out. Certainly seen better days. No, Roxas doesn’t see the confusion, but when the wheel has stopped its merry-go-round of movement, that’s when he looks up, stares down at that figure in the dark and says, “Roxas. My name is Roxas. What about you?” 

[mvtchstick]

     “You still think about me.” The sentence is punctuated with him tossing the nearly burnt out cigarette to the ground, the heel of his boot crushing the last of the lit embers, staining the concrete with black ash. Axel exhales wearily, his lungs protesting and simultaneously making the decision for him to not pull his pack out for another one. Hearing washed-up as an insult was nothing new and loser? Hah. He snorts in a very unattractive manner, face screwing up as exhaustion and amusement bleed together on his features. “I’m so sorry to be a hindrance. It must be hell, really, having a harmless guy like me around.”

     Unlike the actual creeps that hung around preying on some of the weak willed teenagers easily manipulated into buying the questionable product they were selling, Axel offered only company and words of the wise. Sometimes wise. He wasn’t that much older than some of the students and could have easily passed for one of the university brats, but there were years of struggling on his own under his belt. He wasn’t an expert in any means but the advice he dished out? You couldn’t get it anywhere else- certified Axel brand.

     He kicks away from his perch and further approaches the annoying skater turned Roxas. A name to a face. A name to a barely lit, semi obscured face, but that’s why his steps bring him closer. He’s a glutton for punishment anyway, never in his life being able to resist the ones that call him names and offend his lifestyle. He loves the way the kid isn’t even phased. “The name’s Axel. Now, are you asking to ask or has this bumped our relationship up a level?”

[mvtchstick]

     ‘ Well, what do you think?        It’s called sea-salt ice cream.        Best thing ever or... best thing ever? ’

[mvtchstick]

i just followed a LOT of blogs. a lot of them being canon/in game set characters-- so with that i just hope that i get to talk to a few of you about plotting! i really don’t mind if we end up writing in my AU or not, because i’d totally love to do in game stuff or whatever you & your character is cool with. anyways! thank you to everyone who’s followed me so far ;u;

[luxumis-blog]

&&. @mvtchstick​

            Drenched from head to toe in sweat, Roxas shoved the flaxen bangs out of his face and heaved a deep, chest-rattling breath. The sun had set hours ago, but the remnants of its scalding heat remained in the night. The line of the ocean off in the distance, visible from the top of the half pipe, was a temptation staring the blond in his face. From up here, he watched as the waves swept in and out, heartbeat of the ocean cresting and collapsing. Thought about skating down to the pier and taking a nosedive straight into them. 

            The skate park was empty except for him – and The Guy. He came here a lot, but Roxas had never seen him step foot on a board a day in his life. No board, but the cigarette between his lips was a permanent fixture; sometimes he watched them skate, puffing away, and other times he could be seen chatting up some of the other guys that Roxas never really talked to. This late, though, it was weird for anyone to be in the park. Strange guys lurking included.

            Roxas sat down, tugging his board into his lap, and eyed the stranger with a heavy dosage of curiosity. “You sure do hang around a lot.” He called out, the figure propped against the chain link fence a shadow in the dark. “Kind of weird, you know. You stand there and smoke all day, watch us skate, and make small talk with the druggies. Makes a guy wonder.”

[mvtchstick]

     Axel’s not surprised in the least to be pegged as a weirdo. From every angle, even his own, he’s aware that his actions don’t leave a good impression on the eyes of a stranger. But really, what kind of explanation did he owe a vaguely familiar skater that happened to share the same public space with him on certain occasions? His first response to the question is a long drag of his cigarette, his slow exhale further clouding his visage with smoke in the dimly lit skate park. The street lamps did him little to no justice when it came to his status as an already shady figure.

     “You wonder about me? I’m flattered.” If anyone else wonders, this guy was the first to let Axel know. The druggies didn’t mind him at all, they liked him even, when they’re all just blatant reminders of the company he kept before he graduated. He knew how they worked and how to get along with them, so despite the differences in age, he was always there with a pack of smokes to lend out while they exchanged stories of bad trips or board tricks. His feet hadn’t even touched a skateboard in years, but it fascinated him nonetheless.

     It would be a lie if he were to say that his new acquaintance has escaped his notice before. Nearly everything that went on in this park had been subjected to his observations at one point or another because people watching was his hobby. It easily passed the daytime hours before he had to shuffle off to work and there was truly no better place to bum around than at the skate park, the home away from his shabby apartment. Casually, he pulls the still burning cigarette from his mouth while feigning a confused look. “Kinda weird that you’ve spent so much time thinking about me when you don’t even know my name. I don’t even know yours. Care to share?”