Roxas looked down at the shoebox his dad had just handed him – careful holes punched at evenly space intervals, each one with a single mini light bulb standing straight up out of it, neatly spelling out the word ROXAS.
“Persistent pain in the ass, isn’t he?” Roxas’ dad said, and he sounded almost gleeful about it. Roxas was about to spend his entire fucking Saturday combing through every single strand of lights lining the outside of their house, replacing every single missing bulb because Axel was a burning piece of shit, and Roxas’ dad sounded downright amused.
Roxas tried very, very hard not to crush the delicate box between his bare hands.
“I’m going to kill him,” he growled through gritted teeth.
Three weeks – it had been three weeks of petty, increasingly significant sabotage on the Christmas decorations. Never anything that couldn’t be fixed – power cables for the animatronics being unplugged and tied in a neat bow on an upper branch of a tree, plastic reindeer being uncreatively posed in explicit positions, wreaths plucked from the windows and arranged like a dick on the driveway.
And yes, Roxas hated the Christmas decorations. He hated the pageantry, the competition, the endless parade of strangers milling outside his house for the entire month of December. He hated that his room was never fully dark at night, even with his curtains pulled tightly shut, hated the rumors and the myths and the random assholes that came up to him like he owed them a story. But more than any of that, more than all of that, he hated anyone that fucked with his dad or Sora. And for all that Roxas hated the Christmas bullshit, his dad and Sora fucking loved it. Woe befall he who dared incite the wrath of Roxas, and nothing incited the wrath of Roxas like disappointing Dad or Sora.
Well, that and it was Axel. Roxas knew it was Axel. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that it started the day Axel came home from college, the day that stupid motorcycle was parked back in the Flynn’s driveway. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, that Axel had smirked at him as Roxas stood at the base of the tree, gaping up at the bundle of cables, and asked if Roxas needed a ladder. Gestured across the street to where one rested against the Flynn’s garage door, right next to that Godforsaken bike, like it was just waiting to be used.
Roxas had growled at him, not bothered with a more articulate, and climbed the tree with his bare hands.
Besides, who else would it be? Who else knew it would grate Roxas to the very core, to the very depths of his soul? Never mind that Sora and their dad didn’t seem bothered. Almost seemed amused, as long as Roxas managed to fix whatever was wrong before night fell again. Never mind that they started looking forward to it, speculating over breakfast every few mornings about what the yard would look like, right up until Roxas gave in and stomped out to the front stoop to check. Roxas knew it was Axel, and that Axel was doing it to get to him, and that might as well have been a declaration of war.
“I wish I could help, but have practice in twenty minutes,” Sora said apologetically, shoving another bite of toast in his mouth as he watched Roxas stomp his way toward the garage door. “But hey, Riku’s coming over later, maybe he can help!”
Roxas rolled his eyes at the very suggestion. Like he would ask Riku for help. Riku, the unlucky son-of-a-bitch with the special distinction of being the person Roxas hated more than anyone else, not once but twice over – once because he was dating Sora, and once because he was Axel’s best friend. The upgrade, the best friend Axel had replaced him with, fuck you very much. Like hell was he asking Riku for so much as a piece of gum, let alone help combing through a hundred strands of Christmas lights.
“Or not!” Sora called helpfully. Gleefully. Roxas flipped him off and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the tools hung on the wall.
It took hours. It took hours of going inch by inch through every single strand of Christmas lights, finding homes for all 66 lightbulbs, god fucking dammit. It took hours, Roxas grumbling and cursing and outlining the things he was going to do in Axel in vivid, explicit detail the entire time, but he did it.
He did it, and he stomped back inside to find Sora and Riku standing at the kitchen island, heads bent together over a single cup of coffee and soft smiles on their faces, looking so sickeningly sweet and precious and in love that Roxas wanted to vomit. He settled for throwing the empty – and now thoroughly crushed – shoebox on the counter right next to them.
“I’m going to skin him alive,” Roxas seethed, slamming open a cabinet door to dig out the supplies for his own cup of coffee. His fingertips were freezing – he’d needed fingerless gloves to manage replacing the light bulbs in their sockets – and his face was so cold it hurt, but he didn’t feel any of it, really. All he felt was the low, simmering rage he’d spent the better part of the last six hours stroking. “I’m going to skin him alive, and then scalp him, and I’m going to take that stupid red hair and weave it into a cape and wear it every fucking day, so everyone knows not to fuck with me.”
“Oh my god, just fuck him already,” Riku muttered. At his side, Sora stifled a giggle.
Roxas slammed his coffee mug down on the counter – a distressing amount of it sloshed over the lip onto his hands and it burned, it did, but Roxas still didn’t feel it.
“Nobody fucking asked you,” he said shrilly – the very sound of his voice horrified him even more than the smug look on his brother’s face, oh god. But Riku just smirked at him, all pointy and sharp and vicious.
“I don’t know why not,” he said coyly. “You don’t think Axel’s been doing all this without any help, do you?”
Roxas saw red. Literally – he lunged forward, hands already outstretched towards Riku’s throat, and barreled headfirst instead into Sora’s red hoody. His brother had him by the shoulders, holding Roxas at arms’ length, and the two of them had always been evenly matched in a fight. Sora held Roxas back away from Riku, and Riku stood behind Sora and fucking laughed, and Roxas was going to kill him, he was going to kill them both, and then he was going to string their bodies up with the Christmas decorations, and let Axel sabotage that.
“Roxas!” Sora said loudly, yelling right in his face. “I helped too!”
And that stopped Roxas cold. Sora loved the decorations. Loved them. Sora was second only in their father to his commitment in decking out the Strife house every December – he was tyrannical about it, fastidious about it. It was why Roxas had ruled out Riku as ever being the one to help Axel – because he had of course figured that Axel had an accomplice. Riku might’ve been an asshole, and Axel’s best friend, but even Roxas would admit that Riku was too whipped to do anything that might make Sora unhappy. And intentionally sabotaging the Christmas decorations was definitely something that would make Sora unhappy.
Unless, of course, Sora was in on it.
“Explain,” Roxas demanded. He stopped pushing against Sora’s weight, and after a few long seconds of staring each other down Sora finally relented, dropped his hands from Roxas’ shoulders and took a step back.
But then Sora – the dirty little liar – shook his head.
“No,” he said simply.
Roxas glowered at him.
“Seriously, do you think that’s actually an intimidating look?”
Sora elbowed Riku sharply in the ribs – it didn’t matter. Riku was still smirking at Roxas, and Roxas was still seething, and Sora was still standing between them like the goddamn traitor that he was, and Roxas just knew he wasn’t going to get an explanation out of Sora. His brother was a stubborn asshole – both his best and worst trait – and if Sora didn’t want to explain then nothing Roxas did was going to make him.
Well, that was fine. Sora might not be willing to explain, but Roxas knew who would. All he had to do was set the right trap.
First, Roxas waited. Axel had been consisted in exactly one thing – he struck every three days. Like clockwork. A clear and obvious pattern, even if Roxas hadn’t figured it out until almost two weeks in, too busy focusing on the way Axel left just enough time for Roxas to stop sulking about having to fix whatever the last act of sabotage had been. But it was a clear pattern, every three days.
It was almost…almost like he wanted to get caught.
Three days from the lighting fiasco landed on the 23rd – the night before Christmas Eve. One last hurrah before the holidays were over. Roxas knew Axel must have something big planned, and oh, Roxas was going to be ready for him.
So he waited. And on the night of December 23rd, long after his dad went to bed and Sora tucked himself away to watch a movie with Riku (and seriously, did the asshole fucking live here now? Fine, he’d been away at college for four months, but did that mean he was going to move in for his entire winter break?), Roxas put on his warmest, fleece-lined hoody and two pairs of socks, poured himself a thermos of coffee, and settled himself on the roof outside his bedroom window to wait.
It…didn’t actually take that long. His coffee was almost still too hot to drink when Roxas first saw it – the break in the projected pattern of snowflakes still dancing across the Flynn’s house, a lanky, distorted shape, much like a person sneaking across the front lawn.
Well, sneak was a relative term. Long and lanky, dressed in all black from head to toe, the figure crept like he thought he was stealth personified - no, like the thought he was the Grinch, all long legs tip-toeing, over-exaggerated footsteps. Roxas stared, a little bit dumbfound, as Axel crossed the street with all the stealth of a troll, even though weaved his way through the maze of plastic statues and power cords with a well-practiced ease. Roxas was so caught up in staring at him, in watching Axel with utter bafflement, that he almost forgot why he was up there in the first place.
Roxas swore softly as Axel reached the front stoop and vanished from sight – Roxas couldn’t see him from where he sat, but more importantly he never should have let Axel reach the house. He dropped his thermos down on the window sill behind him and slipped stealthily – much more stealthily than Axel had, at any rate – down the gentle slope until he reached the gutter.
It was as dismount made easy with hundreds of repetitions – hopping down from the garage to the fence that separated the backyard from the front, climbing down the fence and easing open the gate, slipping into the dark corner against the side of the garage. It only took a minute, if that, but it was still apparently long enough for Axel to finish whatever he was fucking with on the front stoop. By the time Roxas rounded the corner Axel was already making his way back through the lawn ornaments, still with that ridiculous, loping sneak, and Roxas gave up stealth for speed. He knew he was giving himself away, knew it by the way Axel froze suddenly, head whipping around to look back over his shoulder before he took off, but it didn’t matter. Axel might’ve been taller, those long, long legs giving him a much bigger stride, but Roxas was faster. Faster and determined, and Axel didn’t even get halfway across the lawn before Roxas was reaching out (up) and yanking Axel back by the hood of his sweatshirt. Roxas pulled, hard enough to jerk Axel off-balance entirely, and seconds later he landed with a thud on the ground at Roxas feet, smirking at Roxas.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, jackass?” Roxas snarled, glaring down at that ridiculous, upside-down boy, sprawled across the Strife’s lawn next to a line-up of eight poised reindeer (one of two incorporated into the Christmas display, and the very same ones that a week before had been posed like a horrible combination of the Human Centipede and a weird Christmas porn). Roxas glared down, and Axel just smirked back up at him, smug and unconcerned, like he couldn’t tell Roxas was two seconds away from stomping down on his face.
Oh, but he could.
“Gonna break my nose again, Rox?” He said it all slow and sly, staring up at Roxas, daring him.
No, he wasn’t. But he wasn’t going to give Axel the chance to escape, either. Roxas took a step forward, and then another, twisting around until he was standing with both feet planted on either side of Axel’s hips. Before Axel could open his mouth, before either of them could think it through, Roxas dropped to his knees and sat hard on Axel’s stomach, pinning him to the ground in a single move.
Axel’s eyes went wide, but he made no attempt to push Roxas off. He probably knew Roxas wouldn’t let him get far. Axel might’ve been bigger, but these days Roxas was stronger and faster, and they both knew it.
“What’d you do?” Roxas growled. He leaned forward slightly as he said it – braced one hand in the dirt next to Axel’s ribs. Axel rolled his eyes expressively.
“Hi Roxas, nice to see you again. College has been hard, but super fun, thanks for asking,” Axel said conversationally, like Roxas didn’t have him pinned in the dirt outside both their houses on the night before Christmas Eve.
“I didn’t,” Roxas said shortly. He leaned forward a little further, looming as menacingly as he could over Axel. “I asked you what you did to my house.”
“I missed you,” Axel continued. “It was boring at school, not having anyone around to be an ever-present pain in the ass. Had to pick a fight with a couple of fraternity boys, bit of a prank war, just to keep myself entertained.”
“I’m sure they were thrilled,” Roxas snorted. “Can’t wait to offer you a bid.”
“Aw see, you do care!” Axel sounded mockingly pleased, still with that ever-present smirk stretching his lips. “And as a matter of fact, they did.”
“Great,” Roxas said back, absolutely dripping with sarcasm. “Then you can fuck out of here and go right back.”
“Aw, come on. Didn’t you miss me?” Axel teased.
“Oh, were you gone?” Roxas shot back.
“Only in distance, never in heart,” Axel laughed – it was mocking and sharp and a little bit mean, it was a sound that Roxas hated more than most other sounds in his life. He winced away from it, just slightly, before doubling down and pressing forward again.
“Why are you fucking with my dad’s Christmas display?” he said coldly. Firmly. Not rising to the bait – he was done with letting Axel bait him, he was tired of it.
“Who says it was me?” Axel replied coyly. “A little birdy told me your own brother confessed his part today, maybe it was all him and Ri – ”
“Axel,” Roxas snarled, looming ever-lower over Axel’s face. “I don’t know why the fuck you think – ”
And Axel just…sagged. He looked tired, just like Roxas was, and a little bit angry, and he glared up at Roxas with a heat that Roxas didn’t feel was entirely justified, considering Axel was the one that had been fucking with him for the last three weeks straight.
“Seriously, Roxas?” Axel snapped. “How do you not know?”
Roxas opened his mouth – to protest, to argue, to snark back with what comeback, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. There was a hand fisted in the hood of his sweatshirt, and he didn’t realize how close they had been until suddenly Axel was pulling him down, down, and there was such a small distance between them that Roxas barely had to move at all.
Axel’s lips were a shock of warmth in the cold December night – warm and a little chapped, and pressed firmly against Roxas’ still slightly open mouth, and for a second, Roxas didn’t know what to do.
For a second. Roxas was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid.
He let himself fall the rest of the way forward, just those few scant inches until he and Axel were pressed chest to chest, until Roxas could lean into it and kiss him back. He felt, more than heard, Axel’s silent gasp at the sudden weight of Roxas’ body on top of his – Roxas didn’t feel remotely sorry, it was the opening he needed. He caught Axel’s bottom lip between his own, an uncharacteristically soft touch, just for a second, before slipping his tongue over the seam of Axel’s lips and pushing his way inside.
Axel’s fingers – bare and freezing, because unlike Roxas Axel was an idiot – slipped from their hold on Roxas’ hood to tangle in his hair, and Roxas couldn’t stifle his own sharp gasp for air when Axel tugged experimentally. Axel grinned – grinned, and Roxas knew it because he felt it against his own lips – and Roxas felt another tug. Another tug, and a push, and before he even realized why he was suddenly flat on his back, Axel pinning him down with surprising weight, considering what a skinny asshole he was.
Roxas blinked – Axel grinned wolfishly at him, sharp and bright and somehow fucking beautiful, red hair haloed by the glow of Christmas lights behind them and shadows casting the planes of his face into sharp relief, and it took Roxas’ breath away.
Axel grinned at him, and Roxas grinned back. Roxas grinned back and hooked a gloved hand around the back of Axel’s neck and pulled him back down, and Axel went willingly.
They kissed until they were stupid from it. Right there on the cold, hard ground, pinned between a line of vintage prancing reindeer and an inexplicable Mickey Mouse in a Santa suit. Until Roxas’ cheeks were red and raw from the cold air, his ass long numb from the frigid earth beneath him, until he couldn’t do much more than run his bare – and when had he taken his gloves off? – hand up and down the length of Axel’s spine and accept the soft, barely-there kisses Axel pressed into his jaw.
“We should probably talk about this,” Roxas murmured finally. Axel shook his head – his hair tickling the skin of Roxas throat, the underside of his jaw – but Roxas felt Axel’s full-body sigh against his own chest. Axel pressed one last kiss, firm and decisive, against the hinge of Roxas’ jaw before pulling back, planting his forearms on the ground on either side of Roxas’ head and lifting himself up just enough that they could look each other in the eye.
“What’s there to talk about?” Axel sighed again. “I’ve had a massive crush on you since seventh grade, right up until you dropped me like a hot potato, and then I spent the rest of high school making increasingly embarrassing efforts to get you to pay attention to me.”
Roxas mouth fell open.
“Uh, no? You dropped me!” he insisted hotly. “You were all cool kids this, Riku that, I’m in high school now I can’t hang out with a loser eighth grader. And me and my awkward ass were so afraid you’d figure out how much I liked you if I tried too hard to win you back!”
Axel gaped right back at him, shock evident on his face. They stared at each other for a long moment, eyes wide, surprise too honest to be faked.
“Are you telling me,” Axel said slowly, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, “that we could have spent all of high school – ”
Roxas pushed himself up on one elbow, pulled Axel down without letting him finish – they met halfway. Axel was laughing into Roxas’ mouth, one cold, cold hand coming up to cup Roxas’ jaw, and Roxas pushed them both upright until they were sitting, Axel straddling Roxas’ thighs, Roxas’ arms tight around Axel’s ribs.
“You suck,” Roxas breathed, pressing the words into kiss after kiss, “I can’t believe you.”
“I’ve been in love with you since I was thirteen,” Axel shot back.
“You’re such an asshole,” Roxas laughed, tightening his arms until there was no space at all between them, until all he could feel was the cold press of Axel’s fingers on his cheeks and the hot press of Axel’s lips and the warmth steadily filling his chest.
Until the screen door banged open.
“Are you idiots fucking done yet?” Riku called, leaning out of the comfortable warmth of the house to glare down at them.
“No,” Sora corrected, poking out from behind him, “you meant to ask if they were done fucking yet.”
“Oh my god,” Roxas groaned. Axel pressed his forehead to Roxas’ shoulder and laughed helplessly, and something about the sound warmed Roxas to the core. He stroked his fingers through the hair just over Axel’s ear and let his own head fall back slightly, giving him just enough leeway to glare back at his brother and that good-for-nothing boyfriend of his.
Well. Roxas supposed, feeling Axel shake with laughter in his lap, Riku might be good for something.
“I made hot chocolate,” Sora said loudly, and that got both of their attention. “And there’s a fire in the fireplace. Whenever you two decide to stop angling for a public indecency arrest, you’re welcome to join us.”
“Or not,” Riku added pointedly. “I’ve always wanted to leave Axel’s ass in jail instead of bailing him out.”
“You’re a lousy best friend!” Axel called back. It fell on deaf ears – Riku and Sora had ducked back inside as quickly as they’d appeared, the door slamming closed behind them.
“Sora uses Mom’s hot chocolate recipe,” Roxas told him, tugging lightly on Axel’s hair to bring his attention back around. “It’s – ”
“The best hot chocolate in all of Radiant Gardens,” Axel finished quietly. “I didn’t forget.”
Roxas let that hang between them for a second. It was said lightly, nearly weightless, but Roxas was sure there was more than just childhood memories of hot chocolate on snowy days that Axel didn’t forget. Roxas was sure there were plenty of things – good memories and bad ones, fondness and hurt and frustration – that they both were still carrying, with nearly four years between now and the last time they’d been anything resembling friends.
But there would be time for that. There would be time for conversations, for explanations, for unpacking years of prickly animosity and poorly disguised hurt. Now – now there was hot chocolate. Now there was a warm fire and an overstuffed couch and the first of maybe many, many more nights of Roxas and Axel and Riku and Sora (Sora, who would be beside himself with delight at the very thought of his brother and his boyfriend finally, finally coexisting without trying to kill each other). Now there was Axel slowly levering himself to his feet before reaching out a hand to pull Roxas up after him – a hand that Axel didn’t drop once Roxas was upright. Now there was Axel threading their frozen fingers together and tugging Roxas forward lightly, just close enough for Axel to drop one last kiss to Roxas’ forehead, before breaking away and leading the way toward the front door.
“So what did you do?” Roxas asked finally. Axel paused, one hand on the doorknob, one hand still holding Roxas’, and turned a quizzical look over his shoulder. “To the house. The decorations.”
“Nothing,” Axel snorted. “I didn’t need to.”
“Nothing?” Roxas repeated, disbelief clear in his tone.
“Well.” Axel tugged lightly on Roxas’ hand again, pulling him forward until they were standing toe to toe. Axel was so much taller than Roxas, he always had been, and Roxas had to look up, up, up to see the amused look on Axel’s pale face. And then up even further, following the finger Axel had pointed toward the sky – no, toward the top of the doorframe, where a single sprig of mistletoe was taped to the side of the house.
“I figured you’d search the whole place top to bottom for whatever was wrong, that you’d probably find this. Either it would clue you in, or…” Axel trailed off with a shrug, a careful, forced nonchalance. Roxas wondered, in a quick flash of understanding, just how many other clues he had missed in the last four years.
“Didn’t exactly go according to plan, did it?” Roxas teased, letting go of Axel’s hand in favor of looping both his arms over Axel’s shoulders, something that required pressing himself up on the tips of his fucking toes. Axel smirked, placed two steadying hands on Roxas’ hips, and oh so obligingly lowered his head.
“Maybe not,” Axel said smugly, close enough now that each word ghosted across Roxas’ kiss-bitten lips, “but you can’t say that it didn’t work.”
And really, Roxas couldn’t.
Mostly, of course, because his lips were otherwise occupied.
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