Chapter 5: Reunited, And...You're Still The Same

“Axel.”

“Hnnnng.”

“You think Sora's mad at me?”

“Mmnn-nnngh.”

“You sure?”

“Mmmmnn.”

Roxas moved his hands from where they were folded behind his head, turning on his side to stare at his boyfriend. Firetruck red spikes stuck out in every direction from underneath the pillow Axel had covered his face with. Roxas reached out a hand to trace over the redhead's ribs, eventually laying his palm flat his chest and watching it rise and fall with the even breaths.

“Axel?” Roxas snuggled closer to Axel, propping him his head on one arm.

“Whnnnnn.”

“Do you think...he still likes me?”

Axel's breathing changed for a moment, and Roxas waited eagerly for a reply. Instead, all he received was a heavy sigh as Axel moved the pillow slightly away from his face. “Roxas,” he groaned, not bothering to open his eyes, “what have I said about having meaningful conversations with me in bed?”

“The sun's up,” Roxas pointed out, his eyebrow raised.

“No, the other thing.”

“This indirectly relates to sex because if Sora doesn't like me, then I won't be happy, and if I'm not happy, you're not getting any sex,” Roxas reasoned.

Axel smacked a hand to his forehead. “No,” he said exasperatedly. “How about 'don't do it'?”

Roxas rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Oh, yeah,” he said flatly. Then, in an uncharacteristically girlish move, he flung himself across Axel's chest, wrapped his arms around his neck, and peered up at him with wide, blue eyes. “But I'm really worried about this, Axel,” he whined. “Pleeeease?”

Axel tangled his hand in his spikes before sighing again and dolefully cracking open his eyes to squint at Roxas. The blond gave him the widest grin he could muster and his best pleading look, much to Axel's disgust. He had yet to master a viable defense against the blond's charms. “Look,” he said, flinging the pillow to the other side of the bed, “he's your brother. Unless he's a completely heartless bastard—which, from what I gather of his reaction to seeing you, he's not—he'll like you just fine.”

“But it's been seven years,” said Roxas quietly. “We've both changed in seven years. Watching him yesterday...it was like watching a complete stranger. I don't even know my own brother.”

Axel gathered Roxas in his arms and turned him over onto his back. Propping himself up on an elbow, he stared down at Roxas, who gazed back with traces of trepidation in his eyes. “He's your twin brother, Roxas,” Axel said, “and he still loves you. And you love him, too. That much is obvious, and that's really all that matters, isn't it? So what if you've both changed. People tend to do that when they grow up. It's what life is all about.”

Roxas closed his eyes and shook his head. “But I don't know him anymore,” he said softly. “What if he's nothing like the brother I left? What if he—”

“Then you'll just have to get to know each other again, won't you,” interrupted Axel. He soothingly trailed his fingers across Roxas' collarbone. “You'll get the chance to figure out all the little things you love about each other all over again. And you've been watching over him all this time, haven't you?”

Roxas nodded slowly, opening his eyes.

“So, you still saw him as the brother you remembered, right? He acted just the same as you expected he him to. You didn't even suspect that things might have been different,” Axel pointed out, and Roxas stiffened.

“I...I couldn't even tell when my own brother was hiding something,” he said morosely, looking away.

Axel's jaw dropped open in disbelief. “Christ's sake, Rox,” he complained, “you're being pretty damn melodramatic here. My point is, he obviously hasn't changed that much since you last met.”

“But he's an assassin—Axel,” Roxas said, shouting out Axel's name in annoyance as the redhead chose to cut off the rest of his sentence by throwing himself across the blond. Roxas tried in vain to push Axel's taller, lankier body off his own, but to no avail. Axel only wrapped his arms around Roxas' neck and twined his legs with Roxas'. Finally, Roxas resorted to biting into Axel's shoulder.

Axel gave off a laugh. “Hey, stop that,” he chuckled, “it tickles.”

“Then get off me,” warned Roxas. “I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you.”

“Nope,” replied Axel. “I'm done. This conversation has left the realm of serious and entered into 'ridiculously paranoid.' My obligation to continue has been terminated.”

Roxas sighed, realizing that he was fighting a losing battle. Everything Axel had said was true, anyways, even if he begrudgingly admitted it. “But I—”

Axel cut off his words with a firm kiss on the mouth. “No more,” he said gently. “You're overreacting way too much. Sora's still the same—”

A loud thump from the other room caused Roxas to sit up sharply, shoving Axel to the side. The two sat in sudden silence, straining to hear anything. All they heard were Riku's muffled and increasingly more panicked shouts of Sora's name.

Barely glancing at each other, Roxas and Axel darted out of the bed, fumbling at the bedroom door. Once Roxas flung it open with a bang, they thundered across the apartment to the guest bedroom, flinging the door open in trepidation.

Roxas' jaw dropped at the sight that met him. Riku was kneeling over Sora's prone body, gently shaking at his shoulder and calling his name. Axel's eyes widened. “Uh,” he said nervously.

Riku looked up to see Roxas' eyes narrowed at him. “I don't know what happened,” he said quickly. “One minute I was asleep, and the next, I heard a loud bang, and Sora's on the floor.” He looked back to the skinny brunet, poking him in the cheek with a single finger. “He's still alive, though.”

Roxas fought the urge to smack his face with his hand. Instead, he made his way over to where Sora lay on the floor, squatting beside him. “What a fucking klutz,” he muttered, before jostling Sora's shoulder roughly. “Hey, wake up.”

Riku raised an eyebrow at Roxas' rough treatment, but sure enough, the brunet's eyes fluttered open. He parted his lips and furrowed his eyes, staring straight upwards. After a moment, he said, “That is not a bathroom door,” consternation heavy in his voice.

Axel snickered in the background. “No shit, dude,” he commented.

Sora rolled his eyes towards Axel's general direction and stuck his tongue out. “There would be a bathroom door there if we were in Riku's apartment,” he offered as an explanation.

Roxas sighed. “I can't believe you still can't handle mornings after all these years,” he said, sticking out a hand to help Sora up.

Sora accepted it gratefully. “And I bet you still sleep with a nightlight,” he teased back.

A light blush graced the tops of Roxas' cheeks. “Shut up,” he grumbled, as Sora broke into peals of laughter. Roxas only grew redder, and turned to stomp out of the room.

Sora, still laughing, reached out a hand. “Rox, wait! Don't be mad, I didn't mean it,” he gasped. He hurried out the door, shoving Axel roughly to the side. He caught up with his brother, throwing his arms around the blond in a hug from behind.

Roxas froze with a long-suffering sigh. “Soo-raaaa,” he groaned.

“No, no, no, wait,” Sora pleaded. He pulled away and jumped up and down, happily grabbing onto Roxas' arm. “I know! I'll make pancakes! Everyone loves pancakes!”

“Sora, no!” Both Roxas and Riku shouted their alarm in unison as Sora dashed towards the kitchen. The pair glanced at each other, apprehension in their eyes.

“Sora can't...” Roxas started.

“Cook,” Riku affirmed, nodding his head. Roxas rubbed at his forehead with his hand.

Axel came between them, throwing an arm around each of their shoulders. “And to think,” he said smugly, “you were worried that he wouldn't like you anymore, that he's a completely changed man, that he isn't the brother that you know and love.”

“Mother fuck!” The sharp curse was followed immediately by a metallic clatter, and more muttered curses.

“But he's still the same idiot twin I grew up with,” growled Roxas as he and Riku rushed from Axel's arms to investigate the latest incident.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Ow, ow, ow,” Sora whined as Riku cleaned and wrapped the puncture wound at the base of his thumb. In his defense, Sora claimed, he'd successfully opened jars of jelly with knives multiple times in the past.

“You don't need jelly to make pancakes,” Roxas had deadpanned, and subsequently took over the breakfast duties.

“Quit fidgeting, Sora,” Riku said, holding onto the brunet's wrist with a tight grip. He finished taping it up and released him with a warning. Sora nodded guiltily and folded his hands on the kitchen table.

“So,” said Axel once the silence stretched for longer than a minute, “what's the game plan for today?”

“What's the game plan for any day, Axel?” Riku slumped down on the table with a tired sigh. “Kill or be killed.”

Sora's mouth dropped open, but Axel beat him to speaking. “Okaaay,” he drawled, waving a hand in the air, “but what's the specific plan as to how we will be doing this killing slash not getting killed ourselves?”His general plans usually involved burning things to the ground, but Axel figured this type of situation might have needed a bit more finesse. Maybe a flamethrower...

“Excuse me,” Sora interrupted, “but there will be no killing on my watch.”

Three pairs of eyes fixated on him with incredible disbelief. “Sora...” Roxas said hesitantly.

Said brunet shook his head firmly. “Nope,” he ascertained. “We're not killing anyone.”

“You...really are an assassin, right? I mean,” Axel asked, looking around nervously, “you're not, like, some kind of undercover cop or something?”

Sora rolled his eyes. “Of course not. If I was, you'd all be under arrest right now, right? I just don't like to kill people unless I have a good reason to,” he explained.

“And being shot at isn't a good reason?” Riku burst out. “Sora, I don't think you understand. The Organization's members do not play nice. We,” he said, pointing between himself, Axel, and Roxas, “would know. Xemnas will stop at nothing to see us dead. Dead, as in dismembered, disemboweled, and spread across 13 countries.”

Sora only shrugged. “I just think that they deserve a chance as much as we do,” he said quietly, giving Riku a level stare. “Who are we to make that decision for them?”

“So, what's it going to take for you to realize they're not fucking around? One of us getting hurt, possibly killed?” Riku could barely contain his frustration, and it showed in his voice.

“Probably,” Sora admitted, much to everyone else's chagrin. “Or if you could somehow get a record of everyone they've ever killed, and I could make a judgment call based on that.”

The room fell silent, save for the sizzle of pancake batter on the stove, as they each tried to process what Sora was telling them.

“Look,” Sora said with a sigh, “you can even ask my boss. I don't just take any case. I can't. I'm not like you, Rox, where you can put aside your feelings for just a little while. Everything I do, I'm emotionally invested in. Yeah, I kill people for a living, and that itself takes a certain amount of detachment. But I can't kill someone knowing that they might be innocent, or that there's a chance they might change. That's why with every assignment I get, I request a dossier on the person. Xemnas probably knows that, Riku, considering the amount of information I got on you.” He fell silent for a moment, mouth thinned into a serious line.

Finally, Axel sighed heavily. “You're a rare find, kid,” he said.

Roxas shook his head, turning off the stove with a click. “He's my twin brother,” he said without turning around. “We've always been opposites, haven't we?”

Sora grinned weakly. “Of course,” he replied.

Another moment of silence passed, and Roxas could feel a smile tugging at his lips. After all the years that had passed, they really were still family. It gave Roxas a huge sense of relief to know that something he thought he'd lost wasn't exactly gone, but still there in disguise. “We'll do this Sora's way,” he decided, “and if I still l know my brother, he's probably the best at this out of all of us, anyway. So until a situation arises where it's absolutely unavoidable, no killing.”

Roxas glanced at his brother, and they shared a private grin. The Mikan twins were back in business, after a seven year break, and there would be hell to pay.

Axel and Riku, however, simply sat in shocked silence at what had just transpired.

“No killing,” moaned Axel, dropping his face to the table in a manner similar to Riku. “Rox, your brother's trying to make saints out of us yet.”

“Whoa,” said Roxas quickly, “I wouldn't go that far. Sora's no saint, for sure.”

Sora, to his credit, only blushed lightly as a cheeky grin made its way across his face.