Title: About a Girl [
Ao3]
Series: Kingdom Hearts
Pairing/Characters: Genderswap: Axel/Roxas
Rating: PG
Total length: 1356 words
Warnings: Genderswitch, College/High School AU, Modern AU, fluff
Summary: "Yeah, well. Maybe I wouldn't be too averse to some bad-touching nowadays," Roxas says, bumping her knee against Axel's. Axel squints at her suspiciously. "Is this some kind of reverse-psychology thing? Because that really doesn't work with me."
Author's Note: Written for
ravewalker at my
slice-of-life meme. Prompt- "I would love genderswapped AkuRoku with daisies and hairbraids and the scent of grass <3." I didn't quite get the prompt right, but eh. Ever so slightly related to the picture below, which is in no way, shape, or form mine.
.
Axel doesn't wear skirts, okay? She just doesn't. Not since she was six years old and threw a genuine fit about her mother shoving her into these little, meticulously matched lace dresses and shiny uncomfortable shoes and braiding her hair in the most painful way possible. So no-skirts, dresses, heels, the whole shebang-she just doesn't do it.
She spent elementary school pulling other girls pigtails and middle school in ratty board shirts and her dad's old band shirts from the 70s that had holes in the armpits and perpetually slipped off her shoulders to show off the very not sexy straps of her sports bra. She played soccer with the rest of the boys and was the best sprinter on her track team. When she hit high school, the only thing that really changed was the conversion to ratty jeans rather than ratty board shorts and the addition of a few piercings.
When she turns fifteen she gets drunk and high with a couple of the seniors and wakes up with a pair of facial tats. Which, cool, whatever-her mom throws a cow and her little sister Kairi eyes her warily for a few minutes before asking if they had hurt. Years later, she'll wonder what the hell prompted her to answer with "I really don't remember" within hearing distance of her still enraged mother, but at the time, she was too damn hungover to care.
She meets Roxas-Roxy-Roxy-so-damn-sweet-when she's in her senior year of high school and the other girl is barely a freshmen. It wasn't love at first sight at all. In fact, as much as Axel made it her mission to harass the other girl, she's pretty sure she just came across as little more than a weird lesbian stalker. Again, whatever. There were other girls in their school that would be more than willing to let Axel eat them out enthusiastically, so she did just that.
Roxas still ate lunch with them, her cute little pixie cut and constant scowl an unending source of distraction, even if another girl happened to be sitting on Axel's lap at the time. Larxene had a tendency to laugh at Axel whenever they fell into bed together, smoking a cigarette in the quiet aftermath as Axel rubbed their shins together-marveling at how damn smooth it felt.
"You're kind of a slut, Ax," she'd say, stubbing out the cigarette and kicking Axel out of her bed.
It was kind of true, in a way. She didn't sleep with everything that moved, but she did have a reputation for getting around. It wasn't often that she went to a concert or a party and didn't end up in someone else's bed in the morning. Knowing that it was kind of true didn't stop her from rolling her eyes and shoving Larxene off the bed as well, remembering why she only ever hooked up with the blonde when she'd had too much tequila.
The breaking point comes when she's nearing the end of her sophomore year of college, when she's stressed out and sleeping too little and showering maybe once a week if she's lucky.
She hasn't seen Roxas in nearly three years, so it's a surprise when she spots a familiar blonde head across the quad, standing with a group of boys and laughing-actually laughing at something one of them has said. Axel doesn't say anything-just stares-her physics notes rustling in the breeze. She hardly notices when a dog passes too closely, darting after a frisbee that must have landed somewhere behind her.
It's Roxas who sees her-Roxas who hesitates for the barest moment before starting towards her.
When Roxas settles down onto the grass beside her, Axel finally remembers her physics notes. She tucks her pencil between her teeth and flips the page, scowling at her own spidery handwriting zigzagging across the page.
"How have you been?" Roxas finally asks, twiddling her thumbs and looking terribly awkward.
Axel smiles at her. "Fine-fine, I've been fine. Exams coming up, so it's been tense, but I get by."
A moment passes.
"So what are you doing here?" she asks. It comes out biting and slightly more accusing than she'd been aiming for, so she digs the tips of her fingers into the grass, twisting it up at the roots. "Sorry."
Roxas shrugs. "I'm graduating early. Scoping out the colleges with my brother Sora, y'know."
Axel stares at her. "I didn't know you had a brother."
She grins mischievously, knocking their shoulders together. "That's probably because I didn't want you to," she laughs. "He's a real pain in the ass. Can you believe that he wouldn't let me come here alone? Like because he's eight minutes older he's allowed to baby me."
"I doubt it was him babying you. More that he doesn't trust his baby sister out here on her own, where all the college guys might get her." She twiddles her pencil, staring as a particularly daring squirrel darts right up to her, sitting up on its haunches mere inches away from her hand. It's close enough to touch, so she tries, snorting when it scampers off at the slightest twitch of her pinky. "Don't worry," she tells Roxas. "It's completely normal. My older brothers did the same thing when I came here."
Roxas' grin has turned into something of a smirk, lips curled up in the corners like they're hiding a secret behind them. "Yeah, well, if you're here, they should be more worried about the girls getting me."
Axel wrinkles up her nose and self-consciously wipes grass off of her knees. "Sorry about that, by the way. It was really inappropriate of me."
Roxas shakes her head. "I didn't really mind. It was nice to have the attention, even if you were kind of creepy about it."
"It's never okay if they're creepy about it," Axel says flatly. "Or in this case, me. If I'm creepy about it. Because I was. With the touching and the flirting and the weirdness."
"You never bad-touched me, Axel."
Axel shrugs. "Maybe not. Doesn't change the fact that it wasn't okay."
"Yeah, well. Maybe I wouldn't be too averse to some bad-touching nowadays," Roxas says, bumping her knee against Axel's. Axel squints at her suspiciously.
"Is this some kind of reverse-psychology thing? Because that really doesn't work with me."
Roxas wets her lips, leaning closer until her mouth is hovering right over Axel's ear-the side of her breast brushing against Axel's. "I'm saying that maybe I wouldn't mind doing all those things you suggested when I was just a scared freshmen hovering in my brother's shadow."
She starts to say something else, her lips moving slowly against the curve of Axel's ear-brushing against the little silver hoops that she's wearing today, breath rattling in her chest-
"Roxas!"
The shout takes both of them by surprise, and when Axel can finally tear her eyes away from Roxas' there's a boy waving at them from across the grass-brown hair, blue eyes, but his face is too similar to Roxas' to be anyone but her brother. "We have to go," he's shouting, beckoning.
Roxas gives her one last smoldering look before climbing to her feet, skirt clinging too high to the backs of her thighs until Axel reaches out and brushes it back down. Roxas gives her a look of surprise and then smiles, her eyes going bright again. "Think about it," she grins.
.
A year later they're lying in the same spot, the smell of freshly mowed grass all around them. Roxas' hands move slowly in Axel's hair, busy braiding daisies into it, as Axel curses exams all over again. Every so often Roxas will lean over her shoulder, snatching the pen from her fingers so she can scribble in the correct answer to something. Snarling at the paper, she makes one last adjustment before she tosses the pen down, uncaring when it bounces off the page and into the snarl of orange and yellow flowers nearby.
She leans back into Roxas' hands and closes her eyes.