IMPORTANT EDIT, PLEASE READ

Okay guys, so this is actually a reloaded old chapter. Sorry for the false alarm, but I didn't want to piss off FFN by posting an A/N on it's own.

So, some of you may have seen on my profile that I'm going to be rewriting this story. Or rather, am in the process of doing so. I forget exactly what it says. Due to real life kicking me in the teeth, I haven't had the chance to work on it as much as I would like, but I'm FINALLY done with rewriting the first chapter. Or rather, writing an entirely new version. The story is still going in the same direction, I just realised that there were several plotholes and the like that would be better filled through starting the story fresh rather than trying to backtrack on this version. Which is why I have posted an entirely new story, still entitled Melodramatic. I didn't want to be all confusing and mess around with deleting and replacing chapters on this version. Anyway, if there's anybody still out there after all these months, and you're still interested in seeing where this fic goes, you can find it on my profile, or if I understand this within-site link thing to be working now, here at .net/s/4937589/1/

xXx

“You know what?” Axel announced, watching Roxas slurp his way around a bar of sea-salt ice cream from his horizontal position on the couch.

“Mmpf…I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” the younger teen mumbled, tongue flicking out to lick a melted trail of ice cream from his hand.

Axel rolled his eyes, idly scratching his bare stomach. The bruise was still there and shocking, although it had begun to fade a little. “You were a whore in a past life, weren’t you?”

“S’good,” Roxas replied without shame. “S’that what you wanted to tell me?”

“Hmm, what?”

Roxas rolled his eyes as Riku walked through the lounge into the kitchen, but Axel barely noticed his friend’s reaction. Riku wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“You’re a fucking tease, Harada,” Roxas called from around his ice cream.

“Blergh,” said Axel.

“I live here,” Riku drawled, the sound of him ripping open the fridge carrying easily into the lounge.

“Unfortunately,” Roxas muttered, before turning back to the stunned Axel. “What were you saying?”

“Unf?” Okay, so Axel was a little obsessed. Just a little.

“Generally, if you ask a person if they know something and they don’t, you intend to tell them,” the blond pointed out.

“Oh. Right.” Axel tore his eyes away from the kitchen entrance. “Uh. Right. Well.”

“Think about it Axel. Then try talking. It’s not even multi-tasking, so you should be fine.” He bit off the tip of his ice cream.

“Ha fucking ha,” Axel replied dryly. “Anyway. I was thinking about getting a job.”

Roxas nearly dropped the ice cream.

“What?” the red-head whined. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“Axel, you haven’t done a day of honest work since - you’ve never done a day of honest work.”

“Done plenty of dishonest work, though,” he pointed out easily, stretching.

Roxas pursed his lips, taking a savage bite out of the ice cream. “How do you talk about that so easily?” he asked, sounding a tad bitter.

Axel’s eyebrows shot into his hair, before settling down a little as he took in the serious look on his friend’s face. “Midgar?”

“What else?

Axel tucked his hands behind his head and appraised Roxas. He’d always been prone to being an angsty little bitch, but Axel had the feeling this ran a little deeper. “Well, I grew up with Reno, didn’t I? And you know he got into shit ten times worse than whatever the hell we did.” He laughed a little, remembering. “He was fucking ropable when he found out, you know. But he probably gave me some of the best god damn advice I’ll ever get in my life while he was pointing that gun at my head.”

Roxas raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Don’t ever do anything you’re too ashamed to speak about.” Axel shrugged, a remarkable feat for the position he was in. “’S worked so far.”

The blond lowered his eyes to the ice cream in his hands. “You don’t regret it? You’re not ashamed?”

“Che. Shame and regret, Rox are two entirely different things. ‘Course I’m ashamed. It’s not so bad I can’t talk about it, is all. C’mon Rox, it was three, four years ago. We were kids! The Organisation was just a bit of stupid fun that got out of hand.” He pulled himself laboriously into a sitting position. “But do I regret it?” He thought about that. “Nah. No regrets, man. For a start, it brought me to you, right?”

Roxas stared at him, and Axel thought they shared a nice moment.

“You sap.”

“Hey!”

“Jeez, would you like some crackers with that cheese? Honestly.” Roxas threw a cushion at the red-head, who caught it easily and tossed it back. “And all that crap about talking about it? You won’t even let Reno mention it.”

“Have you met my brother? Not the most stable guy on earth. If he remembers, he’s entirely likely to come after my arse with a gun in hand. Uh, again.”

xXx

Riku frowned, slumped against the kitchen wall as he was. Roxas' and the idiot’s voices were easily audible as he took a swig of orange juice, feeling no need to make his presence known again.

Three years ago, the twins had appeared in Destiny Islands with some half-assed story about looking after their brother. There was no doubt that Cloud had gone off the rails, but he already had the entire Avalanche boxing crew looking out for him. It didn’t seem like two fourteen year olds would be able to help enough to justify inflicting them on their brother.

Every time Riku had asked for the real reason the twins had come to Destiny Islands, however, Sora had shifted uncomfortably and told him to ask Roxas. Seeing as Riku and the blond twin had taken an instant dislike to each other that only intensified over time, he had pretty much resigned himself to never finding out the truth.

And now he found out that something stupid had happened in Midgar before the twins moved. Something stupid involving the idiot and something called the Organisation. The name rang a bell, but Riku couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before.

But Midgar. His hand clenched around his glass. That was…that was Sephiroth’s city. Riku hated the place with a passion, but he understood the draw of a city with an ‘anything goes’ policy. Grudgingly, he could admit that getting caught up in something stupid would be an easy thing for two teenagers to do in Midgar.

Sora stumbled into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing at his face. Riku’s frown softened into a grin as his best friend’s eyes widened comically.

“Riku! What are you doing here?”

Abruptly, the talk in the lounge stopped. Sora glanced back and then tried to cover it up with an awkward laugh.

“I live here,” Riku replied for the second time that day. He held up the near-empty glass of orange juice. “Breakfast.”

Immediately, Sora snapped into mother-mode. “You can’t just have orange juice for breakfast, Riku! C’mon, I’ll make pancakes.” Sora made a grab for Riku’s hand and succeeded, dragging him over to the table. “Siddown.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the silver haired teen spotted Axel wandering into the kitchen, clad only in his boxers. The sudden pang of attraction that shot down his spine was so unexpected that he found himself nearly gaping at the red-head’s lithe form.

Then the idiot ruined it by flicking his hand and making a whiplash sound. Riku wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for the distraction or pissed off at what the asshole was implying. He settled for rolling his eyes and pretending to ignore it, mind whirling for an explanation.

“Axel, stop antagonising Riku,” Sora ordered, pulling ingredients from various places around the kitchen. Riku, realising what he was letting the brunette do, stood and pushed him away from the oven. It was a bare fact of the universe - Sora couldn’t cook. Last time he’d tried, he’d set the kitchen on fire. With cheese.

“Since when did you know a word like antagonise?” Axel teased, reaching over Riku to grab a glass from the cupboard. The silver-haired teen froze. “Been spending some quality time with Nam, hmm?”

“Hey, shut up!”

Axel’s chest brushed against Riku’s bare back as the idiot fell heavily to his feet. Despite himself, a shiver curled down Riku’s spine, and from the shit-eating grin on the idiot’s face, he knew.

Bastard.

Well, this was a game that could be played both ways, and Riku knew for sure that Axel was attracted to him, regardless of his own convoluted feelings. Turning on the premise of getting the milk out of the fridge, he let his fingers skim across Axel’s lower stomach. The grin dropped away immediately as the idiot swallowed once, hard.

Riku smirked, triumphant.

So what if the red-head had a good body? It wasn’t like Riku hadn’t seen good-looking guys before, and he was a teenager. Being attracted to the way someone looked meant nothing.

Now if only someone would tell the idiot that.

“All right, I’m coming in!” a feminine voice called from the front door. Far away as he was, Riku still heard a key slide into the lock. “Those of you in compromising positions, cease and desist! There are some things a woman doesn’t need to see in her life, and horny teenage boys going at it is definitely one of them.”

Sora blushed deeply, but nonetheless leapt up from his seat at the table and ran into the lounge. “Tifa! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

A light laugh. “Yes, because a week is so long.”

Oddly enough, Axel froze at the name. It was only for a split-second, but Riku noticed these things. Then the easy smile spread across his face again, and he sauntered out after Sora. Curious, Riku switched the element off and followed.

Sora was clinging to the dark-haired woman, telling her about his week and how ‘Naminé did this and Naminé did that and oh, Axel’s here!’.

At the name Axel, Tifa looked up in surprise. The red-head, still only in his boxers, scratched his head a little awkwardly with one hand and gave a sort of two-fingered salute with the other.

“Yo.”

“Well,” Tifa said, cocking her head to the side. “Well, well, well. Axel Shizuka.”

“Eh-heh. I guess you got it memorized then.”

xXx

“What are you doing here,” Cloud snarled, hand clenching around the flowers he’d filched from a garden on the way. He did it so often, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the small garden berefit of blossoms next time he passed. The flowers he’d picked had started to wilt a little in the heat, as always, and the heavy pressure of Cloud’s hand crushed the delicate petals.

Sephiroth regarded him impassively before turning back to the headstone. “I was not aware that only one person was allowed to mourn an old friend at a time, Strife.”

“I thought I told you to stay away from my family,” he spat, feeling the old rage stir in his gut. He hated that it was this man who could squeeze the emotion from him like some overused squeaky toy.

The silver haired man simply regarded the simple headstone in front of him before stooping and brushing away the old flowers Cloud had placed there the day before. “I could say the same thing to you, Strife. And yet.” He placed a fresh bouquet of white carnations in place of the old dead flowers and stood.

“Riku’s not your family, Sephiroth.” Cloud struggled to maintain his apathy. “You gave up the right when--”

Abruptly, the other man stiffened, dark anger roiling around his form. “I did not give up that right.” He spoke in cool, clipped tones, not turning around. “It was taken from me.”

“You signed the papers!”

“It was his will. After all I’d done--” Sephiroth broke off. “I’ve no need to speak of this to someone like you. I shall leave you to wallow in your grief.”

And with those parting words, the man left. Cloud stared after his disappearing form until the man could no longer be seen.

“I used to respect you,” he said quietly, and if respect was not quite a strong enough word, there was none but the dead to hear it.

Carefully, Cloud avoided looking at the headstone at his feet. The broken flowers slipped from his fingers as, once again, he was unable to make himself look at the name.

Next time, he promised, closing his eyes. I’ll look next time.

xXx

“Fuck,” Larxene growled, throwing the tea towel she’d been using at the bar in disgust. It was four o’clock on a weekday and the only people in Castle Oblivion were middle-aged businessmen whose wives were taking them for everything they had. No one looked up

Twenty years old and she couldn’t control her thoughts about one seventeen year old girl.

It had started off innocently enough. Okay, so maybe not innocently - Larxene couldn‘t remember the last time something had start innocently with her - but she had definitely never meant for it to go anywhere other than the bedroom. Or the lounge. Or hell, in the back room of the Castle Oblivion bar. Larxene wasn’t picky.

And that was the thing. It hadn’t even made it to the bedroom, lounge or back room. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if things had proceeded as usual and Larxene had simply moved on to find another toy to play with.

Except. Except. Larxene was finding it incredibly difficult to move on. And it wasn’t like she could blame it on the girl herself, because Kairi hadn’t contacted her since she’d left the grungy flat Larxene called home.

“What’s the matter, Larx?” Marluxia sang, perched on one of the barstools.

She flipped him off. The drummer might have looked like a total nancy, but he had a sadistic streak that ran far deeper than Larxene’s own. She wasn’t going to let him anywhere near Kairi, even if it was only her thoughts about the girl.

Larxene froze, mouth falling open a little in complete shock. Protective urges, what? Opposite her, Marluxia smirked.

“Troubled, Larxene? Wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain Kairi Hikari, would it?”

She could feel her face twisting into a mask of rage and before she knew it, her hand was buried in Marluxia’s precious pink hair, twisting painfully.

“You do anything to her, Marluxia, and I’ll hurt you so hard you ghost will be singing soprano.” She paused. “And I’ll tell Naminé.”

The drummer blanched and held up his hands in defeat. “All right, I’m sorry. I won’t mention her again. Now will you let me go?”

Larxene shoved him away in a similar way to how she’d thrown away the tea towel, although whether it was disgust at him or herself, she didn’t know.

Marluxia recovered quickly and smirked again, looking like the cat that caught the canary.

“Oh, shut up.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

She picked up the tea towel again and started laying into the glasses. “Fuck.”

xXx

Okay, so with Cloud, I’m aiming for AC angst. Cookies if you can guess who the grave is for. A oneshot or your choice if you guess how they died. (uh, if you’re going to review, please don’t do so just to guess. I get all excited that someone’s telling me what they think of the chapter and then find that didn’t find it worth mentioning. Lol, burn)

Thanks for reading!