A/N: This is so ooc and I hate and, and... -cries in corner- I don't like this fic. I didn't want to post this fic. BUT YOU GET IT ANYWAYS BECAUSE SOMEONE MADE ME POST IT.

Companion fic to "Of Skateboards and Xboxes," but you don't need to read it to understand this. This happens before Skateboards takes place. Roxas is 6 here, and Axel is 16 (think Lea appearance-wise, I guess?).

WARNINGS: Language. More so than usual. Also teenage delinquency.
Also note that I just went SCREW TIMELINES with this. As far as I'm concerned, Call of Duty and Halo have been out forever.

TYPOS FIXED THANK YOU LUNAR I AM A FAIL I KNOW SOBCRY.

"And numbers are on the counter by the phone. Well, that's it! Any questions?"

Axel shook his head. "No, ma'am. I've got it memorized." He tapped his forefinger to his forehead to emphasize the statement.

"Thank you," the woman said gratefully. "Ever since my husband died I've been so busy, and—oh, but I'm sure you don't want to hear any of this."

Holding up his hands, Axel replied, "It's no problem. Don't you worry about a thing, ma'am. Your son is in good hands."

"I'm holding you to it," she said playfully. "And please tell me if little Roxas gives you any trouble."

"Of course." He moved to pass into the house.

The woman glanced at his shoulder. "School work?"

"Yeah," Axel said quickly, shifting the backpack on his shoulders. "Just in case I've got some time. Us high schoolers have a lot of homework, you know."

She smiled. "Such a hard worker. Well, I'll see you this evening."

"Sure."

As soon as the door closed, Axel strolled over to the living room. He emptied the contents of his pockets, dumping them onto the coffee table, then set his backpack down on the floor. "Homework my ass." Unzipping the pack and pulling out an Xbox, Axel nodded to himself in satisfaction. His television back home was broken, but that was no reason to miss out on gaming. By babysitting, he could rack up some dough to pay for the repairs and mooch off someone else's TV. Two birds with one stone. Sometimes, Axel's brilliance amazed even himself.

"That's not a nice word."

Axel started. Oh, right. The little brat was here, too. The one he was supposed to be babysitting. He turned to look at six-year-old Roxas. "What?" he asked. "'Ass'?"

Roxas nodded mutely, eyes wide. Axel would have thought he was cute if he didn't loathe kids. Unfortunately (for Roxas), he hated them with a passion.

Leering at Roxas, Axel said, "Let me make one thing clear right now, you little brat. I don't like you. I don't want to babysit you, and I sure as hell am not gonna play with you. I'm only here 'cause I can use your TV and I get paid. Got it memorized?" He turned and started hooking up his Xbox.

"Are you gonna play a game?" Roxas asked, apparently unconcerned by Axel's blatant declaration of dislike.

Axel grunted noncommittally in response.

"I thought you had homework."

"Have it. Doesn't mean I'm gonna do it," Axel responded.

Roxas sat down on the floor next to the game console, arms wrapped around his legs and chin resting on his knees.. "You're supposed to do your homework before you play," he said pointedly.

Axel looked at him from the corner of his eye. "Well, aren't you a little goody two-shoes? Listen, kiddo—"

"It's Roxas."

"Whatever. I don't care about shit like school or homework. Life's short. And when I die, no one's gonna give a damn whether I got A's or F's on my report card. So, I'm just gonna have fun while I'm still living. Screw everything else."

Even though Roxas looked like he was thinking hard about what he'd just said, Axel didn't expect a little kid like him to understand. That was part of the reason why he hated kids. They were all snobby brats who thought they knew everything but really didn't understand a goddamn thing about the world. What was that saying? Ignorance is bliss? To Axel, ignorance was equivalent to stupidity.

He finished setting up his Xbox and tried to forget about Roxas and the job he was supposed to be doing. It worked for a while, until his mind registered a small had tapping his shoulder insistently, as if it hadn't been the first time.

Axel jerked his head around, pausing his first person shooter game. "What?" he asked crossly.

"Can I play too?"

"Pardon?"

"You have another controller." Roxas nodded to Axel's backpack, where, sure enough, he could see another controller sitting inside. Can I play too?"

Eyes widening incredulously, Axel asked, "Are you crazy? This isn't a game six-year-olds play. Besides, it's my game."

"Didn't you ever learn to share?"

Axel snorted. "I'm not sharing Call of Dutywith a brat of a kid like you."

Roxas shrugged, sitting down on the floor and leaning against the couch. "I guess I'll just tell Mom that you said bad words and smoked. She won't let you back after that and you won't have a job anymore."

"Wait, what? Whoever said anything about smoking?"

Roxas pointed, and Axel followed his finger to the coffee table, where he had carelessly discarded a pack of cigarettes and his lighter, alongside some spare change and some crumpled papers from school. "Well, shit," he said, almost laughing. "You're good, kiddo. Okay, one round. But that's it."

Roxas nodded eagerly and accepted the controller Axel offered him. Axel set up a match, then leaned back against the couch beside Roxas. One round, right? This would be easy. Cakewalk.

Roxas beat him. A colorful string of curses left Axel's mouth before he demanded a rematch. Roxas won again, then they drew, then Roxas won again.

"Damn—I mean, what the hell, man, how can a brat beat me at Call of Duty?" Axel ranted to no one in particular. Someone beating him in CoD usually earned them his respect, but this time it was a snot-nosed kid who had beaten him. A little kid. Axel hated little kids. He was pissed. "Okay, you're done, kid. No more playing."

"Aw, but it's fun," said Roxas, pouting.

Not cute. Freaking brat. "My game, remember?" Axel reminded him. He set up a single-player game.

Roxas watched on silently as he played, then, after Axel cursed loudly after being sniped, he asked, "How come you're still alive?"

"Huh?" Axel blinked uncomprehendingly. "After you die, you respawn. You know that."

"No, not the game." Roxas shook his head impatiently and poked a finger at Axel. "You."

"Sorry, I don't follow."

"You talk like life's not worth living," Roxas said.

"Because it isn't," Axel grumbled.

"Then why are you still alive?"

"Hey, hey, should a little kid really be talking about death?" Axel asked nervously, trying to avoid the question. It wasn't because he didn't know the answer; he knew very well why he was still alive. I'm a coward. The world's full of shit and I hate it, but I'm still scared of dying. But there's no way in hell I'm letting this brat know that. For a six-year-old, the boy was pretty sharp, he'd give him that. But that didn't change the fact that he was a kid. He handed the second controller to Roxas. "C'mon. Let's play another round."

Roxas took the controller, but he seemed reluctant, like he had noticed that Axel hadn't answered his question. Axel had been hoping to distract Roxas from it—weren't kids supposed to be only able to focus on one thing at a time?—but apparently it didn't work. Oh, well. He'd probably stop thinking about it once they actually started playing.

Roxas beat him again. Axel was not pleased.

It somehow ended up that Roxas had fallen asleep with his head on Axel's lap, much to the latter's annoyance. Eventually, they had gotten bored of CoD, and Roxas had been hungry and asked for food. Axel would have ignored him, but he was hungry, too, so they went to the kitchen to get something to eat. After returning to the living room, Roxas had curled up and fallen right asleep. Damn kids. Now, Axel was "doing" his homework (read: doodling on his homework).

The doorbell rang and Axel nearly jumped out of his skin as the sound sliced through the silence. Roxas woke up, too, yawning and stretching, as Axel frantically shoved his Xbox back into his backpack and stuffed his homework (crumpled once again), cigarettes, and lighter into his pockets.

He took a deep breath, composing himself, before he opened the door. "Welcome back, ma'am."

"Hello!" Roxas's mom said cheerfully. "How is everything?"

"Great. Wonderful," replied Axel, biting back the sarcasm.

"That's good." The woman took a few bills from her purse and handed them to Axel.

Axel accepted the money and counted it quickly. Sweet.

"Is Axel coming back again?"

Axel hadn't noticed Roxas coming up to stand beside him, and he glanced down at him briefly before returning his attention to the kid's mom.

"I work my new job every Saturday and Sunday," she said, looking at Axel. "If you're willing...?"

Axel nodded with forced enthusiasm. "Of course!"

She smiled. "That's a relief. Thank you."

"Not a problem," Axel replied, waving his hand. At this rate, it would take a couple months to get enough money to repair his television. That wasn't too bad. At least he'd be able to use their TV set meanwhile. It looked like he wouldn't lose too much video game time in the upcoming weeks after all.

In the middle of the following week, Axel got a call from Roxas's mom, who explained that she had to work overtime today, and could he please pick up Roxas from school and watch him until she got back? She would pay double for such an abrupt request. How could Axel say no to that? And the best part was, he had absolutely no sense of morals to tell the woman that, it was fine, I know your family is struggling right now, so you don't have to pay me extra. Axel was such a bastard, and he knew it. He also didn't care.

So now he was looking at elementary school kid after elementary school kid, trying to pick out Roxas. As it was, Roxas ended up finding him.

"Axel! what are you doing here?"

Axel looked down to where Roxas was standing in front of him. "Oh, there you are. Your mom's working late tonight," he informed him. "So I'm here to watch you."

"Oh."

Axel led Roxas out of the school grounds, then pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

Roxas tugged at his arm. "You shouldn't smoke. It's bad for you."

"Eh, who cares? Lung cancer doesn't happen overnight, you know."

Roxas frowned at him, and Axel wondered if maybe the brat was actually worried for him. He stomped out his cigarette with a sigh, rolling his eyes when Roxas insisted upon picking it up and throwing it away in a trash can. He was such a freaking goody two-shoes.

Speaking of Roxas being a goody-goody, he wondered if that would interfere with his plans to go to his friend's house to play Call of Duty. They always met up after school. Well, Axel didn't actually go to school today. But he digressed. Maybe Roxas would let him go; after all, he'd kept quiet about playing CoD together last weekend.

"If I don't take you home right away, will you tell your mom?" he asked.

There was a pause before Roxas answered. "Maybe."

"I'll buy you ice cream."

"Deal."

So Axel took Roxas to his favorite ice cream shop. Buying two ice creams, he handed one to Roxas, who looked it over curiously.

"What flavor is it?"

"Sea salt," Axel replied, taking a bite out of his ice cream.

"I've never had it before."

"That's 'cause it's not very popular. Only Scrooge sells it—he invented it, after all. But it's really good. Now, come on."

Roxas nibbled tentatively on the ice cream. "It's salty...but sweet."

"It's awesome, isn't it?"

Roxas nodded absently. "Where are we going?"

"Friend's place," he answered vaguely.

They arrived a short while later, and he banged his fist against the door. "Yo, Dem!"

The door swung open. "Took you long enough. We were about to start without you."

"Sorry, Demyx. Guess you could say I had an errand to run."

Demyx looked at Roxas. "Who's that?"

"The errand." Axel took Roxas by the wrist and dragged him inside. "In other words, extra baggage. Don't worry about it, though."

"Axel," Demyx said loudly, following them to the living room. "He's a kid. You brought a kid."

"Seriously? What the hell were you thinking, man?" asked another teen who was sitting on the couch.

"Don't worry about it," Axel repeated, beginning to feel annoyed. So much for peacefully spending the rest of the day blowing up his friends on Call of Duty. He really wasn't in the mood for this. "Don't underestimate him just 'cause he's a kid," he added crossly. "I bet he could kick your ass at CoD."

"Oh, my. Was that a challenge?" the other sneered.

"Damn straight it was." Axel knelt down next to Roxas and muttered into his ear, "My rep's riding on you, brat. Don't let me down." He pushed him forward.

He really shouldn't have worried. Roxas beat them all. It was almost cute, the way he sat stock still and stared intently at the screen with those wide eyes of his, fingers flying, while the others jumped up and down, yelling and cursing. Except he was a little kid, which automatically made him not cute.

"Alright, losers, make way for the CoD King."

Axel turned, surprised. "Xigbar?"

"None other."

"I thought you had work."

"I did, but Demyx called me about the kid. Miss this? As if. Set up a match."

"There's no way he can beat you," Axel said, rolling his eyes. "No one can."

"Consider it a Rite of Passage. He's not accepted in our circle until he plays me."

"Whatever. Go for it, kid."

As expected, Xigbar won without even trying. But as soon as the game ended, the others crowded around Roxas, congratulating him for putting up a good fight, all former hostility gone. Well, he'd earned their respect, at least. Which meant Axel's work here was done. He'd be able to bring Roxas back for other sessions without protest. Speaking of bringing back...

Axel checked his watch. "Ah, damn. I gotta go."

"Already?" asked Demyx.

"Gotta get the brat home before his mom. I'm his babysitter," he explained.

"Axel? Babysitting? Now I've seen everything," Xigbar said.

"Can it. I need money to repair my TV. Wouldn't have done it otherwise. Come on, kid."

As he was about to leave, Demyx called after him, "CoD day all day tomorrow. You in?"

Axel grinned. "You know it!"

The walk home started off quiet, but Axel wasn't fooled. He knew what was coming. He waited for it as they walked along, and Roxas didn't disappoint him.

"You ditch school?"

"All the time. Don't care about school, remember? Hell, last time I went was to hang out with friends during lunch."

"That's not good," Roxas said quietly, reaching up to take Axel's hand as they walked.

He was annoyed by the contact but didn't push him away. "Maybe you'll understand when you're older. School isn't everything."

Roxas looked down at his feet thoughtfully but didn't respond.

By Sunday, Axel was getting tired of the whole babysitting thing. Today would be his fifth day of babysitting the brat, also known as Roxas. The brat wasn't really a brat—at least, not like other little kids. But Axel would never admit it out loud. Regardless, he was getting tired of spending his weekends watching a kid. Even if he got to play CoD, Roxas didn't like to play all the time, and he had enough blackmail material to manipulate him into doing pretty much anything.

Roxas had also grown quite attached to him, and Axel feared that he might be starting to get attached to Roxas, too. And that just would not do. Because he was Axel, he was a teenage delinquent, he ditched school, he played CoD, he was one of those stupid, hypocritical teenagers who thought they knew everything and thought the world sucked but still decided to keep living in it... Axel did not get attached to little kids.

But it was happening anyways.

"Axel!" yelled Roxas, tackling him as soon as the door opened.

"Oof!" Axel's arms curled automatically around the boy who had launched himself at him. How did he jump so high, anyways? "Hey, brat. What's up?" God, even 'brat' was becoming a sort of affectionate nickname. Someone help him. Axel was in desperate need of a new job.

"I'll be back this evening. Be good, Roxas," she told her son.

"I will," Roxas assured her.

"So, brat," Axel continued once the door clicked shut, "I have Call of Duty and Halo today. Which will it be?"

Roxas shook his head. "I have to do homework."

"Homework? On a weekend? For a little kid like you?"

"I'm not a little kid," he pouted, looking at Axel in what he knew was mock resentment.

Raising an eyebrow, Axel replied, "Um, yes you are a little kid. If you hadn't noticed, you're six. I'm sixteen."

Roxas started counting on his fingers, which amused Axel greatly. "Wow, you're old."

Axel's eyebrow twitched. "What was that, you little piece of—I mean, homework. Why do you have homework, again?"

"I have a project."

"Ahh. That explains everything," Axel mused. "Well, it's not important. What's one zero gonna matter?"

"It matters."

"Whatever. I'm going to play."

"Can you help me?"

"What? No."

"Mom said you would help me, since she's too busy."

Axel cursed under his breath. "Fine. Let's do this stupid project. What's it about?"

Roxas led him to the kitchen, where a small poster board and markers lay on the table. "What you want to be when you grow up."

Axel paused. "Oh."

Sitting down at the table, Roxas asked, "What do you want to be?"

"Um...I don't know. I don't really think about it. Probably not even gonna get a job."

"Why not?" Roxas asked, tilting his head to the side.

"'Cause it's boring. We already went over this, kid. I'm gonna have fun till I die."

"Are you happy?"

"Hm?"

"Are you happy with your life right now?"

Actually, not really. But why would you care? "What's it to you?"

Roxas shrugged, looking at his poster board.

The silence that stretched between them was awkward, and Axel was the first to break it. "Policeman."

"Huh?" Roxas blinked at him.

"I wanted to be a policeman," he clarified.

Roxas's face brightened. "Me too!" he declared. "I want to protect people."

"Yeah? I don't think it's as great as you'd think, though," Axel said. "Xigbar, he's a policeman. Lost his eye on duty."

Roxas was busily writing on his board and didn't look at Axel. "I'm sure it was worth it."

Axel was about to tell him that no, it wasn't worth it, but decided against it. You were only innocent for so long. Maybe ignorance was bliss after all.

Axel could honestly say he didn't notice the change until Saïx commented on the fact.

"It's nice to see that you've begun caring about your grades again," were his exact words, drawled out as if he didn't really care either way.

Axel knew, better, though. He and Saïx used to be best friends, but while the latter had always cared about his education, Axel had stopped being concerned about it and joined with the ditch-school-once-a-week-to-play-Call-of-Duty crowd.

So Axel frowned at Saïx's words and looked back on the past few weeks. He'd still been ditching every week for CoD days, but otherwise he actually did go to school instead of playing hooky almost every day. He'd actually been doing some of his homework, too, but that was Roxas's fault. The kid would proudly tell Axel what he'd learned at school that day, to which Axel would counter with something from his lessons. Roxas would say he was lying, so Axel showed him his homework. Somehow, he'd end up doing it.

He was pretty sure that it was all part of Roxas's master plan to make him start caring about life again. Freaking manipulative six-year-old brat.

That wasn't all, though. He'd changed in other ways—instead of going out for a smoke, for example, he'd take Roxas to buy some sea salt ice cream. The kid was just about addicted to the stuff now. He didn't curse as often either, although Roxas probably knew every profane word in existence by now.

"Eh," he said to Saïx. "I still don't really care."

Saïx simply raised an eyebrow at him in response.

Axel shifted a bit uncomfortably. "Anyways, I gotta go. See ya."

It wasn't a lie, but Axel really hadn't needed to go just then. Well, it didn't matter.

It was one of those occasional days when he had to pick up Roxas from school and watch him on a weekday. He had become quite skilled at picking out Roxas from the sea of little kids (The trick was to ignore all the bratty, not-cute, snot-nosed kids. Roxas was the only one left after eliminating them. Not that Roxas was cute. Um, never mind.). He had not, however, become skilled in the art of walking without tripping over a pair of little feet. So he usually let Roxas weave through the crowd to him.

"Hi, Axel!" greeted the child happily.

The corners of his mouth quirked up into a grin despite himself. "'Sup, brat? I brought you ice cream." He handed him the sea salt popsicle.

"Thanks!"

"Don't mention it."

They started walking home—no, they started walking to Roxas's home. Axel had been going over so often, it was almost like a second home by this point, which was a little disconcerting, because he knew he'd be done with this whole babysitting business in just a few weeks. "Got any homework today?" he asked Roxas, trying to get his mind off the thought.

Roxas nodded. "You?"

Axel groaned. "Don't I always? I'm not doing it today, though."

"When's it due?"

Flashing a grin down at him, he replied, "Tomorrow."

"Axel..."

"It doesn't matter, right? I'm probably gonna be held back a year anyways."

"And you want that?"

"Hell no!" Axel exclaimed. "The sooner I get done with school, the better. I'm just saying it's too late to make a difference now. I've already dug my own grave."

"Climb out of it," Roxas suggested.

Axel looked at him crossly. "Too far in."

"Use the ladder."

"Who puts a ladder in a freakin' grave?"

"Okay, have someone pull you out, then."

Who'd do that for a delinquent like me? It's not worth the time or effort. "You realize this is a metaphorical grave, right?" Axel checked. "It's not real."

"It's real enough."

Axel honestly didn't understand Roxas sometimes. "Whatever, kid."

A few weeks later, and Axel had almost earned enough money to repair his TV. Today was his last day of babysitting Roxas. Not that he'd told the kid yet, although he'd informed his mom, who was sorry to see him go but accepted that he hadn't the time (yeah, right) to continue babysitting every weekend. Actually, Axel wasn't planning to tell Roxas at all. He'd leave tonight and he wouldn't come back. That was all there was too it, right? If he told him, the brat would probably guilt trip him into staying or use his mountain of blackmail. That would not do.

The doorbell rang in the middle of a CoD match.

"Whoops. Bet that's your mom. Put my Xbox away, would you?"

Roxas nodded, exiting out of the game while Axel went to get the door.

"Hi. Roxas is packing up my—homework for me right now," Axel explained.

The woman didn't seem to hear him, and Axel was forced to let her pass into the house. "Why don't you stay for dinner tonight?"

"Er..."

"Is there someone waiting for you at your home?"

Axel shook his head. Was there ever? He hardly even talked to his parents.

"Then stay! I need to thank you for taking such good care of Roxas for me every weekend. He really likes you, you know—you're like an older brother to him."

She was trying to guilt trip him, wasn't she? Well, Axel wasn't going to let it work. "Really? Um, I guess I could stay..." Free food, right? He might as well. Just one dinner, then he'd be gone.

There was one little detail that had slipped Axel's mind: Awkward questions tended to be raised at the dinner table. Particularly when there were chatty mothers involved. She asked about school, his life, and other things. Axel answered as briefly as possible.

"So, what kind of job are you hoping to get?" she asked.

Axel hesitated, looking at Roxas for a moment before saying, "Policeman."

"Really? That's nice. Roxas wants to be a policeman, too."

"He's got a long time to change his mind yet," Axel muttered. He had to steer the conversation away from himself. Tone dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, he asked, "Got any embarrassing stories about Roxas?"

"Oh, do I ever!"

"Hey!" Roxas protested.

By the end of the evening, Axel had enough blackmail material to set him for life, and probably negate all the blackmail Roxas had accumulated against him.

Just as he was standing to stretch after his dinner, his phone rang. He glanced at it curiously. Just by the caller—Demyx—he already knew what the call was about, but he accepted it anyways.

"Hey, CoD day tomorrow! In?"

"Y—" Axel broke off from his automatic response. "Nah. We've got school."

"Wha—"

Axel hung up without bothering to listen to his friend's response. Then blinked as some bills were waved under his face.

"Your pay for today."

Axel accepted the money with especial respectfulness, staring at the bills in something akin to awe. This was it. The last of the money he needed to get his TV repaired. He didn't have to babysit again. No more wasting his weekends watching a brat of a kid. No more—

A small hand had wrapped around his wrist and was tugging his arm. Axel started, jolted from his thoughts, and looked down at Roxas.

"See you next week?"

Axel opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. Something in the kid's tone, the earnest worry in his eyes like he just knew this was the last time Axel was coming over, melted the heart he had thought was frozen to the core. Or maybe he'd been thawing it all along. The ecstatic smile that had spread across his face when he'd accepted the money softened.

"Sure, kid."

Well, what good were weekends when you had nothing to do with them?

A/N: And there you have it. The story of how Axel went from delinquent to policeman, and how Roxas went from angelic little kid to CoD-loving FREAK. Okay, he's not a freak. But he's still addicted to CoD.
By the way, Roxas doesn't want to be a policeman any more. Just to throw that out there.