Work Text:
He's driving along the interstate at speeds that almost certainly would land him a felony reckless endangerment with a deadly vehicle charge, but with five minutes until his 4:30pm shift, Axel has to tempt fate. Can he help it that he overslept for the umpteenth time? No, he can't. Well, he could if he had a properly working cellphone with an alarm that allowed itself to be set. But he doesn't have those things. What he has are four minutes to make a ten minute drive.
Babbling madly into his half dead cellphone, Axel navigates his way through the incredibly narrow mental channels of the host's intellectual capacity. “Jesus, fuck, yes, it's AXEL. AXEL. Put Burnie on the phone, Erika.”
Erika spouts off restaurant catchphrases like “May I please place you on a brief hold?” while Axel groans through a red light, chasing the shadow of the car directly in front of him.
“Axel,” Burnie's voice says. It's an unhappy voice. “You missed pre-shift.”
“I know, I know,” Axel mutters, frantically patting the passenger seat for a cigarette that rolled just out of reach. “I'm going to be there in three, no, in two minutes.”
“I'm going to have to write you up if I swipe you in. Don't make me have to swipe you in.”
Burnie was one of the good ones, forever prattling on about some random series on Netflix while taking server cash outs, reciting with deadpan clarity the minute details of beer fermentation. Sliding the cigarette home between his teeth, Axel sighs, flicking his lighter. “One minute, Burnie. One.”
“Just don't let Webster see you walking in the front door.”
“Aye aye, cap,” Axel grins, jumping over a curb against traffic to pull into the shopping center where the Entrance to Hell, also known as his place of employment, lays in wait, front doors thrown wide to accept unsuspecting patrons. He manages to slide his non-slip shoes on opposite feet but doesn't have enough time to switch them if he's going to make it on the clock in time. Hobbling like a grandmother through the front door, he all but leaps over the host stand, swatting aside Erika's hand to clock in with two seconds to spare.
“Jerk,” Erika snarls, her otherwise attractive face unpleasantly sneering in his direction.
“Thanks, snuggle bunny. I love when we call each other pet names.”
“Axel.” It's Webster's voice, calling up black, shapeless forms of terror from over his shoulder. “You weren't in pre-shift.
“Uh, yeah,” Axel says, quickly. “I had a patio pick up to greet.” He swipes a finger over the Expo marker lined floorplan as he comes to stand in front of the general manager, erasing the name of the server currently on the table. “117. I was saying hi for Jonathan.” Webster fixes him with a blank stare and all the hair on Axel's arms stands up.
Axel, not one to back down from intimidation—he's a server for fuck's sake, he's used to this shit—holds the gaze, smiling his best shit-eating grin.
“We need hands in the well.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Axel says, saluting as he sidesteps the GM's rotund belly.
The next six hours are an exercise in militaristic conformity to standards and The Grand Show of theatre, obsequious banter, and etiquette fringed with the grit teeth force of a fake smile. That's how you hustle, how you guarantee a 25% tip average on $1000 in sales a night, slipping into the bathroom for a few quick swipes around Facebook, sneaking dead food out of the window when the managers are putting out fires on stations. Not literal fires.
“We need hands on Fry!” Connor shouts, his manager whites sauce splattered, shirt untucked from the constant reach into the expansive window where sweaty drug dealers-cum-cooks sell tickets in a chaotic barrage. “Axel, hands out!” Conner says in that sleepy, loudly quiet voice. He's always so reserved, even when the building is in flames. Axel reaches for the plates of food, a fish and a burger, and speed walks to table 403, pitching his voice so that it sounds slightly obedient and outgoing.
“For the lady I have the Chilean Sea Bass in a miso glaze, for the gentleman I have a... Cheeseburger.”
The “gentleman” scowls at him, jabbing at the lettuce on the burger. “I said no lettuce.”
Axel quickly plasters his face with the sickly sweetest smile he has in his arsenal and swiftly removes the plate. “I'm so sorry, sir, I'll have the chef re-make your dish.”
“So I have to wait another 30 minutes for a medium burger? No thanks.”
Right. Because you are incapable of removing a single piece of butter lettuce yourself, you arrogant fucking prick. “I'll go ahead and have a manager stop by.” Axel says, still smiling. The second he turns away, the smile drops to a bemused smirk.
Bernie is within hailing distance at a server terminal, looking bored with at least another hour before cuts until he can make his mid-shift manager exit. “What,” he says, not a question, as Axel approaches.
“Seat two at 403 has a stick up his ass.” Axel punches in his number, quickly inputting the order for his last table—a four-top at 805 with three nice guys and a fourth staring morosely into his Cherry Coke.
Bernie chuckles quietly. “Awesome. I love Sundays.”
“It's all them humble God-fearin' folk,” Axel says, sending his order into the ether. As Bernie walks over to 403, Axel spies yet another full service well where a flock of servers stand chatting idly while martinis die and beers go flat.
“Server bomb,” Axel says as he shoulders his way through the crowd. A handful scatter while one or two mutely grab drinks and bustle away. One remains, openly hostile.
“I can take it.”
She's a tall dirty blonde all points and angles with a cool, unfriendly face. How the fuck she's even employed here makes his head ache.
“I bet,” Axel smirks, sliding the dead martini over to her. It's a well known fact slash rumor that Jacaranda—whose parents thought naming their children after pastel-colored blooming trees was a great idea—shared nightly pillow talk with at least half the management team, Webster included. Never mind that she used manager dicks as hand holds up the corporate ladder, she was a poor server. Axel's lost count of all the tables that have come in and requested “anyone but Jac” and ended up in his section. They called him The Recover in office discussions. Guest have a bad experience? Send Axel out to recover the table, to send a few comp'd desserts over with charm and a knack for pairing wine. Send Axel over to recover the hot piece of ass at 501 who hasn't left a number yet.
He spies the food going out to 805 and quickly navigates his way to the table. “Gentleman, everything come out perfectly?”
There's a chorus of “Great, thanks!” and “Yeah!” while the frownyface long-distance drinking his first Cherry Coke merely shrugs. The guy ordered the filet, medium rare, with the truffled cream sauce at Axel's suggestion but hasn't lifted a finger to touch it.
“Don't mind him,” one of the guys at the table says, face buried in a bourbon gravy-laden, panko-battered split chicken breast. “Girl problems have rotted his personality.”
“It's not girl problems,” Debbie Downer grits out, stabbing the filet with quiet violence. He savagely shears off a chunk of bleeding meat, ramming it into his pouting mouth. “That's an oversimplification of the problem. It erases my extremely valid feelings.”
“Label me, negate me,” Axel nods amidst eye rolls and groans.
“Exactly,” the guy says, mopping up the truffle sauce with a speared piece of meat. “Thank you, this is great.”
“My pleasure,” Axel says, winking. The wink is his good luck charm. Guy getting his panties in a bunch because he thinks Axel doing his job is the same thing as flirting with a girlfriend? Wink at him. General manager in a huff over a missed greet? Wink at him and point out the coasters on the table that he tossed over in a nanosecond. Girls lamenting bad haircuts and deadlines and Tinder boys? Wink wink wink. The smile his wink elicits from the famished and morose is what he remembers while rolling an ungodly amount of silverware at the end of his shifts.
He keeps tabs on 805 for the rest of their meal, steadily re-filling waters and replacing beers until the moment arrives: the guy with the filet needs a Cherry Coke refill. Maybe it's the elegantly disheveled hair, maybe the ironic T-shirt and low slung jeans with slightly scruffy Rainbows. Or maybe it's about what he said, about being erased. There's a story there, he thinks as he scribbles on a piece of receipt paper.
For a good time call 310 555 5425
He surreptitiously sticks the paper to the bottom of the glass and hustles over to 805, sliding the drink with enough force so a corner of the paper juts out from the bottom of the glass. Enough for no one else to notice except the guy in question. It doesn't happen often, people with the balls or wherewithal to actually call, but when it does...
The middle aged mom in a leopard print dress who treated him to coffee, a foot massage, and a slice of homemade blueberry pie while she cried about her ex-husband. The suit and tie who begged to blow him while his teenage daughter played Just Dance 2014 in the basement. The Physics professor who showed him research that he swore proved the existence of God.
Work day in and day out, sleep like a vampire. There's only so much Netflix and pirated television a guy can watch before the bootycalls and party favors lose their flavor. So Axel finds his excitement where he can. In suburban homes and city motels. Theme parks and support groups. There's always one lonely soul with a story swelling at the split seams of a person: open your mouth, spread your legs, and it all comes tumbling out.
***
The call comes later than he thinks it will. Three weeks later at 2am. There's a cough and a rustle.
“Hey,” the voice says on the phone. Axel mumbles something unintelligible into his cell, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I got your”—hesitation, anxiety—“message.”
It takes Axel a second to understand what the fuck the guy is talking about. “Is this the guy from the restaurant?”
“Potentially,” the voice on the phone says. “I mean, I'm sure there are probably lots of guys that come in. And out. And...”
“You do that a lot, 805?” Axel smirks into the phone. “Lots of in and out?” There's horrified silence on the phone. Axel laughs loudly, his voice cracking with sleep.
“805? What is that? Like an area code? Hoes in different area codes? I'm 818.”
Axel laughs harder. “No, no, it's not an area code. That was your table, I think.” I hope. “You were drinking Cherry Coke. You licked white truffle sauce off the edge of a steak knife and I fell in love with your tongue.”
“Well, you definitely don't beat around the bush,” the voice says, maybe smiling.
“I spend my work week being dishonest. I like to spend my days off making up for it,” Axel says, lighting up a cigarette as he perches at an open window.
“That's right, you, like other contributing members of society, have a job to do in the morning.”
“Well, I don't know that I'd call a 5pm shift the morning, per se.”
“I'm not keeping you up, am I?”
“What? Me? I was snorting coke off strippers five minutes ago,” Axel yawns.
“Right,” the voice says, definitely smiling.
Cigarette smoke drifts lazily out the window, floating out and away toward the moon. “What, you don't work?”
“I'm currently exploring my options,” the voice says, sounding distinctly distasteful.
“Let me guess. Workplace fling leads to disaster.” He imagines a cute brunette with big blue eyes propped up on a photocopier while frownyface bumps uglies with her.
“Understatement. Let's just say there's a reason people caution you to never mix business with pleasure.”
“My bad,” Axel says huskily, lips curling.
“This isn't either of those,” the voice says.
“Yet.”
There's a chuckle on the other end of the line, the sound of a fridge door opening. “So what's your deal? You hand out your number to every sob story you meet at work?”
“Not every single one of them, no,” Axel says, stubbing out his cigarette and watching it fall into the alley below. “Just the most helpless cases.”
“And what makes you think I'm helpless?”
“It's takes a special kind of person to get kicked in the teeth by life and abstain from the soothing pleasures of alcohol and carnal knowledge. You nursed your wounds with a Cherry Coke. That says something to me.”
“It's just carbonated sugar acid. Burn your inner parts juice.” His mouth sounds slightly full, like he's eating cold leftovers.
“Or maybe you're a masochist. Which I can get behind,” Axel grins, opening his own fridge to find condiments, condiments, beer, and mostly empty takeout boxes.
“I think too much for my own good. That's what my friends are always telling me, anyway,” the voice says, burping lightly. “Excuse me.”
“Thinking too much isn't a thing,” Axel says, investigating the contents of a takeout box. Definitely inedible: a greying piece of sushi, flaccid pink pickled ginger, and a smear of wasabi. “You can never think too much. It's people not thinking enough that gets us into all kinds of shit.”
“Like now, for example. I didn't think too much about it before calling you, which, in hindsight could end with me dead in a burned out chicken coop.”
“Three weeks too much?”
“Okay,” the voice says, “so maybe I thought about it a little.”
“What say you and me head down to Qs for a drink and a friendly game of pool.”
“I don't play.”
“Okay, a drink, then. You can tell me all about... things.”
“Hard pass.”
Hmmm. “You want to have steamy phone sex? I can also get behind that, I suppose.”
“I just want to talk. My friends aren't really talk-on-the-phone friends. They're more eat-burgers-and-play-Xbox friends. Her-ass-is-sexy friends.”
“Your friends sound like shitty friends.”
The voice goes quiet, the sound of a sink running. “Yeah. Maybe.”
***
It's once a week at first, their late night phone sessions. Axel peeling off his sweat-soaked serving attire while consuming cold pizza and craft beers, mumbling answers with a full mouth. 805, for his part, sounds like he's microwaving popcorn, brushing his teeth, doing laundry, dishes, and all sorts of domesticated necessities that make Axel think he's a stay-at-home-husband as opposed to an untethered twenty-something.
“You should go out, dude,” Axel says, flipping the lid on the enormous garbage bin he's “borrowing” from his across the street neighbors in the dead of night, unwilling to shell out the $11 a month for trash removal service. “You're depressing me by being so efficient. You have savings! You have your youth!”
“I'm not into clubs,” 805 whines. It's not a whine so much as it's a depressive monotone, but Axel imagines him crybabying over an emptied box of wine.
“A bar, then. There are a number of esteemed establishments who offer Cherry Coke.”
“Ha ha,” 805 says, slurping the remnants of something from a straw. “What if I'm a recovering alcoholic and you're making a mockery of my sober beverage of choice?”
“Horseshit,” Axel says, popping the cap on a bottle of Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar and savoring the first few sips of bliss. “Listen, I have a bottle of delicious American Brown waiting for you right here. The best seat on the couch, right in front of my immaculately sanitized laptop, with your choice of the newest Chinese bootlegs of recently released American-made films. Standing invitation, buddy.” Now, if you'd tell me your name.
“I'll have to respectfully decline.”
“I'm not an axe-murderer! You saw me at my place of employment!”
“Not by day, you're not,” 805 says, seriously. “I've seen American Psycho. I know. I call you Christian Bale in my head all the time.”
Axel laughs. This guy. “Oh? And what am I wearing as Christian Bale?”
“An apron.” Axel almost spits his delicious beer out. “Like a waiter outfit. The same one you were wearing at the restaurant.”
“Ohhh, that kind of apron. I mean, hey, I like to do a little dress up every now and again. But for real, is that what you think I'm wearing right now?”
“I mean, isn't it?” the voice asks, honestly surprised.
“No. I'm not wearing anything,” Axel says lecherously. He's wearing boxers and a shirt.
“A perverted axe-murderer. How original.”
“Oh yeah? Well I picture you wearing jeans and flip flops and a t-shirt. Dressed down, but on purpose because no one does their hair like that without giving a shit. I bet you check your reflection in store front windows.”
“Doesn't everyone?”
Axel laughs. He definitely does. “So did I guess right? Preppy's night out on the town?”
“I'm wearing boxers.”
“Now that's what I'm talking about,” Axel laughs. “What kind of boxers?”
“Superman boxers.”
Axel finishes laughing about five minutes later. “That's too good, man, too good. I'm a Hanes man, myself, but Superman definitely has his own, sculpted appeal.
There's a long, lingering silence. What may or may not be the sound of a bong hit. “Roxas.”
“Quoi? Que? Hmm? Huh? What?”
“My name. It's Roxas.”
“Roxas. Whoa. I feel like we've just taken it to the next level, Roxas. Am I going to meet your parents next?”
“Yeah, I'm sure that will go over well. 'Mom, Dad, this is Axel. He's a waiter slash phone sex operator.'”
“We call them servers nowadays, Roxas. And I prefer to be introduced as a smooth operator, since we haven't had much in the sex department.”
“Yet,” Roxas says, and Axel can hear the way his mouth is turned up at the sides, smiling away in the dark.
“Color me delighted. Innuendo at last.”
“It's just foreshadowing.”
Well, hot damn. “Indeed,” Axel chuckles. “So about that ice cold beer waiting for you.”
“Maybe another night,” Roxas says. “I'm about to hit the sack. I have an interview at 10.”
“Well, good luck, buddy. Charm them with your stone-faced wit and I'm sure they'll be begging to hire you.”
A smile, the sound of a lamp clicking off. “Good night, Axel.”
***
There's someone crying at table 117, vomit in the break room, and the kitchen is in flames. It would all be manageable if not for the thrumming hangover Axel's nursing with black coffee and tomato juice. Drinking to excess always seems like a good idea at the time. Later it's swearing off alcohol forever, praying to billowy figures in the sky to heal his broken, aching mind. He's typically great at multi-tasking, but serving and treating a hangover are mutually exclusive tasks.
“Hands, please,” Conner says in that charmingly aggravating voice. Axel almost throws his coffee across the line.
“HEARD. Heard, for fuck's sake, heard. Where's it going?”
“205 with the poke nachos, 612 with the calamari. Don't forget your smile.” Conner does a little dance that wouldn't be out of place on a Keebler elf.
“Fuck off,” Axel says, stomping out onto the floor. He's navigating a slew of unfamiliar food runner trainees when he stops abruptly. “You're shitting me,” he says to no one in particular, watching the back of a blond head walk into the kitchen. He races toward 205 and 612, babbling sauces as he slides food in front of guests, then hightails it back to the kitchen. Where Roxas is. Roxas the new food runner.
“Shut the fuck up!” Axel screeches as he bounds into the kitchen. “You work here!”
“I do,” Roxas says, looking uncomfortable. Roxas' fellow trainees look like startled deer, all wide-eyed and terrified.
“What's up, dude! You could've told me you were applying here! I get a $100 sign up bonus if you mention my name!”
“Uhh,” Roxas says, looking all over the place.
“My bad,” Axel says, holding out his hand to the new trainees. They shake with varying degrees of limp, clammy uncertainty. Rule number one of meeting people: shake firmly. This isn't holding hands or courtly manners. This is how you show them who's boss. For good measure, Axel also holds his hand out to Roxas.
“We haven't met officially,” he says to the confused trainees. “I'm Axel, your friend.”
Roxas' handshake is less of a businesslike shake and more of a... hold. Axel swears he can feel a thumb run across his knuckles. As handshakes go, it's definitely one of the more intimate he can remember.
“A pleasure,” Roxas says. He's so serious, barely smiling at all. It's maddening and infuriating and wonderful.
“Tormeting the fresh meat already, Axel?” Webster's voice is a mixture of slimy and jovial. He's definitely a large, perverted Santa sans beard. How this dude scores any pussy at all is a sure sign of God's existence.
“You know me,” Axel says, whisking away plates for 505 before the fat fuck can make any more inane comments. He notes Roxas looking at him as he walks away and celebrates this small victory. It's not that Axel's disliked—he is—but there's only so much you can stand workplace hobnobbing and drunken friendly coitus before the drama snowballs into a deafening, shift-imploding roar. Roxas is...
Slight. Blue eyed. Watchful, always listening. He doesn't smile much, which isn't as necessary for food runners, which in turn is probably what landed him the position. The real money is in serving, of course, but food runners can make decent. Better if they kiss ass. Now there's an exciting prospect. But beyond that, Roxas is careful, acquiescent. Chews the inside of his bottom right lip when thinking. The geek actually raises his hand to ask a question, right there on the expo line with his hand raised up by his cheek.
“Hey.” His table is talking to him, annoyed. “Are you gunna take our order or what, pal?”
Who even says “pal” anymore? “Sure, pal, I'll take your order,” Axel says, smiling his shit-eating grin. Grit teeth, cheeks tight and angry. It's a grin that says Fuck With Me. I Dare You. Remember I'm Handling Your Food. If you've ever been rude to a server, if you've ever talked down to someone you hand your money over to, if you've ever come across as pompous, or bitchy, or demanding... we know who you are. We remember. We have talked shit about you at terminals, on expo lines, after exhausting shifts over beer and liquor. Server doesn't mean servant, you arrogant fuck.
“I'll have the hamburger, well done, which means no pink at all. If there's pink, I won't eat it.”
“Got it. Hamburger. Dead.” Axel underlines WELL DONE in his notepad, circling it until the paper tears under his fury. The other businessmen order predictable things like the salmon in a fresh mango salsa, the halibut with porcini cream, the haddock with lemon caper butter. There are no other orders for hockeypuck hamburgers. When Axel types the order in, he modifies the burger with BURN THE SHIT OUT OF IT. Jac scoffs over his shoulder.
“I've had him before. He's a douche.”
And there it is: you can openly loathe someone's existence, but as a server solidarity is easy to come by. “Right? Jesus Christ, you'd think I'm back there undercooking his shit myself.”
“As long as you keep his Bud Light flowing, he'll tip alright.”
“Thanks,” Axel says. He'll go back to loathing her existence in about five minutes when she does the next entitled, fucked up thing.
It's later, after the rush has died down and the trainees are out on the patio sampling dishes, that Axel has the time to talk to Roxas. He has campers at 603—sleepy sorority chicks with textbooks out, downing Mich Ultras like champs—and nothing else to do except run his check out.
“So, how was your first day?” Axel asks, swiping a piece of asparagus off Roxas' plate.
“Taxing,” Roxas says, scribbling away in a composition book. Roxas: 1, Other Trainees: 0. The rest of them write on the errant blank page in their training manuals. Roxas came prepared.
“I bet,” Axel nods, remembering his own grueling training. Working at a restaurant boasting an enormous menu with exorbitant prices was great for the wallet, but you had to earn your place via exhaustive exams and tedious classrooms. “Callie makes it easy, though, doesn't she?” He shoots the trainer a winning smile and she rolls her eyes. He ducks his head, whispers down at Roxas' hands. “Easy on the eyes, too.”
Roxas surveys the curvy brunette, barely lifting his head from his notebook. “She's alright.”
“Alright? That ass, dude.” Roxas merely shrugs. “Okay, high standards. That's cool.”
“I'm not into anatomy,” Roxas says, pushing his notebook aside, sticking his pen behind his ear. “Are you? Have you ever looked at a vagina and been like, 'Wow, what a sexy vagina.'”
“Well, maybe not a vagina. I've looked at a dick and been like, 'Damn, get that in me now.'”
“Yeah, but are you like attracted to it?”
Axel pauses to think. “I guess I have been. Maybe to a lesser degree than, say, someone's face. Or mind. Or hair. Teeth.”
“You're attracted to teeth?”
“Like, perfect teeth, yeah,” Axel says, reaching for another piece of asparagus. “Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of Bush. Perfect teeth. It's a form of beauty. A well-endowed person is aesthetically pleasing to me as is a good work of art, a delicious piece of cheesecake.”
“Yeah, but are you attracted to them?”
“I'm feeling distinctly shitty about my tastes right about now,” Axel admits. This is like a test or something. One he is performing poorly on.
“Maybe you should,” Roxas shrugs. “An aesthetically pleasing piece of cheesecake can't balance a cultured mind. Or it shouldn't, at least.”
“You're a snob! I'm an equal opportunity patron of aesthetics and carnality.”
“Oh, get a room, you two,” Callie says, rubbing her temples.
“No, no, you're right,” Roxas says. “There shouldn't be any reason a piece of ass and a piece of cake and a piece of my mind can't balance each other in the wild scheme of things.”
“You asked if I was attracted to them, not which carried more value of attraction. I can be attracted to all of them. Maybe not equally. Dick, cheesecake, you.”
Roxas is quiet, pushing shelled edamame around his plate with a fork. “Oh?”
“Yes,” Axel says quietly.
One of the sorority girls from 603 sticks her head out the door. “Do we pay up front, or...?”
Axel sighs audibly and staggers to his feet. “I would be happy to process that payment for you, ma'am.” He walks inside as Roxas raises his hand to ask about whether or not the edamame ships fresh or frozen.
***
Axel wonders if there's etiquette for this sort of thing. We talk on the phone for a couple weeks, then you start working with me, and now... we don't talk on the phone? We talk about work? Previously their conversations ranged from the collective films of Christopher Nolan to the merits of various downtown gastropubs, but would the discussion shift to plate distinctions and manager shit-talking? Gossip about Webster and his newest young, dumb, blonde plaything? Axel clinks an open bottle of Paulaner Oktoberfest against a sweating second, reserved for his favorite phone guest, and crosses his fingers for the former line of conversation. If Roxas even calls at all.
He's just about to turn in for the night, pleasantly buzzing with the remnants of residually sweet, crisp lagers when his phone goes off: an 8-bit rendition of “Perpetuum Mobile.” Something about the ascending cyclical nature of it—playful, sweet—reminds him of Roxas.
“The prodigal guy from the restaurant returns,” Axel says, smiling into his cell.
“Indeed,” Roxas chuckles. “Sorry it's so late; I didn't realize it was customary to go out for post-shift drinks with frazzled newbs.”
“Newbies, seasoned pros; it's customary to blow your nightly income on the soothing pleasures of alcohol at all stages of restaurant industry life.”
“You'd be proud. I had craft beer.”
“No shit? What'd you have? Please tell me you don't consider Blue Moon or Sam Adams a form of craft beer.”
“Hey now. Just because I don't drink often doesn't mean I'm not hip to developing styles of intoxication. I had a Gose. Anderson Valley something or other.”
“Intoxication, my ass! That shit is like 4% ABV!” Axel feels giddy, like he might throw up or buy a case of Anderson Valley.
“It was delicious,” Roxas croons, the clear sound of a can tab being popped. “And I'm chasing it with more beer. I'm practically a beer connoisseur now. Figure I gotta start researching if I ever want to serve.”
“I can teach you a thing or two,” Axel says, running over to his fridge to survey his stock. Craft beer isn't exactly finance-friendly, but sharing his vast, meaningless stores of beer knowledge with Roxas, a real live Roxas in his apartment, dangerously buzzed, was a thing of joy.
There's quiet, happy drinking sounds on the other end of the line. “Thank you,” Roxas says. “Not just... for the beer stuff. Thanks for all of it.”
A weepy, maudlin drunk. How charming. “My pleasure, Roxas. Y'know, buzzed driving is drunk driving. I can always come to you. Via walking. Since I'm definitely buzzing it, too.”
“1125 South Street. Apartment 4A.”
Axel laughs loudly, rubbing his eyes. An eager, clingy drunk. “You live literally right across the street. I can probably see into your window from the front of my building.”
“No way!” Roxas shouts. “Come outside!”
“Hold your horses, Goldilocks. I have to put my axe murderer outfit away.”
“Oh ha ha, motherfucker. I could've totally given you a fake address.”
“Right,” Axel says, sliding on his shoes. “I bet you're standing at the window right now. Clothed in nothing but anticipatory sweat, clutching a can of beer.”
“Come and find out,” Roxas whispers.
“Slut,” Axel says, though the way his heart is thudding in his chest, pants uncomfortable on his body, palms sweaty belies a deeper truth. Is this... nerves? Excitement? He almost locks himself out of his apartment in his haste.
Sure enough, Roxas is waving madly out his window on the fourth floor, can of Guinness sloshing creamy foam down into the street. “Axel!” Roxas shouts into the street and over the phone, flailing. “Can you see me!”
“No,” Axel chuckles. “I can't see you. There is, however, a drunken twelve-year-old falling out a window.”
“Master of comedy tonight, I see,” Roxas says, ducking back inside. “I'll buzz you up. Nice pajamas.”
His flannel pants and white tank combo leave all the girls swooning. Luckily these were freshly laundered as opposed to flaunting their natural, sleep-stale aroma. Axel clutches his 6-pack of Holy City Pluff Mud Porter and jabs the fourth floor button in the elevator with an elbow, trying to quiet his electric nerves. How in the fuck did Roxas live across the street? You'd think he would've run into him at some point in the five years he'd lived here. Then again, a serving schedule was at odds with every other line of work he knew. He typically left for work when people working desk jobs were just clocking out to fight traffic on their way to happy hour.
Chance. Good luck, maybe. Or fate. He knocks a song onto the door of 4A, leans one hand high on the door frame and assembles himself into a vision of seduction, beer balanced on his hip. Footsteps approach, hesitation while Roxas peers through the peephole. The door opens wide, Roxas standing there, breathing.
“Did someone order a good time?” Axel asks, feeling his stomach drop away. All those weeks on the phone, flirting and being suggestive. Seeing him at work with all the right questions. But this... there's something else to this. Beyond the beer he's had and the sleepless ache in his body. The lines Roxas makes in the doorway, backlit by the lamps and a television set to HBO where Rob Stark is being bowed to by his bannermen. There's so much right about this moment, Axel could swear he's lived it before. Somewhere else. In another life.
Roxas carefully removes the porter from Axel's hands, taking it to the kitchen and setting aside two bottles before storing the rest in the fridge. Axel almost forgets to leave the doorframe, nearly tripping inside before shutting the door.
“I figured the Pluff Mud would be a good way to end the night,” Axel babbles in front of the TV. “Middle of the road ABV, not too heavy.” He turns as Roxas approaches him from behind. The light plays on Roxas' features, all shadow and light, his hands unclasped at his sides. There he is again, just breathing. “I—” Axel begins. Roxas finishes the sentence by taking a step closer, placing his hands on Axel's hips. Instinct propels Axel's hands into Roxas' hair, onto his neck. A thumb drifts up to Roxas' cheek, a soft swipe up to his temple, tilting his head back.
“Christ,” Roxas breathes, eyelids lowered as he looks up at Axel.
“I feel like—” Axel says, eyes locked on the lines of Roxas' face—sharp and soft, familiar and fucking devastating. He restrains himself against the moment for as long as humanly possible, savoring the cosmic in between of possibility, the wonder of the What If, until he can't resit the pull any longer. The allure there, the space where their breath mingles, creates a gravitational force that obliterates all pretense and put on charm. There is just Roxas. His mouth, his tongue, his wordless secrets spilling out from behind his perfect teeth. He'd imagined Roxas had a story to tell; he had no idea it would tell him this. Want, yes. Desire, yes. But underneath all that, under the alcohol and the nerves, there was something older and basic. Something necessary.
Fingers slide up under his shirt, feeling up the planes of his back, thumbs trailing up his sides until he laughs. “Ticklish?” Roxas asks against his neck, kissing along his clavicle.
“A bit,” Axel admits, settling them on the outrageously comfortable couch.
“Funny,” Roxas says into his ear, kissing behind it with delightful accuracy. “It feels like I already knew that about you.”
***
Possibly because Axel's never shared a workspace with a significant other, or perhaps new relationship bliss keeps him delirious for 16 hours of every waking day, but turning corners and walking onto the expo line were never previously so exhilarating. Roxas bustling about garnishing dishes, calling for hands, swatting at Axel playfully. Tugging him into the break room for a lingering kiss just out of sight of security cameras and prying server eyes. Entire shifts were exercises in foreplay, one innuendo leading to another, leading to both of them locked in the employee restroom, Roxas propped up on the sink while Axel kisses the stress out of him.
It's new, yes, but it's also that same tang of familiar, the way Roxas cuddles close at his apartment after work to bizarrely sniff his armpits, say “Ew” in that disarming monotone of his before doing it again and again. The infuriating way he makes cereal with a quarter cup of at least three different varieties in an actual mixing bowl with half a gallon of whole milk. “I'm fat,” Roxas says, shoveling spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth while sitting on the table as opposed to a chair, kicking his feet around while Axel blearily shaves off his neckbeard.
“You're not fat,” Axel says, accepting a bite of cereal and frowning at the sugary, crunchy, carb-filled mess.
“Moo” Roxas moos on nights after they close, downing another Terrapin Liquid Bliss while Axel rubs the tension out of his feet. They take turns feet rubbing, climbing up appendages until consonants give way to airy vowels, Roxas' Italian leather couch slick with sweat and spilled beer.
They still talk on the phone sometimes, Axel sneaking a 10 minute break to scarf down dead seared sashimi gone waxy with coagulated soy vinaigrette while Roxas cooks strange iterations of ramen on his day off. Axel finds that he craves it, Roxas' voice crackling on the other end of a line while Swiffer-ing the hardwood floors of his apartment. Roxas attempting phone sex during a particularly dead Tuesday lunch shift while Axel sweats it out in Roxas' bed, aching for the dimly-lit silhouette of his, dare he say it, boyfriend.
“I'm happy,” Roxas says one night after Axel closes the floor and finds Roxas waiting for him in the parking lot, reclined in the driver's seat with Netflix streaming on his phone
“I love you,” Axel responds, surprised at how much he means it, how he feels it down to his marrow, to the center of every chamber in his heart.