The 52nd dimension...

52nd_dimension @ 2009-03-28T20:37:00

2009-03-29T00:56:34Z

title: waaay out there with vampires
by: elisabethe (was lorei)
character: jack sparrow
pairing: jack/BELLA FROM TWILIGHT LOLZ
rating: pg
theme:
notes: lolll read this fic first. this is just a little accessory to it.

The girl had faded hair and very white, sickly skin. Almost green, like she had been vomiting. Small breasts, too. Jack was disgusted. Where were all the women? He wanted a curvy, ready lady, not some desperate little thing looking for some gold.

"Listen, love..." he said, surveying the girl who had just approached him, and offered ten shillings for what she proclaimed to be her virginity. "I'm afraid I can't. Too much for me."

"Five then!" She said it so hurriedly that Jack coughed on his drink, barely avoiding going into a choking
fit.

She bit her lip, and he raised his eyebrows in surprise at the state of her ragged, chewed lips. "I need this."

He sighed. "Why?"

"My boyfriend left. He's somewhere around here...I've been tracking him. And I don't know...I was drawn to you. You must know about him! But you pirates, you all want something...and I've only got my stupid, clumsy body..."

Jack thought this all sounded very crazy. Very unfortunate. No self esteem at all. And nothing for him! Why was this airhead the only one interested in him tonight? And then he thought about a pale young gentleman, the one who he had had, the one who had seemed to really like biting. He was desperate too, and...oh, no, the other half of that freak Edward had come at last.

"Girl, what's your name?"

"Bella." She said it warily - her sex was cheap, but her name wasn't? What kind of idiot, Jack thought, she must be dumber then I am.

"You've really got to let your man go, sweetheart. I have seen him, and he's not missing you at all."

She stamped her foot down and whirled around. He saw the tears in her eyes, but figured it was for the best. First you had to let them go. Then you could get a healthier color, and maybe a better figure. Or however little girls' bodies happened.

And his dear Estella had caught his eye as the girl walked way. There was a women. He leaned back and and waited for her, grinning at last.

"Harassing that little trollop?! Jack Sparrow--" she drew back her hand and Jack braced himself resignedly for the impact. Maybe he shouldn't have let her be so public about what she was wanting... "You deserve that!"

52nd_dimension @ 2009-03-28T20:10:00

2009-03-29T00:12:00Z

10 whores
jack/elizabeth
'freedom'

Elizabeth liked sailing. She liked the ship, even though it was creaky and dirty, and she liked waking up and finding herself surrounded by blue, the water and the sky. She didn't mind that she was still in scuzzy, stinking men's clothes, and she didn't mind most of the company.

She just was worried about Will...

She was standing at the balustrade, thinking about him, when the part of the company she wasn't enjoying slipped his arms around her waist.

Elizabeth did not scream but it was a near thing. "Jack Sparrow, you get off of me!" she hissed. But Jack laughed, resting his head by her ear. "You know what your problem is, love? You're always so uptight."

She would have countered this statement, but his hands were sliding brazenly up her body, and it made concentrating hard. She repeated herself, hissing a little louder - but not enough to attract attention. God, this was embarrassing. "I will ask you again! Jack, what are you--" he had somehow found her nipples through the men's clothes and had taken special care to make sure he brushed them in a way she would notice.

"It's been a week now. You can't still be pretending you don't want me?"

"I want nothing of that!" Elizabeth slapped Jack's hand as it roamed back to her waist, but without much conviction. He grinned, resting on hand right above her pussy, and groping her ass with the other. "I'm--" Oh, it was hard. "I love Will."

"I know you do. And I also know, he's no good for you. In bed." Jack clarified. "We are at sea. We are free from who you love and what is good for me--"

Elizabeth laughed (a little too hoarsely - she could feel Jack's thing against her and for some idiotic reason, it was making her wet) abd shook her head. "You're the mistake! And I won't make it."

"This isn't going to matter later, you can't think like that. Remember how I told you? That night on the island?"

She did, she remembered his words, and his smell - dirty, but strong, good -, the smell of the rum and the salt water...and all these things made her jerk involuntarily, and push against the hand that had made it all the way to her clit.

"This is about freedom. The crew's not watching; they're free too. Your dear bonny boy isn't watching. It may not work out between us, love, but we're free to try."

He had her pulled tight against his chest, and his hands - dirty, drunken, living hands - were toying far too far into her vagina, barely protected as it was by the old canvas pants.

She gasped, and she thought about freedom.

But then Will's face - handsome, dependable, her age, her fiance, for Heaven's sake - swam before her. Will who was suffering for her, Will who would die for her. The image completely killed her desire. She hit Jack's hands with much more conviction, and began to struggle, really fight, for the first time in this encounter. "You can try by yourself."

Jack pulled away, laughing, mostly, she thought, to save face. But he couldn't be nearly as embarrassed as she was - she wasn't sure she didn't want him, and here he was putting her in this position. Talking about freedom. "Well...you can't blame a man for trying."

"Not at all," she replied, simply...and, wiping at her frayed pants to hide the dirt that Jack's probing fingers had left, mentally vowed to get him back using her own sex at some point soon.

52nd_dimension @ 2009-03-24T22:58:00

2009-03-25T02:59:36Z

for kh_drabble this week! i havent updated this badboy in ages :( sorry

anyway riku is todd bowden, also, crazy.

It just - Riku's not hallucinating. None of that shit. Just...cautious. You know. He's seen a lot. He has to be ready.

But he was brushing his hair and something in the corner of the mirror moves. It blinked. But when he turned, ready to fight, there was just the wall, empty and blank and definitely not blinking. Duh.

He walked outside, and the trees rustled secretly. He knew there is no one in them - no lurking dark, no little spies, not in Twilight Town. He still threw a rock, and was unnaturally relieved when some bird flaps out, disgruntled, but looking elsewhere.

He's not crazy, he tells himself. He's not.

Harder to believe it, when he was urgently taking a black crayon to Namine's sketches and nervously scribbling long, jagged slashes, blindfolding the eyes. Taking out every eye.

Harder still when there was a tap on his shoulder and he almost screamed. She smiled blankly and her blue eyes were too big. "There's nobody here," she said, and he worries that she means that in two ways.

"Just being careful," he whispered, not knowing it was out loud. "What if I did see something? Better be safe..."

"It's all in your head," said DiZ, and his brown, scabbed lips lifted in a mirthless grin. "I saw things, too. I saw things, in the dark."

Eyes? Riku wanted to ask. Eyes? Of people judging you, maybe, or the ones you let down? But he bit his lip instead, horrified that he had just been talking to himself. That wasn't normal.

"But--" he stopped himself. It was just a phase, he assured himself, silently. But the...no, but nothing. Just...he was sorta jumpy. He'd get it back. Everything would get under control. Everything would be cool.

Until the next part of the plan.

Until he came to the city, dark and unreal and insane. The city with it's black windows and infinite winding, claustrophobic streets. He stood at the tunnel in-between, and he sized up the city. And, he thought, maybe he knew it.

Just maybe, the Dark City was asleep, but when he delved farther into it, looking over his shoulder every third step, he would know it wasn't dead. Sure...and maybe there were ghosts in every window, too. Maybe when he saw them, they would wake, and see him.

But maybe he wouldn't risk it. If he didn't see anything, there wouldn't be anything. Yeah. Maybe he'd take care of his eyes. Nothing crazy, no gouging them out or sewing them shut. That was the insanity the city's ghosts would push on him. Just - a blindfold.

Just - until they all stopped watching him.

Pairee holds the key to your heart~~

2007-11-25T02:22:19Z

Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: Jack/Jack
Prompt: Disoriented
still 10_whores & a teeney bit crude imhhho...just a little ^^;;

Jack sighed, and gave up rattling the bars. Somebody who hated him -- he didn't have a clue who, exactly, it seemed that just everyone hated him these days -- had ambushed him. He'd woken up in a filthy brig, covered with brackish seawater and the awful, sticky smell of dead fish.

And there was no way out. "Typical." he groused, sitting on the narrow wooden bench nailed to the seaside wall. "They don't even want to tell me what I did this time."

"It's a pity." said the person next to him. "You keep ending up like this, Jacky-boy. Why, why?"

There wasn't anyone else there! He whipped his head around to the left, where the voice had come from, then to the right, where he thought he'd felt someone touch his arm. No one. "I'm hearing voices." he reasoned.

He was kicking his feet around in the puddles and watching the ripples when it happened again. This time the voice came from directly overhead -- "And it gets so boring for us. Really. You've got to be more considerate as to where you end up."

This time, when Jack snapped his head up, he rather wished he hadn't. His own face was scowling down at him, and it was a bit green around the edges.

"You aren't real." he told it bluntly. "You're just a shape in the wood. You're just my indigestion. Go away."

"Why do that, Jacky?" The other Jack pushed his arms through the wood ceiling, and caught hold of the bars to pull himself all the way into the cell. He fell rather ungracefully to the floor, though, and the real Jack snorted contemptuously at him.

"I', not crazy." He reminded the doppelganger. And hey, hey--" he got up, and tore his hat off the sick-looking skin. "I was looking for that." he said, settling it smartly back on his head.

The other Jack shrugged, and pulled a peanut out of his pocket. He sat on the bench and began shelling it idly. "We're so sick of this. You die or you get brigged, sir, and we have to play with you until there's something better for you to do."

Jack stared at him. "What? How long have you been there?"

"You're crazy, Jack Sparrow." said another Jackhead, just visible in the boards of the far wall. "We've only been here since you wanted us."

"Go away." Jack waved his hand at the head, shooing it away. "Now, Jacky one--"

"Me?" The wall asked, interestedly.

"No! The one that got pushed out of the ceiling's, er--" what word did he use for a ceiling birth? Just the usual one, he guessed. "The ceiling's womb."

"Me?" asked the one sitting. "There's another one in the ceiling now."

Jack didn't bother to look up to check the new one. "You. Are you me?"

"Yes. Of course -- who'd you think we were? Mr. Tentacles? Mr. Turner?"

"Then I want you to go away." Jack tried to say it firmly, but the replica-Jack laughed lazily, and twined his hand around a chain that was dangling from the wall.

"If you really did, then we wouldn't be at all. You're just so attention-starved, Jacky, you can't deal with being alone. So you make more of you." He shrugged, and spread his arms wide open. "You're here for you, you see. Only it's a little boring, and you never seem to remember us."

"Were you in Davy Jones' ship?" Jack asked, narrowing his eyes, suspiciously. "I could have used you there."

"We were there." he (the other he, that was, he reminded himself) said, biting into his peanut. "You just don't remember. We don't know why. We don't remember much."

Jack sighed, and sat alongside his double. "Say 'I', mate, instead of we. Then you're not so weird."

"I was always there?"

"You're weird." he told him, raising his eyebrow delicately.

He held up his hand in the gesture for DON'T speak to the wall, which had been about to say, "Well, I'm not." It said nothing instead, and put out it;s little wooden tongue.

Jack didn't see because Jack was experimentally leaning over Jack, kissing him curiously. "I've never kissed myself."

The doppelganger Jack rolled his eyes. "We had sex, you bloody idiot, when you were dead. Or not dead. In the placeyplace, the white place?" Jack shuddered, he remembered there. "Really, your memory's shot to hell an' back."

"I've been in a cell for days, me." he informed Jack. "May I, might I, forget something we did when we were young?"

"Of course. How boring would it be to sit here, and not do anything at all?" he said. He was Jack after all, and, though he was a bit confused, and god-damn wall-Jack was still watching them, Jack decided he liked himself.

"But it'll be I who fucks you, myself." he said.

His clone grinned and countered wonderfully, "Of course, Captain -- or may I call you me? -- as I took you last time."

He hit it a bit; and the sailor that was assigned to watch the brig scratched his head, not sure if it was odder for the prisoner to be hitting the wall or speaking to or -- oh dear God. He covered his eyes quick as could be -- or making love to it.

walking in a winter wonderland!

2007-11-24T22:13:25Z

Title: The Day Fred Weasley Made a Life Plan
Author: Lorei
Wordcount: 908
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Fred Weasley
Character’s Age: 15
Rating: PG for kissing ~~in jest!~~
Warnings: none
Summary: Fred & George hate the cold and they hate school. They do like jokes, though, and being the best, that too.
Disclaimer: I don't own HP.
Author's Notes: N/A

At least the O.W.L. weren't held in the winter, Fred decided. It was already awful that he had to take the silly tests; he didn't need to be freezing when he did. So when O.W.L. prep classes were announced, to be held for seven weeks in December, Fred just laughed.

George and Lee did too, and their other dorm-mates were not amused. Even Ron -- even Ginny was bugging the twins about the prep classes, Percy was just awful about it, and Angelina and Alicia said it was completely irresponsible, and unattractive, too.

Only Oliver Wood didn't seem to care about the O.W.L. prep, and of course he didn't, George muttered, but it wasn't reassuring, because Oliver Wood was mental and obsessed and all that.

"It's our futures, they're saying." Lee threw himself into a common-room chair, scowling. "That if we don't get so many O.W.L.s, we won't get so many jobs."

Fred and George had been waiting all day to show Lee this. "George and I are going to be male prostitutes, see, Lee?" He leaned over to George's armchair, and kissed his twin's mouth.

Lee snorted, and started sputtering with laughter. Some nearby second-year girls screamed, and the boys broke apart, grinning at their successful little joke.

"Seriously, though." Lee said, smirking. "How much did you two like that?"

"Not at all." George said, wiping at his mouth as the audience dispersed. "Fred, you have frog breath."

"I have delicious breath." the boy said, stretching his hands over his head lazily. "But no way will I do that again. No, we were joking about the whoring thing."

"So?" Lee asked, pulling them back to topic. "I want to be a Quidditch commentator forever, and as I'm already the best, there's no way I'm gettin' up in December. But what about you guys?"

Fred and George had nothing for him.

"I think this is starting to be a problem, twin." George said, forcing his way into Fred's bed and drawing the curtains.

"Haven't we already done the gay tease thing enough, for one day? People really will think we're in love." his brother complained, looking at him blurry-eyed.

"Be serious." George said, settling himself on the bed. "This is like Dad's Muggle pal's -- the Magic-Store Man -- kid's SAT, that, er... University? That thing. Remember what happened to that kid?"

"Poor Henry," Fred sighed dramatically shaking his head. "And he never wanted to inherit his Dad's trade, did he? Poor failure."

"Do we that to be us?!"

"Muggles?"

"Failures!!"

"Oh." Fred sighed and fell back on his pillow. That was what they all said, no school, no prep, no O.W.L.S., no life. He hadn't wanted to think about it that way, though..."Well, I dunno, George. You're the smart one. You choose. Freezing in prep class or playing jokes? Which is, yes stupid, but very fun. And what I..." he trailed off. "Like to do..."

George assumed that Fred had shut up in defeat. And he panicked, because he had only crawled into bed with his twin to find an excuse not to succumb to the pressure to go and learn. "I didn't say that--"

"No, shut up!" Fred sat upright and grabbed onto George's hands. "I've got it! We like games, right? Jokes? And fighting for justice, if we've got the chance, like against Slytherin in Quidditich last match--"

"What are you talking about? You're nuts."

"No, no. Listen! We can own a store. We can be the next, the next Zonko's, even! We don't need O.W.L.s for routine business, now, do we?" It seemed so perfect. He hadn't thought of it -- how?

"We have no money." George reminded him. Oh. Right. Maybe it was better not to have thought of it at all?

Well..."But it sounds solid." Fred said, brightly. "Think anyone would nag us if we told them we had a business scheme-- er, establishment, in the works?"

George got it. He always did, in time, Fred thought. He just had to be led a little, poor dumb sap. "They'd think we had it down..." he grinned back at his twin. "They won't talk about their prep classes, hm? And while they're freezing--"

"We're developing jokes. Exactly! And if we get enough, then worrying about the money--"

"Is silly, because if we don't worry, then it'll just come to us, in time."

"Exactly." Fred gave his brother a thumbs-up. "Even if we never get a store, we have an excuse. It's not like we're doing nothing -- and it's doing nothing, that causes failing. Now.."

George tilted his head to the side. He didn't get it this time.

"Get the hell out of my bed, freak!"

The first day of December, Angelina woke up to find that her dorm was completely black. Alicia was groping around somewhere, she knew, because she felt her blanket ripped from her. "Angelina! What is this?? We've got to get to O.W.L. prep, and it's all dark--"

"It's Peruvian Darkness Powder." Angelina said, grumpily casting about for her clothes. "The twins are just abusing it again...they must have snuck it in for their joke shop 'research'..."

"Their what?"

"They're going to fail the O.W.L.s and go found a business. Fred's idea," she rolled her eyes. "Those clowns."

"I'm jealous." Alicia said. "They already know what they're going to do in life!"

Downstairs, Lee tugged back the proto-Extendable Ear, and just shook his head at Fred. "You're a genius."

Fred nodded. "Oh, I know. Now you go. Have fun in class."

He watched Lee go, then joined George by the fire. "How you doing, twin?"

George raised his mug of hot chocolate and nodded. "Enjoying life. Cheers, twin!"

to face unafraid -- the plans that we made --

2007-11-24T07:37:33Z

Title: The Day Fred Weasley Kicked In The Door To Death
Author: Lorei
Wordcount: 786
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Fred Weasley
Character’s Age: 19
Rating: Still very G ♥
Warnings: BOOK 7 SPOILERS
Summary: Fred's at the end, but he just won't fade. Never-ever ♥
Disclaimer: I don't own HP.
Author's Notes: N/A

Fred got up, as soon as he could. Percy -- Percy was in trouble! All jokes aside, the man just could not duel. The twin got up, a little shaky, but okay, and had his wand out, before he realized that the room had gone all white, and that he was completely alone.

He stood still, for a very long second. He listened for the battle and for the cries, and when that didn't come, he listened for anything. He dropped his wand, finally, but that only made a muffled thump-sound on the thick white floor. There was no spell like this, he was sure. He racked his brains as he clawed at the white walls (air?) around him for some sort of curse or attack spell that would make all his sense know only white, but...there was nothing!

It wasn't until Dumbledore spoke that it started to make some sense. "Fred Weasley," the tired voice was old, and very sad. "You brave, unlucky boy."

Dumbledore was sitting on a white-marble version of his headmaster's chair. "Sir?!" Fred gasped, and he sounded girly.

But that was the least of his worries. "OhGodohGod. Sir, not meaning to be rude, but, um, you're, well, you know. Deadeadead."

Dumbledore nodded, not unkindly. "I am. You must understand, Frederick."

"No." The red-head screamed, and he tried to punch out at the walls. They melted under his hands, and it wasn't satisfying at all -- but then, he thought, Dumbledore would have probably faded, too. "I'm alive! I'm alive --" he felt shame, as tears started to prick under his eyelids. He stopped screaming, and spoke quietly, instead, as if to impress the headmaster with the depths of his feeling against being dead. "I'm nineteen years old. I co-own a very excellent joke shop. I'm good at Quidditch. I've got friends -- I've got a family --" his tone was becoming more and more urgent. "My twin, my mother..."

He'd never seen Dumbledore look sadder. And it made him angry. Why was he here, nayway! Why wasn't he just dead and done with it!! "Go to hell." he told the old man. Oh. Oh, but he was so pissed. "I'm not dead. There's no way that I'm dead!"

There was silence, for a long long while. Fred ran about the space, looking for doors, windows, floor, something to show what way was up and what way was down. Something to get him out!

It was probably only a few minutes later that he gave up, exhausted from trying to climb to nowhere. The truth was starting to sink in, anyway, and as it became less inevitable, it became more tolerable. He tried to smile at the headmaster, but it was hard. "And you..you can't help, right?"

Dumbledore just smiled sadly. It was not Fred Weasly's task to die. And yet..."There's nothing I can do." he said, simply. He was not sure how long he could maintain himself there, in the funny place between dead and just-alive, and he was really there to wait for Harry.

Fred grimaced, but he didn't scream again. "Then I have to go in a bit?" The old man nodded; Fred just felt bad for his mother. It wasn't her fault, but she'd blame herself..."Can I tell them anything? Mum, George..?"

"There's no way that I can tell anyone anything. I'm very dead, you see." This earned a wry chuckle from the boy. "I expect Harry Potter in a bit." the headmaster informed him. "But he will have the chance to go back -- I can give him a message for you."

"Alright." Fred didn't ask why that specky runt could live. It made sense, sort of, and besides, what would questioning it do for him? And the afterlife was waiting..."Headmaster, have him tell Mum I love her, I live her so much, and nothing's her fault. Oh! And that 49% of WWW -- that's my joke shop, y'see -- WWW's stock is to go to her. Almost enough to control George. And George, that I want his first kiddie, named for me. He knows I looove him." He put up his fingers in a V-sign, that silly American symbol for peace. "Okay?"

Dumbledore returned the peace gesture, and both found it to be immensely amusing.

Still, there was one more question Fred had to ask. "What's it..like, sir? What's next?"

Already, the thin outlines of a plaster door were materializing before him. Already, it was time to go.

Dumble shook his head. "I do not know. It's something very different, for very single person."

Fred nodded, and was scared for just a second more. Then he laughed, and said, "It had better be a fight. And a damn good one, too!"

Then Fred Weasley kicked open the door to death, and went in swinging.

Samo and Grace, how long's it been?

2007-11-09T22:50:47Z

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REN~~! ♥
Riku/RepRiku with the prompt of 'stray cat', here interpreted very metaphorically.

He woke up cold and wet, and for a long, terrifying second, he couldn't remember who he was. It came to him, though -- Riku but not RIKU, and he sighed in relief as he struggled up from the dirty pavement.

He didn't have many memories left, and he was convinced if he lost the few that still seemed true -- a little girl drawing a picture of him, a man leering over him, amused by his own genius in creating a little toy that could walk and talk and think on it's own, and above all, being a jealous island boy named Riku -- then he'd die, or break down, and whatever was inside of him -- mechanical heart, mechanical soul -- would be lost, and he'd end up like the sad Heartless monsters and Nobodies that crawled through the streets of this town.

"That won't happen," Riku hissed, as he made his way back to the empty alley he'd been living in. "Never. Never. Not to me."

He was afraid to go into the buildings. He knew, he knew that the long-dead memory-ghosts left inside the abandoned offices and hotels and homes would overwhelm him. He'd get lost in their memories and forget his own...

Besides, everything he had fit under the rotting canvas awning, anyway. There was a sheet, once white but now closer to black, what with all the grime and dirt it had picked up, and bundled up in it were a half-dozen syringes, and the long glass cylinder he'd stolen from somewhere he didn't remember. The cylinder held an eerie blue liquid, -- it was a compound of the other Riku's memories, DNA, along with his experiences. Everything that the Replica was. And when he shot the it into his veins, he could remember a little better, even though many of the memories might not have been his. Maybe he didn't need it, but it was safe to be the other Riku, because it meant he was someone. Sometimes he could pretend that he was Riku, that he was on the island, that he was a person on his own.

It was always so nice to pretend, but eventually, his reality caught up and the liquid stopped working. He didn't know what he would do when it all ran out...

but every time he depressed the needle, he felt more confident about finding the exit from the Dark World. And he didn't care if his mind or body broke in some other world, so long as he knew he wouldn't become one of the pathetic, gruesome monsters.

...that's right, he guessed, as he settled himself under the awning again. That's why he'd woken up out there. "I was trying to escape..." he said slowly, then irritably, "I must have fainted or fallen or something." He scowled and was about to berate himself for his own weakness, when he heard something new.

It wasn't the skitter-step of Heartless claws or the dry, bizarre slither-sound of the Dusks in the rain. It was the footstep of a human being...he got up, hostile, ready to kill if it was another one of the scientists, or their Nobodies.

It wasn't them, though. It was the other Riku -- the real Riku, he thought, grimacing -- and he seemed just as surprised as the Replica himself was.

"You died, though." Riku said, bluntly. His hair was growing out and he looked like he'd grown a lot in a short time. And he looked much older then he had been before...

Replica said nothing. He didn't think he had the strength to create his weapon, if he could even remember how it was done.

But Riku didn't seem to want a fight. "How long have you been here?" he asked, and the Replica was surprised to hear maybe a note of concern in the original's voice.

"I don't know." he said. "Since you..." the memory was gone! What was the last thing he'd done?! "We did fight, didn't we?" he couldn't help the note of panic that wormed it's way into the question. He'd had that memory earlier, maybe even that same day..!

Riku looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry.." he started, but his eyes were pitying and Replica hated that.

"Don't feel sorry." he growled. "It's none of your business what I am."

Real thing seemed taken aback, but eventually..."I didn't mean to kill you." Riku said, finally. "But I did. How are you here? Or, you're just another ghost...?"

"What, you mean like the memories? The ones in the buildings?" Riku hissed back. "Oh, no. I'm real. I don't know what you did, or why I'm here. I don't remember much, not even my name, sometimes, but I know that my existing has got nothing to do with you!"

It was surreal, looking into his own eyes, and the original must have felt the same way, because he turned his gaze away first. "Fine." he said, brusquely. "But I'm not going to leave you here."

"I don't need you."

"I saw you just now! You were laying in the gutter. Drowning. I don't know how you came here -- your heart must have come here, and you after it, I don't know. But if I left you, you'd just die faster, wouldn't you?"

Riku had an uncomfortable feeling, that no matter what he said, the other boy would counter it. He couldn't argue against himself, he knew. Especially as he wasn't really himself even on the best of days.

The real Riku didn't need someone to come along with him. But his Replica looked awful -- and he couldn't think of someone who shared his face and his memories lost in the city, fading, dying. It was almost like condemning himself. So... "If you come with me," he said at last, grudgingly, "I can keep telling you who you are."

Replica didn't understand. "Why? I'm not your problem."

"But it's the right thing, isn't it? I can't leave you." Riku was talking more to himself then to his double, but he still offered his hand. The Replica hesitated -- wanting to insist, I can take care of myself -- but after a moment, he took it and let himself be led, away from his drug-memories and his weakness.

"I can watch after you, and..." He smiled a little. The Replica didn't know. "besides, It's not so bad to have company. Even if it's with someone I didn't think I liked."

The smaller boy grinned at this. "I don't like you, either." But at least...he didn't have to worry about remembering his name; the other could do that for him. Real Riku wouldn't let someone that was nearly-him be devoured by the Heartless. Being found and remembered was something, too...meant he was something away from Riku and away from the rain and needles. Meant he'd really been someone individual this whole time...

"Ironic that you found me, just when I was being you."

Riku didn't understand, but the Replica didn't mind.

the headaches will come but at least you can breathe

2007-11-08T22:49:43Z

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Pairings: Riku/Roxas, Axel + Roxas-ish
Wordcount: 4679
Warnings: Character death, sex, blood, burning and blisters and squick like that, abuse of two or three keywords like whoa and a cameo by my high school. It's awful! :0
For kingdom100, #91, Dangerous. But I think I got carried away...XD;

"She was red and dripping with it, they had drenched her in the very secretness of blood...and her thought was colored a ghastly purple with her revulsion and her shame...she kept trying to get the blood off and thinking she'd never get the blood off" - Carrie, quoted selectively.

"You don't listen, no, you don't listen, you silly little girl." - Cake Bake Betty lyric

Every building in the Dark City was empty and every building was different. This one had an old sign over it's doors -- Live to Learn and Le, carved, shallowly now, in old gray stone. The end of the sentence was rubbed out by the constant rain, but Roxas didn't mind. The words were trite to begin with.

Riku was hiding inside this building, and Roxas could tell, because there were some silver strands caught in the doorway and there was some Darkness that didn't belong in Nothingness, eating it's way across the rotting wood doors. Power left behind in some hasty retrat...

Roxas smiled, and kicked the doors in.

It was a library. The books smelled like mildew and mold, but they sat still on their shelves, waiting for the dead schoolboys and girls to pick them up and study them. Roxas wanted to tell them that they could stop waiting, that they could rot and die and lose their words, because he couldn't read and didn't want to, anyway.

He was about to, when a gated staircase caught his eye. Just a black gate over a little entrance, but when he pushed against it, it opened. Like it had been left unlocked...

It was a sorry way to fend against your enemy, but then, Roxas wondered who else Riku had to talk to besides him, and thought he understood.

Upstairs was drafty and damp. There was an old loft, and there was brickwall behind the broken glass windows. There was a balcony that overlooked the library. And there was a smoke door, and beyond it was another staircase.

Roxas went down it, of course. There was an alcove under it, folding tables and a hole in the floor...and a tiny doorway in the wall, it's door ripped off and propped up against the tables.

He distinctly heard someone humming.

"--Who's there?" The familiar voice demanded, and Roxas giggled, delighted with himself as he pushed over the tables and crawled through the little space.

"Found you, Riku. Did you think you could hide?"

Tiles that glistened pretty in the moonlight, and there was a black ceiling. Roxas could see the dim outline of a filthy toilet, and the door, also ripped off, stood under the slit window. The words -- Helter skelter...
I will won't YOU?" -- were scrawled across it carelessly.

Riku was sitting on the edge of the tile floor, almost a part of the black black walls. "I wouldn't hide from you, Roxas." he said, quietly. Roxas wondered if there was maybe the faintest trace of irony there...

"Yeah?" Roxas sat opposite him. "You keep moving, all around this city. I thought you liked me. I thought we were friends." He pretended to pout and was pleased to see Riku scowl.

"We're not, friends." he said, tersely.

"Then what are we?" Always Roxas asked. But there never was an answer...he smiled and wondered if maybe Riku loved him. That's how the boy acted, anyway...

"Give me your hand." Riku said, ignoring the question entirely. Roxas did so, but cringed as Riku worked the glove off.

"I don't like this." he said. "I don't like this."

"You did before." Riku put two fingers in his mouth, sucking on them slowly. It had felt wet and dirty and shameful before and it still did, but it was also coupled with the strange sick-feeling of his soul trying to stir and his body trying to react, and Roxas liked the non-feeling as much as he could like anything. He even gasped when his hand was released, his body frustrated and his fingers spit-slick.

"But I still wish you wouldn't." He wasn't very forceful about it, though, and Riku just laughed.

"It's not so bad to touch. You say it's dirty, but..." The blindfolded boy said, "Just because your castle is so antiseptic and empty doesn't mean that it's clean, you know."

Right. The Castle That Never Was discouraged sex and discouraged bare skin and discouraged passion. But even if Roxas could have put the bizarre feeling of having never been hugged, or even touched by another's bare skin, and then having another start out doing filthy sex things to him into words, Riku would not have understood.

The closest Roxas could get was to say, challengingly, defensively, "You wouldn't know. You've never been vulnerable..."

But maybe that was enough. Riku's mouth opened in surprise, but then he smiled, for maybe the first time Roxas remembered..."Not to you."

"Yeah, so..?"

"What do you want?"

Roxas was taken aback. But he thought he knew. "Your eyes. I want to see your eyes..."

Riku declined his head, just enough to show the black tie that showed through his hair. Roxas hesitated for a moment...but then he took hold of the knot and pulled it out. The blindfold came away in his hands.

He wondered if Riku's eyes were decaying and blind. Or if they were idiot and uncontrolled and ugly or...

They were a cold aqua blue, almost silver in the white light. They were honest and clear and incredibly honest. "There.." Riku said, though his voice was just a whisper. "Is this the same thing?"

He didn't know. But when Riku kissed him, tentatively, he allowed it, and he tried his very best to enjoy it.

Then Riku pulled away, and indicated the toilet that sat disused in the corner. "Sit there," he said, "I'll show you something."

Roxas complied, and once he was seated, Riku began working his pants down. Never, ever, had Roxas allowed another to see him undressed; he didn't even like to look at his own body. Nakedness was bad and feeling was unnatural...

Riku reached up, and slid his fingers into Roxas's mouth, and they tasted like dirt. Roxas licked them slowly, though, painfully aware of how his body was stirring. It was exciting and dreadful, giving Riku this power over him...exciting and embarrassing and then there was no choice but to admit that he liked the feelings that Riku was giving him.

When Riku judged his fingers to be wet enough, he withdrew then from Roxas's mouth and reached around to slide one digit, slowly and deliberately, into Roxas's ass. He hissed, and shifted uncomfortably, but then Riku dipped his head and began sucking on the Nobody's half-erection, and Roxas moaned involuntarily. The soft heat around his dick distracted him from the two fingers that were pushed inside him to join the third, and he whimpered as he became harder, as his body started building up to -- building up, to what?

He caught hold of Riku's hair, and it was damp and rough against his ungloved hand. He pulled on it harder as he got closer and as the fingers thrust ever farther -- and then something broke or exploded inside of him, and he came, gasping and panting as he did.

Riku pulled out his fingers and wiped away the white cum that was dribbling down his face. "I told you." he said, smirking. "See? It's not bad at all..."

"But that's not how it's really done, is it?" Roxas asked. "You didn't get a chance to...you know..." he trailed off, awkwardly.

"Next time." Riku said, shrugging as he pulled himself up.

"That's right." Roxas said, comprehension dawning. He grinned, and giggled cheerfully -- "It's not like you can leave now."

--

But later, much later, he wondered if Riku had ever affirmed that statement. Still, it was irrefutable, and almost comedic, when Riku said something to the negative. "What do you mean, you're leaving?" Roxas was laughing as he repeated Riku's words. "You can't leave here!"

Riku had been living in a small, wrecked apartment, nowadays. Roxas had come to play with him for maybe the millionth time -- teasing him for not having any Light inside, letting himself be kissed and whispered to and reveling in the way Riku's eyes were brighter when they fell upon Roxas's -- and now the sheets were disarrayed and dirty. But Riku had gotten up, and as soon as he was dressed, he ended the silence abruptly by saying, "I'm leaving now."

And Roxas didn't understand.

"You're not." he said, again, pulling his own coat on -- though as he'd become almost accustomed to the feeling of his hands being bare, he neglected his gloves. "Where would you go without me?"

Riku shrugged one shoulder, but he lifted something from the crumbling bedside table -- his blindfold. He drew it over his eyes and Roxas didn't understand!

"I love you." he said, but he had already opened a door to the Darkness.

"I know you do. That's why you can't leave." Roxas said, but he was worried, suddenly, and he remembered, or thought he remembered, Riku being less attentive to his every word, Riku being more and more withdrawn, Riku thinking of someone that wasn't Roxas, lately.

"I can." Riku's sadness was hollow, oh. "Sora needs me, Roxas. I won't bring you to him, but--"

They'd talked about Sora. He was a friend of Riku's, but he was asleep, and dying. Besides, Riku had said many times that Roxas was much more understanding of him, and that he'd never want to touch Sora the way he touched Roxas, anyway.

Roxas sneered. His Keyblades snapped into being and he approached Riku slowly, his eyes narrowing. "Why does he need you?"

"I can't tell you -- you wouldn't like to know. But believe me, you don't need me, Roxas."

"Neither does he!" He swung a blade at Riku. The boy dodged it easily, but Roxas had been aiming for the portal, anyway. It closed as Oathkeeper cut through it. "But I want you." he smiled at Riku, because the boy was standing silent now, and his mouth was turned down worriedly. "He doesn't."

"That..that doesn't matter." Riku was lying. "He still needs me."

Roxas was trying to understand, he really was. He had a best friend, too, and he guessed if Axel needed him for something, he'd do it. But if Axel wasn't around...of course. Roxas smiled widely, still holding his blades laxly. "I know how to take care of it!" he said, brightly. "I'll kill him. And then he won't need you anymore!"

Unexpectedly, Riku was not pleased to be rid of this obligation to Sora. He was angry. "You know who Sora is." he said, slowly, and his own Keyblade slowly materialized in his hand. It hadn't been turned on Roxas for such a long, long time..."He's your heart! How could you even think to kill him?!"

Roxas froze. "What do you mean..." he whispered. "My heart?"

"You're the same as he is." Riku said, miserably. "His Nobody."

"No, I'm not. That's impossible; my heart is lost, and I don't want to find it."

"That's why I won't make you." Riku was absolutely being nonsensical. Hearts died when they were lost, but Sora was asleep. Riku was clearly just lying -- bullshitting a nasty story to get away from Roxas.

"I let you touch me." Roxas hissed, attacking for real this time. "You're as good as mine and I'm to be yours. Isn't that how it works!"

"Oh..." Roxas couldn't tell what Riku meant. It was that damned blindfold! "No, Roxas, not always. I shouldn't have--"

"But you did--" Roxas bit out. He was stronger and he had Riku on the defensive. The boy was forced into the narrow hallway, with no time to create another portal. "So it's too late. I love you now. And you can't leave me."

Their sword clashed, and locked, against each other. But Roxas couldn't tell if Riku was looking at him or not. "You don't love..." Riku muttered. "I'm sorry, I am, but you -- can't -- !!"

Roxas had thrown his weapons away and gotten under Riku's guard. He gave the boy one furious kiss, and his hands went up to Riku's chest, and then he pushed out.

It gave him an angry satisfaction to watch Riku falling down the stairs, landing sprawled on the next landing like a broken doll. The moonlight from the broken window above him illuminated his face, which was oddly slack and dull.

He deserved it!

Roxas suddenly thought he understood why betrayal was what the Organization most feared. It hurt to be betrayed -- and for the first time, the Nobody wondered if maybe he'd betrayed the Castle by spending so much time out of it, spending so much time on a human being who was already tired of him.

He had. He'd make it up, though. Just as soon as he dealt with Riku --

His Keyblades disintegrated as he ran down the stairs. "You really were going to leave me.." Roxas muttered. Riku had landed in a half-upright position, his head and back resting against the wall, Roxas though. "I'm going to hurt you for it. I don't know if we can be the same again...lying about my heart like that when you know I don't have one."

Riku didn't answer and Roxas smirked, pleased that the boy was at least listening. "But I know you won't do it again." He sat down before the boy so he could place a hand on Riku's heart, wondering if the organ would be pattering faster now, the way it did when they had sex, or slower, with guilt. "You know your heart is enough for...us both..."

his voice trailed off as the sick realization came over him -- Riku's heart wasn't beating at all.

"Riku?" he asked, smiling a little. "Riku, that's funny." he tried to giggle obligingly, but it was hard. "That's funny, but stop now!"

He took the boy's shoulders, intending to shake him, but they were too heavy, and when he pulled away...Riku slumped forward. He'd been held up by the large, square pane of glass that had fallen from the window directly above, but now that he'd shifted, it protruded at a weird angle from where it was embedded grotesquely in his skull and spine.

Roxas remembered very well how he'd come up one night, but had almost been cut by the scattered window glass. He'd scowled and propped the biggest piece up so it was out of his way...

"Oh." he said, realization sweeping over him. "You must have landed on this, huh?"

Riku didn't answer, but he wasn't dead. He couldn't be. "I'll get it out of you." Roxas cooed. "You'll be just fine..."

He seized the pane with his bare hands, but was careful not to grip the bare, jagged edges directly as he tugged the glass out.

With the glass came bits of hair and bone and brain that Roxas hadn't anticipated. But more then that was the liquid that gushed forth from Riku's back and head. It was pooling around Roxas's legs and it splattered on Roxas's face but most of all, it got on his hands, his hands he'd left bare.

Roxas had never liked the feeling of Riku's cum when it dribbled down his legs or got too much in his mouth. But that was nothing compared to the feeling of the red liquid winding it's way down his wrists and across his forearms.

He felt sick, and then he was, vomiting thin, white bile over Riku's corpse and his own hands.

He didn't mean to leave the boy like that, but he couldn't stay like that.

--

He went to his best friend's room. It was the only place that made sense and Axel was the only one who would care that the horrific, secret stuff that was supposed to be hidden in Riku was now all over him.

He held out his hands, and heavy drops fell from them to splash across the floor. "Axel..." he moaned, "What is this? It's gotten everywhere, oh..."

Yes, that was right. Axel smiled and he knew. "Oh, you burn me, Roxas, you do. It's blood and you've gone and gotten it all over yourself."

"I didn't mean to." Roxas said. He took a tentative step towards Axel. "He hated me. He was going to leave. Oh, I didn't know..."

"I told you not to let him touch you." Axel was all gentle reproving smiles as he motioned for Roxas to come closer. "And look, he's gotten you dirty."

Axel had told him, a long time ago, not to mess with Riku. That the boy was dangerous and Dark -- but he'd insisted, foolishly, that Axel was wrong, that Riku loved him, that Riku was on his side, and that it wasn't so bad to be touched, anyway. But now he thought that Axel had been right all along.

He felt sorry, because he'd gone and made such a mess, of Riku and of himself. Mostly of himself. Riku couldn't feel the stuff creeping along his arms, tracking it's sticky hot way into the crooks of the elbows and the backs of the knees. "Is there a way to get it off?" Roxas asked, refusing to look at his gore-streaked hands. "...and does it hurt?" he added, belatedly.

"Hurt, how do you mean?"

"I feel like my skin should be ripped off." he explained. "Or soaked. The stains won't come out easily. Look!" He shrugged his coat off, and his shirt followed. His forearms were streaked with Riku's -- what was it? -- "Blood." Axel said, helpfully -- blood, and it had splattered over his jaw and neck and it was running down his chest and back. "And there's more. It's disgusting and it isn't mine..." His voice cracked, despairingly, but his tear ducts were shriveled over and dry and useless.

But Axel knew. Roxas was lucky, so lucky to have a best friend..."It will hurt." the older Nobody took off his gloves, which was very strange..."There are two ways to get clean. Clean it with your own blood, then wash it all away with water, or with fire. I can only give you one. And Demyx doesn't know how to cleanse without drowning."

"Anything." Roxas said, without hesitating. "It's sticking and it's running..."

Axel caught hold of Roxas's hands, but his own hands remained bone-white. It wouldn't stain Axel, of course. He hadn't ever done anything to deserve the filth. He was pure. He sat down on his thin white bed and dragged Roxas onto his lap.

Roxas wasn't surprised to see a knife in Axel's hand. "Don't make it hurt too much." he moaned.

The knife cut deep into his palm and he screamed. It dug in too deep, and it cut right through some vein -- he tried to close his fingers over his other hand, but Axel pried them apart and cut that one, too. Blood gushed from Roxas's palms and it was icy and fetid with stagnation.

"Why -- why do I have it -- ?" he gasped. Axel's hands caught his slit fists, the cuts ill-protected by the unhindered cage of his clenched fingers.

"We all do." Axel hissed. One leg wrapped about Roxas's waist, even though the child hadn't even tried to run. "It just doesn't move in us, cuz we don't have hearts." He pressed the fists over Roxas's eyes. "Open your hands," he commanded. "You've got to let your blood run over his."

Roxas did so. His hands shook and they hurt, but -- the blood that ran from his palms flowed evenly, and cold. It covered the eyes that had seen too much and the mouth that had been violated so many times. It ran, freezing, over his neck and torso -- his dark blood covered up all the spider-tracks of Riku's blood and washed them away.

When Axel released his hands, Roxas was sobbing tearlessly. Not for the pain -- that had dulled to a throbbing ache -- but for the joy that came from the knowledge that his blood was pure as his best friend's ever was. It was pure and cold and uniform and it was alright to have it in the bleach-white castle.

"But there's more.." he said, worriedly. "On my feet."

Axel understood. "We'll clean that off the same way."

He gestured for Roxas to stand up. The boy did, and Axel took the sheet from the bed. Riku's blood, no matter what the effect they had on Roxas, meant nothing to Axel, so it did not stain his hands -- but Roxas's blood was the most important, the only thing that Axel had to protect, and it was all over the sheet, leaving wet and red blossoms were it spread.

"I can't see where it is." Axel reminded Roxas, as the boy sat down on the second sheet. Roxas understood, but he held up his hands pitifully.

Axel nodded and knelt before his friend. He pulled off Roxas's boots, then started, unhurriedly, on the pants. The boy squirmed, uncomfortable, and he flinched where ever Axel's bare hands touched his exposed skin. He deliberately brushed his hand against Roxas's groin, and smiled when Roxas whimpered. "He won't do that to you anymore though, will he?" he asked. "You wouldn't let him if he could."

Roxas nodded. "Of course not. After he got his cum and blood all on me."

"Don't remember it." Axel advised, as he pushed the blond down to lay on the bed, and then bound the bloody wrists to the headboard with the sheet he'd removed.

"Why..?"

Axel shoved the end of the sheet into Roxas's mouth. "The next cuts hurt more. But I don't want you running away -- it's good for you, but if you knew what was good for you, this wouldn't have happened, right?"

Right. And the sheet..."That's so you don't bite your tongue."

Roxas's shins had gotten bloody, too, probably from kneeling in the pool around Riku. Axel didn't know. But he was revolted, by how ghastly the blood smelled and by how it clung to Roxas.

He had to get rid of it quick. Or it would stain through Roxas and the child would never, ever be able to forget Riku. They'd be conjoined, forever, and Axel didn't want that.

He cut identical gashes below the knees. The younger Nobody's blood flowed down them, obligingly, and even though Roxas was trying to scream, was gagging on the goddamned sheet as he kicked his legs, helplessly trying to staunch the bleeding, he was becoming clean again.

Axel caught onto Roxas's ankles and held them down against the bed. He was a good friend because he could be patient as Roxas took his time healing. He would be patient and wash Riku so thoroughly from Roxas, it would be as though the darkling had never existed.

Finally, Roxas stopped struggling. He lay quite still, and when Axel pulled the sheet from his mouth, it was very nearly bitten through. "But not bloody..." Roxas said, proudly, if not faintly. "I didn't bite my tongue. I can deal with this."

"Of course you can." Axel said. "You brought it upon yourself, didn't you?"

"Yes. But I'm very nearly clean. And you forgive me, don't you, Axel?"

The redhead was not so cruel as to withhold forgiveness, and he told Roxas this reassuringly.

He reached into his coat pocket, though, and drew out a bottle of kelly green potion. "Drink this. You've got to close the cuts, now, or something'll get in and infect you..."

Roxas drank it obediently. It was bitter, but it washed away the burning yellow taste the bile had left in his throat. The gashes knitted themselves shut and, when they were perfectly healed, he indicated the blood that was all over his body now, clotting and streaking him bright-bright scarlet. "Now what?" he asked, eagerly.

"It all gets burned off. You just relax and let me take care of it, huh?" He smiled and put the sheet back in. Roxas gave him a questioning, almost irritable look, but he shook his head. "It would be perfectly understandable if you bit your tongue right off. But I really don't want that."

The fire came naturally from his fingertips, and it danced excitedly along his hand. Just a little, though -- just enough heat to burn through blood and the single polluted layer of skin.

His hand was open when he placed it on Roxas's chest, and he drew it all the way across in one clean motion.

Roxas seemed to want to say something, but Axel thought he knew -- This doesn't hurt at all!

"Give it time, give it tiiime..." Axel singsonged. "Burns don't hurt till a little bit after." The blood vanished as his hand crossed it, and the skin began to swell up, changing Roxas's skin to fat yellow boils that were filling with pus and water.

As Roxas's body began to realize it had been burned, the boy began to protest it. He kicked and tried to rip his hands away from the headboard, but Axel forced himself to keep going slow. It wouldn't do to miss a spot.

After his chest, Axel burned the blood off Roxas's hips and legs, and he did not differentiate between those and more sensitive spots. After all, the boy's cock was the dirtiest part, the part that Riku had taken and abused, knowing full well that he would be leaving Roxas, in time...

Roxas didn't seem to appreciate how Axel was being so conscientious. His screams were muffled and pained and he tried his hardest to rip away -- but Axel was stronger, and heavier, and he held him down easily. Besides, he was determined to see it through...

When Axel came back up, running his hands underneath Roxas, cleaning his ankles and ass and spine, though, he wasn't struggling so hard, and there was a dull, tired look in his eyes. And oddly...there were tears on his face. "You shouldn't be able to cry..." Axel said, displeased, but Roxas seemed incapable of answering.

Maybe that was better, Axel mused, because Roxas wouldn't remember the rest of his surgery. And now he could just take his time. He touched Roxas's neck gently, then, just for the hell of it -- knowing it was going to be anesthetized, anyway -- he pressed his lips to Roxas's, playfully, remembering back to a Somebody life where there were colors other then white, and it was okay to be intimate sometimes.

Roxas's hands took the longest time. He had to burn them more then he would have liked, because the blood on them was thicker and starting to cake over. Each finger had to be done separately. Arms, then, and --

He'd saved the face for last. His best friend would wake up with a perfectly new skin, and no recollections of what it was like to feel. And then they'd stay forever as Nobodies, never hurting or aging or loving, and they'd always be best friends. Riku and Sora and the old man and the worlds...would never come between him and Roxas's perfect, brand-new baby face. Never!

The face was covered in blisters when Axel thought to seal over the tear glands. He had to hold open the eyes, and run his pinky finger behind each of the swollen eyelids so delicately. But he felt the glands eventually, and burned them with a certain kind of specialized glee.

He might have been a surgeon; Roxas's dark blue eyes hadn't burned at all.

--

Then he set about slitting the blisters and ripping off the dead skin. It would take quite a while...

--

When Roxas woke up, his skin was new and painfully sensitive. He looked eerie, with his skin tough and pink and scabbing on his hands. But everyone was so pleased, to see he'd come back to them for good. And they all assured him that it would get better in time.

He told them that he was sorry, he'd turned his thoughts from their goal...

and they laughed and shook their heads and said it wasn't a problem at all.

There was a point, though, he whispered to Axel, during the surgery, when he thought he'd been crying. Even though the ducts weren't supposed to work without a heart. And more confusing, he wasn't crying from the pain. He was crying for his hope, or his heart, or for some boy's corpse. Why?

Axel said that no such thing had happened, and not to worry about it.

So he tried to forget about it, but sometimes when he closed his eyes, he thought could feel small, water-filled blisters pushing against the eyeballs, felt them growing fat with hot, dirty tears. And he was afraid, because he knew that one day they would break and release the tears down his face, just like the cum, just like the blood.....

Like this, (like this?)

2007-11-08T04:22:42Z

Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: Beckett/Jack
Prompt: Calligraphy
I think this could be PWP :/ It's only 560~ words and about half of it's sex. But then, isn't sex really the point of 10_whores? XD

Hiss, hiss. The fire spits again and it's going out. It's cold and Jack shivers, but that bitch, goddamn Beckett, is smiling at him across the room.

"Creepy bastard..." Jack says, trying to grin, even though he's tied up a naked and he's probably going to have his throat slit soon.

"In a moment." Cutler Beckett isn't quite done with his paperwork -- piles and piles of crisp white parchment, all neatly written in his own distinctive hand -- but he blows out the candle anyway, and trusts to the dim firelight to be enough for this filthy pirate he's captured.

His cabin lurches as the sea rolls, but Jack Sparrow is still firmly trussed to his bed. "A captured, tragic bird..." Beckett says, liking how the words are almost poetic. "You're filthy, Jack Sparrow, a sinner and a thief and I should kill you now."

Jack knows how serious this is, but it's a different kind of fear when Beckett, instead of producing a pistol or a hangman's warrant, runs his cold pale fingers down his face, before pressing them against his lips.

It's not just fear, it's also revulsion and confusion, especially when Beckett worms his fingers inside his mouth and tells him to suck. Suck, or be shot now.

A poker sits in the dying fire, and the brand affixed to the end of it glows red hot. Jack eyes it, apprehensively, but says it anyway, when the fingers are removed -- "Never figured you for a fag."

"You're tasteless." Beckett tells him, "And that is why you're no better then a pirate." He puts his fingers in his own mouth, and Jack feels sick. Beckett's clearly getting off on this.

Then the little Lord is on the bed, kissing him, his tongue forcing it's way inside his mouth. Beckett slides one spit-slicked finger inside of him, then another. It's uncomfortable and strange, but the man whispers, "Your life is in my hands. I could kill you, pirate, but if you're good now, I won't."

Jack can live with being violated, but, he thinks with black amusement, he can't live without a head.

Besides, as Becket's fingers start to move in a quick rhythm, Jack starts to get used to it and even not to mind it. He's surprised to see that he's getting hard, but Cutler isn't...

"That's right." the man's breath is hot and lewd against Jack's neck, but the pirate has other things to concentrate on, as the fingers slide out and Beckett's own dick replaces them. It hurts and it's unnatural, but it's not entirely painful...which may be more embarrassing. The lord wraps his hand about Jack's half-erection, bringing him harder and harder as he pumps his hand in time with his thrusts.

It's a pattern soon, efficient and neat and dull as the parchment and the pretty letters, and even though Jack's groans are carnal and base and humiliating, Beckett is tired of this act as the pirate comes, dirting his hands. He pulls away, unfulfilled, but unmindful of it. He stands, and does up his pants, his lip curling as he regards Jack. "You enjoyed that, did you, pirate?"

Jack scowls and won't acknowledge it.

"I did for a time." Beckett said, sighing. "But in the end, Jack Sparrow, you're boring, aren't you? Just a captured pirate..." he grins, as he withdraws the branding iron from the low, flickering flames. It's just hot enough to use...and he smiles a little, because causing pain was never boring. "Another pirate who will bear my mark."

52nd_dimension @ 2007-11-03T17:14:00

2007-11-03T21:28:26Z

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Pairing: Riku/Axel, implied Axel + Roxas
Wordcount: 1705
Warnings: Oral sex and cutting.
Summary: Riku is looking for Roxas, but he's been hidden somewhere and Axel's less then helpful~
...This is not the fic I sat down intending to write :/ Oh, well.

Axel was first conscious of the funny way his arms were bent. They were stuck behind his head and they hurt but when he tried to right them out they came up against something cold and heavy. He was stuck. Or bound, was more likely --

yeah. Because he was naked, too...Axel wasn't surprised when the first thing he saw when he forced his eyes open was that kid. "Hey there, Riku..." he said, grinning. "What's this?"

"What, you don't remember? I beat you. Caught you, now." The boy said, returning a twisted grin. "And if you don't tell me where Roxas is, I'll kill you."

Axel snorted, as he took in the rest of the room. His wrists were bound to the headboard of a filthy bed, the white sheets stained with rot and dirt and age. The rest of the room looked no better -- the cold fluorescent light illuminated broken furniture, strewn carelessly over the floor. Two large windows were directly opposite him, but one was broken and boarded over. The walls were bare and water-stained, and in some places, the old wood boards were visible. "Nice place, this. Where'd you find it?"

"I don't know." Riku said. "It's some hovel in your world." He came close, and hit Axel. Once, twice, punches to the face and the stomach. The Nobody just laughed.

"You're gonna torture me? Kiddo, you've got a long way to go...come on. How do you expect to hurt someone with no heart?"

"You don't believe that." A hit right to the eye. But Axel barely winced.

"Well. That, I don't know. But hitting me, Riku darling, that's so childish." He hadn't stopped grinning. "You're not going to get Roxas like this."

Riku drew back, and examined his hand. Or seemed to. The blindfold was a sort of creepy thing, wasn't it, you couldn't tell if the little human was displeased or happy or what, all you could see was that nasty little smile and hear, unexpectedly, his laughter.

"You're right. Hold on." He left the room, leaving the rotting door open. How stupid, Axel thought absently, here he was Nobody, Darkness at his command, with the door open and the window smashed, but he couldn't seem to get free. The Dark tunnels weren't opening, no, instead, the unseen ties on his wrists were tightening.

But still...he heard footsteps coming back, now, and there was Riku with a cheap plastic razor in his hand.

Axel laughed, this was idiotic, but -- Riku shook his head. "Have you ever been cut with a razor, Axel? The skin just springs apart. I was lucky, this one's still sharp --" he put the edge between his teeth, and twisted so that the plastic snapped. "We're gonna have some fun tonight."

Axel grimaced as the kid got on the bed, and crawled up between his legs. Riku held the small razorblade against his captive's arm, but for a moment, he hesitated, tilting his head to one side, as if thinking about it. "You know I'll find him eventually."

"You're too good to cut me?" Axel replied in a studiously unhurried drawl. He could take it. Take anything, so long as Roxas was --

"I never said that." Riku answered, as he pushed the little blade against Axel's upper arm.

It hurt and Axel screamed without thinking. Riku hadn't been lying; when the Nobody turned his eyes to the wound he saw the skin had come neatly apart, leaving a shallow, wide gash. But still--

"Not enough," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Nothing."

And Riku ran the blade down his arm, slitting the skin down in a thin, even, bloody line. It hurt it hurtithurthurthurt and even though he was over the initial shock, even though he didn't scream anymore, there was water pooling up in his eyes, slipping down his face, now. When Riku lifted the blade, finally, he turned his blindfolded eyes to Axel's and asked him, "Are you crying?"

He was disgusted to find his breath coming short. "I'm just..ah..reacting to p-pain. Y-Y'know the science, bodies have these tear ducts to...react. Doesn't mu-mean anything."

"Who told you that?" The boy asked. He pushed back, and caught onto Axel's foot. He cut between the flesh between the big toe and the first, and Axel was reminded of somebody, a child, accidentally slicing open the slack flesh between her thumb and forefinger on a piece of paper turned too fast. It stung like that, anyway.

He wouldn't mind answering that stupid question if it stopped the pain. "Vexen."

"Before you killed him?" Cut, cut. That somebody kiddy bandaging her paper-cuts between the pointer and the middle, knowing it'll heal.

"Yeah. He didn't matter. So?" He asked. The knife was between the last two toes and his arm was still torn up.

"Why not kill Roxas like that? He doesn't matter either."

"Well, I don't know. We're friends, I guess. Maybe sometimes we do things to prevent our friends from being killed." Axel answered, "It's alright if a little darkling like you doesn't understand, though."

Bad answer, of course. Riku growled and pushed his little blade in deep, gashing the little toe in half. It dangled on Axel's foot, covered in gore, attached only by a little flap of skin -- but it didn't burn the same way that the gaping cut down his arm did, didn't sting and promise pain later like the sprung-apart skin. "You...stupid little shit..." Axel shook his head, reveling in the fact that he was chained-down and cut-up and still dominant in this childish little set-up. "This isn't anything to me."

His head was split open next -- another little tap with the razor, oh. And the blood trickled down his face to burn and irritate the eye. But it didn't matter, because even though his head stung and hurt and was oozing blood, Axel was winning and he could still manage a giddy grin. Didn't matter how deep Riku cut into his skull or mind. He'd never, ever see --

(Roxas, sedated with morphine and nitrazepam, sprawled across his bed)
(dusks and dancers and anything that would listen to VIII swaying over him, waiting to hold him back, hold him safe when he awoke)

"I won't." Axel hissed. "Never give him to you."

Riku held the bloodied razor blade up, scowled, and, finally, threw it away.

"Yeah, that's right." the Nobody sneered. "Though I su-suppose you don't understand loyalty, either."

The blade was gone, but a sick-slow smile came over Riku's face to replace it. "I know why you won't give him up. Don't lie, Axel. You're a Nobody, you can't want him for anything more then this." He tugged off his black gloves, and ran bare hands over Axel's torso. "This is all he is to you..." the boy murmured, pressing his lips against the Nobody's temple and cheek and mouth, as he slid his hands lower, over the stomach and penis and thighs. Axel groaned, his goddamn body reacting even as he tried to twist away.

"Stop it." he demanded. "You don't know"

"Know what?" Riku whispered against his ear. His breath was hot and fevered and he knew, he knew that Axel was finally reacting to him, that sex would do what pain wouldn't..."How you wanted it and he didn't and you...you just kept trying, didn't you, just kept waiting for someone who never would do it, never touch you or fuck you or anything at all?"

The human was making it up as he went along, but funny, how it was pretty close and -- Riku was licking down his chest, and whatever was on Axel's wrists was moving to his arm -- "Darkness." the boy said, looking up with a sly smirk. "I'll make it stop the bleeding, I'll make it better. Like he wouldn't."

"You're lying." his breath hitched, though, as Riku's hands traced over his body, promising pleasure, now, not pain...

"He doesn't care about you." Riku said, finally taking Axel's erection in his mouth, sucking inexpertly. A virgin, didn't know anything...Axel had always thought Roxas might, might be like this too...he groaned as Riku's pace picked up. He was finally able to wrest his hands free but he buried them in Riku's hair instead, guiding the boy roughly.

And it wasn't really disloyalty because Roxas never wanted and didn't even know his best friend did, and sex meant nothing, nothingatall, not to Roxas or even to a Nobody, just to people, stupid weak humans who only, only knew how to suck someone off...meant nothing and Riku's mouth was hot around his flesh and it was bringing him closer and closer--

He came, finally, gasping as he did. He let his hands fall away from the silver hair and for a second he wished it had been blond.

"Traitor." Riku said, pulling away. But his mouth was drawn and sad and filthy under the black-gash blindfold, and Axel grinned. He felt light-headed and the sheets were stained with his blood and his cum, but Riku had no weapons, now, nothing he else he could do. Axel had won and now he would give up. And he'd kill Riku, like he should have done in Oblivion, he wouldn't make that mistake again --

A tunnel opened slowly in the corner of the room. Roxas appeared in it's door, holding the severed head of a dusk in one hand. He took a still-woozy step forward and let go of the it, and it vanished before it hit the ground.

He had no eyes for Axel, only for the blindfolded stranger who had been looking for him.

"Roxas..!" Axel called, his elation slipping away. "Don't go with him, he'll--"

"Are you a liar?" Roxas asked, in his cold, bored voice.

Riku grinned, wiping his mouth clean and replacing his gloves. His Darkness was already encircling Axel's arms and legs, sewing him into the bed. Axel didn't matter anymore. "No."

"Do you know about me?"

He came closer slowly, sidestepping the bed. Only a shadow of disgust passed his face, but that was enough...Axel opened his mouth, to yell, Roxas don't, but Darkness welled up in his throat and gagged him.

"Of course..." Riku said, opening a tunnel back to, Twilight Town? The Destiny Islands? Or one of the other myriad worlds, Axel didn't know. "Come with me and you'll see."

Roxas spared Axel one sweeping, judging glance.

Won't you listen?

"Not to a liar." Roxas said, scathingly. His eyes said something like you fuck up, or maybe, you're just boring, anyway, I never needed--

It didn't matter. Roxas followed Riku into the Dark and he didn't look back at all.

Scary Kids\Sexless Demons &

2007-10-30T23:44:04Z

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Characters: Roxas & Axel; Ansem & Riku
Wordcount: 2400~? or so
AU. 1, and Roxas tells Axel how not to grow up. 2, and Riku finds something that he can believe in.

Happy Halloween, ladies~

When Axel turned seven, there was such a big and lovely party thrown for him, that he barely noticed. But Mother did. Mother saw that her baby boy was growing up, so fast, and she told Father, in an undertone, that since the boy could walk and talk and almost take care of himself, now, well, maybe it was time he started taking care of himself (take him out of the nursery, you see), and wearing grown-up clothes. If you think so, of course, darling.

Father quite agreed. He had grown up at five, after all. He'd get the real clothes and he'd open the big room, immediately.

--

When the faceless, meaningless guests had left, and the maids were left to deal with the mess of popped balloons and ripped-apart wrapping paper, Mother and Father drew their firstborn aside, and started to dress him up right.

The corset hurt. It was tight and his ribs were crunching together and not breaking, just hurting. Then the petticoats and lace layers. Then a slip and another and there was an ugly dress, plum-purple, crushed velvet, hideous and heavy.

He could barely breathe in it all. He liked his short pants and smocks and daydresses much more. "Can't I wear those?" he asked (ribs crushed, hurt to breathe) "Can't I, please?"

"No." Mother said. "This is growing up."

"And you can't have these toys." Father said sternly, indicating his lovely new birthday dolls and trains and blocks. "We'll get you some books. Get you to school. Proper things for a proper child."

He hated them. He told them.

They smiled and laughed and said, "Aren't you darling." And then he was choking and he couldn't draw breathe, and distracted Mother had to run and get a knife and cut him loose from all the clasps that held him into all the clothes she secretly hated wearing.

"Perhaps he shouldn't grow up yet..." she whispered. But Father shook his head and said that no, children mustn't delay ending their childhood. It was the worst, most violent, most stupid time of life, and the faster they got out of it, the sooner they could grow up into proper, upright, men and ladies.

--

So Axel was sent back to his nursery, to clean it up and say goodbye.

He went. And his pretty precocious brother was waiting. Axel supposed he should have known he would be.

Roxas reached his short arms up, waving for his brother to pull him out of his crib. "I don't want you to go. You don't have to." He said, in his high clear, early articulate, baby voice. And then he added, almost as an afterthought, "You can stay here forever."

"Can't either, stupid." Axel said. He put his tongue out at his brother, then went back to clearing up blocks. "I already have a big room. And they'll lock me in it, if they want."

"Not if you never go in it." Axel didn't understand. "Looook." He reached under his pillows, casting about for something sharp in the mess of fat stuffed bears and blank-eyed, scowling, velveteen rabbits. They were alive, mostly, and Axel knew they hated him. "Mother came here to put me down. She forgot she still had this. And then she forgot to take it out."

He drew the knife from where he'd hid it, stabbed through Bethy Rabbit's spine. "It's alright, I don't like her. She bites when I pet her." he said, slightly surprised at the look on his big brother's face. "Something wrong?" He pitched the knife through the high steel bars; it fell silent on the red-plush rug.

"No..." Axel picked the thing up, examining the ornate, carved bone handle, and the silver bright blade below it, almost as if he'd never seen a knife before. But, then. He'd never seen it. Not in this way. He turned his eyes up to his baby brother, and his usually bright green eyes were dull in the reddish candlelight. "Nothing's wrong. No. It's a good idea." He balanced the knife, delicately, on top of the toy-box..it didn't shine, either. Then he stood on tip toe, to reach up, over the bars. He took hold of Roxas, and tugged him out, clumsily. "I won't have to grow up. And I don't like them anyway...Come on, then."

His brother's eyes were messing things up. They were shining, solemn, almost aglow in the dark light. For a while, he said nothing. Just looked around the messy nursery and thought about secret quiet things. Axel didn't try to guess at his brother's thoughts, he was preoccupied -- "You'll need to open the door." Roxas said, finally.

--

It was only ten minutes later, only ten minutes, and then Axel didn't have to grow up, after all.

They went back up to nursery in silence. The candle was all burned out, now, but he knew what drawers to pull out. He put a thick, garish red sweater on over his blood-stained nightdress ("It matches.." Roxas murmured, giggling a little, before going back to his dead quiet.) and then bundled his brother up, stockings, Sunday Shoes, blue sweater and long scarf. "You're all tied up now." he informed his brother, smirking. "So you can't get rid of me when you get bored."

Roxas blinked over the top of the scarf, seeming to say, yes, I can.

Axel ignored that.

He let down the crib's side instead, dropping the iron gate so that the bunnies and bears could get out, so that they wouldn't be locked up and forced to kill each other for food. Then, they left the house.

"Now what?" Roxas asked, his eyes shining, excitedly. Axel knew, and maybe he'd always known, but he wouldn't have remembered it, unless it was his seventh birthday, or unless he'd decided to stop growing up.

"Well, now..." he raised his hand, pointing out the second star to the right. "Now we fly."

---- et deux ----

"Riku..." The boy didn't look up. His mother scowled, and tried again, hissing, just a bit louder, "Riku!"

He looked up from the pretty fire-breathing unicorn he was drawing in the blank back pages of his bible. "What?" he asked, too loudly. "Lemme alone." People looked up at him, and they frowned.

She reached out for him; he squirmed away. "Riku. Darling." She whispered, in an angry-concerned voice. "Are you listening to Pastor Brown's service? You bad, bad boy. You're big enough to listen."

He shrugged one shoulder, then went back to his Unicorn. He gave her fangs. "Pastor Brown's with the Black Man." he said, indifferently. "Doesn't that make him bad?"

His mother hit his mouth and the people smiled approvingly. "You're bad. Saying that! The Pastor.." she looked up at Brown. A poor sad man who always seemed nervous and never looked you right in the eye. "With the Devil! Riku, child, if I didn't know better...oh..." the people's eyes might have been glinting. She drew her baby close. "I'd say the Black Man's near to you. You can't--"

He pushed her away and stuck his tongue out at the watchers. "Momma, be quiet. I just said that to see what you'd do."

"It wasn't funny."

"Shouldn't you listen, Momma?" She started, realized she'd forgotten just what the Pastor's point was. He'd sidetracked her...

"You sit and, oh, you at least pretend you're listening." She said, almost desperately. "You do care, don't you?"

"Yes. Momma."

He was lying. Riku at nine knew everything. He didn't believe in any Black man and he didn't believe in any Jesus. It was silly, magic and miracles. It was for kids like Sora...he twisted his head around, over the high wooden pew -- yes, there was Sora, looking as if he wanted nothing more then to sit in a stuffy, hot building all day, listening to the Pastor droning on and on and on. And the other way..there was Kairi, sitting with her parents. She didn't see him but her father did. He scowled. Riku waved, cheerfully, and delighted at the annoyance that came across the man's face. Looking grim all day, walking around in heavy black clothes and muttering, "Sister..brother.." when meanwhile, people were dying and going to Hell. "How boring," Riku whispered to himself, "No such things."

He grinned at his mother, and at the watchers, before pushing himself into the corner of the bench, and defiantly, falling asleep before their eyes.

--

"You're bad." His mother said after the final prayer, dragging him off the bench. His head hit against the pew and he woke up fast, barely managing to stay upright as she walked fast through the Congregation. "Falling asleep! I don't know, I don't know..."

"Mother." He tried to explain in a rational tone of voice. "Mother, don't you see? It's all a lot of nonsense. There's no Jesus and there's no Devil!"

"He'll come for you." the woman hissed, skittering down the high narrow stone steps. "The Devil, he knows you. He'll come and get you if you talk like that."

She gave a cry as her son wrenched his hand free. "Riku?!"

"I'll find him." he said, defiantly, pulling just out of her reach. "I'll find your demons and they won't be anything but shadows at night. They won't be anything! I'll show you."

She couldn't catch him back; already he'd made up his mind and lost himself in the crowd.

He passed Sora, grabbed his hand and pulled him away from his parents. "Riku! What are you--"

"Come on." he said, "I'm gonna show you, there's nothing to this at all. No magic, no lies -- Kairi, you too --" she wriggled away from the thinning crowed, and followed, bemused -- "There's nothing."

They were out, now, and behind the cathedral was the forest. "This is stupid." Sora said, bluntly, and maybe just a little nervously. "It's not safe in there."

"Why?" Riku grinned at the boy. "There won't be any Devil there, or demons either. You aren't afraid."

"No.." Sora muttered, "But.."

"Hm?"

Kairi answered this time. "What about Axel? And little Roxas? Something got them. They didn't run away." She looked scared, but Riku could see she was excited, morbidly curious, too.

"Don't you want to know for sure?" he asked, lowering his voice to a dramatic whisper. "Maybe we'll see what took them." That was nonsense, of course. Those two, Riku had always known they weren't right. They killed their parents and ran off, he was more sure of that then God. But if it encouraged her...

"Yeah." Kairi said, smiling small. They hadn't stopped walking and now the woods were looming high before them. "Come on, Sora. Don't you want to know?"

"Well." He looked uncomfortable but Riku knew, knew, Sora wouldn't be the only one left out. "Fine. If he's anywhere, he's in there, isn't he."

They stuck together, Riku led, Sora and Kairi followed. It was dark, there. Gloomy and oppressive and for a moment, Riku wasn't sure. But before he was quite sure of what to say, he was calling, calling for the Black Man and his demons and his witches. "Come out, come out," he yelled. "You, or God, I don't care which!"

There was silence. Dead silence, and if Riku had been a little older, he might have known that that wasn't natural.

He turned around, laughing triumphantly. "See?" he asked, "See? Nothing's here! You two and me and--"

There was a loud crack from behind him; a bough had fallen from it's tree. Riku spun around, his heart beating just a little faster -- but no, it was just an old, decayed tree. "Only natural it fell. Still..." he grinned, and decided to tease...well...he couldn't help it. So easy. "Still..maybe it was a demon. We should go see."

He walked up to the tree. They followed, not nervously -- cautiously. So that way, when they saw the cloaked figure, black against the dark green backdrop, they were ready to go. "Riku, come on--" Either he didn't hear or he didn't care; either way, Sora knew quite well that Kairi came first. He grabbed the girl's hand, and together they ran back, out of the forest, to the church and to the village.

Riku had heard. Oh yes. But he couldn't have left. The man was looking at him, and the strange bright eyes were drawing him closer. "You're a demon?" he asked, his voice just a whisper. "Or...the Black Man." He felt dreadfully uneasy, and a fear that had nothing to do with logic was building up in his stomach.

The man had long silver-bright hair. Dark skin, like an Indian, maybe, and his eyes were orange. Was that..right?

The man's voice was low, sinister, and not-quite human. "I'm Ansem."

"What about the tree?"

"I believe..I killed it." The demon seemed amused by that. "Should I kill you?"

But it didn't have any feet, Riku saw. The cloak trailed off into the darkness. So maybe he was a ghost. Maybe just a shadow...but that was alright. "Shadows can't kill me." Still, Riku took a step back, as a gloved hand extended towards him, a hand not looking to grab him but to --

touch him. Just on the forehead. Just for a second. Just long enough to see.

Ansem smiled. His teeth were sharp and his tongue was black. He smelled like mummy powder and rot. "I could. But I don't think I want to."

And then

then--

Riku fell to the forest floor, screaming, choking, trying to get the monster out from where it had disappeared to, somewhere inside his heart, his self.

It was trying to move him. Control him! Like the pigs.. Riku thought, wildly, irrelevantly. The demon went into them and ran them dead.

"And you're just like them." His voice said. Riku brought his hands went to his throat, and he tried to speak. No, nothing -- his mouth wasn't his anymore. Oh, but. But. He knew what to do. He was terrified and maybe dying (no, no!) but he was still smart enough to know...the church. Even if it wasn't real, there was no where else.

He forced himself up, even though his body seemed to want to defy him, didn't want to listen to him. Up, then, he thought he could see the edge of the forest. He didn't have time to doubt -- he just ran, somehow, managing to keep his own self in control all the way up to the church's wide stone stairs.

But as he ran up the stairs, his foot tangled, caught on the stair, and he swore it had moved on it's own accord. Good.. Riku thought, grimly. He doesn't want me here!

Someone had left the heavy stone door oh-so-slightly open. It was atypical, bur Riku didn't question it; he wriggled through and, stumbling every few feet now, went to the alter -- to the heavy gilded cross that hung over it.

He reached for it -- touched it, hoped it was enough. I'm sorry, he thought, hoping that God or Something believed him, that It could still think to get Ansem out of Riku's heart. Just-- I didn't mean--

But then, there suddenly wasn't any reason to worry. Something was pulled out of him, and he'd been right -- he was smiling, now, laughing, and the voice was purely his.

He stepped back from the cross, the alter, all of it. It had been close, stupid even, but he was himself, pure and whole and believing, now.

--

His mother was quite pleased. Come next Sabbath, her baby was sitting quietly, respectfully, even, looking as if he and the Pastor shared some great, supernatural understanding. Maybe, she hoped, it was that mysticism they called faith...

But Sora scowled when Riku twisted his head around to see him. He could see the glint of orange, even this far away, reflected bright in his friend's dead-blue eyes.

And Ansem watched the boy glaring at him and saw the woman fawning on him. He thought to wonder, who was wandering the forest, and how, exactly, were these monsters born, and he thought to laugh and laugh and laugh.

52nd_dimension @ 2007-10-27T15:22:00

2007-10-27T19:25:38Z

Title: The Day Fred Weasley Met Arthur's Muggle Pal
Author: Lorei
Wordcount: 1916
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Fred Weasley
Character’s Age: 10
Rating: Still very G ♥
Warnings: None.
Summary: Fred & George, upon being told that they shouldn't aspire to play pranks forever, run away. Fred draws the short straw, or not, and tries to be a Muggle..for a bit.
Disclaimer: I don't own HP.
Author's Notes: Hmm, not my favorite fic. But it sets up the fic I have planned for age 15, and I do like the idea in it.

Fred was woken up to someone nearby’s screaming – “Mother! Mother!” It was Percy...he sighed, and pulled his pillow over his head, trying to drown out the noise.

“I hate the holidays...” he muttered to no one.

George answered, “Bill and Charlie and Percy home. Awful.”

His brother kept yelling, and it seemed like he was getting louder. Fred groaned, and forced himself to sit up – “A lovely summer day. Ruined now. What’s he yelling for, anyway?”

“Most likely because of the firecrackers we hit around his room that time. Pity, he doesn’t seem to be enjoying them.” Both twins laughed, as they started getting dressed.

“Wonder if Bill’s realized we swapped his wand for that rubber thing yet?” Fred said, as they went downstairs.

The rubber wand that hit him in the head a moment later was indicative of the answer. “That hurt!”

Bill laughed from his bedroom door. “Alright now. Come on, kiddies, tell me where the real one is.”

“Broken!” they said in unison, Fred still irritated. It really had hurt. And Bil stopped laughing. “That true?”

“Yes!!” they ran down the rest of the stairs, dashing straight into – Molly Weasley, who had a smug Percy on one side (his trainer was still smouldering) and two wands in the other. “Why,” shesaid, fuming, “Why was Bill’s wand hidden in – of all things – tonight’s dinner?”

“Because there’s nothing funnier then finding something shoved up a headless chicken’s–“

Fred cut his twin off, pointing an accusing finger at his eldest brother. “He hit me! Hit him!”

Molly took no notice of that. “And Percy! Hiding firecrackers, those could be dangerous! Really, boys. What do you intend to do when you get your wands next year? Stupid tricks like this and pranks–“

“So what if it’s stupid?” said George, suddenly looking affronted. “We like to do this! Right, Fred?”

“Right, George! Mommy, darling, we very much intend to play tricks and be popular and play Quidditch next year, and that’s all. You said we should do what we wanted in life!”

“Yes!” Molly was screaming, now, Bill and Percy looking on with no small surprise. They’d never been yelled at...”I said do what you want to, which is to become prefects and to learn! You won’t be using wands for tricks – they’re for magic, real, practical magic!”

“Then– then–“ Fred had nothing to say; thank Heavens George did.

“Then I’ll be a Dark wizard!” he proclaimed. “I’ll do all my magic with my mind. And Fred will be a Muggle.”

Curse the Heavens! “You got it backwards. I want to be the Dark wizard!” he muttered to his twin. But George shook his head slightly, and whispered back, “Come on. I’m going to storm out to the forest and you’ll go out to the village and she’ll have no idea what happened. One, two..” Even with misgivings, Fred joined in on, “Three!” They both walked out, deliberately stomping their feet and slamming the door.

Once they were out in the yard, though, Fred took up his argument again. “You’d make a lousy Dark wizard.”

“Won’t either. Everyone knows I’m the more innovative one.”

“Inno–?”

“And the more intellectual, clearly. I’m going to go learn Parseltongue. I called it.”

Fred scowled. But George had a point; he’d thought of it, and he’d called it. And they couldn’t both be Dark Wizards, Dark wizards killed each other. “Fine.” he said, with great reluctance. “But if you get bitten by an asp, don’t whine at me.”

“You only know that word because Dad’s in love with that Cleopatra witch.” George said, laughing, as he slipped into the forest. Fred figured, he might as well make his lonely way down to Ottery St. Catchpole.

--

He was joined by a little blond-haired girl shortly after he entered the village. “Hi!” he said, grinning. She was little, seven or eight, maybe, and more interestingly, someone know, someone outside his stupid, boring, magic family.

“You’re a wizard, aren’t you?” she asked. Her voice was sweet and almost whimsical. “Mommy says that the Weasley wizards all have fire-like hair. ..Does it burn much?” she added, as an afterthought.

Fred was surprised; then disappointed. “You’re a witch?”

“Luna Lovegood.” she said. “I think. Sometimes Daddy calls me his flower child, but Mommy says I’m really a witch, and he just liked how Muggles used to believe in flower power. They were right to, of course, the magic in even ordinary shrubberies is enough to rival that of a Nargle.”

She was either a witch, or mad. Either way, Fred was here for the Muggles. “I’m sorry.” he said, firmly. “I’m got to visit the bakery. It’s right there.”

“I’ll see you.” she said brightly. “Goodbye, Frederick.”

“I didn’t tell you my name!” he called after her. She gave no sign she heard.

--

He was quite sure that the plump, gray-haired matron at the bread counter was not magic. She wouldn’t have to use the ovens if she was...so judging her to be the type he’d have to get used to, in his new, non-magic life, he went up to the counter and said, “Hello!”

She whirled around, almost catching him in the face with the tray of rolls she had withdrawn from the oven. “Oh!” her voice was tired, but kindly. She was grandmotherly...more so then Auntie Muriel, anyway. "Hello, darling. Here to pick up some cake, maybe?"

He smiled and nodded and fished around in his pocket for the Knuts he was sure he had somewhere. Somewhere...

"I haven't seen you about the village." she said. "I think I'd have remembered your hair, though."

Fred was worried, because it occurred to him, she might ask questions, and weren't those bad? And they might have different money. "Funny." he told her. "I haven't got any money."

She nodded. "That's quite alright. I'm very glad to meet you, in any case."

He turned to go; and was not quite sure what he was feeling.

When she called him back, to hand him a piece of broken-off cake, 'just for a taster!' he was quite certain, though. He felt like a prat. He'd been mean not to trust her, right? She was a Muggle but that didn't mean she was dumb, or dangerous...

"Thank you." he said, with a goofy little smile. "My name's Fred, isn't it."

--

It was bright when he left the bakery, bright and fine and a nice day to be a Muggle. He supposed he'd out to go and find the Muggle tricks, then. There was a shop up ahead, labeled 'Magic & Games' - he went in, but felt completely alright about sniggering a little.

None of it was magic, but there were snakes in cans that would fool Percy and funny little fingertraps...he had to ask the shop owner to get the dumb thing off, in the end. "Are you new here?" The chubby little man asked, as he left.

"Nope!" Fred said honestly this time. "I'm Fred Weasley."

He hadn't expected the owner to know the name. "Arthur's son?" he sounded delighted so that was something...but he remembered that wizards were secrets and Dad was supposed to shop a Diagon Alley. His new tolerance of Muggles seemed like a bad idea all of a sudden...

"Don't worry." The man said with a wink. "I'm a friend of your dad's, ever since he came in collecting, er.." his eyes rolled up, as he tried to recall. "Sneezing powder, 'swhat it was. A weird purple color, box said Zonko's...well, I figured it was just Mattel switching over...nope! Your dad came down and explained why all the kids couldn't stop sneezing." he looked around the shop; Fred leaned in to here. "Magic, though, wasn't it." he whispered, before returning to normal volume. "I asked them not to swipe my memories, I thought it was worth knowing to look out for Zonko's mixups, now on."

"And right you were, sir." Fred grinned easy, now. The big guy wasn't so bad. Dad was a nutter, though. "So can you tell me how this fingertrap really works?"

He spent most of the afternoon with the Muggle man, talking about jokes and pranks and finally, Fred asked, "But are these really good things to do, Mister?"

"Why, not at all!" the man said, sounding shocked. "Wasting time with silly things? No, it's not good. A magic boy like you should be out helping and learning about us non-magic. And a grown man like me should be out adventuring and spreading tolerance. I should at least be making money!"

Fred had not expected this answer, and the man saw it on his face. "Hey son-- that last bit, now that was a joke! Although I am poor as spit."

"Then why?" he asked, seriously. "I'm gonna learn real magic next year. But I don't want it if it's not for fun, see?...I don't think you Muggles are boring, the bakery lady's kind and you're golden. But can't we get along better having fun?"

He was not quite sure what he meant by it. Maybe because he was ten and the idea of purpose was abstract; maybe because he really just liked jokes and he wanted to justify it. Either way, the fat man got it.

"Oh, little Weasley! You're just like your Dad--"

"--Oh no! Ha ha.."

"Curious and I like you. A twin, you said? Anyway, you've got to let me finish! Jokes are pointless. They make people grin, but only the really clean make everyone grin."

"Yeah..?"

"There are more important things to do with your life. But see kid, it's your life. Not your mom's--" he winked again-- "Miss Molly, isn't it? Or your twin's, or your family's. See where I'm going?"

"No." He said, honestly.

"Doesn't matter if you're magic or not. What matters is, you're happy. If jokes and a poor little joke store is what you want, you do it. You don't care that it's stupid, kiddo. You just do what you have to."

He patted Fred on the head, and got up from the stool he'd been sitting on. "Now, it's late, and doesn't Arthur want you back?"

"Oh...right." Fred shook his head. "No, I'm a Muggle now, er, non-magicker. So I can do what you were saying, you know, do what I like."

The man escorted him to the door; it was sundown. "Don't be silly, Freddie. You think my mother wanted me to be a joke shop owner? Not many people get the magic of pranks, kiddo."

Fred sighed but he laughed a little, too.

--

And very nearly screamed when George hurtled out of nowhere to lock his arms around his twin. "I'm not a Parseltongue." George told him, sulkily. "You wanna be the Dark wizard now?"

Fred waved at the Magic store owner, who seemed amused. "No. I wanna be a wizard who plays pranks."

"Funny." George said, sighing as he pulled away. "Ooh, look, I got some twigs in your hair, we match...no, funny, I want to do that to. But Mother--"

"Forget Mother." Fred said, as he lead George down to the bakery. "Well, not forget, but we just won't tell her...we still want jokes, right? And Wizard jokes at that -- Muggle jokes are too hard."

"Huh, really. Well. Toys are more fun then snakes. And bears. And I met this nutty family up on the hill..."

"So we won't tell her! Like I said. We'll play games and use Hogwarts stuff for jokes and maybe someday she'll laugh. For now, we'll say sorry, about the wand-up-the-chicken. Cuz that'll make her happy."

"What! And apologize to Percy too?"

"Nah. Just start blaming Ronnie some more. Now come on.." Fred concluded, feeling quite over his first ever-last ever midlife crisis. "Let's go say hello to the bakery lady. Find that Luna kid, too... Maybe she'll give us all cake."

52nd_dimension @ 2007-10-27T01:27:00

2007-10-27T05:31:02Z

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Pairing: Riku/Namine
For the adorable tasogare_n_hime
Wordcount: 850, just long enough not to fit in a comment.
Notes and all: 1920s AU. At Princeton. Someday I'll stop writing about my town but goddamn, the University is inspiring. (lol tivia, it's also in House and Across the Universe, lol it's 1:28 am D:)
Um. I think Riku/Namine is a cute pairing, and also as awkward as anything. And this is written like that, hahaha.

The University dorms were quiet and warm and really where Namine wanted to be just then. It was cold outside, cold for October, really, and besides, it was late. Where else was she going to go, anyway? Except --

She had an idea that her roommate Kairi was out, probably dancing, living it up, at one of the downtown speakeasies, though. Namine hadn't been so upset by the Prohibition Amendment ("Neither has any other American." her friend Roxas had once observed wryly) and she didn't like jazz and she didn't really like those cramped little bars but still...she felt suddenly lonely.

Kairi could have invited her. It was Friday, wasn't it, and even though it was cold it might have been fun...but no matter. She had work, anyway; it wouldn't do to go out when it was almost exams-week. Besides, all they were doing out was talking about the Dot King case and Freud and all that old jazz. Namine hated that sort of smalltalk, made her feel uncomfortable, didn't--

There was a rap at the window and she leapt up eagerly to see who.

Oh-- she thought, It's Riku, isn't it? He was a tall, quiet boy who was pretty good friends with Kairi. And there was no doubt that that was who he was looking for...

She smiled, maybe a little disappointed. Wasn't her fault her friends were all out; wasn't her fault she was quiet. She pushed open the first-floor window, and leaned out a bit -- "Kairi's not in." she said. "Sorry, though."

He looked surprised, she thought, for a second, at least. "--Ah," he said, and then he laughed. "Right right. Sora mentioned he was going somewhere, should guessed it was with her..." he trailed off, giving a strange little one-armed shrug that Namine found, somehow, endearing.

They stood like that, for a moment, but then the blond girl decided, Enough, I'm bored and he's here so-- she did a very bold thing, for her.

"Won't you come in?" she said. "I'll run around and open the door. They'll be back soon, I'm sure, and we'll stay up with them tonight."

She wasn't sure what sort of reaction to expect, but Riku half-smiled. "That's not so bad. Thanks, Namine."

As she ran round to the common door, she reflected on how she hadn't been entirely sure he'd known her name or not.

It was funny to have company that wasn't Roxas and wasn't Kairi's. And a little bit tense. She suddenly realized that she didn't have anything to say to Riku. Nothing.

He had a brown paper bag in one hand, and he put it down on the common table. Then paused. "Unless, you mind alcohol..."

"No, it's not a problem." she said lightly. "How'd you come by it, though?"

He laughed (and she didn't know it, but it was because he was relived. He'd bought it for Kairi, stupid, stupid, but this little girl Namine didn't seem about to berate him for it and that was good, good and funny, too) quietly, and earnestly. "No questions. It's still illegal, I think. Professor knows better then I do."

Their only mutual class, World Histories, had been interrupted earlier that week by Professor Diz's dramatic arrest for 'illegally creating and distributing and using alcohol'. And Namine found the reference quite funny.

"For shame." she said, shaking her head. "Maybe he was depressed but still..."

"He was nuts." Riku said, using slang emphatically. "Poor old man. They'll be talking about the Princeton professor-moonshiner for years..."

There was some mutual laughter, but there was no more common gossip to bring up. As Namine went back to shut the window, she was suddenly aware that there was an uncomfortable silence, all a sudden, and she didn't know how to break it.

Then Riku said, "So...so. Whaddya think about that Dot King thing?" and she knew he didn't care and knew she knew but just wanted to make some kind of smalltalk, but in a speakeasy bar they wouldn't have to do that because there would be...

"Music!" she said aloud, brightly, and Riku repeated, "Music?", as a question.

"Yes! See, look--" she had to clear some papers off, some ugly bric-a-brac, but she ended up revealing a Victrola. "We don't use it so much, it's distracting in here. But I've got some records and you've got the drinks, so, what do you say?" she turned, hoping-hoping he'd be open to this idea. Goodness knows it was a lot of boldness and lonely driving her...well, that, and the funny way that he shrugged his shoulder, again, and the way his mouth half-smiled. Sweet, was what it was, unexpected but nice on him.

The same must've been driving him because he nodded and went to his bag and uncorked the first bottle. "It'll be our own jazz club," he said, as she tossed down some silly fast Creole record. "But I can't dance."

"Can't either." she said, and he grinned and even though they were stiff when they took hands, they were up all night dancing, most-wordlessly, about the little dorm. (And the wine sat untouched at that.)

52nd_dimension @ 2007-10-25T17:16:00

2007-10-25T21:19:52Z

Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: Jack/Barbossa. Kinda.
Prompt: Paranoia

“If it isn’t Jack Sparra.” Barbossa sneered, as his ex-comrade dragged himself aboard the Black Pearl. “Do y’not ever die?”

“Well, no!” Sparrow said, a little too brightly, as he swaggered a bit drunkenly across the deck. He drew out a flask from his vest, and shook it tauntingly. “Do ye...know what this might be?”

Barbossa did. “The Elixir of Youth, isn’t it?” He made a grab for it; the damn pirate yanked it away.

“Now now,” Sparrow said, with a patronizing smile. “I want my ship back.”

The crew was watching interestedly, but Barbossa had no eyes for them. He only saw the Elixir, the goddamn Elixir that would keep him away from that dark dark place Tia Dal– no, Calypso– had brought him back from. “Fine. Done.”

“And,” Sparrow continued. “I want you..”

That, he must have heard wrong. “I’m sorry. I do daresay I heard ye say...”

“Come here and I’ll say it again.” Sparrow held the neck of the bottle out between two grimy fingers, making as if to drop it on the deck. “Or shall I break it? I’m quite full of Elixir of Life meself, you see. Who needs more?”

Barbossa grimaced, but came over just the same. “Alright, then, Jack. And what was that again? You want me?”

Before he quite understood, Jack Sparrow had a steel handcuff locked about his wrist. The other cuff, Barbossa soon realized, was already locked around said Sparrow’s wrist.

“And what be the meanin’ in this?” he asked, lightly. The crew was sniggering around them, but Jack looked quite serious, for someone who was likely piss drunk. “Something I picked up from missy Pirate Queen. Just to keep you from stealin’ my ship, matey. You understand. It’ll be much easier with you attached to me...”

“Why don’t you jus’ kill him?” came a shout from the onlookers.

“‘Cuz he’s already come back! Now, call me paranoid,” Jack said, more conversationally, to Barbossa. “But why bother killin’ ye again? Better to jus’ keep you chained to me.”

“Always?” Barbossa asked, sneering. “In the bedroom, in the pisser?”

“Oh yes.” Jack said. “So long as you keep your dirty yap shut and don’t impede me too much–“ he took a step forward, but Barbossa did not follow. Did not, until the chain was rather forcibly tugged at and he was inclined to move. “I think we’ll get along just swimmingly. We might even have fun, and of the racy sense as well.”

The crew saw this as a great joke; they came forward and disarmed their captain. “Sons of bitches..” but Barbossa was not all-too surprised.

“Good work, boys!” Jack handed the flask off to Pintel (“here, lad, and sorry about your eye.” “Yes, I lost the other one not too long ago...was good while it lasted...”) “And if there’s any left at the end,” he said, condescendingly, “Well, you can have it.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Yes I am. Captain Liar, if you like.”

Barbossa rolled his eyes and decided to wait it out. His crew knew who was best, and if anything else, there was the file stowed in his cabin. Sparrow wasn’t the only paranoid freak, after all.

52nd_dimension @ 2007-10-24T14:51:00

2007-10-24T18:54:35Z

Fandom : Kingdom Hearts
Pairing: Marluxia/Namine
Gilded Age AU, for tegurunrampant's prompt; 'gilding the lily'
Wordcount: 1039
Notes: ...I think I reversed the prompt. A bit. Umm.

Namine was not entirely sure of why things were going on as they were. She didn't know that there was a man named Cleveland in the White House and she didn't know why her family lived in a big white house outside of Chicago. It had something to do with her father's job -- something to do with those cozy, big train cars they went in to visit the seashore in -- and something to do with the 'damn strikers' he kept talking about.

She felt like she should know. Especially when she saw the vagrant kids running around the city and her mother told her they were strikers' children and probably hungry. Especially when she went to church and heard people muttering about her father's hypocrisy, how dare he be in such a sacred place.

So one Sunday, after service, she did not dash to the carriage that was waiting outside. Instead, she waiting, hung around with the adults outside -- for a moment. When her parents weren't looking, she ran down the steps and past the carriage, into the city, where she determined to find who she was, and who they were, on her own.

A good idea at the time, but now..."I'm lost." she whispered to herself, half-amused, and half-irritated. It had been a fine adventure, slipping in and out of bars and back-alley shops, talking to the city people and the foreigners, but now it was getting dark and she felt uneasy. "Silly."

There was a small knot of people moving towards her. She didn't want to bother them, but before she could move out of the way -- "Heyy. Wait! I know this kid..."

The woman who had spoken was not remarkably tall nor pretty; she was what, Namine had a sinking feeling, Father might term as a poor common slut. She had short blond hair, slicked back, and she was wearing a dirty, mended-over skirt. And she was smirking.

"Who is it, then?" one of her companions asked, curiously.

"Oh, you've seen her." the woman said. She reached out and grabbed Namine's arm. "This is the kid who's always hanging around Mr. Pullman's bitch. Come on, Demyx, it's the little rich girl what's always in white."

"Let go of me." Namine said tremulously, as she tried to pull away, but she was ignored.

"So?" Another asked. "We've got better things to do--" the one speaking, a man with garish-bright red hair was tossing something up, and down. Couldn't be a bomb, no, impossible -- "Got to get to Blue Island and start some fires. And since there's not no train..."

The woman sneered, but pushed Namine away from her. "Right, right. But you stupid brat, I wouldn't hang out around here. Lots of scabs, y'know. And lots of striking drunken men who hate your daddy's guts."

Then they were gone and she was left, sitting where she'd been shoved on the sidewalk. She sighed and looked up at the sky, and wondered how she'd come to be known and disliked.

In a while, what she guessed to be one of the striking drunken men stopped before her and looked down at her. "Hello." he said.

"I'm sorry, sir." She said, feebly trying at a benevolent smile. "I don't think I know you."

Even though he was clad in filthy old denims and his shirt was unwashed, his face was clean and his hair fell elegant around his shoulders. Not a striker, he couldn't be. He was a person.

She suddenly hated herself for thinking that anyone wasn't.

He offered his hand and she took it. "Do you know me?" she asked. She might as well; perhaps he'd tell her what was around her.

"You're a wealthy pretty flower, who lives locked in a gilded room." he said. The words sounded almost whimsical, but there was some dark humor in his voice. "And you don't know anything."

She shuddered, then laughed at herself for being silly.

They were walking side-by-side, but he had not let go of her hand.

"What do they want? Other people said Blue Island, it wasn't just them." she asked, if only to try and make conversation. Her companion was looking off into the dark and smirking like he knew some fantastic joke but she felt left out and she had to say something.

"They think Mr. Debs wants a riot. They're wrong but they'll still make a war. I think I'll watch them."

"Oh."

"I think you'll with with me." he added, almost as an afterthought. But he was certain and sure and when she tried to wriggle her hand free he laughed and held it tighter. "You wanted to know what the world is like, didn't you? That's why you came here tonight."

"How do you know?!" She demanded, and even though she was sure something was wrong, maybe dangerous, about the man -- there was an excitement, a curiosity, welling up in her stomach like some black disease. "Who are you?"

His eyes glinted in the streetlight as he turned to her. He was smiling as his hand moved up to tangle her hair, and when he spoke, he still seemed to be laughing at her. "A painted, gilded lily is worthless, a waste of life and of my time, really. But you're different, Namine." He took care with her name, said it delicately and mockingly. "You aren't ruined by our age, not yet. I'll strip that gilt edge down before it takes hold of you. You'll be my flower and I suppose we'll go and watch the fires."

She bit her lip and tried to think of an alternative. "You wanted this." he told her, driving her scattered thoughts apart. "Or will you stay here, painted up and ignorant as you are?"

That she couldn't, she wouldn't. If it hurt to be unornamented (and it would hurt, she was certain, as the man brought her closer and then kissed her lips mockingly, oh there was the promise of pain there) then surely it would be wonderful after, when she was free of the ignorance and the waste that made up the gilt. Unless the knowledge itself was too much...

He drew her on, into the night. She wasn't sure, still, but she went with him.

52nd_dimension @ 2007-10-20T19:57:00

2007-10-21T00:05:02Z

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Pairing: Roxas/Riku
For obtains's request. Prompt was 'like the spiders in the corners that are never there'
Warnings: AU (American 1960s) drug use, asphyxiation
Wordcount: 1012

Roxas guessed the graveyard at midnight wasn't the most original place to go to fuck up someone you hated. He could see the other kids, the place was filled with other kids. Necking and screwing and doing God knows what other filthy dirty things. Gross, all of them. They were all.

And there was the guy he'd been looking for. He forgot about the kids all at once, whatever. There was Riku, pretty dirty Riku, lying by an especially decrepit tomb, probably stoned way out of his mind.

There was a slight hill he had to trip down to get to Riku. Roxas managed it like a pro. He didn't fall, anyway. "Hey you." he said. When he was high, his words had their own colors, their own taste, dripping with sweet meanings and bright yellow paint. Now they were heavy and dull...but it wouldn't do to be up now. Not right now. He had to be completely logical, for this...

Riku was staring at something far away in the sky, and he held a joint in his hand. But he rolled his eyes in Roxas's direction as the other boy approached him. "I thought you wouldn't. Said you were, um. Said you--"

"Was done." Roxas reminded him. He straddled Riku, leaned forward and kissed his mouth. Tasted like acrid smoke and graveyard dirt, a thousand games of manhunt here, a thousand times to fuck, a thousand times the kids talked about philosophy and life and politics and love here. "I almost am."

"You know whose, this is?" Riku said, when Roxas pulled away. He reached for the tomb beside him. "Sora's family's tomb. He's not here yet. But I thought I'd pretend he was there. Say goodbye."

"You're gonna see him soon." Roxas hissed, not looking, not looking, at their baby friend's grave. "You're going to leave me for him. Aren't you."

"I haven't got a choice." Riku wasn't looking at him. Bitch. Nasty cruel bitch with shit for brains. "They came for mee~ee. They came and got me and now I've got to go. Got to, got to, see? They want me...they want me so bad."

Roxas reached for his bag. He thinks he's still got it..yes, there. But not yet time, not yet time.

Riku was taking another drag, and singing about the child of confusion.

"I don't miss Sora like I should." Roxas told him, and it cut off the singing fast. Somewhere in the drugged-up mind of his, Riku had heard the blasphemy.

And started babbling. "Our best friend. Roxas! Me and you and Kairi and Nami and Axel -- well he's gone, too, but maybe he'll come back, he's tough -- they blew off Sora's head and he was probably glad of it, dumb shit, glad to be a hero in damned Johnson's war -- whaddya mean, you don't miss him?"

Roxas smiled sad. "You just said it. He was happy. He's not like you. Square as can be, our Sora, right? There's nothing wrong with dying happy, right?"

Riku said nothing, for a bit. Then he put the joint to his lips, and inhaled slowly, before offering it to Roxas. Roxas shook his head. "I'm up enough." he whisper-lied, kissing Riku's cheek now, his neck. He ran his fingers through the long, dirty hair, and wondered about death. "So Sora left me. But Sora was just a friend. What are you?"

Riku's hand on the back of his head, an arm twined about his neck. "Everything. I hate you and you me and in spite of it all--"

"You love me. Bad logic, utterly twisted, I think it's the drugs." They both laugh. But suddenly Riku was pushing Roxas away, sitting up to touch Sora's tomb again --

"Are there spiders there? If it's all jungle, and shit?"

"In Vietnam? I don't know. Daddy, dearest daddy --" Roxas laughed, and was glad that he couldn't taste the bitterness right now. "So much money. I won't get drafted."

"Spiders.." Riku muttered, "I see them all the time. On the ceiling, in the corner. But I go to kill them and they're never there. I dreamed they were on Sora, eating him up. I dreamed they were on you," he said, with an incredulous tone. "But you were eating them."

"And you?"

"They were coming for me. Almost prophetic...I should sell it into a song. Make a million bucks and play New York, singing about the spiders and you."

"You're crazy." Roxas smiled, though. It was time, now now now. "You know, there aren't any colors in war. No drugs and no highs and no dream revelations. Just..." he put his hands on Riku's shoulders, and pushed him down again. But didn't kiss him. It wasn't over yet. "Spiders. And no heroes."

"No you. No, no, um...whaddya call it."

Roxas looked up from his knapsack. "Volatile relationship. Love-hate. You and me."

"That's it." The plastic bag was big in Roxas's hands, and the wind made it flap all over the place. Suddenly, he was glad of the unseen, unknowing witnesses. Their own dirty lovemaking would cover up any noises Riku might make.

He lay over the boy, looking right into his face. Dirty skin. Pretty hair. He couldn't see Riku's eyes. There were just two black holes...but better then gouged-out bullet-ridden sockets. "You're charming." he said, seriously. "'Specially when you're crazy." He pushed the plastic trash bag was over Riku's face. He held it down, determined, with only a few tears blurring up his vision. He didn't let go even though Riku struggled and grabbed at him. "I wasn't going to let them get you." he said. "It's not for them to have you."

And then the boy went limp, finally. Roxas pulled the plastic off -- the wind caught it and took it away. Just another drug murder, just another suicide...Roxas smiled and kissed the dirty spit-covered lips for the last time, now. "No spiders..." he cooed in Riku's ear, before pushing himself up. No, but-- not time to go, not yet-- he placed Riku's hand against the dusty crumbling tomb. "See, pretty? See, nothing there."

52nd_dimension @ 2007-10-14T23:01:00

2007-10-15T03:04:31Z

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Characters: Kairi, Sora, Riku.
Genre: AU, pre-war '40s ~~cutting it close with the 'pre'war part of the request, lol~~
Worcount: 846
For resound's request :3
Notes: haha I thought this was longer then 846, really. And I'm not sure if I got the prompt right, having never seen Pearl Harbor, ahaha ^^;

They were saying war. They'd been saying it, for a while now. At first it was kinda nice to hear about something that wasn't taxes and inflation and Depression business. And they all liked saying, someone outta do something, for those poor Jews, for those stupid French.

But then, someone down somewhere, decided to make war real. All the boys could go, if they wanted, go and save the oppressed and the dying.

Kairi wasn't surprised when her friends signed up. Sora was nineteen and Riku was twenty, and that was plenty old enough for them to go to war. Tidus, Wakka, all of them decided to get in the army and get to Europe, while they were still young.

They were going. She wasn't, she couldn't. "But we'll write every day." Riku promised her.

"I hate you." she snapped. "You know I want to go. You know you're just leaving me out!"

"Is it too tacky to say you'll be there in spirit, darlin?" He was laughing, and she guessed it was funny, but. She wouldn't be mollified, not like that. "Kairi, don't be silly. You can't go, you need to be here." he said, more seriously, pushing his longish silver hair behind his ears (oh the fights he'd had over keeping it longer, but it did look nice, messy and unimportant, like a rugged soldier's hair should be), away from his face, so he could look right into her eyes, right into her...his eyes were always honest, and just then, they were serious and solemn and saying, don't you argue.

So she didn't. She guessed it would've been pointless anyhow, though..."But do you know what war's even like?" she asked her friend, not even pretending she wasn't nervous-anxious for him.

"No. But there are worse things...boredom, for one..." She wasn't sure what to say; but he changed the subject just then, "But, who knows? I'll miss you though, we all will. And this is our last night, isn't it?"

"Guess so, so?"

"So we've got to go out an' live, tonight! Come on, we're meeting Sora at the movies."

It was absolutely spontaneous, she told him, spontaneous and absurd and silly and you're leaving tomorrow, you've got to rest--

But then Sora showed up in his (father's) car, leaning on the horn and laughing, "Hurry up!", and against maybe better nature, Kairi got in and resolved to enjoy herself.

--

Didn't work, though. The movie-reels were all those anti-Fascist Donald Duck cartoons and the black-and-white showings of the horrors in Italy day-to-day, the 'this poor village is forced to live in the mountains, forced to hide and live off of dead horse corpses, but you-oh-you can stop it' type newsreels and the film itself was irreverent and violent.

Then the hit the soda-fountain, and it was all the boys and their beaus -- Kairi caught Namine's eye and the poor little thing seemed so distressed, of course, she an' Roxas had been together just forever. Then Selphie with Tidus and Wakka, her giggling whenever they spoke, her obvious longing to go with them, and to be her own hero.

She herself, she thought vaguely, as she sipped her chocolate malt and watched her boys arguing over what dictator was worse, well, she was both. She didn't want Sora or Riku dead, never never, but she didn't want to miss out on their adventure either. She sighed. Pretended like it was alright, and tried to be casual when she said guh'night.

--

She guessed she hadn't pretended so well. She was walking slow, when Sora's car slowed down beside her. "Kairi, come on, where're you going?"

She sighed, and stopped walking completely. "You should be asleep. Getting ready to go, not playing around with me an' the girls."

He locked mock-affronted, then he grinned, and laughed the easy way he did. "Baby, they're training me for war, and I don't know what'll happen..."

"Oh, you do so know." She laughed, only just bitterly. "You're gonna go and be a hero, that's what. You, an' Riku both. You're gonna save the world and even if you die, it's alright, 'cuz you got to live first. But I, I'm just gonna stay--"

"But if I die tomorrow!" He cut her off and she listened this time. He wasn't laughing, maybe he hadn't been laughing, but she just saw now. Suddenly, he wasn't playing so much. "I wanna know we lived all we could tonight. Okay~?" His tone was light and frivolous, silly, but he was serious, and that made it better.

"Okay." She promised him. She wasn't happy, no not-at-all, but it was one night. Last night, maybe. She could miss them and envy them when they where gone but oh, now. "I don't have time to waste this, do I?"

"Nope~" Sora laughed, and caught onto her hand. "Now get in, won'tcha? We've got tons and tons more to do, tonight, I promise you."

"Will it be good?"

"No more war talk. Not till we come home."

"That's good then." She smiled content, and resolved herself to live all she could, for Riku, for Sora.

52nd_dimension @ 2007-10-13T23:49:00

2007-10-14T03:55:26Z

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Pairing: Zexion/Demyx
Rating: So G, so mild as to not be gay at all.
Wordcount: 1612
Prompt/Genre: 'Learning to read'. AU; revolutionary-era Philadelphia. ~~and a refence to Princeton haha God I'm so lame~~
For parametric's request
Notes: I didn't slip in as many historical references as I feel I should have :/ But I don't write Zexion/Demyx very often, and both characters are challenging for me to write, so I'm pleased that I finished this story in a timely manner, at all.

Philadelphia in 1774 couldn't have been more exciting. Every day, there were new rumors, new stories, usually about the filthy Redcoats or the filthy Tories. There was set to be a war soon, the radicals promised, and all the men would get to go and fight for their new country. And besides that, there was opportunity, everywhere, because there were no classes, no real hierarchies.

Except of course, Demyx thought, with no small irritation as he raked out his Master's small lawn, Except for the slaves and for ME.

He hadn't had the money for the passage, of course. How could he? His poor, silly sad mother was broke, and honestly, she was an idiot. She didn't know what oppression was, and she didn't know what opportunity was -- and Demyx had long suspected that, really, she didn't care. But some of his friends had said about a new system, some called 'indentured servitude'. Sell yourself as a servant for passage to America, some rich family'll take you on for their yardwork, you did it for seven years, and then you're off on your own, in America, and you can do anything you like.

Seven years sounded a lot quicker, when you said it out loud. Demyx realized this only later.

Still, it was already four years into his sentence, and with some luck, he wouldn't have to serve the last three at all. No, he thought, grinning to himself as he pictured this future, a war was about to start, and he wasn't quite sure his Master's family wouldn't let him go to it.

"Isn't that right?" he called out to his employer's son. The boy, Zexion, Demyx thought he was his age, but he wasn't quite certain. Zexion hardly ever talked, see, except sometimes, when he reached a certain level of passion, he would burst out crying for peace and then he'd start on decrying war and God.

He was strange, there wasn't any doubt.

Zexion looked up from where he sat reading some heavy ancient book. "What are you talking about?" He called back, his tone indifferent, bored even.

But Demyx decided to indulge him, today. "You're not going to go to the war, I mean, isn't that right?"

"No, I'm not. Do you want to go for me?" The boy didn't wait for an answer; he had already lost interest, and had returned to his book.

"I knew it! He laughed, and punched, cheerfully, at the air. "I'm going to be the greatest hero that there ever was."

Zexion didn't respond for a while, but then -- "Hmmm," he consulted his book, suddenly interested in something. "You know, they say talking to yourself's a sign of schizophrenia, I wonder, do you think you might be a schizophrenic?"

This caught the servant off guard. "Does that mean a madman? And -- hey, no-- I was talking to you!" He scowled. Zexion seemed unimpressed.

"Oh. Were you. I wasn't being serious...what would the army do with some poor slave that can't even read?"

"They don't care. I know what's happening, I know why war's coming -- the murders up in Boston, all those taxes, I know all about them! I'll run away if I have to.." he added, defiantly, grinning a little nervous at Zexion, as he waited for some sort of reaction.

But all he got was an authoritative, certain, "I won't go, and you can't go. Now get back to working, or I'll have my father come out and whip you, like some common slave."

Demyx decided not to argue. He went back to raking, and fantasizing about being a hero.

--

That night, the house's Master asked his son, just when he thought he'd go and enlist in the army.

"I won't do that." Zexion said, coolly.

His father snarled. Said Son, you're a man now, at 19, you're more then old enough to fight with me, fight to defend your country.

"We don't have a country." The boy said, as if inviting his radical, Patriot father's hostility.

"They're going to be needing recruits. And I hear there's to be a camp down in the middle city for finding those recruits, starting this week. You'll go down there."

Zexion said nothing, but his eyes were hard and he shook his head just slightly.

That was alright, though, the man wasn't worried at all. "I'm told they're looking at that man Washington for general. You've heard of him, haven't you? Wouldn't you want to serve under him?" He was trying to be jovial.

"There's no need for a war. We're part of England; we always were. Why should we die, fighting our own? Civil wars are what undoes countries. And I don't believe in war, it's not practical nor--"

The joviality, a facade to begin with, was gone in an instant. "Your books say that. Your books are dead! You're a coward, that's all. Would you have me drag you down to the camp, forcibly, like a child? Do not think that I won't."

The attack on the books, more then the threat, served to efficiently silence Zexion. But he swore to himself he wouldn't be like their servant and just give up, he wouldn't be like...oh.

--

To say Demyx was somewhat confused when he woke up to Zexion shaking him stubbornly awake, would be an understatement.

"You-- why-- why are you down here? In the servant's quarters and--"

"You're running away, aren't you?"

"Um.." he wasn't quite sure of what was going on. "No. I'm tired. I'm sleeping. It must be midnight or later..."

"Do get up." Zexion's voice was calm and detached as usual...he thought...or was there some panic, in the way he was talking just-a-little too quickly? "If you ever want in the war-- if I ever want out of it-- then we're to leave now."

Some of the words were starting to permeate through the sleep-haze that still weighed down Demyx's mind. "What brought this on?"

"Later, later. I'm leaving without you, if you don't hurry and get dressed."

--

Seven hours later, they were on a miserable lonely, rocky path that promised to bring them to Lancaster.

"Really. What did bring this on?"

"I don't believe in God. But students of the College of New Jersey -- any seminary students, really -- have a reason to stay out of war. No one cares that I believe in peace, but if I believe in Jesus, then that's alright."

"Aren't those the same thing?"

"They should be."

They walked in silence for a while, but as Zexion seemed unlikely to continue the conversation...

"Why'd you bring me? I mean, if you're just running off to school...it was really nice of you, I suppose, but I can join the war on my own--"

"Don't be stupid. It's got nothing to do with what you want. There's a recruiting office set up in Lancaster, and you're going to sign up as me. No one knows my face there, but they'll hear my name, it'll get up to father, and he won't come looking for me."

"You're terrible." Demyx supposed he wasn't disappointed, not really, but he'd been under the impression that Zexion had brought him along because maybe, they might be friends, or maybe even because the boy cared...

More silence. Zexion broke it, this time. "Don't you want to know what I'm going to do?"

"No." It was a lie.

"It won't be easy to get into that school. Harder to assume a new identity."

"Do you want to tell me?" Demyx was taller, but the road was sloping oddly, and they were roughly equal. Zexion was able to look him in the eye and, to his surprise, Demyx thought he saw something like shock on the other boy's features.

"I do. I wonder why though..." Zexion looked ahead, his voice starting to grow far-away and intrigued. "I want you to tell me it's a good plan. I want you to say it'll work out...I wonder why, though! I don't like telling people things."

"It's my bright disposition and my kind nature and because I'm the only person in thiese God-damn woods that you can talk to!..Except for the animals, I suppose, or yourself, but wouldn't that make you a skitzio-whatsit?" He laughed, and oddly enough, Zexion grinned back.

"You're strange, Demyx. Not so bad, though."

He wasn't quite sure how to respond. Never ever had Zexion said his name like that; Demyx quite honestly liked hearing it. "I don't care that you like peace, you know." he said. "Even if you are a Tory, or a Brit. I just don't understand where you decided to like it. Everyone else wants a war."

"Not everyone."

Still a sort of formality, still a strangeness, but Demyx wondered if maybe he didn't dislike talking to his (ex!)-Master's strange boy. "How d'you know?" Then curiosly, "It's in your books, isn't it?"

His favorite subject, but Zexion was quite sure that, were he to give his new companion a lecture on pacifism and history, the poor servant would be quite lost. But maybe not because Demyx was stupid. Maybe Demyx wasn't stupid at all. Maybe just..

"Can you read?"

"I thought you knew I couldn't!"

"I had no idea, I was just playing."

"You really are terrible."

"Do you want to learn?"

Demyx stopped, actually stopped, on the road. Zexion found it almost endearing, and he thought to be embarrassed, because endearing couldn't be the word for a boy. "Will you teach me? Just in case the army really doesn't want illiterate people, you understand..."

Maybe he was covering up some embarrassment of his own. Zexion guessed it really didn't matter; they had time enough, walking like this, to get accustomed to each other. "Of course I'll teach you. It'll give us something to do on the way, won't it?" (He'd packed books, of course. The sack he'd made up for Demyx held the canvas tent and food and stolen money and such.) "Though I daresay the army would take you anyway."

The Day Fred Weasley (Albeit Unwittingly) Created An Archnaphobe

2007-10-06T03:16:23Z

Harry Potter
Fred Weasley for everyfiveyears
age 5
Trying for some fluffyhumor. First HP fic ever, huzzah, that's got to count for something. ps. I'm taking the SATs tommorrow. Huzzay! >:

It was a bright day, out. The sun was burning yellow and the sky was lightest blue, and the wind was just perfect for flying about two feet above the ground.

Going out and exploiting this day to it's fullest was Fred Weasley's current, and right now singular, purpose in life...and so, it was most upsetting when he found his toy-broom broken, and hidden in the old cauldron they used as a trash bin.

Fred withdrew the pieces from the rusty cauldron, disbelieving. Who could have done such a thing...? The two halves were splintered, the break wasn't clean. Someone had accidentally destroyed it, by sitting on it..!

Who broke brooms by just using them? Well, that much was easy. Fat people. Fred racked his brains for a minute over his acquaintances, that is to say, his family. Bill and Charlie were at school. Mum wouldn't have sat on and broken his broom (or if she had, she wouldn't admit it) and Dad was out at work. George would have told him, and besides, George wasn't fat. Ugly, but not fat. So this left Percy (a fatty if there ever was one), Baby Ron, and Baby Ginny as the possible culprits.

In that moment, the wind picked up, and it had never been more suited for toy broomstick riding. But the enchantment on the toy was gone forever and now Fred couldn't fly. He decided he was furious, and then decided that he would have revenge.

--

Ginny was sleeping in her crib. "No excuse." Fred muttered darkly, grabbing onto the bars and expertly pulling himself up, and over. "You're faking."

Unaware Ginny woke up the second the dolly's arm came off.

And Mother was unimpressed when she heard her precious baby girl screaming. "Fred--" she started, "How could she have done anything -- she can barely walk, honestly, how could she break your toy, you must have left it out..." Ginny's whimpers distracted Molly for a moment. While she was magicking the doll's arm ("Reparo!") back on, Fred took the opportunity to run, calling behind him -- "Mother, I'm really George, can't you tell?"

--

It was sad, Fred reflected, that George had just been sent to their room for time-out, but honestly, it was sadder that his broom was broke.

--

He snuck into Percy's room -- the fathead was so absorbed in his silly reading, that he didn't even look up!

Fred was suddenly doubtful -- someone who spent as much time indoors and locked up as Percy did, could not have possibly ventured outside for long enough to ruin a child's day. Besides, he would've taken Bill's old broom, it was a grown-up broom, wasn't it.

Still, it would be fun to pull some prank on Percy. For George's sake.

Percy's own favorite toy, a play-wand that cast three different minor charms (Silencio! Engorgio! and a spell to turn old stuffed animals, into different stuffed animals!) when waved correctly, was thrown haphazardly on the bed. Fred could just reach it, by standing on tiptoe and pulling at the bedcovers.

He caught it (barely), and crept out again. Just as he shut the door, though -- just as the latch had clicked it shut, Percy looked up. And was displeased. "You brat!" he screamed. "What'd you take, give it back, I'll tell Moth--"

His voice was cut off when Fred waved out the silencio charm, and with another small flourish of the toy, he had Percy's door growing, just enough to fill up the doorway completely and lock the boy inside.

"Did you sit on my broom?"

The pounding noise from the other side of the door ceased for a moment -- and then started up again, seemingly enraged and indignant. "That's a no then, Percy Ig-nat-i-us?" Fred asked, cheerfully. "Well, honestly, y'should've said so sooner." He walked away, humming a song. Only one more to clear, was it? If he was not mistaken, the other baby was outside, just now...

--

"Oi! Fatty!" Fred called to baby Ron, who was sitting stupidly outside, holding a great big teddy bear and watching the gnomes parade about the lawn.

The three-year-old looked up, and then away, but not before clapping a pudgy hand to his side. Ahah! Hard evidence if there ever was any. "Are you hiding something? Won-Won?"

"Shuudup," his little brother said, still watching the gnomes and pretending not to be guilty. "Meanie."

"Wonnie," Fred said airily, "You are absolutely charming, didya know that?"

Ron hugged his bear and ignored his brother.

"I see the bandage. I know you broke my broom. But that's okay."

"Weally?" Ron said, with his baby lisp. Ah, children. (Fred thought with amusement.) So naive. They just confessed all over the place. "I sowwy, you know." He was lying absolutely. In his mind, he'd been punished enough when he'd flown straight into the Burrow.

Fred though, he didn't. "I was kidding, dummy." He pointed Percy's wand right at Ronnie's stupid head. "You broke my toy! Big fatty."

Ron pulled his bear even closer. "Was 'n akkident." He insisted. "An you wonnent. Mama 'll yell."

"I'm not aiming for you -- change!"

Ron's screams of terror were sweet, sweet music under the blue spring sky.

--

"It was a real spider? Not a toy?" George asked, interestedly. "I wonder how that happened?"

"Dunno." Fred said, shrugging. "Maybe because I'm so powerfully magic, my anger brings things to life? Haha...but it scared him, anyway. Little git. That's what he gets for sitting on his elders' brooms. Oh! And sorry, I got you locked up here."

"It's okay." And George was grinning, now. "We're locked up together. And you dropped this." He pulled out the toy wand and he was laughing. "Now, what creepy buggy thing are you afraid of, twin? I'll just get your bear, back."

52nd_dimension @ 2007-09-16T01:43:00

2007-09-16T05:46:16Z

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Pairing: Riku/Roxas
Theme: B-7, Prudence
Wordcount: 2974. What the Hell happened.
Summary & Stuff: Riku & Roxas discuss memory and priority and life and sex and all that good stuff. Riku makes a bad decision and Roxas is supportive.

And I am done with this challenge~!

Sora had called him. Asked Riku, in a strangely timid voice, if he wouldn't mind meeting him out on the island, tomorrow. Yes, no, it's alright if you can't, of course...

Riku agreed, but he felt somehow disquieted. Only because it was so unexpected, of course. Certainly Sora's ulterior motive, if there was one to be had, would be utterly benign, dull and slightly distasteful, nothing to do with --

Enough, he told himself, and he put the next day and Sora's hesitant voice away away.

Next day he untied his boat from the mainland dock and paddled out to the playground island. He'd done it thousands of times before and he'd do it thousands of times again and damn it, he would be so grateful to go because it was home and he was supposed to want it, even when it was everyday and long and so damn boring all the time...

Sora's boat was already tied up when Riku reached the dock. The boy was sitting down the beach, his hood pulled up over his head and his posture stiff and strange.

The figure wasn't like Sora and despite himself, Riku found himself intrigued. Good. Something strange, for the first time since Godknowswhen.

He got out of the boat, and approached his friend. He said nothing, even though he was drawing closer and closer, close enough to call to, close enough to touch --

He nudged Sora's drawn-up leg with his tow. "Hey." he said, very simply and casually and not at all hoping.

--

Which must have been right, because it was Roxas who drew down the hood and half-grinned up at him. "I need to talk to you." he said. Riku nodded and Roxas took the liberty to speak. He was straightforward and direct, maybe, the faster to get his unpleasant words over with.

"I haven't been able to sleep. I know I was supposed to become my Other, but something went wrong, and I've been lying underneath him, lying in his skin, this whole time. This is the first time I've been strong enough to take over -- don't worry," he added to address Riku's obligatory look of shock and fury. "He knows I have. Look, see, it hurts, to be trapped in someone else. You should know." Roxas was not one to mince words, he'd never had been. "And my Other, being so compassionate and so ludicrously empathetic--" (a note of sarcasm, here, interesting because it was heartfelt, this time) "He wants me to stop suffering. He wants me to go back to sleep and be whole with him. You see?"

Riku's narrowed eyes said he did, quite well, even if he may not have liked vision. "Do you know what went wrong? Clearly, it's something you think I can fix."

"My Organization is dead." Roxas crossed his arms over his chest, and his voice bordered on accusatory. It became outright with his next statement -- "And Twilight Town never knew me. The old man is dead. Naminé is whole."

That girl -- I haven't thought of her in so long -- AH, then, of course..! "And that's everyone who might remember you gone, right? Roxas-as-Roxas. The only memory of him is in me, isn't it?"

"Aren't you clever." the other boy asked, (Riku supposed it wasn't a Nobody, not anymore, but then, he guessed he might not be certain) mockingly. "That's right. If you weren't thinking of me, dear sweet Other hypothesizes, I wouldn't exist at all, and then I'd fall asleep properly."

"I didn't know." Riku said quietly, not sure if he should be ashamed, or not. "I didn't know...I didn't want to forget either of you. I thought it would honor your existence, to keep the memories...and you especially, Roxas, after...after everything." He said this last sentence rather awkwardly, lamely, and he reached for Roxa's hand to try to make up for it.

Predictably, Roxas pulled his hand back, as if he had been burned. But he kept up talking, but not in the same quick, efficient tone, not anymore. "If you forget me, then we'll merge. That's all he wants.." Riku nodded, as if he understood. He didn't. "But I don't want that. I want to be remembered."

"What?" Taken off guard-Riku started to try and put this together. "You'd rather be half-alive, rather watch your own life, rather hurt--"

"I want to be remembered." The boy repeated, bluntly. "That's why I came to you. You remember me and I'll still live and we won't tell Sora and you'll have all you wanted, now and then."

Riku made a strange face, something that was confusion and pity and desire all at once. He was silent for a while, and then he laughed. A short, harsh, mocking laugh and Roxas felt his stomach sinking.

"You're out of your mind. I won't."

"What do you mean, you won't? You just said you wanted to. You said you couldn't forget!"

"I do want to. I want to keep you with me always, I meant that, but -- but it's human to want something and not take it, when you know it'd be unwise."

"Well, I wouldn't know that, would I?"

"I guess not. And you never will." Riku said. "You'll go back to Sora and I swear I'll forget." He left Roxas, then. He was going to go to the secret place, he decided, he'd go and look at the drawings and look at the door and he'd remind himself what had happened the last time he'd taken what he'd wanted.

--

Roxas didn't know this was Riku's intent, of course. He supposed it was the other's idea of a dramatic exit, and as such, it was pathetic, and hardly convincing.

He knew -- between Sora's heart and his brain, there was a new and intuitive understanding of emotion -- he knew that Riku wanted him more then he wanted peace. It was only out of guilt to Sora, wasn't it? He didn't want his prettyprecious So-ra to suffer. He didn't want to lie.

There's got to be a way... he thought, absently. What I need is...something he won't forget. With that thought, he followed the shifts in the sand that marked where Riku had been.

He wasn't sure where Riku had disappeared too, because the tracks ended abruptly where the boy had gotten up onto a stone-floored pathway. He moved forward on instinct and half-memories -- here is where he'd seen the shadows, first, and there was something, hidden behind low-slung ivy and bright green vines. He had to go forward, even though it looked like solid rock --

and there it was, a small niche in the wall. Roxas proceeded cautiously, but it seemed just like a cave. "Riku!" he called out, guiding himself down the dark tunnel by trailing his fingers over the damp, dirty-mossy stone wall. "I know you're down here..."

"You still don't quit, do you?" Silence, and then that angry-irate laughter, echoing from somewhere ahead. "Come on down. Come see the door and everything around it."

Roxas's first impression was of a tomb. The cave was damp, but utterly silent, and cold. But as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he could make out the carvings and the childish graffiti decorating the walls, and he saw a closed, lockless door, that drew the eye and curiosity. Not a tomb, then, but some sort of shrine. To childhood, maybe? He did not know, he had never had such a thing to mourn.

"Your hiding place.." he said, coolly. "It it supposed to mean something to me? Only I'm not impressed."

"You prick. Sora's heart hasn't changed you much, has it?" Riku didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he crouched low, indicating the graffiti he had been examining. "Remember this?" he asked quietly, seriously. "You both should have drawn it."

Roxas didn't know what Riku was talking about, but he looked, indulgently, just the same. A sloppy portrait of a girl, a neater one of a boy. They were holding stars to each other's mouths, and Roxas did feel the tiniest twinge of recognition. "It's Sora...and Kairi." Without a heart, he would have smirked. And even now, his first thought was to mock Riku for this -- but Sora's heart was sending great amounts of blood and oxygen and signals to his brain, signals that blended together and forced his mind to sympathize. To care. It was a strange sensation, feeling..."Of course." he said, quietly. "They're in love."

"And I don't care," Riku said, mostly-sincere. "But sometimes I wnder...what if hadn't opened the door, there? What if I hadn't changed back then? Would it be different?"

"Probably not." Roxas lied amiably. "Those two, I'm sure they were meant to be. Or something. Nothing you could have done to prevent it..."

Riku straightened up, half-smiling. "Well, it doesn't matter now, anyway. But I can keep from acting unwisely again...I won't be impulsive and I won't take and I won't cause pain. Not any more. Not even for you." With that, he went to the tunnel, and proceed on it's way.

"Hey!" Roxas walked after him, quickly now. "So, what, you'll just leave me here, until I can't sustain myself and Sora takes--"

"No," Riku said, looking back to him as they came into the sun. "But you said you wanted to see, and I don't know, you really might like this island. Come on, I'll show it to you."

--

It felt strange, to explore a place he'd always been. But not unpleasant. It was nice, to be reminded of the trees he'd climbed and the streams he'd played in, before he'd been, properly, himself.

Riku didn't talk as he guided his charge through the place, except to introduce a new place or recall a story behind a rock, a vine, a fountain.

Roxas didn't mind. He liked looking -- there was the seemingly rickety zip-line, and beyond it, the precarious wooden platforms ("Be careful, the second one always collapses..") and the old, abandoned racetrack. Roxas remembered each place, as somewhere he'd played dreamlike with Sora, or maybe as Sora.

It was all he'd wanted to do, really. Come home and hang around. He could be like this forever, Riku quiet by his side and the island safe and eternal like it was...

The word forever stuck in his mind, somehow linked with the sun that was lowering fast. He'd lost track of his time, following and exploring like this, hadn't he? He thought this slowly, dully, as he leapt from the track to see the last place. He only had so much strength. There was Riku's memory and his own, but the self-image he had was blurring and Riku was so distracted -- it wasn't enough and he'd fall asleep soon. No -- No! he told himself. Not yet. We can still make him promise.

--

Riku had brought him to the remains of the raft. He remembered this in full color-- making it and dreaming about it and seeing how it represented freedom. It wasn't just his dream-fragments, no, he remembered binding the splintery wood and collecting the final provisions all by hand.

He went to it, and ran his hand over the thick, weather-beaten, canvas sail.

Behind him, Riku took a step away, before he turned to start to go. He remembered Roxas vividly -- the notangry Nobody that had beaten him in battle once, twice, a thousand times, before Riku knew what he had to do, the strange and quiet boy who Riku had, once, thought was his best friend and maybe even more, the Organization's darling who never, ever, would let anything get too close -- and because of that, he knew he could forget him. He wanted Roxas to be happy, and Roxas couldn't be happy unless he was truly whole. He'd forget and the boy would go quietly, and maybe that was for the best for both of them, because never again would Riku recall, feeling half-longing and half-guilty, the darker, more chaotic times in the Dark City, or the almost-adventures he'd had those two years ago. Maybe he'd finally feel, too, like he was --

A sudden weight against him distracted him quite completely. Roxas had caught him about his waist and pushed against him -- "What will make you remember me? Will this?" Roxas who hated to touch hands, who hated any contact beyond that of weapons against skin.

"You're not--" his foot caught, on a piece of driftwood, another step, and he fell backwards. The smaller boy was on top of him, his legs straddled about Riku's waist. "Roxas..?"

The boy's face was blank, but for a trace of incredulity and a hint of disgust. Still, he persisted. "If we do it. You won't forget me, if we do this right now, right? You can't."

Riku didn't say anything -- he didn't understand. Because he was remembering -- the long night in the Dark City, holding Roxas for a rare, peaceful, half-rational moment, the first tentative attempt at a kiss, and then the Nobody stiffening under him, pulling back, screaming what the hell is that?!

Roxas telling him one night, in a strangely vulnerable tone, that he didn't do that sort of thing. No touching, not in the sterile, pure-white castle. It wasn't done, it was dirty, kissing, loving, you know, um, sex.

Then Riku laughing like it didn't matter, making fun and irritating the Nobody no small deal, while quietly pleased, that Roxas would stay up with him or kill him or whisper sweet threats and promises, but never, ever let him betray Sora in that way.

Riku remembered that Roxas.

"So...so, we will, right?"

Riku sat up, as best he could, and put his arms about Roxas. The boy drew back, but Riku wouldn't let go. "God, Roxas. God, you're stupid. You don't even want me to hug you. How are you going to fuck me?"

Roxas didn't answer. He pushed his lips against Riku's instead, awkwardly, but determinedly.

And Riku could have let it happen. God knows, it wasn't the worst thing -- he'd thought about it then, and he'd wanted it, he had, and even now, well, he could delude himself into thinking it was out of some affection, that Roxas really had wanted -- "No," Riku shoved at the boy. His voice sounded less alarmed then he felt, was less serious then he meant. "Don't. You're serious, aren't you? You'd rather suffer then die."

"Please," Roxas said, and somewhere inside, hear and mind came together just right and Roxas had never been so sincere. "That's all." He pushed himself away from Riku, awkwardly, and got up, quickly, wearing an expression of gratitude and of anxiety.

"I thought one day would be enough." Riku wasn't muttering, but he was close, as he stood at armslength. "That if you could see the island's no big deal, then you'd see, and you'd want to be whole, instead. But that's not what you need, is it?"

Roxas shook his head no, and Riku didn't answer. Not for a long while.

--

When he did, he said, go sit on the dock. The view is best from there. Go, and I'll meet you up, I just have to get something, first.

Roxas didn't have to wait long. Riku came back, holding a squashy yellow fruit loosely in hand. He dropped it into the bemused Roxas's hands, before settling himself next to the boy.

"This, see..." Riku ran a finger over the fruit, lightly, as though afraid it might burst, or as if just afraid. "I didn't show you. It's a paopu fgruit They say that when you split it, your life'll intertwine with that person's. I guess so long as the other person's living, then, you can't die either."

Roxas split it, hesitatingly. Juice dribbled out of it; it was warm and slimy as it slid between the fingers of Sora's half-gloves. "In case you do forget?"

"So that way, you won't die. I don't know how you'll ever get out, but that's your problem." Riku said, as he took the half that was offered to him.

"It's alright. Between your memory and my own image -- and what my Other knows, though God knows that's not too much -- I'll only have the strength to come out once in a long while. I'll hide in, from, Sora for a year, maybe, maybe more. And then I'll only stay a day..." he grinned, looking straight into the sunset. "But it's still not being dead."

"Is death so scary?" Riku asked, although he thought it might be to late to go back anyway. He'd already eaten half of the sweetyellow fruit, and Roxas was done. Besides, on re-evaluation, he was thinking it might be impossible to fully forget Roxas.

Roxas shrugged. "I don't care. I don't want to go through it -- besides," his eyes slid sideways, inquiring. "Don't you want me? Even one day a year..."

Riku laughed, and got up to undock his boat. Already Roxas's eyes were dulling, already his speech was getting slow and airy. "More then anything, though I know it's unwise."

Roxas smiled down at him, drowsily, as if smiling at a dream. "That's right. Knew you did...you always take. Don't you."

Riku looked at Sora's back, and dregs of sunlight caught in the boy's hair, dying it dirty-blond and pretty for one more second.

It was an awful, immature, greedy thing to agree to, this nasty little arrangement, and everytime Riku looked at Sora, he knew he'd see Roxas, not-living not-dying, repressed below the darker skin and brighter smile.

He found, unexpected though the sensation was a familiar one, that he didn't care, not even as Sora spun round and asked if he and Roxas were truly one again, not even as he responded positively.

It was all for that one, quiet day together, and Riku thought that maybe-just-maybe, it would be worth it.

Gangster Rap Like This.

2007-08-30T04:46:39Z

Kingdom Hearts
Riku Replica
2384 words, but it's really just 8 drabbles.
In which various uses for and the pathetic life of the Replica are recalled. Absolutely gen, even though this summary makes it sound maybe different ^^;
This storyish has nothing to do with gangster rap, by the way.

To make a doll, you use wires and clay and bits of string. You cook them together and something vaguely pretty and pretty worthless gets made.

Vexen might have been mistaken for a dollmaker, just then, but his wires were clean bleach bones and his clay was fine skin and the string was bits of DNA and data.

To think, he thought absently, only one strand of hair, one skincell, and from it I can copy his blood -- there was a mass of dark rich red blood that was steadily expanding, bubbling and slopping against the clean white innards of a marble vat, and the Academic glanced towards it with something like pride. And create a brain -- the organ was floating in an over-sized glass vial, half of it finished, gray firm matter, and half of it creating itself out of swirling green numbers. Create a human..create life.

Life, because he thought of his doll as alive, although it would not be born and would never thrive. The blood was not alive, and neither were the organs. The skeleton, -- painstakingly measured, pieced together on the lab table, a fancy bleachwhite puzzle game for a bored and Heartless scientist -- that wasn't alive either. But put them all together and thread in a computer and a card with bright copper ties would make it alive.

He went on building it, more absorbed, now, in the construction then the science. Practical work, and useful, something those neophytes would not try to understand...strange how it was their schemes giving him opportunity to do his best work. And funny -- he smiled mirthlessly, even as he was covered in gristle and gore, as he delicately stitched in liver and lungs and heart -- how this work would outlive all their plans.

Eyes in their sockets, secured with a wet squelching sound and replicated nerves. Then muscles, more stitches (finest sinew thread) and there was a body, a perfect teenage doll, missing only skin and blood. And that blood, he poured it into the delicate veins he'd already laced through the body with an especial strange satisfaction.

He did not want his creation to come to consciousness in pain -- and he had made sure to make it sensitive to pain. This doll was not to be some junk, mechanical robot -- so he grafted the skin onto the bloody baby doll before implanting the card that would start it's brain. (No, it was his brain, Vexen decided. He made it.)

Only a few wires were needed, just a few non-human parts to make his doll perfect. It wouldn't make his creation a freak and it's living any less incredible. A few thin metal cords to secure a blank card in the experiment's neck, and then it was time to start the heart.

He was not nervous, never nervous now, and it's movement still came as a shock.

Thump thump, thump thump -- it really was alive. Really moving. And then his doll should wake up.

It's eyelids (and oh fine eyelashes, created in a test tube with the same numbers that had birthed it's brain) slid back and the eyes were no longer dead and unseeing, but awake and curious and already shadowed with ununderstood anger.

His doll was alive and his masterwork (he did not know it was that then, he thought there'd be years and centuries and eons for more and better science, but that was he before he died.) was completed.

--

Her doll was always amusing, even though it hated to play.

"Go away," that Riku would hiss, before going back to ogling the fistful of crayon drawings he had to drag around with him everywhere.

She knew it was cruel, and worse, pointless, but oh the pretty thing made it so easy.

She crouched next to it, and ran her hand over the crinkled sketches, three little children on an imagined island. "Who is he?"

It had already jerked away from her, snatched the picture away as it got up -- but it didn't leave. Instead it said, -- "Sora. No one. You know."

"Yes, I do." she got up, then caught it's toy wrist, spun it around so she could see it's neck. There was a small incision there, and there were memories and a convoluted self inside of it. "He's your best friend!"

"Not anymore," the thing growled, sounding as if it was really mad, which was charming, because dolls didn't have real emotions. She was one, as it were, so she'd ought to know. But she was getting distracted and she was missing out on toy Riku's misguided anger. "Traitor. Forgot all about her."

"Kairi?"

"Who's that? That's no one! Let me go to Naminé. Let go of me, or I'll-- I'll--" It didn't finish it's threat, and she wondered if it remembered why.

And in case it didn't, she told him -- "Poor doll. You couldn't fight back, even when it was important. Remember when- you- remembered? That first time, hmm?"

It looked uncomfortable for a second, wondering if maybe there was a tiny, tiny bit of meaning in her words. But of course, Riku decided that there wasn't one, no meaning, no Kairi and no before. Only Naminé and Sora and the worthless sketched memories that he'd stolen.

(Or at least, that was how Larxene was guessing. She didn't know. She wasn't any science project.)

It tried to pull away again, and this time she let it go. "All the same. You'd ought to ask your pretty girlfriend who Kairi is. Might be more important then you think you remember."

--

Sometimes, not often, there was only him. The Replica would look into the marble walls and try to think. He tried to picture the sand around his feet and tried to hear his friends' voices calling him to play, like they used to do.

But the silence weighing down on him was distracting, roaring around his head like a storm. It built up and it scared him, so he'd run back to Namine or slink back to Vexen, just to hear that he wasn't alone and that he wasn't mad.

--

The Silent Hero regarded the half-conscious doll with quiet apathy.

Vexen was raving about how very very miraculous the whole experiment was...the doll was adapting it's new memories and creating a personality from it...the experiment had never, never been reproduced...

Lexaeus told Vexen that there was no point to that success. "The time for science is over." he said. "You can not share this creation with any world, or any community. What was the point of experimenting, if your research will not be passed on?"

"It will be!" The Academic replied, his expression parodying annoyance. "We will be restored...and for now...I sacrificed my heart for my work. I will not stop my experiments, even it's only you and I that can see the results!"

He scowled, and left the room.

The doll had gotten up, and looked blankly at the spot where it's master had vanished. "What was he talking about...?" the replication asked Lexaeus, looking around the white room slowly. "I don't see anything..none of his experiments."

Lexaeus tested the doll -- "What's your name?"

"Riku." It said. It's eyes were sliding back into focus, and it seemed to be recalling something -- "I -- I lost, didn't I? To Sora-- shit--"

He'd become Riku, or something close to him -- no, Lexaeus reminded himself, it, the same blank and obedient clone from before, just with an illusionary personality superimposed over it's mind.

"A useless experiment, but they gave it a soul -- a creature that is made more of dreams then of fact. What have we become, Riku, if we can make a creature like that?"

It didn't seem to follow. "And now he'll be -- oh -- well, magic, maybe? I don't know. But I've got to go -- Namine, she'll be needing me --"

What, indeed...

If nothing else, his doll offered a strange, subjective opportunity for self-reflection and the lost, old ethics.

--

Vexen's experiment, Riku again, was really, quite dull.

He was pretty, and his implanted hatred of Sora might prove useful, in bringing the Keyblader to see his way.

But other than that...Riku was boring. Larxene liked to taunt him, hint at what he really was. And his own doll, poor pretty Namine, sometimes fancied the erring doll her friend.

But Marluxia didn't like him. And he never found a use for Riku.

--

There were weird, strange things in Vexen's lab, Riku decided. It was good that Naminé never came down here -- she'd be scared. There was an old vat of what looked like blood, cooling and congealing in one corner. Countless scrawled reports and figures, none of which Riku could read.

No light. It was nothing like the islands. He'd always liked the islands.

Why had he left again..? Really, Riku, what a stupid thing to do, he told himself, inexplicably annoyed at some one else.

--

"Where are you going?" Axel put his arm across the door, efficiently barring the Replica from Naminé and pissing the kid off.

It scowled at him. Not too responsive, not today. Whose fault was it, now...no, no, Axel wouldn't accuse the soon dead. He had better things to do.

He shook his head no. "Naminé's busy, kiddo. She told me that inspiration just..burned...across her mind, that she needs to finish what she's working on now."

It was bullshit, but the Replica had been fooled by even worse shit. "Oh," he said, and then, at a loss, "What is she working on?"

Axel gently put his hands on doll's shoulders, turned around and pushed him away from the thirteenth floor's only shut door. "A picture, of herself, playing with Sora. She's having fun with it. I do daresay she misses him."

The kid stiffened under his grip, and whirled around furious. "Why? After he betrayed us -- lost her name and --"

"And you are very righteously outraged." Axel said, with only the vaguest hint of irony. "How dare he forget his dearest friends?"

"Bastard." the toy was serious. Very sincere about his fake hate.

He figures that it's pathetic. But Axel doesn't feel bad about using it. Perks of not having a heart, go figure. "Or maybe I've just gotten desensitized to the real one, using all the rest of them for dolls."

"What are you muttering about?" The Replica asked scornfully, but Axel didn't clarify. Instead he held up a crayoned drawing of a smiling brunet.

"Fight him, will you? Kill him like that's what you were born to do."

--

Zexion found it amusing. Really, how could he not? A doll deceived into thinking itself alive.

Alive, no. An excellent experiment and a blank screen for Zexion's powers, that was all.

And he exploited it, like so. Showed it the pretty illusions in his book, showed it the lite-brite life it might have with the little witch, if it followed orders and remembered why it was there, again.

"But..why is that, again?" The doll asked, it's eyes a little bit blank and it's mind a little bit too focused.

Zexion shrugged. "You ask Vexen. Now look.." A bright colored page in the book showed the Replica one fine day, when it and Princess Naminé had gone sailing on a raft, looking for monsters and looking for adventures, a fine bright day without time and without Sora.

The illusion was enough to remind the Replica of the goal, to destroy Marluxia's little puppet before the puppet destroyed the witch, and to leave Oblivion with that witch.

Zexion was only a little pleased, watching the Replica believe it all, believe anything at all. Only a little, because it wasn't very professional to take pride in one's own work, and the Replica wasn't his anyway.

--

There wasn't much left to do, after Sora had killed off Larxene.

That stupid bitch had gone and ruined his illusion. She'd gone and ruined everything.

--

If she asked herself and answered honestly, she didn't care for it. It might be a relief if it died. It might be nice if it went back to not caring for her, either.

But that was a long time ago, when it was just made and It still knew what It was.

And it sort of grew on her. It liked her, it really really did, took his manufactured heart and life and gave them both to her.

Sometimes when it came to her, promising freedom, vengeance, promises, anything it thought she might like, she pretended like it was he and she was queen. Then He liked Sora and they were both her kings and Kairi was a Nobody of Naminé.

But eventually he said something like, "Vexen needs to see me," or, "Sora's coming closer, this time, though...but I'll stop him," or, he just pulled out the charm and that always killed her dream right off and then she didn't care for it again.

When she broke it's heart (as easy as blinking, as easy as two red lines) it woke up knowing. And then she liked it more. "It's much better, when we don't have to pretend." she told it, holding it's pretty silver head (real hair; dead Vexen had been oh-so-proud) in her lap.

It said, "Shouldn't we help Sora?" It pulled away and stood and took her hand and pulled her gently to her feet, so they could go and save her only friend.

"You could have been a king," she told it. "Or maybe even my friend."

It looked bemused but she offered no explanation and then they started running to go and try and redeem themselves.

It was a sweet moment, and she remembered it till she died. Remembered that it was the only time that he had been useful.

--

Riku had only met it twice in it's life.

He didn't have much time to empathize with it. The first time he saw it, he'd won, and quick. Then there was Ansem, then Lexaeus, then Zexion, then Ansem again and again, and he'd somehow forgotten all about his cocky little clone.

The second time, it wasn't quite so smug. He didn't know what had gone wrong with it, but it was furious about not being him and just as hell-bent on destroying him.

It had barely occurred to him to pity the fake before it was lying mortally wounded and bemoaning it's fate. He didn't know it well enough to apologize, but it had his face and he was sorry to see it destroyed.

--

But it was the way and it's life was useless. There was nothing he could have done differently -- and besides -- it was soon forgotten. It had just been a doll in the end.

52nd_dimension @ 2007-08-25T03:41:00

2007-08-25T07:54:10Z

Kingdom Hearts
Riku/Roxas
B-3: Charity
This started out as another uber-fun request from Ren :D The prompt was 'shooting star' and the goddamn fic got incredibly too long ^^; It also ended up satisfying the theme 'Charity', which I've been struggling with...so it's for 7_sins_virtues, too :D

It was cold, there, up high on the clock tower. Freezing, in fact, but that wasn't a problem.

The windstorm screaming around him was.

He had been sent to this England to recover a Mythril crystal, some rare synthesis material -- something so powerful that Xemnas did not want the enemy having it. It should have been an easy mission. And it would have been, if he could have just found the goddamn thing.

He hadn't been worried about falling or anything when he'd left the Darkness for the stone wall above the clock. It was a wide enough way, and even though wind was howling all around the tower, it wasn't really hitting Roxas at all. But the crystal wasn't on that wall, as it turned out.

Fine, he'd thought then, I'll just make a passage to the next level. He tried. He called up the Darkness and fashioned himself a door...but the other side just wouldn't form.

It was the wind, the stupid goddamn wind, he'd realized with something almost akin to fury, it was the storm, pulling apart the Darkness before an exit could be made.

There was no way he could return without the crystal. And it was his mission -- he wasn't going to call for help. And so the thing to do was to climb.

He edged out over the world, holding tight to the stone pillars as he turned around (slowly so slowly), and looked up to see just how high the tower went.

Much higher, that was it. Oh God. The stupid stone could be anywhere up there -- hidden under tiles, behind locked doors..shit, shit, time to start now.

He grabbed onto the ornate pillar, began pulling himself up, hand by hand -- the wind was much fiercer, the higher he went up. It was pulling at his grip, his hands, his fingers...no, he whispered, bemused by how the wind was snatching the words from his mouth before they had formed completely. Keep going. There was another ledge, not roofed, but he could at least stand on it...

Roxas's fingers found the next ledge, and he paused a moment before pulling himself up. The sky here...it wasn't clouded. It was clear, and he'd never seen so many stars -- they were kinda pretty, if you looked at them that way --

He guessed his grip must have relaxed while he'd looking up. It couldn't have loosened much, he couldn't have been that careless -- but irregardless, the storm broke his hold and next he knew he was falling.

He might have screamed. He didn't know -- he couldn't hear anything. The wind was wailing too loudly in his ears, deafening him, immobilizing him. He was gonna fall -- was falling, he was gonna die --

Something closed over his wrist and he stopped, just like that. Hanging over Big Ben and freezing to death and still thinking irrationally of stars or something and wait who-- "Get off!" he shrieked over the wind. "I know it's you--"

If his rescuer could hear him, he didn't give a sign. He just pulled Roxas up -- rather roughly, if you thought about it -- and then steadied the Nobody beside him.

"I don't need you to help me." Roxas informed the other brusquely, looking back over the sky.

Riku just laughed in his strange, darkly humorous way. "You'd rather I let you die?"

Roxas didn't answer. He went back to the pillar, and prepared himself to climb up again --

"Idiot!" Riku caught Roxas again, pulled him back to the ledge again. "That won't work, don't you see?"

"Get off of me!" Roxas struggled against the human's arms, but it wasn't working. "I won't let you. I need that crystal and I won't let you make me fail, I won't--"

And all of a sudden Riku's grip loosened. Roxas did manage to get free then-- but not before a fistful of something gold and sweet was unceremoniously thrown in his face. It fell all over his face, his coat -- fell in his mouth and he tasted too-sweet candy-sugar.

"It's not poison," Riku said, smirking. "So calm down."

Roxas spit the golden dust out and brushed it away as best he could. But it had already permeated through his coat, through his skin..."Then what is it?" he asked, warily. "Just a paralysis, I bet. One of your nasty human tricks..."

Riku looked away, though, over England or into the velvet sky. He wasn't smirking. He was looking somewhere far away, Roxas realized. Looking into his memories or something long ago...

"It's fairy dust." the boy said, suddenly. "It'll let you fly."

That was ridiculous. Roxas laughed mirthlessly, shaking his head no, darling, stupid, no. "There's no such thing, Riku. And people don't fly. What the hell is wrong with you? -- Why are you even here?"

Riku's answer was indescernible in the gale.

"What?" Roxas called out, coldly amused. He couldn't finish his mission and that goddamn Riku had humiliated him by saving him, but he at least he could still mock that same Riku. "What was that?"

"I don't believe in it either." Riku said, louder now. "I didn't even see him flying...but I heard. You take it and your breathe it in. You think happy thoughts, and then you can fly." he shook his head with a crooked, self-deprecating grin. "I don't know if either of us can do that so easily. But I wanted to try. And this Neverland, it's the the only world I know where a few fairies still live. I came here for it -- then I found this tower, and you were falling, so..." Riku shrugged, looking back to Roxas now. "You wouldn't have been doing something so stupid if you didn't have a good reason for it."

Roxas didn't laugh now. The other boy was serious. Either Riku had, finally, gone crazy, or he was right about the cane-sugar powder. It wouldn't hurt to just try believing the latter answer. "Happy thoughts?"

"Says the legends."

"This must be a big deal to you..."

"What?"

"Didn't you always want to fly?"

Riku laughed, before leaning out, tentatively, over the city. "Yeah. Guess I did..."

This flying, this dust, this was madman stuff. Better suited for Wonderland then this Englandland...still, it was worth a try. Stranger things had happened -- didn't he exist, an anti-thesis to Riku's best friend? And didn't that Riku care more about him then that yet-unnamed other? Strange things. Happy thoughts -- past and present but never for the future.

Him & Kairi & I on the paopu tree. Dreaming about other worlds. Finishing Ansem off that last time. Finding Roxas--

Getting that Crystal. Going back home. Being whole and still me. Stars at night--

and goddamn, but it worked, and all of a sudden Roxas was out in the storm, rising up through the winds though his feet were touching nothing at all. Riku was alongside him, and absently, Roxas thought that, he'd seen a lot of things in Riku's clear honest eyes, but never this childish sort of wonder. "So you're not crazy," he admitted, going forward now. 12 small ironwork doors. Only one glowing with violet light. "Fairy dust..."

He tugged at the little door and it opened easily. There it was, stupid whitelit stone. He took it, marveled at it, and was bored with it. He pocketed it, and had already turned to say some cold, sarcastic goodbye, when he realized that Riku wasn't there anymore.

Riku had been possessed by the mad, childish urge to see just how high he could go. It's alright, I'm sure he did it too. he thought. He also thought, Of course, Roxas isn't coming, just as a hand caught at the hem of his coat, tugged him down.

"The windstorm doesn't come up this high.." Riku murmured, as Roxas caught up to him. "It's colder, though."

"Look, though.." Roxas reached his hand out to the sky. A trick of light, both knew, but the stars looked close enough to touch. "So many. And no clouds."

The clock tower had been left behind. They were somewhere where the atmosphere was starting to thin, somewhere that was far too high to really be alright.

So when the star fell, they were right there to see it. It wasn't a world and it wasn't significant, but there was a small, bright star there a moment and a long, grey-glitter dust line across the sky the next.

"Shooting star." Riku's grin wasn't self-deprecating or ironic at all. It was just pleased, childishly happy. Roxas wasn't sure how much he liked it. "Make a wish."

"Why?"

"Because that's what people do."

"I'm not people, though. Idiot."

"You can still wish. Stars don't care if you've got a heart, or not."

Two wishes, then.

I wish..I could find his real name. That I remembered him better. And then that maybe I'll see Roxas again.

Well, I don't know. My heart back, I guess. Velvet skies and never rain. Time with Axel. Time with Riku. But only every now and then.

And then it was time to go, no fighting or misery this time. "Take this, though."

It was a small sack of the dust. Roxas looked inquiringly at Riku, who was suddenly descending fast. "Maybe you'll want to fly again, You never know."

Just one more question before he went back to his world, with his gem and with this gift. "Do the wishes come true?"

"I don't think so..." the familiar, vaguely comforting and ever ironic grin was back. "No."

52nd_dimension @ 2007-08-23T03:22:00

2007-08-23T07:22:33Z

Kingdom Hearts
Roxas & Sora
3112 words
Roxas has a bad dream, if it's even his. And he doesn't know that, if you die in your dream, you die in your world. Sora, though, Sora seems to know it all.
I've been kind of hung up on Roxas's 'Sora' dreams, lately -- this is the second take I've written for them. Also the first thing I've finished for quite some time :/
I am proud of that wordcount & story, though XD I haven't written something that isn't a drabble for the longest time.

He’s wandering through a grand high hall, and he is all alone.

There were bad things in the hall. Monsters and demons. But he killed them all, and now he’s safe. King demon of the whole demon army. That’s me. Roxas thinks.. And wasn’t I always.

“What?” A cheerfully mocking voice calls out behind him. “Roxas really forgot? Oh man, oh man, that’s bleak.”

But when Roxas turns, there’s only the Keyhole, softly glowing the sick-green and blood-red and bruise-colored violet dark that’s locked behind it's thin little wall of Light.

It’s in my head. Hallucinations. Nothing.

The chipper voice again, echoing around the seal. “Look harder. Don’t you know anything, Roxas?”

He squints into the muted spinning colors and lo and behold. There’s a shadow there, a staticy silhouette, that’s becoming sharper as it grows larger.

It’s hand presses against the light-lock.

“Don’t!” Roxas reaches for his Keyblades, except they don’t come like they should. What? "Really don't--" he repeats, still dumbfounded, still looking for his power. "I can't lock it again if you break it!"

The silhouette is no longer a hallucination but rather a smiling arrogant boy that tears through the membrane that separates the Dark from the World.

“Fuck-- you idiot! The Heartless will come now--" Oh, God, but they Keyblade’s just not coming-- “Why didn’t you stay there? You’re dead, anyway!” Roxas does not know why he said that, and the boy is a stranger. But still..he knows with certainty that someone promised him that this boy was dead. This knowledge is at once disconcerting and final.

The Darkness swells forward, a great wave about to break -- but the boy holds up Roxas’s Keyblades and the Darkness quiets and recedes. “Don’t be silly. Roxas. I control the Dark, because I control the Light. Actually, it’s funny…” the boy tilts his head childishly, grinning for all he’s worth, “Seems I control everything. What my mom would say…”

Roxas doesn’t realize that he’s been backing away until he collides with the great high rail over the great hall. And it hurts. And it’s this kid’s fault. “Get bent. Or better, give me my weapons. Before whatever sham trick you put on the Keyhole expires.” He’s not scared, he’s just surprised, and he’s over it now. The boy had come back from the dead and stolen his sword, but he looked weak and easy. Besides, his eyes are closed.

He started to walk toward Roxas, the Keyblades loose at his sides. “Now, now. Roxas, Roxas, Roxas. What is the matter with you? God, you forget so easily-- heh!” The boy sees a great joke in this. “But they say I do too! I guess it just means we’re related even more.”

“You’re a freak.” Is Roxas’s brusque answer. “Why don’t you go back to where you came from? Or at least open your eyes.”

“Roxas--”

“And stop saying my name!” This damn kid. Christ, he's annoying--

“But I like it.” The boy’s lips stretch into an infantile pout. “Rox-as. It’s pretty. And it’s funny!” he’s coming closer, and the Keyblades are no longer relaxed, but extended towards Roxas. A father’s embrace for his prodigal son. “Rocks-ess Are Oh Ex—“

“Shut up,” XIII snarls. “Enough! It’s just a name—“

“Eh Es, means, me! And I’d gotten so used to answering to Sora. Guess it’s easy to learn a new name, when you forget the first one. And that’s all...that’s all you did, right, Roxas?” Sora’s still got the biggest smile, but there’s new desperation behind it. He wants so badly to be right about his erring other side. “You just forgot.”

He’s Sora. That’s what Roxas thinks. No feeling attached to it. Just the name, over and over and over -- This is Sora Sora is here Sora found me and I am--

He was looking for Sora. Sora's very, very important.

He can't remember why, of course. He has a feeling, though, that the memories from the very beginning, and maybe even from before, are closer to the surface then they might have ever been.

“Oh, good.” Sora’s eyes might have been sewn closed. It would be just as startling as if they opened. Roxas thinks he might know why those eyes can't open, just-give-it-a-minute and he’ll remember.

Sora keeps talking. He has no idea that Roxas is connecting things; he probably doesn't care. “Oh, good. I was afraid that that wasn’t why you left. I was afraid that you remembered your name, and chose Roxas anyway. But I was wrong. Wasn’t I? You're really just Sora.”

Roxas isn’t sure that’s right. In fact, he's sure that's wrong. But there's no saying no, not to the childish happy pouting boy, not to the one who is armed, not to the Light. His irritation, his disgust, that was shallow anyway and now it's gone, with the revelation of the name. Who would want to disappoint this boy? The savior -- his self -- Roxas knows that he won't make this Sora sad. "Yeees.." he says cautiously, hoping he's believable. "But I remember now."

Well, he almost remembers, anyway, and that should be just as good.

“Good.” The cheery lips part slowly to show cheery teeth, arrayed in a cheery Chesire grin. There's something subtly untrusting in that smile... and the Keyblades don’t drop. Instead, Sora’s right in front of him – so sudden, but of course he's fast -- right in front and the Oathkeeper Keyblade is resting against Roxas’s skull. “But I want to check. Okay? I just want to make sure that you’re not lying. Can I unlock your memory?”

"Of course..course you can.." Like he'll say differently, with a sword resting on his head and the most brilliant bright child who's only looking for his own truth. There might be a problem, though. he thinks his excuse out slowly, shamefully. If it's really Sora, Sora will hear it. I don't know if I really forgot. I don't remember what happened, see.

It is Sora. The smile that sees only the best of everyone -- or at least, only the best of his friends -- does not diminish.

“That's alright! I'm sure you forgot. But we’ll see together...! Though if you lied, Rox-as Are Oh Ex, I don't know. You might die faster. Alright?” Sora’s candy-red-colored tongue paints nasty words in a tone of redolent of technicolor and false joy. "Yes, it's alright." He affirms for his Nobody, before he breaks Roxas's mind open.

There is a sudden searing pain up and down his skull. And then the Light explodes behind his eyes and Sora's power is searching up and down the linked memory-chains that were buried in Roxas's head.

He's found them. They're not very long and they're half-buried. "It's alright, Roxas, just fine. I'll make sure we see them clear." Then the chains are being yanked, ripped out their secure secret underground places and forced to show themselves in fully conscious light.

First link -- A hooked blade catching on and ripping out a glittering pure heart. The body falling down idiotically, breaking up, but not dying. Fading, instead.

Second -- The broken-up body, oozing dark and blood. The blood drains away; the dark congeals and shapes it's self into a demented, idiot anti-life form.

Third -- There's still a body, though. It's drained of blood and devoid of either dark or light, but it is recognizably a human being and it's getting up slowly.

It's Roxas.

And Sora, intrigued, starts yanking the chain's links free faster. The pictures are moving all together, and there's no way to count the memories, not like this --

The black gummy filth that's Sora's Heartless is casting around for the rest of itself. It catches onto Roxas.

Let me back it says. It claws at the body, trying to push through it's skin and into it's soul.

The poor idiot doesn't know that there's not a soul anymore.

The remnant knows, though.

"Go away!" It says, trying to rip his leg away from the shadow that was just one second ago a part of him. "Let go, let go -- I don't belong to you, not anymore --" The body manages to wrest itself free, and it laughs half-hysterically at the Heartless before it in the dark. "Go away," the remnant repeats, but now it's clawing at the darkness clinging to it's arms and face and legs, digging for a way out.

But why? the Heartless asks. What'll happen to me, without you?

"Who do you think I am?" The body shrieks with it's own uncontrolled voice, looking for an escape through glassy infant eyes. "Sora's gone! He's dead! We aren't the same anymore. We aren't the same, so let me out."

He'll come back, the Heartless whimpers, pleading and pulling at the rest of it. He'll come faster if you let me back in.

The pathetic misshapen thing is weak, though. And the body knows it. It reaches into the Darkness, and the Key forms around it's hand. "I'll kill you if you don't go away."

But why? You're nothing without Sora.

Sora's shell doesn't answer it. He slashes through the Dark instead, cutting a hasty passage into the world. He looks at the yellow-eyed, bugger-toed, black, shriveled beast and it looks back at him. It's staying in Hollow Bastion. It's gonna go find Sora.

It's repulsive. Clotted and coated in it's Darkness and misery -- it's not like the pure and empty and partially alive body before it.

The body knows it, and it's self-aware enough to know that it's afraid of that Heartless, and the of the black power behind it. It's also aware enough to know that it can wield the Keyblade, that this is a chance to live, that to meet Sora would be the end, and that it's got a name.

It's Roxas.

It finally knows that it wants to use that name, and wants to use it unafraid.

The memories have slowed by now. Only a few more links are hidden, and Sora's not in a hurry to see them.

"Why not?" Roxas hisses, defiant, miserable. He knew the name Sora and he ran away from it. He'd let the hero down and what else was there now? "Why don't you finish it?" It'll end the same way.

Last link -- Roxas has found himself clothes and he's found himself a fully conscious self-awareness. He used it to forget his birth -- he had very deliberately buried the Dark and the name, but he had accidentally lost it completely.

Not that he's thinking of that, not anymore. He's more concerned about how he he doesn't know where he is (though he likes the twilight place well enough.)

He feels like he's escaped an incredible danger, though, and he's not fazed at all when the dark man asks him for his name. This guy is nothing compared to what he's run from.

"It's Roxas." he tells the stranger, and the stranger laughs.

"Isn't there another one?"

"No," he tells Xemnas, considerately confused by the question. "It's always just been Roxas."

Sora steps back, the Keyblade falling from his hand and breaking into nothing. Like his body on this dais all that time ago.

"Roxas. Roxas, you did lie. But..." Sora looks confused, he thinks. It would be easier to tell, if only Sora's eyes weren't closed. "But why? Roxas? What was so bad about coming back to me? It was what was right..."

Roxas doesn't have an answer. But Sora shakes it off. "Well...you know, okay."

"Really? So then, we don't have to--"

"We can make it right right now." He reaches out for Roxas, and even though he can't see, he almost catches the Other.

"Sora-- I don't-- get away!" He shoves the Somebody away, and Sora falls down hard. "Not yet. I'm not ready, not yet." He sounds senseless; now he's just denying himself. There are stairs in the hall, spiraling away from the open controlled Keyhole and the temporarily fallen Hero. Roxas runs for them mindlessly because Sora has got reconciliation on his mind. He doesn't know what he could have done to make Sora want anything else -- in fact, maybe now -- maybe this is why the whole stupid set-up, why Sora sook him out in the first place -- to bring him back to himself.

But give it a moment, because Undeterred Sora gets up easily. He goes to the rail, and looks down at his Nobody. "I'm sorry." He's sincere, too. "But Roxas. Roxas, I have to wake up. I have to wake up and you don't exist."

Roxas has reaches the floor, and he takes a second to whirl around, to scream, "Shut up!"

"Listen -- it's my dream! In the crystal-thing, where I'm asleep -- I'm dreaming. You can't run away from...don't try! Roxas, the last thing I want to do is hurt you, believe me -- come back!"

There's real and sincere concern in his Other's voice, but Roxas isn't listening. If he listens, it'll become true -- it really will be Sora's dream and he won't be able to wake up and he...he'll...

He's sorry to run away from Sora, really, he is. If only they could be together and yet separate... but that's not how it goes and he really does want to live, if only for a little while longer.

He's passing by gently-glowing coffins, now, blue crystal prisons and great glass lights lit before them. Another flight of stairs rose up before him, descending into darkness and unknown. Roxas was set to take them, too, but Sora, who was watching this proceeding with some interest, as if he'd seen it all before, was ahead of his Other.

There was a sudden, oily, membranous sheen of color before him -- another lock, Roxas saw too late. He runs straight into it and falls straight down, onto the thick, tapestried rug that adorns the Castle floors.

Sora leapt neatly from the high railing, and glid through the air like it was nothing.

He falls from the air to land by Roxas's side. "Come on. It's easy. I'm just going to grab you, like this--"

Sora's hand on Roxas's wrist before there's even time to react. It's like acid, dissolving through his coat, skin, bone -- he screams; nothing's ever hurt him before. (He's supposed to be insensitive to pain, the absence of a heart usually makes sure of that. And it's a dream, so really, he shouldn't feel anything at all...well. This was his heart, so he guessed it made sense, in some relentlessly rational way.)

He rips away from Sora, snarling now, clutching his forearm in his other hand. Oh, Christ, but he doesn't like this pain -- "I'll fight you. I really will." He smiles. Tries to. Even though Sora can't appreciate the gesture. "Listen, Sora...you really don't need me to wake up. You were fine all through Oblivion, right? It'll take longer, but you will get up without me."

"That's not what they said...I could hear them, through the glass. Said I needed you, that's why I found you. Roxas, come on." Sora smiles too -- politely and desperately and maybe a bit irritatedly. "It's not about me, or Us. It's the worlds -- they're dying without me! The Universe knows that someone is missing--"

"I'll replace you!"

"No, there's only me. Look-- maybe not yet--" Sora reaches his arms out again, this time devoid of weapons. "Come on. We'll talk, right? Whatever you like..."

The Nobody looks at Sora warily. If only I could see his eyes...I know all about lying eyes, by now.. but the boy doesn't respond. He just stays there, smiling with the trustworthy child's face that Roxas has used to his own advantage so many times on the Organization's mission.

He takes a cautious step forward. "You sure?" No answer, so another. One more.

And then the grin widens into a nasty smirk. One thrust, another -- Oathkeeper and Oblivion through the black coat, and Roxas pinned to the wall,
(like a butterfly on a pin)
cheated, helpless, tricked.

Sora is stunned at his own audacity. "Such a sneaky thing.." he mumbles, blind eyes turned to Roxas struggling against the deep-set swords. "Maybe I picked it up from you!" He smiles like he did at first. Childishly and amused.

"Don't."

"Roxas...it's time to go. It's time for us to be Sora again." His other half smiles. Smiled like dying was easy and fun and utterly painless. Then Sora's arms close around his waist. They're far too close -- in a minute he's going to start breaking up into his real body, fall back into his real life.

God, he's so scared. Even now that it's over.

"You don't ha -- 'oo stra -- now--"

Sora breaking up, because he's pulling Roxas in too close. Sora's eye coming in closer and closer and it might have opened at the last second, lit with satisfaction and gratitude.

Roxas can't see now.

His arms hurt -- screaming pain -- as they break against Sora's. It's getting harder to breathe, but it's probably because his lungs are stretching and tearing apart, turning into blue light that may have looked easy-pretty, but was shitty for respiring with.

There's a strange feeling of something filling up and burning inside him. It's his lost heart, pouring it's love and life into the empty cavity that Nobodies have and Somebodies don't.

His ears are long gone but Sora's thoughts are loud and clear and as unrelentlessly just as a great bell's brass, cold song. Not so hard, is it... he whispers, reassuring his broken-up dead Other. See. You're me again, and you're alright. Aren't you, Roxas Are Oh Ex Eh Es?

Roxas is drowning, though, and he can't answer. Sinking through heavy hallucinated waters that he's helpless to fight again. The light is somewhere up above, though, and it must be shining strong to be reaching so deep.

That's what Roxas thinks, as the waters blacken and the edges blur. That's what he thinks before he dies.

--

But you can't die in dreams.

So he starts breathing again, after a time.

He checks to make sure that he's really alive by opening his eyes himself. They as opened effortlessly and naturally as being.

And in a minute, in his bed, in his world, he starts to feel foolish. It was only a dream. He was afraid of a dream.

But God. God, it was a scary dream, now that it hits into his conscious mind.

You're stupid, he tells himself, giggling nervously when his hands won't stop shaking. This is Twilight Town and it's the first day of summer. This is reality, and the Darkness and monsters and great castle halls must fade and die in deference it's bright clear sun.

The dream -- the weird weapons, swirling-slow Darkness, buried linked memories, the dying -- it wasn't real.

There's a nagging pain in his head. He thinks, absently, maybe he got hit or something. Hit real hard, last night. Last night...he wasn't sure what he did.

But it doesn't matter. He pushes the pain and Sora's blind bright smile away as he runs out to meet his friends. It's the first day of summer, and he's never felt more ready or alive.

52nd_dimension @ 2007-08-13T18:53:00

2007-08-14T01:07:46Z

Kingdom Hearts
Axel and Roxas (gen. Even though it's 8/13 today :D)
Fights before leaving. Written by Paramore, more then anyone else.

Axel wouldn't let Roxas run away. "Nothing. Because you won't," he had explained, just a little too seriously when Roxas asked him, what would happen if I left? "Because you can't."

Except the boy did have to try. Axel was ready, of course. He waited in the rain, in a small alley that was lit by neon and obscured by rain. No one ever came this way; so of course Roxas would.

"Cute," he'd said, leering at the boy, who looked back quite impassively. As if he hadn't been caught trying to betray an entire world. "But I told you. You can't run away. If anything else? I'll stop you."

Axel couldn't see Roxas's face clearly. But it did contort somehow -- maybe rage, amusement, disappointment, annoyance -- but he couldn't see it anyway and all of a sudden Oblivion Keyblade was swinging towards his chest.

"Nice try--" Axel's weapons were out, whiteshinyred chakrams spinning round round. "You really do want to go, don't you!"

"Because I remembered," Roxas grinned, Roxas looked really happy. "I remember So-ra, I remember them all. I can't stay here, don't you understand?"

"Roxas--"

"You're not being compassionate, are you?" Roxas's voice was disbelieving as Oblivion caught it's mark, cutting across Axel's back. "I'm not asking you for that."

"You're an idiot." Axel hissed, spinning flame over Roxas's face, sword, arms, body. "So you remember. So you were Somebody. You'll die if you go back to him. You'll die--"

The flames had only caught his arm. Not enough to kill him. "You're letting passion slow you do~wn." was Roxas's only, childish, infuriating, answer, before the Keyblade cut into Axel's stomach. It hurt-- Axel clutched at his stomach, the chakram melting away into the rain. Roxas kicked into the wound, and the other Nobody fell down, staring up like a petulant child.

Axel defeated, Roxas's eyes slid slowly around, examing the burned flesh with a slow, patient apathy. When he spoke, he wasn't accusing and he wasn't yelling. "Why'd you do that?"

"Out of passion and love." Axel replied, his voice just a bit sibilant and his smile just a little too wide. "Just a gift to tide you over, until the rest of them get word that you've left. Think they'll make it easy on you?"

"I'll kill them all." Roxas wasn't lying. "If they get in my way. If you get in my way." The Keyblade in his hand dripped water and blood to the pavement, shining bright and dangerous. Axel didn't especially want it back in his stomach.

"Ah. In spite of best friends and all that jazz?"

"If you really liked me, you'd let me go." Roxas replied, not missing a beat. "I don't want to stay here and die. I want to live."

He sounded ridiculous. He also sounded sincere, a timbre that was strange against his quiet, contemptuous voice.

"You'll kill me to get it?"

The neon lights cast a weird shadow across his face as Roxas inclined his head back. Looking at Axel like he was some sort of worthless. Words might have been superfluous, but Roxas tried them anyway. "I'm selfish, aren't I. Leaving. Hurting you to do it. I'm..." the word sorry might have fit. Or, maybe the words, I don't care. But Axel stood swayingly, and his flames spun out again.

"You can't." Axel had said it before. But the gashes in his back and across his chest didn't lend themselves to articulation.

So Roxas left the sentence unfinished. He ran away instead. Presumably, to live.

--

Neat how he failed. Axel thought, watching a blond boy, a bratty kid with a gang of sickening and dull friends.

Seeing this Roxas now sort of hurt.

But it stopped, as soon as he decided that Roxas was dead.

It was kind of sad, maybe, to see how completely and absolutely fucked the boy was.

But then, Axel supposed he didn't care.

It wasn't like it was his fault, and it wasn't like Roxas had had a chance anyway-- he was a traitor -- DiZ had beaten them to it, but Roxas had been doomed, by his hand or the Organization's, but dead either way.

Already dead...even if he doesn't know what for. Axel grinned hollowly, his fire dancing over his hands and his eyes reflecting the flames dully. That's alright. 'S what traitors get. Except for that was bullshit, and he wouldn't even try to kill this ghost of a friend, except for that all he'd really wanted was to see Roxas, see Roxas alive.

52nd_dimension @ 2007-08-07T22:28:00

2007-08-08T02:32:35Z

Kingdom Hearts
Riku/Roxas
For riku_replica, who requested 'Riku/Roxas and then the Cheshire Cat' with the prompt 'poor directions', over at kh_request. It ended up too long for the comments ^^;

Sora had wanted to go to Wonderland. He wanted to show it to Kairi, he said. He said it would be perfectly safe, after all, he knew Wonderland. Like the back of his hand.

Riku had tried to remind his friend that Wonderland changed every day, and maybe it wouldn't be the best idea to go and spend a day in it, if you didn't have a purpose in being there. The world seemed to like letting you get lost in it, and if you weren't looking for something, you might not ever get un-lost.

But no, Sora had insisted, and so before long, Riku found himself following Sora through a dense green forest, looking for obscure and useless evidences, and Kairi was standing trial for having too-light a heart.

"But we're not lost," Sora said brightly. "I've done this before, for Alice. We'll have her off in a minute, and besides-- see that mist?"

Riku did.

"There's a signpost, right after it, see? We'll check where we are once we get there." It was barely visible, though, and much more interesting, to Riku, was the old wooden board, hung right before the fog. It read, The Fog of Lost Identity, and while it might not mean anything, it might also mean everything.

"Sora, you're not going to go through that, are you?" Riku asked, indicating the sign. "We should get off the path, go around this mist -- we'll still get to the signboard."

"But that'll take ages!" Sora laughed, and said, "So it's got a weird name. You're not afraid of a name, are you?"

"No..." Riku said, "But it's stupid to go through it. The names here tend to mean something, you know."

"Well, you go around, and I'll go through. And we'll see who gets there first!"

Except that Riku got there first after all. He sighed, and looked into the shimmery gray fog that Sora had, Riku was thinking, found a lost identity in.

After a while, a silhouette became more and more solid, as it neared the end of the fog. "Sora?" Riku called, but the shape didn't answer. Of course, because he wouldn't ever answer to his Other's name. "Roxas?" he tried again, as the figure emerged from the fog entirely.

"Yeah," the Nobody said, looking somewhat smug. "Didja miss me?" Riku was just looking at him. "It's not like it's my fault he walked through that.." Roxas added quickly, "Don't you dare try and make us switch back. I don't know how to do it, but I'll figure it out. And I won't go--"

"Not yet?" Riku cut Roxas off, and he grinned ruefully. "I don't care. I told him not to go through it, so it's his own damn fault. And besides..."

Roxas smirked, the way he always did, before seizing Riku's hand and saying, "And you did miss me, didn't you?"

Riku didn't answer; he turned to the sign-post instead, pulling Roxas along with him (which was fine, thought the Nobody; Riku's silences still always meant more then any silly, awkward words.)

"We're lost?" Roxas asked, raising an eyebrow at the exceedingly unhelpful board, which pointed to places like "There", "Yesterday", and "The Wrong Way".

"Cute," Roxas said, "So now which way?"

"It depends on where you're going~" a sing-song voice informed them. "You've got to be going somewhere for the directions to make any sense."

The voice belonged to a pair of eyes, then to a purple head, and last to a bright white grin. "What are you?" was Riku's first reaction.

"What am I?" The grin grew wider as the eyes vanished, "Well, I don't know. I know who I am, and that's the Cheshire Cat," the Cat's eyes reappeared under the bough it's head sat on, and the grin followed. "And I know directions. To a certain point, which brings me back, where are you going.." it leered towards Roxas, "Looking for yourself?" then at Riku, "But I hear there's a pretty girl in trouble~"

One post marked 'Evidences' appeared, as did one marked 'Yourself', and they pointed in opposite directions. Riku took a step towards Evidences, Roxas towards Yourself -- they turned to glare at each other.

"Don't you want Sora back?!"

"Yes -- but Kairi is in trouble!" Riku tugged Roxas his way.

"There's probably something there that'll let us switch back and forth. I think that's more important -- and no one ever really loses their head, the Queen just thinks they do --"

The Cheshire Cat elaborated, with some amusement, "Of course, neither post points the right way. So you might as well," a tree opened up, revealing a dark path. "Go the wrong way. It may end up being the right way, I don't know~" and the eyes, grin, and head vanished, singing, "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, did gyre and gimble in the wabe,"

They looked down the dark road, then at each other. "Try it, then?"

Riku nodded, still holding onto Roxas's hand as they started down the wrong road, saying not much of anything.

"Missed you."

"I know."