Songs of Dissension, a kingdom hearts fanfic

See, the thing about Living Proof is that my two favorite characters to write don't get a voice. This is a Problem. Hence Songs of Dissension.

This twelve track album is the first full-length release by the band Melodious Nocturne, featuring lyrics by Axel Flynn and Riku Sefirosu (with a guest appearance by Zexion Ishida and Roxas Strife on track nine) and music by Demyx Kuso and Luxord Atkin.

Each story is either the actual scene of the boys writing the lyrics, or the moment that eventually wound up inspiring the song. Some are written by Axel, some by Riku, some collaboratively. All are fucking awesome.

Here's the catch – the stories will be posted in the order the songs appear on the album, notthe order in which they appear chronologically in Living Proof. Some of the tracks won't make sense until after LP's finished. Some will only allude to things. Some will be spoilers for things to come. It's an experiment, and we'll see how it goes, but I'm really looking forward to it so I hope you are too.

Also, general disclaimer/thing you need to understand about these two: the bromance that has developed between the two of them in my head is un-fucking-believable. They're appallingly, wonderfully close and super comfortable with each other. Axel's an incrediblytactile person in general, and while Riku never goes out of his way to initiate touching anyone, he craves human contact just as much as the next person (if not more). Axel gets this. Riku knows he gets it. And sometimes even big strong boys need someone to cuddle them.

Sigh I had other actually important things to say but I don't remember. Crap. Oh well.

Things I can claim ownership of: an iTouch, a LOTR poster, a rough, grain-alcohol-induced night, Nick Thomas' autograph.

Things I cannot claim ownership of: Axel or Riku, they belong to people way better than me. "Don't Let Your Enemies Become Friends," is a fantastic song that also belongs to people way cooler than me. And hotter, cause hot damn Nick Thomas, what happened to you?

Songs of Dissension

Track One: "Don't Let Your Enemies Become Friends" by Melodious Nocturne
(originally by The Spill Canvas)

"So," Axel announced, swinging the door open and chucking his platforms at the wall under his bed. "How'd it – oh."

He exhaled a long-suffering sigh, grabbing the door handle and slamming it shut behind him. Riku, completely in the dark, sprawled face down on the floor with one hand curled from the wrist around a half-empty handle and the other caged over his iTouch, didn't so much as flinch.

"I see it went really well, then," the redhead guessed. He could, now that he was paying attention, hear the music blaring from his roommate's headphones from all the way over here; loud and angry and no doubt bitter. Spill Canvas, if he had to guess, or maybe Brand New.

Riku ignored him, or maybe couldn't hear him, or maybe didn't want to hear him. Whatever the case, he remained buried under his alcohol blanket and silver-hair sheet while Axel peeled the fishnets from his thighs, unlaced the corset, tugged off the glovelettes and the faux pearls. He threw each and every item at Riku, one by one, until he confirmed for certain that Riku was actively ignoring him.

Axel took his time, then, fishing sweatpants out from under his bed, wrestling his gel-crunchy hair into a sloppy ponytail, scrubbing clean the stage makeup caked onto his face, fumbling around in the weak light of his desk lamp.

Riku barely even breathed.

That is, not until Axel, fresh-faced and freshly fed-up, planted a foot on either side of Riku's hips and sat himself down directly on top of his roommate's ass.

"Oww," Riku whined, "get your bony shit off me, fucker."

"Oh good," the redhead sighed. He leaned forward and yanked the headphones out of his best friend's ears before wiggling his hips slightly to a. get more comfortable and b. enforce the point that he wasn't going anywhere. "I was afraid you'd gone deaf and dumb while I was gone. Serves you right, drinking my Everclear without me."

"S-saved you some," Riku hiccupped, tilting the bottle in his grasp and sloshing the contents side to side.

Axel leaned forward far enough to grab the neck, tugging it out of his roommate's slackening grip and bringing the uncovered bottle straight to his lips. It burned in the worst kind of way, cologne and paint thinner and maybe a little battery acid, a choke and a cough and a hand pressed against his sternum as he shoved his chest back into place.

"Eugh," he groaned. "Not even a chaser. I'm going to guess…unmitigated disaster?"

Riku bucked his hips up lightly, just enough to give Axel the nudge he needed to push some of his weight up onto his knees. The silver haired teen flipped himself carefully onto his back, taking the bottle back from Axel as the redhead settled down against Riku's thighs.

The movement seemed to be something of a poor choice. Riku stayed very still and blinked rapidly at the ceiling, less to block out tears and more to reassure himself that the uneven white stucco hadn't sunk any lower since he last looked. Mixers might have been a good idea. Or maybe dinner. Anything other than three-hour-old cotton candy and the taste of Sora that half a bottle hadn't been able to wash off his tongue.

"Unmit…miti…un-nmit…whatthefuckever. That." He moved slowly, carefully planting his feet flat on the carpet and dragging his heels up until Axel had to choose between straddling his stomach and moving to the floor. The redhead slid sideways onto the speckled blue and brown rug with a grumbled protest, defiantly taking the bottle with him.

"Hideously awkward, terrible conversation, and you realized halfway through that you had nothing in common but were stuck finishing out the date anyway?" It was more wishful thinking than anything else. Wishful thinking, because Riku was his best friend on the planet, and if it wasn't one of those then it was rejection, and he didn't think he could suffer the sight of a heartbroken Riku.

"No."

The look his roommate shot him in return was more than enough of an answer. Axel sighed as he passed over the grain alcohol, racking his brain for the appropriate response. 'Sorry the guy you've been casually fucking while secretly being head over heels for is just not that into you? Or maybe is, but won't admit it so he just tortures you both instead?' Didn't seem appropriate, somehow.

"I think he. I don't know." Riku dragged the heel of his palm across his wet lips, passing the bottle back to Axel with significantly less in it. "If we were…" he was struggling, though Axel wasn't sure if it was the Everclear or the words. "If we were…dating, I would have said he dumped me? Except obvs…"

"If you were actually dating this wouldn't be an issue," Axel filled in.

The silver-haired teen took another swig of the rapidly disappearing drink.

"I told Roxas we were better off as friends."

Riku sat bolt upright, free hand flying up to cover his face as a wave of nausea threatened to smack him back down, bile rising up in his throat. He washed it back with another small sip, inhaling a deep, long breath to regain his composure.

Axel waited patiently, accepting the grain back from his roommate. He swirled the bottle lazily between three long fingers, watching the clear liquid sloshing up the sides of the glass handle. He waited until Riku stopped coughing before looking up again, meeting his roommate's dumbstruck expression.

"But you're borderline obsessed with him."

The redhead leveled him with a withering look, but Riku didn't back down, and Axel didn't deny it.

"Seriously," Riku pushed. "I've never seen you this excited about a person, and I've never seen another person as genuinely into you. Better off as friends? Bullshit."

"He's just a kid," Axel scoffed. "He doesn't even know what he's into."

"Bullshit," Riku snapped again. "I call shenanigans on that bullshit."

Axel didn't argue. What was the point when they both knew he was full of it? But it was the right thing to do, he thought, offering Roxas something much more stable, much more consistent, than such a precarious thing like a relationship with frenetic, volatile Axel. The kid's hanging on by a thread – he didn't need the veiled allusions to Roxas' high school experience to understand that – and having all of them, having more nights like this and friends like them would be worth so much more than anything Axel alone could do for him.

"Know the worst part?" Axel said, and it wasn't really that funny at all, but Riku still looked at him with a single raised eyebrow as the redhead laughed. "They're totally fucking sitting together in their room right now, just like this. Except they're probably plotting our ultimate demise."

"What's that saying," Riku sighed. "Don't let your enemies become friends? Think we dropped the ball on that one slightly."

"Slightly," the redhead snorted in agreement. "Are they the enemy?"

Riku's silence shouted volumes.

They fell into the kind of lull reserved specifically for a matching set of miserable best friends, pulling themselves together just long enough to shift backwards against Riku's dresser (because lets be real, trying to drink from a bottle while lying flat on your back is a bitch).

They sat and they sulked and the stewed and they soaked their sulky stew with shots until they ran out of grain to drown themselves in. Axel felt the break the split second before it happened, in the agonizing moment when Riku tilted the bottle up further and further and his head back farther and farther and nothing came out. Axel could hear it, the lingering tension mounting higher and higher, tighter and tighter, until Riku heaved the empty bottle through the heavy air and shattered it.

"Fuck. This."

Axel was watching glass shards rain down from the impact point on the opposite wall, just under his LOTR poster (asshole), but Riku was already moving on, or maybe following suit, throwing himself upright off the floor with a steadying hand on the wall.

"For the record," he spat, "I never wanted this. I was just fucking fine the way things were. I didn't need to meet Sora fucking Strife, the biggest fucking closet case in Twilight Town, and open up this goddamn mess."

"I dunno," Axel mused, "I kind of think Saïx Claymore is the biggest closet case in Twilight Town."

Riku ignored him, didn't hear him, didn't notice over the echo of his sanity still shattering around him. Save the few long drags he'd had before Axel got back they'd had mostly the same amount of Everclear, but something about the way Axel was still convinced he'd done the right thing spared him from the crushing weight of misery under his inebriation. For Riku, on the other hand, the toxic combination was finally catching him up, but the anger burning through the ethanol left him just coherent enough to be properly infuriated by it.

"Honestly, I wish we'd never fucking met. What's so fucking great about him anyway? He's a total fucking idiot, a complete moron. For fucks sake, he's the stereotype of a dumb jock, playing the damn game, and I always let him fucking win."

Another tinkling crash, more glass falling silently to the carpet. That bottle still had beer in it, Axel noted absently, watching the last dregs of Bud Light dripping slowly down the parchment-colored wall.

"And you know what, fine. So what. Maybe it was my fault for making something out of fucking nothing, but all I did was put it out in the open that we were friends. I asked him to hang out. That's it. I wasn't the one flirting like a fucking cocktease little bitch all night. I wasn't the one stringing him along like a goddamn asshole."

Axel knew better than to interrupt or try to stop him – Riku would tire himself out when he was good and ready. He did this more than was probably healthy, staying level-headed and calm with just a hint of sass on the surface, burying it all deeper and deeper until it had no choice to explode from every pore. He'd be better off just leaning back and letting Riku roll with it.

And roll with it he did, spewing the kind of vitriolic rant that could only be the product of humiliation and defeat, spiked with a shot of rejection and lit with a 150-proof spark for a nice, slow burn, until...

"…and he still has my goddamn sweatshirt, that fucking prick!"

Riku threw himself to the floor with the kind of finality usually reserved for a tantruming four-year-old, landing with a huff less than inches away from where he'd been hours earlier when Axel walked in.

The redhead covered his laugh with a disapproving, but still slightly mocking, tut. "I know, it's your favorite."

"No," Riku shook his head, "not the yellow one. I knew I wasn't getting that fucker back. He has the blue one now too."

"Ri," Axel sighed exasperatedly.

"He was cold!" he protested. The redhead looked at him, flushed and flustered, silver bangs splayed across his face, and watched each lie Riku'd just snarled at him fade back into dull teal eyes. "He was just…like obviously miserable, you know, and seeing him miserable made me miserable, and…"

The fight in him had died as quickly as it had ignited, draining from tense limbs and tightly clenched muscles and seeping into the rough carpet beneath him.

"I feel used," he sighed, rolling his head to the side to look at Axel. "And I should've known better."

Axel pushed himself to his feet, slowly, and crossed the room even slower, stepping over Riku's haphazardly sprawled figure and carefully avoiding the glass shards littering the carpet. He had the best pillow but Riku had better blankets, so he made quick work of climbing between the two beds, and switching off his lamp, while Riku continued to mumble on about just staying on the floor forever alone.

"You're not alone, dipshit." Axel flung his pillow at Riku's face, following close behind with his own body and the blanket.

"You have a bed," Riku reminded him flatly, balling up Axel's pillow against his chest in a death grip that said another thing entirely.

"So do you," the redhead agreed. "But something tells me you're not moving."

It wasn't a first, or even a second. There'd been nights when he'd been plastered and puking, heaving into a garbage can and adamantly refusing to climb up onto his bed, or that one time Riku busted his wrist so badly he couldn't pull himself up to mattress level. He threw the blanket over both of them and yanked the pillow from Riku's clutches, putting half under his own head and letting the other flop down over his roommate's face.

It didn't take long for Riku to concede with a quiet sigh, lifting his head up just enough to let the king-size pillow half fall under him and hiking the blanket up over his shoulder the way he liked it. Axel shot at smirk at his best friend's back, settling a little further into the pillow and twisting onto his side.

"Hey Ax?"

It was quiet and heavy with more than just words, reaching out over Riku's shoulder towards the waiting redhead.

"Sometimes when I drink a lot I get clingy, so if you wake up with me on top of you just shove me off or…you know, whatever."

Axel didn't bother rolling his eyes, not in the dark with Riku's back to him. He'd witnessed on dozens and dozens of occasions his roommate's ability to sleep like the dead, sometimes waking up in the exact same position he'd passed the fuck out in, and they both knew it. The redhead didn't say anything as he shifted his weight forward, worming one arm under the blanket and looping it lightly over Riku's waist. He was the cuddler, and Riku knew it damn well, but for now he kept it loose, more of a subtle reminder of another warm body than any outright holding. That was probably inevitable, but they could blame it on their alcohol-induced sleep-comas by then.

"Hey Ax?"

"Wha-ah-aht," he whined, lifting his hand to pinch the skin on Riku's hip. His best friend promptly leaned back far enough to elbow him in the ribs, and didn't quite retreat as far away again as he had been.

"You're a right little shit," Riku sighed, "and an asshole, and a martyr, and an idiot. But you're a good egg."

"Thanks weirdo."

"And Axel?"

"Jesus, what?"

"If you tell anyone about this I'll peel every single one of your tattoos off with a switchblade."

"Go to sleep, fucker, or I'll take out an ad in the goddamn paper."

"Goodnight sunshine."

"Night bitch."

Three months later, pinned under a brand new bottle of Everclear left in the center of Axel's desk, was a single, scrap paper mess of black block letters and hastily scribbled out, circled, and redrawn lines, all with the words DON'T LET YOUR ENEMIES BECOME FRIENDS scrawled across the top.

Blacked out falling on the floor tonight;
That's what I do to feel the light
You tow the open line that draws me in.
Every time I sink a little lower in the deep tonight,
I don't remember anything I used to like about you,
And why I always let you in.

And as the saying goes;
"Don't let your enemies become friends."

For the record, I never wanted this.
For the record, I wish we never met and opened up this mess.
I couldn't keep up, so we cracked up,
and now everything is worse.
I should have known,
I'm better off on the floor alone.
Sometimes closure doesn't close up anything at all.

Roughed up rolling in the afterglow,
My dark mistakes they start to show.
You operate the spotlight I bathe in.
Every time I put a little faith in my hopelessness,
I recall why I'm such a wreck about you,
and how you never let me win.

All you ever did was use me like a puppet.
Stringing me along just to let me lose,
Giving me a choice so I have to choose.
All I ever did was put it in the open.
Giving up a chance to shut you down,
You too it as a chance to shut me up.