Vicious Cycle
Description: AU - Akuroku – See you in the next life, and the next, and the next… Maybe someday we'll get it right. Someday we'll have more time.
Pairings: Akuroku, Soriku, with bits of SoraxKairi
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, or the episode of Blood Ties which spawned this and from which I stole the beginnings of the plot. "See you in the next life" indeed.
http:// videos. under Full Episodes, it's Season 2, episode 9
Warning: Death, mild insanity, and names you won't recognize. I've only read one other fic that changes their names in their next life. But, really, what are the odds of someone naming their kid Axel?
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The red-haired man rocked back and forth weakly against the padded wall. He remembered, he remembered it all too well. Ryan, sweet stubborn Ryan with his blue eyes and blond hair that refused to stay slicked back no matter how much pomade he used. Suborn forgetful Roxas. Different name, same face, same smile, same soul.
He'd forgotten him. Again. But he'd reminded him. In time he remembered. In time he always remembered. But that didn't matter now. Because he, Ryan, Roxas, the love of his every damned life, was dead. Dead. And they'd tried so hard this time.
Maybe too hard, because he was still here. They wouldn't let him die with him. And he tried. He'd tried so hard to follow him into the next life. But that just put him here. In the tiny white padded room that he hated.
It was too bright and too cold. Pale and sterile and lifeless. Too much like the place that had spawned all this. That first, near fantastical life. Sometimes he almost missed it, not having a heart. Losing Roxas that first time hadn't hurt as much as all the time after. Cause every time after he'd had a heart to break.
And fading away into nothing wouldn't hurt nearly as bad as this slow withering decay. He couldn't remember the last time the Asylum's nurses had forced him to eat. And he was getting so tired. How long had he waited? Five years, ten? He couldn't remember.
He was so tired.
Roxas, wait for me…
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"The dating service is a few buildings over," Reg Nelson, P.I., shot back at his would be client, disgusted that he'd been so taken in by this pervert.
"What?!" the man who'd said his name was Erin Hart shouted, half rising from the chair across Reg's paper strewn desk.
"You come in here, saying you need to find someone," Reg started, glaring the other man back into his seat. "But you don't know their name, or have a last known location, nothing. All you know is that they're only eighteen years old, tall, with red hair and green eyes. And that you'll know them when you see them, meaning I have to show you pictures of all the potential candidates. That smacks a bit of, oh, stalker or even serial killer if you ask me. Get out of my office."
He went back to looking through the papers on his desk so he didn't have to look the crazy in the eyes. As long as he didn't look him in the eyes, he was fine. As long as he didn't look in his eyes he didn't look like… like a figment of Reg's teenage hormones and overactive imagination. Like someone that didn't exist. Like someone who wasn't real.
"It's not like that," Erin insisted. "I know how it sounds, but if I told you the real reason I doubt you'd believe me."
Being a private investigator sometimes really sucked. The crazies usually tried them first before the police. And while he wasn't apposed to taking a well paying job, even from a crazy person, this guy made him uncomfortable. It was probably the eyes.
"I've waited twenty six years to find him again," Reg paused and looked back up at the crazy man. Who looked, as far as he could tell, to be about twenty six years old. Erin bit his lip and took a deep breath before continuing.
"He'd be eighteen years and five months old, give or take a month or two," Erin explained. "Because that, plus nine months, is the exact amount of time that's passed since Andrew Worthing died."
"And a dead guy figures into your little obsession how?" Reg asked, starting to get morbidly curiouse.
"Because I'm looking for the person he was reincarnated into," Erin said simply.
"There's no such thing as reincarnation," Reg bit out more viciously than he'd intended. There couldn't be. And even if there was, no one ever remembered their past lives. That was crazy. The shrinks his parents had sent him to had made sure he understood that. His dreams weren't real. He wasn't real. The boy with the sky blue eyes…
"I remember living over a dozen lives," Erin grit out between clenched teeth, attempting to keep his temper. "Just…just humor me, please. I've tried looking on my own and I haven't found anything."
No matter what this guy believed, past lives weren't real. The person he remembered wasn't real. There was no one to come and save him from the darkness, to save him from himself. No matter how much Erin looked like him, it wasn't him.
Sora wasn't real. And one of these days Reg'd stop waiting for him to find him.
"Alright, I look into it," he said grudgingly.
But not yet, not today.