The Unwinding Cable Car, a kingdom hearts fanfic

The Unwinding Cable Car
By KidPhoenixAU

Summary
Sora is reaching the end of his rope, under constant strain from work and his unreturned love for his best friend. As his favourite song echoes through his car he reflects his past, and what he had left in this life. [Songfic, Mature Themes]

Author's Notes:
This is my first fanfic in over 8 years… so I'm actually nervous about writing and putting this up, but I'm proud of how I've written this, so I thought I'd take a chance. There are two endings to this story, but this is the one I'm opting for as I'm happier about this one feels compared to the secondary ending.

I apologise in advance for any spelling and grammatical mistakes. I really needed to write this out, and I generally type as I think and not very good at proof-reading.

I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer:

I do not own Kingdom Hearts, or 'The Unwinding Cable Car' by Anberlin. I am portraying the characters and the song as part of a fictional story

Sora sighed and ran a hand through his deflated mess of chocolate locks. It was another long and tiring day at the office and he had finally gotten through the ever-present mountain of work that greeted him most mornings. He breathed another sigh as he flipped down the sun visor in his car and stared back at the reflection that greeted him. His doppelganger bore the identical signs of stress that was destroying his once flawless, youthful skin. Crow's feet and heavy bags clung onto the edges and under his eyes, and the once vibrant sapphire eyes were very much dull and almost lifeless.

Even though it was his own mirror image, the brunette couldn't even recognise himself anymore.

In the past year his work hours grew longer and longer, simply because he had to keep up with the growing amount of responsibilities and roles that were forced upon him. What started off as unsure questions whether the brunette could help his colleagues had turned into them continually passing him their work because 'he could handle it'. At first Sora thought he could handle it, and prove that he was a great asset to the team.

He wished he never said anything in the first place.

He confined himself to the fact that since he eagerly accepted helping people in the first place he couldn't very well tell them that they had to do it themselves. No, that would result in people thinking that he couldn't do his job, albeit it most of the work he was doing now was his colleagues, but it didn't seem that way to him, or his managers. The first time he wasn't able to complete an important report for his team, he was given a verbal warning because 'Sora said that he was working on it…'.

The second time he was given a formal notice of failure… a written warning.

From that point onwards he knew that he would have to work slightly later in order to make sure everything was up to date, so he wouldn't get reprimanded again. Everyone saw that as an excuse to leave more work on his desk to complete because 'you're stay back late anyways aren't you?'

The brunette sighed and rested his head on the steering wheel, completely worn out from the mountains of reports that he managed to write up, and the numerous spreadsheets that he worked on for his boss' presentation the following Monday.

No, it wasn't just his work colleagues that learnt that they could pass all their work off to the poor man. Even his boss decided that Sora would be best suited to do all of his work for him as well.

Groggily, he looked at the neon digits of the clock on his dashboard and let out one further exacerbated sigh as he realized it was almost 11 at night. Deciding that he better get on the road and back home, he flicked the ignition key and was met with the small rumbling of the engine purring into life along with the final chords of his favourite song echoing softly through the speakers. The brunette put the car into gear and drove away from the carpark, hitting back on the stereo so that the song that was finishing could repeat itself.

As the song started to play Sora's mind couldn't help but turn back to the thoughts of work, even though it was Friday and he didn't have to worry about it until the weekend was over.

To be honest, he was starting to wear really thin with the constant pressure, the lack of respect and consideration towards him and finally, the abuse he would have to endure from people when he didn't finish their work.

'I do everything for them… I do all of their reports, handle all of the enquiries for them, and even work harder than anyone else in the company and what do I get? I get yelled at for being 2 minutes, 2 FUCKING minutes late to a meeting I shouldn't even attend…' Sora mused to himself as he drove down the deserted road. 'Why can't they see, what they're doing to me…'

His poor mind was starting to fray rapidly with each passing day. The constant building pressure on his shoulders kept him awake at night, and with the lack of sleep on top of the sheer about of stress with his work, he didn't even have a spare moment to relax and ease the tension. To add even more insult to the ever-growing injury, Sora was barely eating as well. Not that he had time for breakfast or lunch with all of the work he had to get through in a day anyways.

And then there was his best friend, Riku…

Sora felt a stab pierce through his heart.

Riku was Sora's best friend since he was five years old, when he moved next door to the other male. Their parents quickly introduced themselves as Sora's family was moving in and within seconds the two became almost like brothers. At school they had the same classes and homerooms, and were very rarely seen without one another. Every weekend they would spend hours at each other's houses playing video games until they were forced to go to bed, and even then they spent even more hours staying up and talking to each other.

When they finished college they thought since they practically lived together anyways, it would be best if they got an apartment together. And at first everything was perfect. They would wake up roughly at the same time to get ready for work, arrive home at the same time, and Riku would always cook them dinner (since Sora only knew how to make instant noodles) and then they would spend their usual late nights talking and playing games.

However it seemed as if a gaping hole was forming in their usually tight friendship.

Ever since Sora learnt that he needed to stay back late at work to do his (and everyone else's) job he felt as if Riku was becoming more and more distant from him. The first time he finished after 9pm, Riku had waited at the table with dinner, and Sora said that he shouldn't stay up late just to have dinner with him and after a long day he wasn't all that hungry. The second time he got home really late, Riku was already tucked away in his room, presumably sound asleep and without a dinner left for him.

Whilst Sora said that he didn't have to wait for him to have dinner or cook him anything, it pained him that Riku, like everyone else, left the brunette to do it all himself.

'I didn't think he would actually do it…' he thought as he turned onto the empty motorway, tears forming in the corner of his ears that he quickly wiped away, 'Stop thinking that Sora… he doesn't love you, like you love him…'

That's right. Sora was madly in love with his best friend. And it, along with the strain of work, was slowly killing him.

Another tear threatened the corner of his eye, and he quickly wiped it away not wanting to appear weak to an invisible audience. No, he couldn't be weak, because everyone will think he's a failure. Regardless of the fact that it was the dead of the night and no other cars were out on the road, Sora was NOT going to cry. Adults didn't cry, they faced their problems head on and with determination. Children cried when things didn't go their way, and Sora was no longer a child.

But no matter how much he told himself that, he still could not shake the negative thoughts and the depressive weight on his heart. This caused a recurrent itch to form on his wrists that started to irritate the brunette. Sighing for the umpteenth time that night, the brunette rolled up his business sleeves and tentatively scratched at the bandage that neatly hid a number of cuts and wounds on his skin.

When he was younger he went through his share of teenage angst, but never saw the interest of self-harm and cutting. But recently he found it wasn't a form of attention seeking that many people describe it as. No, for him he did it as a coping mechanism. The pain the swelled and burned on his wrist dulled the ever screams from his aching heart and shattering mind, even if only for a fleeting few hours. Though the more he hurt himself, the less effective it was becoming. The scars that were left when the wounds healed were constant reminders that he was failing, and that started the cycle all over again.

His mind quickly snapped back into reality when his favourite song finished once more and he quickly replayed the song, wanting to at least try and focus on the beautiful music to hopefully escape the cycle that he knew he was falling into once more.

(*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*)

A low growl echoed along the dimly lit apartment as silver hair was tussled in frustration by a pair of slightly calloused hands.

Riku glared annoyed at his CD player as he hit the back button to replay the song that had just finished before delicately gripping a plectrum and strumming along the strings of the acoustic guitar resting on his thigh. He wanted to get this song just right, but he was having some difficulty. Not with playing the notes or the chords, but singing along with the rhythmic strumming was quite hard.

As the introduction played his thoughts turned to a certain brown-haired male that he shared the flat with and how much this song meant to him.

It was a few months ago, when he awoke when the front door to their home clanged shut, signaling that Sora had finally escaped from the prison of his work and headed straight to his room, probably to sleep after another stressful day. However, through the thin wall that separate their rooms he heard the slight sobbing from his best friend. Riku swore he felt his heart split into two pieces at the nearly inaudible cries of the brunette.

Then after a few minutes of shuffling a soft acoustic guitar seeped through and then Riku heard the most beautiful, yet heartbreaking singing he had ever heard. Sora was singing the song that was playing and if he felt like his heart split into two earlier, it had completely shattered then. He wanted nothing more than to go to him, and dry the tears that must have been falling down those perfect cheeks or at least try to comfort the other male. But the last time he tried to help Sora deal with work by saying that they couldn't force him to stay back they got into a pretty heated argument.

Sora was stubborn and wanted to prove that he could do everything, and Riku loved that about him. But he knew that it was giving the brunette so much stress that it couldn't be healthy. He wanted to grab him and hold him tightly, maybe even place a tender kiss on those beautiful pink lips…

Riku mentally slapped himself before getting back to working on his fingering of the chords on the song. No, Sora would never think of him like that, and Riku was somewhat okay with that. They were best friends after all, and he didn't want any of that to change, even if Sora was becoming more and more distant the last few months.

The more Sora had to work late, the more that he was becoming angry, aggressive and even violent towards Riku. The first night that Riku stayed up to greet Sora with dinner after a long day he was met with a snide comment about him waiting for him and bothering to cook him dinner. That night Riku spent the entire night staring at the ceiling wondering what he did to make the younger male so angry at him for wanting to help him de-stress.

And then after the fight they had about Sora's work, Riku figured that Sora just wanted to be alone to recover from the busy day alone. It took him a couple of days to learn that Sora wasn't going to eat at home and probably grab something to eat whilst he worked, that he accidentally made him meals and had to throw them away, not wanting to get the brunette angry at him again. No, he didn't want his Sora to ever be angry at him if he could help it.

Riku shook his head at the last thought. There it was again, Sora wasn't HIS… and probably would never be.

Realising the song was nearly finished, he replayed the song once more and repeated the introduction. With a soft clearing of his throat he tried to once again sing and play once more, and hoping that he could make the song sound anywhere near as pure as Sora did that fateful night.

Emotive unstable you're like an unwinding cable car
Listening for voices, but it's the choices that make us who we are
Go your own way, even seasons have changed just burn those new leaves over
So self-absorbed you've seemed to ignore the prayers that have already come about

This is the correlation of salvation and love
Don't drop your arms, I'll guard your heart
With quiet words I'll lead you in

(*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*)

Sora clutched the steering wheel tightly as the words of the song bounced around his head. His battle to fight back the tears that were still threatening to fall was all in vein as he tried to blink them away. But no matter how much he fought, the tears kept falling until they inevitably spilled over and trailed down his cheeks.

He loved this song so much, and in a completely rare selfish thought, he wanted to believe that this song was written about him. And in another selfish moment, he silently wished that Riku would sing this to him.

'Hell would probably freeze over before that ever happens…' Sora muttered to himself, as his fragile mind started to turn its attention back to the silverette.

Sora knew that he had a crush on his friend back when he was sixteen, when on one night when he was staying at Riku's, the silver haired male decided to leave the bathroom with nothing but a towel covered around his waist. Sora remembered feeling very strange, as heart raced to pump the necessary blood to his cheeks to make them blush. He had seen Riku shirtless a few times before, but on that night as a few drops of water trickled down the well-defined pecs and abs of his friend it had a drastic effect on him.

From that moment onwards, when he was asleep (which seemed like eons ago) he would dream of Riku, some nights of his best friend just hugging him and whispering sweet nothing in his ear, and other nights of intense, heated passion that left the boy sweaty and sticky when he awoke.

He had to excuse himself from the situation before it became noticeable, saying that he was going to take a shower as well. To make matters worse he rushed into the shower and started to bathe without remembering to get a towel. He called out to his friend to see if he would be able to get one from him, and normally when they were younger, his friend would just walk into the bathroom and leave it on the counter. That time however, Riku said he left it at the door and that he can grab it because no-one would see him.

'Oh my god, does Riku know?! What if he does…. What if he thinks I'm weird for thinking this… No, he can't know… no, I'll have this shower and everything will still be the same…' Sora thought to himself as he quickly opened the door and hastily grabbed the towel, kicking the door shut as he turned around.

When he finished the shower, he went into Riku's room to find the boy already in bed with his back towards the door. Sora crept up to Riku, hoping the older boy wasn't already asleep, and knelt down just above his head.

"Riku… do you wanna play Super Smash Brothers?" Sora whispered, hoping that his friend wanted to keep playing with him, hoping that his newly discovered feelings weren't going to change anything.
"I'm tired Sora, why don't you go to bed as well…" A gruff reply met his ears and Sora felt his heart shatter.
"Oh… okay… Good night…" Sora whispered back, doing his best not to let any forming tears fall from his sapphire orbs.

At that point Sora thought to himself that Riku would never see him the same way as he saw his best friend.

'Why am I torturing myself like this?!' Sora cried to himself, tears starting to flow more and more rapidly as his tortured heart started to throb even harder.
'Why does this have to be so hard?!' He screamed as he started to sob uncontrollably.

(*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*)

Riku hummed along with the music whilst carefully strumming the strings on the guitar. In between the lyrics and chord changes, the silver-haired male couldn't stop his mind from wandering back to Sora.

Riku knew he had always loved Sora. More than brotherly love, or even a bromance as people like to call it nowadays. Sora always made his life so much brighter with his innocent playful smile, his cute pout when he made fun of the brunette, and his brilliantly shining sapphire eyes. But whilst he was trying to learn what he felt for Sora was, it finally dawned on him on one night when he was seventeen.

He and Sora were having one of their usual all-weekend sleepovers and he had exited from the shower, forgetting to bring his clothes in so he decided to just wrap a towel around him and get the clothes from the room and then change. When he entered the room and searched for his clothes, he quickly glanced at Sora whose cheeks started to tinge with a slight pink hue that made him look even cuter than he already was. Riku felt his cheeks flush at the sight of how adorable Sora was looking, but before his mind could react to what was happening, the brunette announced he needed to have a shower and immediately ran out of the room.

Riku was left with his own thoughts, lost and confused over why he was thinking that Sora looked cute when he was interrupted by his best friend calling out for a towel that he seemed to have forgotten. As he grabbed the white cotton, an image flashed into his mind of Sora, smiling with that same pink hue and slowly leaning into plant a kiss on his cheek.

Shaking his head, Riku grabbed the towel, and with the image still burnt into his brain, he couldn't face Sora so he decided to leave the towel by the door. After a couple of seconds and whilst he was heading back to his room he heard the bathroom door open, and by the time he turned around he was greeted with a closing door, but the most important image that to this day still is ingrained in the males head.

Sora's naked body.

Blood immediately pooled to his cheeks and groin, and reading about this online, Riku felt the urge to take care of his problem. He quickly slid under the cover of his bed and the image of Sora's tanned back, perfectly sculptured legs, and the perky, cute butt flooded his mind as he slowly slipped a hand under his pajama bottoms and boxers.

As soon as he did, the bedroom door slowly creaked open. Riku was petrified and immediately turned his back to the door, trying his best to regulate his breathing. He couldn't let Sora catch him doing this, especially since he was thinking about the boy.

"Riku… do you wanna play Super Smash Brothers?" He heard the whisper of Sora hover near his ear, making the boy shudder in excitement. With a hand down his pants, the mental image of Sora's beautiful body and now his voice whispering tenderly in his ear, Riku needed to do something.
"I'm tired Sora, why don't you go to bed as well…" He replied doing his best to keep calm, despite the situation.
"Oh… okay… Good night…"

If ever Riku needed to get rid of an erection quickly, all he had to do was think of those words. The depressed, deflated tone still to this day stayed with him.

Riku breathed in as he heard the breakdown almost begin with a final thought running through his mind

'I wish I could go back and change everything… I want my Sora back…'

Backing away from the problem of pain you never had a home
You've been misguided, you're hiding in shadows for so very long
Don't you believe that you've been deceived that you're no better than...
The hair in your eyes, it never disguised what you're really thinking of

This is the correlation of salvation and love
Don't drop your arms, I'll guard your heart
With quiet words I'll lead you in

Sora and Riku, in unknown unison started to sing the breakdown together, Sora's voice was raspy, chocking on the phlegm that was rapidly building from his crying, Riku's voice pure as he thought about the brunette that he had known for all of his life.

You're so brilliant, don't soon forget
You're so brilliant, grace marked your heart
You're so brilliant, don't soon forget
You're so brilliant, grace marked your heart

As Sora kept singing the lyrics over again with the backing vocals in his car, tears now pouring out like blood from an open wound and unbeknownst to him, Riku's strumming got a little rougher as his voice grew louder to sing the main vocalists lines with similar passion.

This is the correlation
Between salvation and love, don't drop your arms
I'll guard your heart
With quiet words I'll lead you in and out of the dark

(*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*)

As the music quietened down, Sora had to pull over. He was now shaking uncontrollably, and the tears in his eyes were making his vision very blurry. He let out a single cry of absolute heartbreak as a single thought ran through his mind.

'Riku… you're so brilliant… you deserve a better friend than me…'

Riku felt the emotion pour out of his mouth on the final word, and as the music softened he held a single thought.

'Sora… I… I'm sorry if you hate me… but I need you to know…'

Riku heard the chorus about to start and with sudden determination, started playing the chords almost perfectly as he prepared to sing the final chorus.

This is the correlation of salvation and love
Don't drop your arms, I'll guard your heart
With quiet words I'll lead you in

(*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*)

With that thought echoing in his head, Sora had a moment of clarity. Riku did deserve better than a friend who is never there, who has impure thoughts constantly about him. Maybe Riku would be so much better off without him.

With the final chorus blasting from the speakers, Sora put the car back into gear, put his foot down on the accelerator, closed his eyes and released the clutch.

(*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*)

Riku smiled as he strummed out the final chord, he couldn't wait for Sora to get home now. He knew the male would be stressed as usual, but hopefully he would entertain Riku for a couple of minutes while he played the brunette's favourite song for him. With a content sigh he gently lay the guitar down as knock from the apartment front door echoed loudly.

A little confused, the silver haired male approached the door and opened it expecting to see his best friend standing in front of him. Instead he was greeted by two older men, wearing police uniforms. Riku swallowed a lump that formed in his throat, his heart starting to beat loudly at the scene in front of him.

"I'm sorry sir, are you Riku?" The man on the left asked, his voice held a slight hint of nervousness and apprehension. Riku could only nod, suddenly losing all ability to speak. "I'm sorry Riku, but we have some news about your friend Sora…"

A single tear ran down Riku's face.

They didn't need to say anything.

Riku knew what had happened.

Final Notes:
This is the ending that I'm most proud of…

I am thinking of writing out the secondary ending, if people are interested in reading a more… romantic sort of ending. But, for me this was more powerful and moving then the other one.

I happy to receive any and all reviews for this, as I'm thinking of getting back into writing, so all comments and feedbacks are welcome.

Thank you for reading… and never be afraid to reach out to people in your hardest of times. The world is a tough, harsh place, made even harder when you walk it alone. Even one single person with you, makes it half as hard.