disclaimer: FANfiction. think about it. all i own is the plot. i would never have had the genius for all that is kingdom hearts-like putting disney and ff characters in there. Don't sue

rating for language and dark themes (no sex or lemons but violent themes and such)

…...

This thing, whatever it was, wouldn't go away, no matter how much he wanted it to. And he was so torn. He just wanted it to all go away now. But it wouldn't, nothing was clearer than the fact it wouldn't; he couldn't just suddenly stop caring.

Even after he'd sworn he wouldn't come here anymore, wouldn't see her anymore, wouldn't confuse things with Kairi- the girl of his dreams, who he was finally dating- because of her, here he was. Pacing, feeling the springing of the cord as he walked around.

That message she'd left, promising she'd leave him alone after that, left him fumbling around. He wasn't sure what to make of it. Just a faint hint of unease- because he didn't think she'd leave him alone so easily. And nothing made sense. What did she even mean anyway? Why did her voice sound so funny? Why was she saying goodbye? Why was she wishing he'd be happy with Kairi? And why was she apologizing again?

She couldn't have meant it when she'd said she'd loved him before anyway... she was just trying to help her gang's leader.

She couldn't possibly miss the fact that he was so damn screwed up that he'd created his own persona, his own fucking double identity type thing.

He was hardly the type of guy girls did or should fall for. He was a fucking mess. Everyone knew this. She shouldn't try depending on, trusting in, him. It was all he could do to help Kairi, the girl he'd do anything for. He didn't need someone else to hurt, someone else to lose.

But he was wrong. She couldn't see this. Couldn't see any of it. Couldn't see how screwed up both of them- Hell, all of them- were.

And yet, even as he replayed her apology, he did understand a little. Because things would've been simpler if she hadn't been there. He didn't want to admit it and he hadn't. (But he hadn't denied it either and he'd never attempted to, not in any of their prior talks. He hadn't wanted to lie).

Was that a bad move? Maybe? Yes? No?

C'mon, C'mon pick up dammit! Another pencil gave a loud snap and he threw it away in disgust, nearly pulling the cord to the phone out as well. The phone was ringing but no one was picking up.

What the hell was wrong? He hadn't reached her on her cell either.

He couldn't reach anyone! She might actually be going to, to, to end it all, attempt to solve it all in one go. And no one was fucking there! Where was Kairi? Riku? Hell, where was anyone? He wanted to snarl- why did they leave her alone?- they knew how she was! She was... was unstable!

What else could she be? Clinging to him like that... she ought to know better!

God! He'd tried pushing her away, he'd tried. Otherwise he'd just keep hurting her. She deserved better- Kairi too, but he couldn't even bear the thought of that. He was too weak to cast Kairi aside no matter what. Even if she'd hate him for it later, he was too weak to give her up.

But he could help Naminé.

It had been the most logical of decisions. They were each too broken to do anything but hurt each other more anyway. And he couldn't keep it up... he wasn't as perfect as they all thought. He was a faker, always acting so confident and cocky, bluffing his way through... And, somehow, it usually worked, but sometimes his own failures stared him in the face, the insecure little boy who always lost to his best friend, rival, whatever.

So what went wrong?

She's still not answering… I'm going over.

Just a few days ago he'd casually asked after her only to hear she had seemed fine, she'd been happier than she had for days even. And he'd been ecstatic. Still a little hurt of course, but that was expected he guessed. No matter what it was better this way- less people for him to fail when there was already too much pressure. He'd been relieved to hear she'd said she finally had figured a few things out, decided something. (Gotten over him he'd figured).

But what if he'd imagined all wrong? Holy shit. He swerved, the horns and curses blaring at him alerting him that he was driving and there was still a world around him, epiphany or not. As he pulled over to the side of the road all the words seemed so much more sinister. Everything fit with the things he'd heard about well... it, right? Depression first then happy all the sudden? Because, as strong as she'd sometimes appeared to be (stronger than she realized), she was a damn good faker, too. Despite everything he'd never seen her cry. So she was either hiding it again... or had decided there was one permanent way to solve things... And all the things he'd heard started playing over in his mind, as he envisioned all the scenes about... about well... it... it just couldn't be, she wouldn't do that... he couldn't even bring himself to as much as think of the word, much less acknowledge the word, the possibility would make it more real...jinx it or something...

Somehow he finally got there. Pounding on the door got no response, so he searched for a hidden key which he knew was there somewhere. He found it only to nearly drop it his hands were shaking so bad.

And everything was so empty inside but half the lights were on. It was so surreal. He was calling out to an empty home. No sounds of running water, so she wasn't in the shower and just hadn't heard him. In fact there was absolutely no noise at all except for one dinky little radio coming on from upstairs. Had he been wrong?

He slowed and gulped or he was too late? That… that just couldn't be possible. But, he moved quicker, listening for sounds, flicking light switches on, peering in and moving on. She wasn't on the first floor. He made a beeline for her bedroom only to stop short. The door was closed. It wasn't a big deal, but he couldn't just barge into her room right? What if she was changing or something? The radio was coming from over this way, maybe she somehow just hadn't heard him? A gentle knock on the door gave way to louder raps. "You in there?" No response. Confident now he barged in. Nothing.

The adjoining bathroom was cracked open though and he pushed the door open slightly. Blood, blood everywhere. He was undercover, he was used to weird, disturbing shit. He dealt with cults and their rituals all the time and he still felt nausea. This pale, limp, and bloody thing—like a demented, battered wax figure in some Halloween exhibit, so out of place in this cheerful bathroom now splattered with blood— couldn't be Naminé. There was just no way— she couldn't be like that, couldn't cut, couldn't commit suicide over something stupid like some misplaced sense of guilt. This had to all be a bad dream... there's no way she would, no way God would... She just wasn't allowed to die, he wouldn't let her. And he would wake up any moment.

The, the thing that he refused to call by name stirred, whimpering in pain then the noises stopped as the eyes simply focused on the ceiling and he stopped breathing. This had to be a bad dream! But he swallowed hard anyway and his voice cracked and trembled as he asked, "N-Naminé? That you?"

The head turned to him and she smiled, she fucking smiled how could she do that? It didn't make sense and made something ache even more as he felt so stupid and useless (Always, always useless, forced to depend on his words or on others to bail him out. He couldn't ever simply prevent these things from happening in the first place, but instead didn't see. Didn't see the jealousy eating away at his best friend- because, seriously, why be jealous of him?- and he certainly didn't see this coming). And Hell what reason, what business did she have to smile so brilliantly at him at a time like this?

"Sora... you came."

The wonder, fear, and strange, misplaced sense of hope and happiness in that voice crushed him because just why? Why would she, why would she? He'd treated her like trash, worse than trash, and she was lying on the floor dying because of him presumably- Hell, who was he kidding, because of him- and smiling at him, happy that he'd come to see her die! It made him sick to his stomach, the stench of blood and death still noticeable and sickening and the damned smile on her face while her eyes still looked dead.

She was in pain; he could tell as she grimaced, and said in the smallest, littlest, and suddenly most vulnerable voice he'd ever heard, "I... hadn't thought it would hurt like this... I think I passed out... I guess it's just a surprise I came to..." and suddenly she was just a scared lost little girl and he'd do anything to protect her because this was his fault, her fault, their fault and how could he protect her from himself, from herself? It was so fucking stupid and how was he supposed to do this? And why would she do this? Didn't she see how many people this would hurt? How this accomplished nothing? And dammit he wasn't about to just stay there helplessly while she bled out, he wasn't about to just watch helplessly as she died.

He wanted so badly to have something to hit, to punch a wall bloody knuckles and broken bones be damned, when he heard another whimper of pain and then nothing... he couldn't even tell if she was breathing... dammit, dammit, what was he supposed to do? He was the hero everyone looked to and he couldn't even save one of his friends. Pathetic. She was dying and he still was like this.

A sudden wailing of sirens had him wanting to shout for joy.

An ambulance was coming.

How? He hadn't called it had he? He couldn't function properly. Couldn't think properly. Couldn't string together a sentence. There was no way it had been him who called it... right?

But the crews came and thanked him for calling as they called for units of blood.

Had he made the call and when and did that mean that she was still somehow alive? Because you'd only bother with pumping blood into something living right? Otherwise it's just a waste?

They carried her away on a stretcher and even though he'd seen this before it felt like something from a movie or a crime show. It didn't feel right. Not real, not real, not real. Only he could smell everything, feel everything, and he just felt sick right now.

Why was he so damn helpless? And so angry... he'd never been this angry not since he'd become Roxas and Roxas was gone now. And he'd undergone things like this before... he'd thought his best friend was dead but somehow that still didn't seem as bad as this now. Maybe it was all the blood and the seeing it and the awkward angles of her arm (had she broken it when she fell?) and the sick sick feeling in his gut as his stomach sought to escape.

The numbness that came over him was beyond belief... he barely remembered being let onto the ambulance with her, holding her hand as they rode in the ambulance, sitting in the waiting room, sitting by her bedside. He didn't remember much of what the doctors had said (once they realized that let them just try to remove him, he didn't give a damn about their procedures and regulations right now). Just that they'd finally told him she'd be fine, she'd live, that they weren't sure about anything except that she'd live. And that was enough for him.

But he stayed. Why?

He stayed even once she woke up, saying it wasn't supposed to hurt that much, she didn't expect it to hurt that much, and... had she ended up in Hell afterall? And those questions, musings, whatever brought back some form of feeling, as his eyes flashed for a minute because how dare she worry about that and scare him like that? How could she do this to him? How could she still do this to him? He was over, over, over her- he hadn't even really liked her at all, she'd just manipulated him from the very beginning. And she was doing it again (or so he hoped, because she couldn't really want to, to... just no, she couldn't, not her). Certainly not over him of all people- he wasn't worth it.

So why was he still here? Sitting with her. Talking to her. Listening to another of her pathetic lies ('It was an accident' even though he remembered her saying that oh God she hadn't expected it to hurt this much). His heart clenched and he wanted to shake her. He was so sick of her excuses about her 'accident' and 'clumsiness', pretending (like everyone else) not to see through just as she pretended not to be lying. Because what could he- what could any of them- say in this situation? So it seemed like they'd just do what they'd done for so long. Pretend, while wishing he had the words or the actions or just the ability to make it better again. But he couldn't ever go back to the boy he'd been or to the belief that everything would work out okay. He'd seen too much for that. He knew too much for that. He knew better now so he couldn't utter those empty words of comfort anymore. And he certainly didn't know what to do with a hurting girl... he wasn't good at the comfort thing anymore. So he was stuck here. In stasis. Stalemate. Limbo.

A/N: r&r

this was inspired by a song 'because of you' by nickelback that became this piece. Sort of. I may add more details and chapters (some involving riku or maybe kairi even perhaps? there are a lot of issues to work with and we know most of the characters are more angsty than Sora), but i'm not sure really. I just wanted to write this. I know sora prob'ly seems way ooc but i made this an AU because if parallel things happened to him in the game happened in a more 'realistic' setting or whatever you want to call it i think there'd be a much darker hint to it. and besides i thrive on dark fics. and the roxas idea i hope would make it less ooc. we shall see... Besides when angsting all you see is the bad side of yourself... i think sora would grow up and see more of that, even if he doesn't usually externalize it. you can be generally happy and have some pretty big issues. bad things just bring em to the forefront.

i figured this was a good way to work on my drama and horrorlike scenes and of course the angst. so at least lemme know how i did on those points even if characters seem out of character.

oh also help in writing a decent summary (or title) would be appreciated. :)

ps vote in my polls :) i use reader feedback.

for: gamet, i hope you like it :)