1 - Not With You

Riku had thought bars like this only existed in city basements. The dim, hanging lamps, the wood-paneled walls, the televisions blaring some kind of sports game, the smoke that clung to the air and made Riku's throat itch and his eyes sting. Places like these were good for forgetting, and only good for forgetting. Good for losing yourself in the smoke while you nursed your beer and avoided making eye contact with the bartender or anyone else. Not good for thinking.

That was alright. Riku didn't want to think. He'd only wandered over here because it was right next to the cheap motel he'd checked into for the night, and drinking in a bar with a bunch of silent strangers somehow felt more communal than grabbing a six-pack or two, shouting at the crappy TV, and eventually passing out in his room. Hell, Riku didn't even like beer, but after a few bottles—how many? He couldn't really recall—he thought he was starting to tolerate the taste in favor of the buzz.

He didn't find himself this desperate that often, after all.

Sighing, Riku kneaded his forehead with his hands, then decided to cradle his head in his left palm, because that might make the room stop spinning. It also gave him an excellent view of the person sitting two barstools to his right.

His neighbor had been the reason he'd chosen that particular seat, actually, because it never hurts to have something nice to look at when you're getting smashed. And when Riku had come into the bar, the young man had been sitting there, listening to music with a pair of old-fashioned headphones, an incredibly bored expression on his face. It was his hair that had caught Riku's attention, actually, which was strange, because Riku didn't usually like blonds. His hair, though, was spiked up in such a way that Riku couldn't decide whether he'd used a hell of a lot of gel or just rolled out of bed like that. It looked hella good on him, though.

So yeah, interesting hair. And cute, too. Skinny, maybe, and he looked a little younger than Riku, but he was undeniably cute. He was wearing a leather jacket and tight blue jeans, and he wore them both well. And that would have been good enough to fuel perhaps a night of drunken ogling.

But then Riku got a look at his face, at his blue, blue eyes, and he couldn't look away. Yeah, staring was rude, but after a couple of beers, he was past the point of caring.

"Hey. You. White-haired guy."

Riku looked up. Blondie had just spoken to him. Perhaps it was just the beers, but Riku saw a halo of light around his head. Like an angel. Riku could use one of those. "What?"

"You going to sit there and watch me all night, or were you actually planning on saying something?"

Shaking his head, Riku managed, "No, just staring off into space."

The blond snorted. "Like hell you were. You were giving me a look that would have made my ex-boyfriend kick you from here to Destiny Islands." He leaned forward, beer in hand, and looked at Riku slyly. "I know when someone's undressing me with their eyes."

There was something familiar about this guy that made it vaguely jarring to hear him talking that way. But his voice. God. His voice was almost perfect. Maybe just a little too flat. But otherwise. God. "Do you mind?" Riku asked. "Because I'm pretty sure that the reference to your ex-boyfriend was a subtle hint that you didn't. Mind, I mean."

"Maybe." Blondie grinned and slid over to the stool next to Riku's. "Here. I'll make your job easier."

"Uh." Now that the blond was sitting right next to him, looking him over like a prize at an auction, Riku could see that his face was an inexact copy of what he'd thought it was. The lips were just a little too thick, the eyes just a hair smaller. But only a hair. If Riku hadn't been looking so hard, he wouldn't have noticed at all.

"What's your name?" the other man asked.

"Riku."

Blondie blinked, for some reason momentarily stunned, then shook his head. "Can I tell you a secret, Riku?" he said softly, leaning forward to speak almost right against Riku's ear. "I'm very, very drunk."

Riku shivered. "Huh. That's funny. I was about to say the same thing. Not…that…you were drunk. That I was."

"What a coincidence." The cute blond was almost in Riku's lap by now. He would have been uncomfortable if not for all of the alcohol in his system. Blondie settled his hands on the back of Riku's jeans to pull him closer. "I think it's pretty lonely getting drunk alone, y'know? And I'm not even from around here, I'm just passing through…"

"Same story over here."

Blondie was grinning wickedly. He was half-standing off of his stool with one hand on Riku's shoulder as a stabilizer. "Well, I noticed you earlier, and I figured…as long as we're both here, and we're both drunk, and we never have to see each other again—"

It was probably just because Riku was very, very drunk that he decided to kiss the other man after about two minutes of very slurred conversation. Or perhaps it was because the other man looked like someone he knew very well and couldn't actually kiss. Regardless, Blondie's blue eyes widened, then closed, and pretty soon he had both of his arms twined around Riku's neck, almost falling on top of him. He seemed to like it. Riku hooked his feet around the back of the man's knees to draw him in closer, toying with the hem of his shirt. He felt fingers on the zipper of his jacket.

"Hey!" said the bartender, banging a glass on the table. They both looked up, hazy, slightly out of breath. "None of that in here."

The blond snorted. "Fine. Here." He pulled a bill out of his pocket and set it down on the bar. Riku couldn't see it clearly, but it was definitely more than a twenty. Maybe it was a hundred. The numbers were swimming before Riku's eyes. "For his drinks. And mine. Keep the change."

He took Riku's hand and nearly pulled him out the door. Riku stumbled after him, and as soon as they got out to the parking lot they were kissing again, drunken, sloppy kisses, devoid of any real warmth. Just for fun. Blondie was the perfect height, too, a little shorter than Riku, and he was the perfect weight, Riku could tell when the younger man pressed against him and groaned softly in his ear as Riku began kissing down his neck. It was the sexiest sound he thought he'd ever heard from anyone. But perhaps he was just confused.

Riku pushed them both up against the rough wall of the motel, enjoying this far, far more than he should have and not feeling the least bit guilty. But when his companion began reaching for the zipper of Riku's jeans, Riku had to lean down and hiss, "Not here. My room."

He could feel the other man smirk. "Do you even remember your room number?"

"I…" Riku blinked. "Shit."

"Doesn't matter. I'll get us a room. Come on."

They both staggered inside and to the receptionist's desk. It was late, and the woman only had to take one look at them to know what was going on. Apparently, she'd seen it before. Perhaps not with two guys, but she seemed unfazed by that, too. Unfortunately, when she asked for Blondie's name, Riku wasn't paying attention, too busy wrapping his arms around the other man's waist and trying, rather unsuccessfully, to nudge his jacket off of his shoulder without using hands. He did, however, notice when Blondie paid with a credit card and muttered, "Let's see him pay for this, too, the bastard."

"Room," Riku grunted.

"Coming."

"Not yet you aren't."

The receptionist rolled her eyes. Riku thought uncharitably that she'd probably heard worse. "We're in 107," Blondie said. "Come on."

"Don't you have stuff?"

"In the car. Doesn't matter. Let's go."

She must have given them that room intentionally, bless her soul. It was only half a hallway away. When the got there, Blondie practically shoved Riku against the door, and when Riku reached under his shirt he started making those noises again, only more loudly this time, and Riku almost fell over from the way it—God. Or maybe that was just the drink again.

"I want inside," he managed, leaving it to the other man to decide which interpretation he liked.

The blond smiled against Riku's mouth. "Key. Back pocket."

He'd so put the key there on purpose. Riku reached around, putting both of his hands into both of the man's back pockets, only removing the hand with the keycard, squeezing with the other, earning a nip on the ear in return. It took him a few tries to get the card into the slot without looking. He was a little preoccupied by the removal of his shirt as the other man grew more and more insistent, rubbing up against him and groaning and it all seemed far too like what Riku wanted and couldn't have but, then again, he was very drunk.

Finally, there was a whirr and a click, and they tripped inside the room, closing the door behind them.

---

Riku woke up six hours later in an awful, springy bed with his neck hurting and a headache that made him feel like he'd been knocked across the head with a wooden plank. Thank God it wasn't light out yet, or his brain would surely commit suicide and refuse to be resurrected, and while it didn't seem to be worth much now, he needed his fucking brain.

Untangling himself from the sweat-soaked sheets—room service would have quite a job in the morning—and without turning on any lights, he tripped his way to the bathroom to relieve himself and splash water in his face. Blinking, he stared up into the mirror and, in the red faint glow of the light from the hair dryer plugged into the wall, decided that he looked like a wreck, his hair all messy, dark bags hovering under his eyes. So much for the afterglow, although whatever glow he might have gotten from a quick, decidedly unemotional fuck would surely have faded by now.

Without knowing how he managed it, Riku found the bed again, and, after a fair amount of groping around, located the stranger, too. Blondie hadn't left in the middle of the night. Instead, he was lying on his side on the opposite side of the bed, breathing peacefully. Well, that made one of them.

Even though Riku knew he probably shouldn't, he followed his odd impulse to touch the other man, sitting down in front of the blond instead of returning to his own side. Gingerly, he reached out to brush the man's cheek, tracing his soft lips, the line of his jaw. No matter who he actually was, he was close enough that Riku could pretend. He stroked the blond's upper arm, noting the sinewy muscle and thinking that it was just about right.

It was then that Blondie woke up, blinking up at Riku through his long lashes. Riku immediately jerked his hand away.

"I—I—" he stammered, standing up and retreating back to his side of the bed. "Go back to sleep."

Curse the man for not following instructions. He shifted, looking at the clock, muttering to himself, "Only four a.m.? Shit. Too early for this."

"Yes," Riku breathed. "Too early. Exactly."

Blondie sat up, rubbing his eyes. He didn't seem nearly as hung over as Riku was. His actions seemed far too deliberate for that. He took his alcohol well for a twig. "No," he said, stretching forward, arching back, in a way Riku shouldn't have found familiar at all. "You're just avoiding the subject." Then he turned to Riku with a sly little grin and asked the worst question imaginable:

"Who's Sora?"

Riku froze. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Blondie said, leaning in closer, "whose name did you whisper in my ear when you thought I wasn't paying attention?"

"I—Well, it wasn't as if you gave me a name," Riku snapped, thinking that he probably should have learned the blond's name before he went and fucked him. It only seemed like common courtesy.

Blondie leaned back against the scratched headboard. The bed creaked. "I guess I didn't. But I'm not trying to interrogate you. I'm just curious. I mean, it really is none of my business, but I'd like to know who you were thinking of."

"It sure as hell is none of your business." A long pause, then, "My best friend. He's getting married in a week."

Blondie let out a low whistle.

"No shit." Riku didn't really smoke, but, for some reason, he was craving a cigarette right then. Wasn't that generally what people did in these sorts of situations? Smoked? "I was supposed to be the best man. I couldn't do it. I have no idea why, I just…I guess 'til death do them part is a hell of a long time. So I ran. I've been gone two days and I am not going back."

"Shitty thing to do, running out on your best friend's wedding."

"Yeah, well." Riku glared from underneath his bangs. "Go to hell. Who are you to judge me?"

"I'm Roxas," said Blondie. "Replacement best man."

Riku thought that jaws dropping only happened in movies or cartoons. He was wrong. His heart decided that the best course of action would be to sputter out and die, and he nearly fell off the bed.

"N-not Sora's twin brother, Roxas," he stammered.

Roxas leaned on his side again, resting his head on his hand, but this time, he was facing towards Riku instead of away from him. So there was a reason he looked so damn familiar. "Sora only has one twin brother, and I'm the only Roxas I know." He looked up at Riku expectantly, triumphantly. "You are that Riku, aren't you? I thought you were. Of course, I haven't seen you since—"

"Since you ran away," Riku finished. "Five years ago. I—shit. Shit. I should have recognized you. You looked different, but, fuck, not that different. You're…older, and—shit." He wanted to continue with "I didn't know you were gay" but he thought he had. He dimly remembered that being part of the reason Roxas ran away. "I didn't know you and Sora were still talking."

"We weren't until he called me. In fact, we would have gone our entire lives without speaking again unless you hadn't—"

His sentence was cut off abruptly with a choke as Riku lunged forward, pressed Roxas into the bed, wrapped his hands around the younger man's neck, and squeezed. Hard. Roxas coughed, his damning blue eyes, so much like Sora's for so logical of a reason, pressed closed.

"You little shit!" Riku yelled. "What the hell were you thinking, trapping me in this mindfuck? You knew who I was. Why the fuck would you do that to me? I'm miserable enough as it is. I ought to kill you."

"Can't—kill—me," Roxas choked.

"And why the fuck not?" Riku growled.

"Sora'd—hate you."

Riku let Roxas go, and the other man's hands flew to his throat, rubbing at it as he gasped for air. "Sora already hates me," Riku muttered. "I can't do anything about that now."

Roxas shook his head. "No. He doesn't hate you. He's sad, and confused, and he's hurting—not that I blame him, his best friend ran away little more than a week before the most important day of his life—but he doesn't hate you. I don't think he could."

"Fuck." Riku rubbed his eyes. All of this shouting was doing nothing for his headache. "I don't want to be having this conversation. Not with you." He glared at Roxas again. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Sleep with me."

Roxas shrugged. "Felt like it. So I could tell Sora what he's missing." Riku felt the anger flooding back into his face, and Roxas added, "Oh, don't worry, I won't tell anyone, but Sora should be sorry he's straight."

"Fuck you." Riku lay back down on the bed, turning away from Roxas and pulling the sheet up to his chin. "It's four in the morning. I am going back to sleep, and then I am leaving this room, and you and I will never speak of this again, because we will never speak again. Good night."

The silence from Roxas' side of the bed was unnerving, and Riku could almost feel the other man smirking. God, how could two brothers who looked so much alike be so different? Riku heard a creaking, then, and the bed certainly felt a little lighter, but he didn't care to know where Roxas might be going. That was, until he felt the blond draw back the sheets on his side and press against his body, drawing Riku's arm around his waist.

"The hell are you doing," Riku muttered into the blond's hair.

"You want this."

Riku sighed and closed his eyes. "Not with you."

"No," Roxas agreed. "Not with me."

But Riku didn't move, and Roxas didn't say anything else, and they stayed like that until they both fell asleep, Riku pacified by what he would have sworn was the gentle sound of Sora's breathing.

---

When Riku woke up the next morning, Roxas wasn't in his arms anymore, and he felt a palpable amount of relief. Perhaps Blondie had gotten the message and scrammed. That was fine. Riku didn't really want him around for what he was sure was going to be the mental breakdown of his life.

Because…Roxas. How could he not have known it was Roxas? He should have recognized that hair, at the least; it was cut a little differently now than from when they were kids, a little more sharply, bringing out the angle of his chin, but that was no excuse. A shade of blond that blond was hard to forget. And his face…God. His face was very similar to they way it had been when they all were kids. Certainly, Roxas had lost some of his baby fat, and his cheekbones were a little stronger, as was his jaw, but those were changes Sora had gone through, too, and Riku should have known them for what they were. Shit. He must have been really, really drunk.

Or perhaps just really, really distracted.

Something had changed, though, because this Roxas was not at all like the one Riku had known as a child. That Roxas had been smart—smart enough to be in Riku's grade in school, even though he was a year younger than everyone else—and somewhat reserved, but normal, at least, as normal as anyone related to Sora could possibly be. That Roxas would not have come on to Riku in a bar and hooked up with him knowing that Riku was his brother's best friend who was running away from his responsibilities. That is to say, that Roxas would not have taken advantage of him, or allowed himself to be taken advantage of, whichever it actually had been. Riku vaguely recalled having been pretty insistent himself.

"Oh, good. You're awake."

Riku blinked up into the daylight pouring through the window—fucker had pulled it open—to see Roxas standing there with his hands on his hips, only wearing his jeans, his hair still wet from the shower. In real, true light, there could be no mistake. Even though Roxas had Sora's blue eyes and his face and, hell, even his body, Riku couldn't confuse them in daylight. Roxas had somehow figured out how to hold himself with confidence, how to show off his flat (but not sculpted) abs and his shapely arms and even that pretty face of his in such a way that would drive women, and certainly some men, crazy. Sora, on the other hand, although he was built in very much the same way, was still as awkward with himself at twenty-two as he had been when he was a teenager in a way that was far too lovable to be legal.

"Get out," Riku muttered, burying his face in his decidedly flat pillow.

"It's my room, remember?"

"Fine," was the reply, and Riku shifted, glaring up at Roxas with one scathing blue-green eye. "What the hell do you want, then?"

"Come back with me."

Riku didn't move, barely allowed himself to react at all. "No."

"Why?" Roxas' mouth pulled back from his teeth in a sneer. "Are you afraid?"

His reward was a pillow to the face. "You know why, or, you should know why, especially after last night. I'm not going to go back to Twilight Town to watch Sora marry Kairi."

"You never struck me as a quitter."

Riku snorted. "Yeah, well, you never struck me as a slut, so I guess we're even." Roxas only blinked at that. Pity. Riku had been hoping for something more. "Besides, Sora's straight. There's no point in me sticking around and trying to change his mind, because, as I'm sure you know, it doesn't work like that."

"He's your best friend. He deserves better from you."

"Yeah, like you have any right to be lecturing me. Weren't you the one who ran away from him without leaving so much as a note?"

The other man opened his mouth to retort, and then glanced at the clock and smiled with mock sincerity. "I have to make a call," he said. "It'll be quick. Don't go anywhere."

He pulled his cell out of the pocket of his jeans, dialed a number, and smiled at Riku while he waited for whoever was on the other line to pick up. Suddenly, Riku had an awful feeling gnawing at the pit of his stomach. "Give me the phone."

"In a minute," Roxas said mildly, stepping out of Riku's range. "I hope we even get reception out here—ah, yeah, here we go. Hey." He listened for a second. "No, no, everything's fine. I woke up a little while ago, gonna hit the road in a few minutes." A pause. "Yeah. But I met someone who I think would like to talk to you. You got a sec?" Another pause. "No, I'm not going to tell you who it is. It's a surprise." He held out the phone. "For you."

"Asshole," Riku said to Roxas, but he took it anyway.

"Hello?" said Sora's sleepy voice over the phone.

Riku had been expecting it, but his throat seized up on him anyway, and he couldn't speak. Roxas was watching him expectantly.

"Hello?" Sora asked again. "Is anyone there? I can't hear—I don't know, Kai, I think we might have lost the connection—Hello?"

"Sora."

"Riku!" Riku could almost hear Sora sitting up on the other end of the phone. "I thought it might be you. Are you alright?"

Riku pressed a hand to his forehead. "Yeah, yeah, Sor, I'm fine. Just calm down."

"Calm down? I was so worried, you idiot! We thought you'd been kidnapped, but then we went to your house and saw that you'd taken a bunch of stuff…Where did you go?" Sora's voice was quieter now. "Why did you leave?"

"I…" Riku swallowed. Roxas' eyes were boring holes in his back. "I just needed to get out of town for a couple of days, alright? I was feeling too much pressure. It was a lot of work making sure everything was perfect for you."

Sora seemed to accept that. "But you're coming back, aren't you? I mean, we didn't know, so I asked Roxas to come home, but…you are coming, right?"

Riku swallowed again. He felt like he was choking to death, like someone was squeezing his heart in an orange juicer. What else could he say?

"Well," Roxas said softly, "Are you or aren't you?"

Flipping off the evil twin, Riku held the phone very close to his mouth, ignoring the guilt devouring his insides, and whispered, "Yeah, Sor. I'll be there."

---

A/N: This is the result of looking at too much fanart. And what RikuRoku fanart is out there is very pretty.

So, pairings: RikuRoku, AkuRoku, and (obviously) one-sided RikuSora. Be prepared for a long, angst-ridden trek with lots of profanity and some sexuality, mostly implied. I don't usually do M ratings, but I was persuaded that later chapters needed warnings.

Disclaimer: If I owned these boys, I would not have time to write about them, I promise.