THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

Breathing


When your mouth is full, you breath through your nose. Very simply put, it was the easiest option while you were eating, drinking, giving head, or just kissing. Roxas was just kissing.

It's was odd that, even though it's the easiest option, most people forget to breathe through their nose while they kiss. They become too wrapped up in how good it feels to remember simple things like breathing, and thinking, and when to meet your fake girlfriend.

Those were times when Roxas didn't forget. In fact, it was all he could remember how to do: just breathe and it will be over soon.

It was Thursday morning and now was not one of those times.

He pulled from the other slowly, mournfully, and let him break the silence first; he himself was still trying to catch his breath.

"Do you have to go?"

The words were nearly inaudible, but the blond had heard them. Loved them. Would eventually miss them for however long it took to please all the people who made him remember to breathe.

He knew this was hurting him- them both; but Roxas had his reasons. He would never do something to hurt someone if he could help it. That is what he thought to himself every time he was tempted to stop lying so often, and to so many people.

He couldn't resist his most condemned temptation though. And he would never lie to him either.

"Yes. But she can wait."

They met in a mutually cherished kiss with lots of lips, teeth, and hands. Little clothes. Little breath.

"Roxas."

He blinked in surprise. He recovered swiftly.

"Sorry, Namine. What am I doing again?" He muttered. She rolled her eyes, and rubbed at the dark circles beneath them. Roxas couldn't help but notice how tired she looked.

"You said you would help me with this, that means you have to pay attention, Roxas. You're so quiet- ", her words devolved into a raspy hack as she talked, leaving Roxas genuinely concerned.

She held onto his arm for the fifteen seconds it took for her to not only finish coughing, but recover from the sore throat it left behind. Roxas took this moment to speak up, and he tried to tell himself it was in her interest and not his own that he decided to leave.

"I should go, I'm really not helping and I think I might be coming down with something too. My heads just not here today."

Namine swallowed around the lump in her throat, watching silently until he packed his bags. "I mean you don't have to go. It's just that you agreed to help, and I thought this would be fun for both of us. You said you liked pottery. You were late this morning, so I know you must have had another rough day at your um-" a soft questioning look from his fake girlfriend. A wan smile from himself.

"Aerobics classes."

She smiled, remembering the lazy lie Roxas had once given her when he was pressed for time and didn't wash off all the evidence of where he'd really been.

"I'm just saying I feel like we don't get enough time together, Roxas. And when you are here, you're... not here." ,but still, she finished with a small forgiving smile. Namine was as solicitous as they came. Why do all the best people find love in those who will never appreciate them?

In these situations, all he knew how to do was offer more than he wanted to give, but less than he should.

"You're right. I promise I'll devote my entire Friday to you, okay? Is tomorrow okay?"

She melted, and she smiled, and her eyes shone, and everything about her disposition positively beamed. Roxas looked away.

He eventually did smiled back, feeling incongruously cold beside her obvious displays of warmth and affection. He politely ignored the soft peck on his cheek as he stood to leave.

She called after him, "Bye Roxas!" , and he waved back and left.


His last class was always a free period. He almost never spent it where he wanted to be. Today he had a visitor though.

When he first stepped out the building the force of the grin that grew from the very center of his being almost hurt his cheeks. Then it dropped, just softly. Then more, and the closer he got to the other the more it fell. Eventually it was the same polite smile he would give Namine when he saw her outside of class by accident.

"Whoa, what happened to that big ray of sunshine you gave me coming out? What did you think I was someone else?"

Roxas saw in his eyes that the question lacked the bullets to be loaded. So he chuckled lightly, and smiled softly.

"Nah Reno, I just saw that ugly face of yours, and remembered not to get happy."

Reno laughed. Roxas didn't.

The redhead took the smaller boys hands into his, and he smiled warmly, clasping them into his own. "Oh, yeah? Well you aren't so cute either, kid. "

The blond found himself smiling a soft genuine little smirk. Reno wasn't always bad. Just mostly. "I see the party is pulled back in a ponytail today."

He shrugged, "I had business."

"You look tired."

He did. His hair was more disheveled than usual, his eyes had little bags, and his demeanor was slumped, and wry.

Reno blushed, embarrassed,"Yeah well. Someone kept me up all night.", and he swung their hands the way a normal couple would. Roxas wished he could enjoy it more.

"All we did was kiss."

"But we kissed everywhere so-"

"God shut up." He let his sweet smile combat his callous words, but Reno smiled anyway. He liked how snippy Roxas could be. It ran in the family.

Reno's smile was warm, if not warmer than Namine's. Just like hers, it began to fall the longer Roxas did nothing but stare between their hands and the ground.

Lowly, "I haven't seen you all week."

Lower, "I've been with Namine all week." Another lie. "And I'm gonna be with her tomorrow too."

The redheads eyes shone with something fierce, vaguely jealous, and very serious.

"I'm the one who loves you more."

You're really not.

He smiled, "Of course.", and he swung their hands to add a lightness to the conversation that was not really there.

It was enough for Reno. An unsure glint lingered in his eyes a few moments longer, and then faded altogether. The taller boy lent down to kiss him, and Roxas immediately closed his eyes.

A lot of licking, a lot of nibbling, a lot hands. A lot of regret. A lot of breath.

Just breathe and it will be over soon.

Both boys smiled as they pulled away, for different reasons.

"Can't you ditch Miss-oblivious and hang with me?

"She's taking me to something really big tomorrow."

"You've been with her all week"

"I was with you a lot last week."

"Ditch her."

"She'll think I don't care."

"You don't."

"She's not ready to hear that. You know why.", his eyes challenged the redhead to combat the truth of his statement. Reno, though stricken, eventually nodded.

"Right.", his breath left him in a shaky rush. Roxas pretended to not notice the pain in his eyes. "Right, well. I'm free all week, and if you happen to open a spot in your busy schedule- y'know between whoever else I share you with?- let me know.", and he turned to leave.

Roxas contemplated letting him walk, perhaps just for today, perhaps forever and out of the blonds life to never bother him and who he really loved again. Then he told himself what he always did when he thought about backing out of the webs he'd woven. That he had to.

"Reno.", he called. The redhead turned around expectantly. Roxas sighed through his nose.

It hurt so bad to do things like this. More than the kissing, and sometimes more than the talking; the smaller, more intimate actions that meant you loved someone more than Roxas really did felt drying. Drying, and draining.

It was not human nature to lie; but it was human nature to survive. So he did.

He raised his hands before himself, gazing at the redhead through the heart he laced his fingers together to create.

Reno smiled, and formed his own hand-made-heart as well.

They wouldn't speak again for another week.


Home was it's normal vacant space. His mother was a business woman, and his father was a deadbeat. There was no other family to report on.

He flicked on the television and let the screen light the otherwise dim room with the last thing he watched before going to school, and the last thing he'd watch before falling asleep. Reno was persistent, Namine was tiring, and Roxas was tired.

He flicked through channels for suitable background noise. Just because the home was empty didn't mean it had to be quiet as well.

'-and you are the winner!-'

'- DIRTY PROSTITUTE WHORE!-'

'-people-'

'-eaten-'

'-tomorrow! tomorrow!-'

'-reports of seizures all over Crenshaw, have been showing-'

'-Troy...you are the father.-'

Roxas hurriedly flipped back to the news station.

"John, what do you think? You think it's just a bad flu? A disease perhaps?"

"Well, Sharon, I don't know, but I can tell you, it's one heck of a dilemma for the people of Crenshaw. People from all over the small city have come in with similar symptoms, including; vomiting, excessive sweating, blanching of the skin, unusual bouts of saliva flow, and in some of the more severe cases, complete mental break downs. We don't know any of the causes at this time, but it has been found that in most cases, the victim had some type of violent encounter with another who is believed to be infected. "

The news did not fully penetrate Roxas head. It did not feel real.Nothing ever happened in Crenshaw. Nothing.

The camera panned over his local hospital, and eased most of his doubts.

"Thank you, Bob. Right now we're in front of Crenshaw's hospital, and as you can see, the hospital is literally packed to the brim with patients. We have a few cops here trying to keep the order off to the right and..."

The footage spoke for itself. Stretchers, ambulances, cops, doctors, nurses, and people in uniforms rolling the sickest ones into the hospital. How could something like this happen so quickly? Why was there no slow escalation? Diseases this bad took time.

"...gotten out of hand and that they are thinking of involving the military to help maintain some of the order. Why don't you tell us whats going on inside, David?"

The view cut to a young anchor, just as he adjusted his microphone. He plucked a surgeons mask over his face, and assumed a cheery disposition that was incongruous to the surrounding scene behind him. One could only marvel at how these news crews could stay so detached as they reported on the digressing well being of an entire town.

The reporter bravely made his way through the crowded waiting room, and gestured to the scene presented.

"Thank you, Isaiah. Right now the Doctors have had to put the entire hospital on some what of a lock down, taking after our friends in Hallow Bastion I see.It doesn't look good."

To say that was an understatement was also an understatement within itself.

Everyone was coughing, older people were wheezing, stretcher occupants were drooling, children were hacking, worried mothers were crying- and the news anchor was yelling over everyone that their wait would be fruitless.

"Our local hospital is being stretched to it's resourceful limit, and Crenshaw hospital still marches on! Angry parents, and relatives, trying to get there loved ones attention immediately, despite all of the wings of Crenshaw hospital being occupied. Waiting, and waiting for help- a feat that seems under the current circumstances; futile."

The camera panned around the room, and Roxas did not need to know the original melanin content of the rooms occupants to know they were all a little too pale to be healthy. The waiting room looked like, if he were standing in it's center, he'd be overwhelmed by the smell of all that was diseased and putrid.

"There are people everywhere, and they all seem to be showing symptoms of this strange flu the city is experiencing. Scientist are scratching their heads at it's sudden appearance, as they have not been able to pin point exactly where the disease originated from. Other states like 'Georgia' 'Atlanta' 'Washington' and 'Texas' have reported similar experiences, and even some in other countries. While we are unsure as to it's cause, or origin, we can say that it is dangerous, and extremely infectious-"

No shit.

"And please, If you are to leave your house under any circumstances, please bring hand sanitizer, maybe some-

An old woman gripped onto the reporters shirt, nonsense as well as spittle dribbling from her mouth.

With the camera still on him, he gave his best smile and tried to gently push her off, politely asking her to step back. Her grip tightened, his efforts failed, and onto chest went whatever she had last eaten.

The newsman literally shuddered in disgust.

"That's Brilliant. Fucking Brilliant. Someone get me a fucking towel. Fucking-"

The scene quickly returned to the reporter outside who did her best to smoothly return to the news, as though mass sickness was a very common occurrence in Crenshaw, and her co-anchor had not just dropped the f-bomb on live television.

The camera-men were either really skilled, or really oblivious. In the distant corner of the screen, through the large windows of Crenshaw hospital, the old woman from the waiting room could still be seen. It was in the background that she still stood, quietly, vacantly- facing the camera.

It was very possible that she was not staring directly into the lens, but at the large amounts lights flashing from both the cameras, the incoming ambulances, and the circling police cars pretending to be of use to the hospital.

It was possible, and probable; but it just didn't feel like it.

He jumped.


Tis dedicated to the lovely 333Waterbaby333, and it still is. Lol, if you even remember me, msg me, how r u doing? Sorry I fail at updating.

PLEASE READ: I've updated these beginning chapters because they didn't seem an accurate reflection of what this story has evolved into. I never intended it to become so serious nor did I intend it to be taken seriously when I wrote it in 2010. Soooo... Here you go. I hope you give it another shot. Maybe this is a better reflection of the later chapters. I tried anyway. Hope you dig. :)

Disclaimer: Flesh taste nothing like Pomegranate.