A/N: I haven't got the slightest fricken' clue. Let it be known that I wrote this from approximately 12am to 5am, and I think my sanity and coherence were only deteriorating as the night wore on. But hey. I posted something. And I like it, even though it's twisted. EDIT: By the way, fic number 70!
Darkish. Rated for suggestive themes. SoraKairiRoxasNamine.
Unraveled.
Maybe they should just blame it all on Roxas.
It started with him, anyway. Because it used to be that Sora would kiss Kairi and Roxas would kiss Naminé and all four would be happy, because that's how somebodies and nobodies are supposed to work. And then one day Roxas decided that it might be interesting to kiss Kairi instead, so he did, and Naminé noticed. But it was nothing, so she let it go.
Sora dreams of Kairi. Roxas dreams of Naminé. Except when he dreams of Kairi. It's only natural, he thinks. He and Sora share a heart; he can't help but see Sora's dreams. He can't control it; he's not the dominant side, just the shadow. He kept dreaming of Naminé, of course, just less and less than Kairi. And he couldn't really blame it on Sora anymore.
So the next time Sora kissed Kairi, Roxas kissed her too; and nobody kissed Naminé.
And nobody but Naminé noticed.
Just this once, he'd thought. He'd still kiss Naminé, just like he'd still dream of her.
But 'just this once' turned in to 'every time'; and 'still' slowly became 'never'. It was always crimson fluttering in his dreams, always the vivacious redhead who he longed to feel in his arms. And his champagne princess simply faded into the background.
Nobody remembered Naminé.
Nobody ever remembered Naminé.
It started small. Kairi would walk into a room and forget what she'd come in there for. She'd find some of her possessions in odd places and not be able to remember when or why she'd put them there.
And then it grew. He could reference something from earlier in their conversation and she wouldn't be able to remember what they'd been talking about. And then she would stop, in the middle of a sentence, and forget how the sentence was supposed to end.
They'd be out together, and suddenly she would freeze, and then ask him where they were and how they got there. Sometimes he'd find her, standing stock still in the middle of the street, and when he asked, she couldn't tell him what she was doing there or how she ended up there.
He couldn't tell if she even realized something was wrong.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It's getting worse. It's three in the morning when the phone rings. It's her ringtone, so he jumps out of bed and stumbles through the dark room to find the phone, panicked. When he answers, frantically saying her name and asking if everything is alright, there is nothing but silence on the other end.
Finally, "…Sora?"
Her voice sounds thin, scared.
"Kairi, are you alright?"
"Oh, um, yeah."
"Um, well, good. Well, what did you want?"
"What?"
"Kairi, it's three AM. I assume you had a good reason for calling."
"Oh, uh, right. I couldn't sleep. Haven't been able to sleep all night."
"Is that why you called? Just because you can't sleep?"
A moment of silence follows.
"I called you?"
"Uh, yeah."
"…why did I call you?"
Sora's brow is furrowed as he answers, "Kairi, maybe you should just go to sleep."
"Oh…right. Maybe I should. Goodnight."
"G'night. Love you."
"Love you too."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
She looks awful the next morning. There are bags under her eyes; her face is pale, her shoulders slouching. When he asks her if she ever got to sleep she gives him a strange look.
"What are you talking about? I slept fine last night. I even went to bed early."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Kairi gasps. She spins around, searching through the dim light of the streetlamp to determine where she was. A street, obviously. Downtown somewhere? She stumbles forward, tripping over her low heels. Where were her school shoes? Calico Street. By the docks then.
Something crashes nearby and she whips around, holding her shaking hands in the closest thing to a fighting stance she knows. A cat comes prowling around the corner and she allows herself the slightest bit of relaxation.
The world is spinning as she wraps her cardigan a little tighter around herself and walks on, not sure how to get home, or how she ended up here.
The world is blurry. Where is she? Where is she? This is all wrong.
Where am I?
She was in school. Not five seconds ago, she was in school, sitting in History. It was almost noon.
There are noises all around her. Small, subtle, threatening noises, and the scariest thing is that she isn't sure which are happening around her and which are in her own head. She opens her mouth to scream—
-and all that comes out is a squeak.
It's daytime, and she's staring at Sora's frightened, worried face. But...she was in the alley, it was dark, and she tells him about it. His expression is something more horrified than concerned by the time she finishes, and she doesn't understand why. (Because she can't remember that this has happened before.)
"Kairi, that was three days ago."
She frowns. No. That was five minutes ago. And five minutes before that she was in class.
No. She's in the alley now. No she's not. She's sitting in Sora's bedroom, staring back at him.
No, the alley. No, his bedroom.
Alley.
Bedroom.
Alley.
Alley.
Bedroom.
Classroom.
Alley.
Sora's arms. She flings her arms around him and grips his shirt tightly. She clings to him, screaming, her fingernails digging into his back, just trying to hold on, stay anchored to this moment before everything changes again.
She's losing her sense of reality.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(and the forgotten girl smirks in the background of Roxas's dreams)
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sora's starting to realize what's going on.
Just as Kairi's getting worse.
The attacks are getting more frequent. A normal moment, an ordinary day, and then she'd start screaming. She wouldn't know where she was. She wouldn't remember what had been happening.
And then it was happening in class. A sudden panic attack in the middle of a test in Chemistry. A fit of hysterics in the cafeteria.
And worst of all, the nervous breakdown in the middle of the hallway because she didn't understand why everyone kept avoiding her and giving her weird looks.
She couldn't even remember that she was slowly losing her mind.
And then it got worse. It started with the meltdown, screaming at Selphie that What are you talking about, I haven't been acting strange! and then Sora wrapped his arms around her, trying to calm her, and then the whole world changed.
Black. Blurs of glowing yellow. Storm clouds in the sky.
Lockers. School spirit posters. Selphie.
Lightning. Antennae. Inky ooze pooling at her feet. Claws. Twitching. Swiping. Coming towards her.
Sora. Plaid uniforms. Scared faces. Shelves of backpacks. Linoleum floor.
Clawing. Searching. Tearing. Black. Black. Black. Darkness.
Riku. Sora. Terrified expressions. Someone screaming. Shrieking. Who was shrieking?
She was.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
It is one of those strange good days.
And it is just the two (four) of them, hiding away in the cool shadows of the Secret Place, away from worried, prying eyes. Away from friends' curiosity, and parents' warning glares. Away (maybe) from whatever's been happening to her.
She's simply basking in the peace of his presence. His hands are resting on her much too thin waist. His lips are on hers, and then on her jaw, and then her neck, moving down. She leans her head back and sighs, loses herself in love's simplicity. She giggles as his lips brush her collar bone and move along it to her shoulder. She feels his hand there, moving the fabric of her shirt aside to access more of her shoulder. She smiles, murmurs his name, her tone holding a warning. He stops, and then she is jerked forward as he roughly grabs the neckline of her shirt and pulls it all the way over her shoulder with enough force that Kairi hears a thread snap.
Her eyes snap open and she has half a mind to slap him until she sees her own arm.
Four long scratches run from just above her breast to her shoulder, and then all down along her arm. Small crescent(fingernail)-shaped marks are pressed into the skin all up and down her arm.
It surprises her that Sora believes her when she tells him she doesn't know where the markings came from. He simply stares at her in that worried way and tells her to go home and clip her fingernails.
Then his expression changes. Suddenly he looks very sad, and very tired, and far too old for sixteen.
"Please stop," he pleads softly.
Kairi can't shake the feeling that he isn't talking to her.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
It's almost daily now.
She always looks terrible. She hasn't slept in days, but her memory tells her otherwise. The scratches are appearing all over her body, and they are deeper now, because (of course) she keeps forgetting to cut her fingernails. Thank God school had let out for Spring Break; the stares were only agitating the condition. But of course, who knew if she'd even be able to return when classes resumed. She never knew where she was. Despite being under constant watch she'd still disappear and be found hours later, staring blankly off into space, standing in the middle of the street miles away.
She'd start screaming for no reason in the middle of an ordinary conversation, swatting her arms and legs to fight off the heartless and nobodies and tendrils of darkness that weren't really there. And when it was over she might forget completely, or remember some time later that she was going insane. No one could ever be certain at what moments she knew what was happening to her and at what moments she didn't.
But Sora knows exactly what's happening to her.
She's falling apart at the seams, and Naminé's holding the seam ripper.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
He kisses her one day, and Roxas, (not quite) non-existent heart breaking at the sight of her constant torment had broken through a bit closer to the surface. He, more than Sora, had been the dominant one for that moment.
And for the first time, Naminé was not the only one who noticed.
Two hours later Kairi calls him, sobbing. He can hardly make out what she is saying but he doesn't really need to. She's in trouble. That's all he ever needs to know.
When he arrives he finds her huddled in the corner of her room, gripping her arms so tightly that her fingernails had dug deep enough into the flesh to draw blood. She was shaking, sobbing, screaming.
He runs to her, forces her to look at him. He even summons the keyblade, hoping somehow it might help to fight away the imaginary Heartless that surround her. When she starts to calm down he reaches out, tries to pull her into his arms, but she panics again. She pushes him away, begging him to leave her alone, and something in Sora snaps.
He grabs her upper arm and yanks her off the floor. Instinctively, she tries to break away but Sora grabs her other arm and holds her there. Kairi's eyes are wide as she stares at him, terrified.
"Sora, what are you doing?"
He pulls her close and glares into her indigo eyes. "Stop it," he growls.
"Sora," Kairi pleads as she tries again to free herself, "Let me-" she whimpers as he jerks her back and grips her arm tighter. A sob shakes her body as more tears join the confusion and fear on her face. "Stop it, you're hurting me." She's positively horrified now, because she's not sure if this is even really happening or if it's another one of the attacks, because this isn't at all like Sora. He's never, never hurt her before.
He leans even closer until he's right in her face. "I'm serious," he says, his voice low and dangerous, "Stop it." Kairi, at a loss, can only stare; her eyes searching his face for answers. Sora continues to glare at her, not backing down and not letting go, until the confusion, the fear, and the agony melt into something calm and stony.
The slightest narrowing of the eyes is the only sign of emotion on her face when she leans in and whispers, "No."
It hurts, it kills, that look, because it's Kairi, but it's not.
"Why are you doing this?" he demands.
Her glare grows more pronounced. "Because it's not fair," she spits at him, "Why should she get off easy? Why should she always get everything while I get nothing?" A few tears were starting to pour from her eyes now. "First she had you, and I was okay with that, but now she gets Roxas too? He was all I had and she stole that too!"
A wave of dizziness overcomes Sora as Roxas reels, and Sora shakes his head, trying to focus on KairiNaminé as Roxas's thoughts become a like a mantra in the back of his head, It's all my fault? It's all my fault. It's all my fault…
"That's not her fault," Sora replies, his voice softer this time, "You can't take it out on her. Be mad at Roxas, be mad at me, just stop torturing Kairi." Roxas is reconciling his thoughts and blending as they both answer, "If your issue is with me, then let me fix it, I'll-"
It happens so fast he doesn't have time to react. She lurches forward and presses her lips to his, and he can taste hunger and desperation and in his shock he loosens his grip on her arms and she breaks free and flings her arms around his neck. His body reacts on habit and instinct and catches her, and it takes a second to detangle his thoughts enough to register which girl he's embracing.
It isn't Kairi, but it is, she's pushing him somewhere, steering every stumbling footstep he takes to try to get away from her he can sense her on the fringes, watching, participating, fighting for control, but she's not in control and NaminéNaminé? is still leading him some—
What happened to the gravity?
He falls backwards onto her bed and looks up to see her climbing on top of him. As she leans down to kiss him again he grabs her arms and flips her over so that he's hovering over her and pinning her to the mattress by her wrists. "Stop it! What do you think you're doing?" She glares at him for a moment before swinging her legs up and wrapping them around his waist. He has to let go of her wrists to pry her legs from around his torso, which frees her hands to grab his shoulders and pull him down on top of her again. As soon as his hands go for her arms her legs are free to wrap around his waist again.
And with her lips crushed against his and her whole body practically holding him in a vice grip, he's finding it much harder to break away. It's not Kairi and yet it is, and his brain knows it, and his heart knows it, but his body hasn't quite gotten the memo yet. He's sixteen; his body wants her regardless of which half of her is dominant at the moment. Because this feels so right even though it's all wrong.
He struggles to remove her legs from around his waist and pins each leg to the bed with one of his, then grabs her arms from around his shoulders and pins her wrists again. She struggles, trying to worm her way out from his grasp, but he's too strong for her, and she finally gives up.
She's wearing a wild, devious, half-mad look that seems completely out of place on Kairi's face. "Come on," she says, "Her parents aren't home and you know she'll never let you otherwise. C'mon, you know you want to."
"Not like this," he tells her firmly.
She suddenly wriggles and Sora, unprepared, feels one of her legs slip out from under his. "Do it and I'll stop everything," she says, and it's strange hearing Kairi's voice but Naminé's tone. Her freed foot has started running slowly up his leg. He lets go of one arm to reach for her leg but then her arm shoots upwards and he has to pin it down again. "I'll leave her alone, I'll stop tormenting her. Just once, just once let me be the one you want. Just do this with me once, and it'll all end…" Her foot reaches his inner thigh and Sora abandons his attempt to keep her arm pinned and focuses on getting her leg pinned beneath his again. Her hand has started reaching for where her foot left off but he intercepts her.
"Naminé, stop it!" He's just getting frustrated now. He wants to help her, he does, and he desperately wants Kairi back, but he's at a loss as to what to do. He doubts, of course, that giving her what she wants would benefit anybody, but seeing as Roxas was the one who she really wanted…
Stalemate. They stare at each other, because they aren't really the two out of this foursome that need to be talking.
And then Sora feels the back of his head prickle, and he can feel Roxas pushing forward, and there's so much overlap that he's not really sure which one of them leans down and gently places a kiss on the girl's lips, or who softly murmurs, "I'm so sorry." But when he leans back and looks at her, her expression has completely changed. "We'll make this work…" he whispers as he trails kisses along her jaw, and he means it. He'd forgotten why he'd chosen Naminé to begin with; forgotten that he could love all of her, because after so much time the line between Sora and Roxas and Kairi and Naminé had blurred. They were separate and yet overlapping; two and yet only one. He could not love Kairi and ignore Naminé, and he could not love Naminé and yet ignore Kairi.
When he leans in to kiss her next, there are no distinctions. Both boys kiss both girls but there is still only one boy kissing one girl. When Sora finally pulls away, it is definitely Kairi looking back at him. She looks exhausted, drained, but completely sane for the first time in a long time. He gingerly gets off of her and helps her to sit up. He can already see bruises beginning to form on her wrists and shins from where he'd been holding her down. He hated to have to hurt her, but with Naminé so out of control, he'd really had no other option.
Kairi weakly slumps back against her pillows and Sora lays down beside her. He catches her and holds her as she falls into a state of relaxation and rest. She's exhausted, physically, emotionally, mentally. Both tormenter and tormented are too worn out to continue fighting. This truce, this promise of better days, will have to do.
They're patchwork, at best. It's wrong and yet it's right and yet it's wrong. All is not as it should be, but all is as it is, and as it is it's working, even if it's not working the way it's supposed to.
Xend
A/N: Thoughts please. I'd like to know if the ending is at all coherent considering it was written at like, 5 in the morning. I blame this insanity on reading awesome but twisted fics like Numina's "Duty Calls", and then there's this one amazing super-dark Sokai called "Boys Will Be", but I can't remember who wrote it, and then SKRN madness with fics like "regardless of raspberries" I can't remember who wrote that one, but it's in my fav stories, so go check it out. If you liked this then go read those. They're all amazing.
Anyway. Hope you enjoyed this.