Well since we survived the end of the world, Chapter eight is up and ready to go. I realize that I may have neglected a proper violence warning in the last chapter, so hopefully it wasn't too traumatic. Thanks for sticking with this so far! Nearly done, now!
Chapter 8: Love is Breaking
There were lots of sounds and colors and light.
And all of it was awful.
Roxas remembered, as the haze went away and the feeling of plastic and starch, and bleach clung to his bones like some kind of sterile wrapping paper, that something was distinctly not right, and that waking up would not be good.
When his eyes were open despite the protests of his body, and the wills of his mind, he regretted it.
Everything was white.
He was not home with Hayner, curled up on the couch as was their way.
He was not home, cooking dinner and thumbing through the free magazines that came in the mail.
He was not home, rolling around in his bed, wondering if Hayner had left for the day, or if he was still in the shower using up all of the hot water.
No, he was not there, where things were normal, and warm, and right. He was in a place that he shouldn't be, a place that was cold, and wrong, wrong, wrong.
The haze of questions and wrongness flitting through his mind was suddenly broken by a dull hum from somewhere around him…somewhere, and then there was buzzing and beeping. It was like traffic, only worse because his head hurt, and he wasn't sure where he was going anyway, and maybe Hayner needed the car to get to work, so why on earth did he have it…?
When the haziness from his eyes lifted too, he realized with relief (or maybe it wasn't relief) that he wasn't stuck in traffic, and that he had just passed out somewhere and was now someplace else.
Which begged a lot of questions.
Roxas considered this for three, maybe four more minutes as he stared blankly at a whole lot of white, but it wasn't long before things really started to sink in, and the whole situation began to drag him down, down, down into a pit of complete and utter horror. The humming was coming from a machine. The buzzing was coming from a machine. The beeping was coming from a machine.
Roxas was attached to those machines.
Roxas was in a hospital.
There were minutes, and then there were hours, and during all of that time, Roxas had tried several unsuccessful times to leave, because really, he had no business being in a hospital. He didn't remember why he was there, and honestly didn't even care. He had to be home. He had to be home immediately. He didn't know why he needed to be there, but he just did, and that was a good enough reason. Maybe if he could find out from Hayner what had happened, or talk to Sora, or really, he was fine just pretending the whole thing didn't exist, because something in the pit of his stomach told him that knowing would be worse than keeping it a secret from himself.
He tore at covers, and machines, and wires that dripped clear liquid into veins that Roxas was pretty sure were supposed to be red and blue, but whatever, he wasn't a doctor. He was going to get out, out and away to a home that made sense. As he tried to pry himself free of wires and plastic clutter, he realized though, that leaving was going to be a lot harder than it should have been. A woman with a syringe and empty threats came in yelling something about staying in bed and that someone was coming for him soon, but she wasn't even a part of a problem that Roxas was even remotely interested in. No, his body forbade him from moving more than one or two plastic wires, because it protested so furiously with shots of pain racing up and down his limbs and torso, that sitting still was about the only action that he could take without rousing it.
The nurse came back. She did something fiddly with the tubes, and left.
The pain stopped.
But Roxas didn't try to leave again. Desperation set in, and it was at this point where Roxas was pretty sure he was about half a step away from a nervous breakdown.
Then the door opened again.
More minutes and hours passed, and Roxas could easily tell that they were much, much worse than the last set, because at least then, things weren't starting to feel like he was slowly watching a car careen into a ditch.
It was Sora.
And Sora was crying.
He didn't waste any time crossing the room (and Sora never did waste time, especially when he was adamant about touching someone), and wrapped his arms so tightly around Roxas's neck that the wires in his arms were pulling at his skin, and breathing was starting to become more of a struggle than it probably should have been, and yeah whatever the nurse had done with the syringe had helped, but it hadn't helped that much.
Sora was wet, and cold, and wearing pajamas and sneakers like he didn't care how he looked in public, and he was crying so hard that his shoulders were shaking, and tears were coming in rivers from his eyes, ruining Roxas's thin hospital gown, and making him wonder just what on earth was going on, and why his twin looked so miserable when clearly he wasn't the one strapped to a hospital bed with bones and muscles that protested to getting up.
"Roxas," Sora hiccup-coughed into his shoulder, not bothering to pull himself together or explain why he felt it necessary to hook onto him like some kind of parasitic plant. "He's never going to touch you again. You can move in with me and Riku until we get things sorted out at your place, and if he ever even says your name again, I swear, Roxas I will come find him, and murder him to the point that the police won't even be able to recognize his remains!"
Then Sora was back to crying again like the world was ending, blubbering into Roxas's neck and getting tears everywhere, so Roxas didn't have the heart to ask him to explain. He sat there patting Sora's back instead, not sure if he could truthfully tell him that it would "be okay," because he wasn't sure himself, and that was probably the worst part.
When Sora finally collected himself enough to where he could just stare at him like he was some kind of lost orphan, he noticed that beyond Sora's shoulder, way in the back next to the crumby plastic chair and hand sanitizer, was Riku. His eyes were red.
Roxas took back thinking that the previous minutes to hours had been bad. He took it back, because the next hour was infinitely worse. It was so much worse that he wanted to cry, and kick, and scream, and maybe die, and maybe take Axel with him, because no there was no way that this was happening.
"You don't remember what happened?" Sora had said as more of a statement than a question, his voice wavering in a way that made Roxas know immediately that he didn't want to remember at all. Riku had walked forward at that point, holding Sora's hand and staring down at him with his red-rimmed eyes and grim expression. No, Roxas did not want to know.
"You really don't remember anything?"
Roxas shook his head slowly, tentatively.
Sora's face twisted, and Riku squeezed his hand tighter, and Roxas didn't know what to think, because the tears happened again, and Riku was trying to keep Sora from strangling something.
"Really, Roxas. How many times has he done this to you?"
"I don't know what you're…" He thought, and then this conversation started to sound very familiar. "Don't start, Sora."
"Don't start what?" Sora asked. "Don't start trying to get you to wake up?"
Roxas absently started tugging at the wires in his arms again, because escape might need to happen, especially if the conversation continued down the current route. "Stop it. Now is not the time to start badgering me on what you think is going on with me and Hayner. I'm not—"
Sora exploded, and even Riku stopped rubbing Sora's arm in what-was-supposed-to-be-soothing-but-failed motions. "He almost killed you, Roxas!" Riku regained his grip, holding Sora's arms, either to calm him, or to keep him from grabbing Roxas's shoulders and shaking him, but either way it didn't keep him from yelling words that Roxas didn't want to hear. "He almost killed you. You. Almost. Ceased. To. Exist. Because of him. That's why you're in the hospital!"
Roxas scoffed, feeling his own throat get tight, and the muscles in his back tense and fray. Sora couldn't just talk about…well, he didn't know anything about…He was just being…Hayner would never…Hayner just didn't… "Shut up. You don't even know what you're talking about."
"Really? Then why are you in the hospital, Roxas? Why am I here staring at you in a hospital bed with all this crap all over the place," he gestured vaguely to things in the room that Roxas didn't even bother to follow, because watching his brother come apart at the seams like this was a lot harder to ignore than crummy wall paper and the tubes in his arms. "Why have I been sitting in a waiting room answering questions from the police at this hour, trying harder than you can even know not to go find that bastard and make him regret the day he even looked at you, huh?"
Riku hugged Sora, and mumbled something in his ear, a gesture Roxas would have turned his nose up and scowled at—so gross—but he couldn't look away, or even make a snide comment. Things he had thought about for years, things he had concealed so well that even he was starting to forget existed were slowly crawling from beneath the thick mask of normalcy that he had worked so hard to build.
And he really, truly didn't know how to deal with it.
"Stop talking to me."
"Stop talking to you? That's funny, Roxas, because you almost stopped talking to me!"
"Sora," Riku was saying, looking back and forth between Sora's clenched jaw, and whatever face Roxas was making. "Let's let—"
"Stop talking to me!" Roxas said loudly…too loudly. His voice hurt his own ears. "I'm done with you, and all of this. Get out and leave me alone!" And he meant it. Too much. It was all too much.
"Not a chance," Sora said, breaking out of Riku's arms and onto Roxas's shoulders with a tentative grip that was so full of uncertainty and fear, that Roxas didn't know if he should start screaming or crying.
"The last time I left you alone, you promised me everything was fine, and he beat you, Roxas. I sat on the sidelines and let it happen, because I'm a horrible brother, and I trusted that you wouldn't be this big of an idiot, and that maybe, just maybe all the bruises and the broken bones, and the weeks without even seeing your ugly, stupid face were a figment of my imagination. I'm not leaving you alone for the rest of your life, and if you think for even one moment that I'm going to just walk out because you tell me to, you've lost more of your mind than I thought!"
"Shut up," Roxas said, and he realized with the sense of horror that was already becoming an ever present feeling throughout this whole experience, that the words were pushed through a sob, and that tears were streaming down his face in pathetic little rivers. "Shut up, and get away from me!"
Sora was crying now too, and everything was so wrong and horrible and messed up that he didn't even bother to shove him off of him when Sora hugged him and cried into his starchy shirt. He let him cry, and Roxas cried too, because honestly, there was nothing left to do.
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Please offer a review if you have a minute! Chapter 9 (the last of this baby) will be up shortly.
