up, it is here (finally), the ninth chapter. W00t! (Or something...) (You should thank BoyOrgy for harrasing me at school to post that I got it done this quickly.)

Yes, random notes, most, if not all, of which are relevant.

First, this chapter's divider is a loving tribute to friendly hostility, which you should all go read, (friendlyhostility (dot) com). One of the best webcomics ever.And I blame my beta (blondevil, who is my fucking superhero), 'cause it was essentially her idea. Don't think she thought I'd actually do it though... that happens a lot, usually I get pissed and she laughs her ass off, anyways...

Second, I didn't bother to send this to my beta 'cause she's off somewhere and I'm impatient. I did proof read a couple times though. I'll probably send it to her and re-post with edits, so if you're neither brave nor impatient, wait a while. Though I think I did a pretty good job of editing, so it should be fine.

Third, memaisekuna gave me the actual german for back in Chapter 7, with the random polylinguality. Much thanks to her, and if you're curious, you can check it out, w00t.

I'm pretty sure I had something else to say, whatever, I talk too much as it is. All well.

Reviewers! I love you like I love the Ding Dong Song, which is a lot.


Baby, I want to bang you like a trash can lid and sell your kidneys on eBay... all night long.
Zexion BGM: You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)- Dead or Alive

So, we're at the beach again... I think we go to the beach too much. Then again, other than Rhapsody and the bookstore/café combo (don't you just love those?) there really isn't much to do here. And our Halo 2 fetish died about a month ago, video games just haven't been the same since. Don't you just hate it when you find that one perfect thing, and you want everything else to be as good, but it just never is? Yeah, that's a bummer. Happens all the time, I think the moral there is we're not supposed to compare things, isn't that what they always tell you in school, think about you're grades, not you're friends'. Yeah, something like that.

It's just me and Dem, the way it's been pretty much the entire time since Naminé left, odd how she was the one who kept us all as a cohesive whole. I think Larxy-Warxy (I did not just think that) is off with Marly-poo… okay, the random affectionate nicknames have got to go. What's next, Demy-kins? My little Demy-dear? Gah.

The moon is burning in the sky like a giant, radioactive silver-dollar. It blazes a path across the so-dark-as-to-be-black waters of the beach and I find myself entertaining the notion of trying to run on it, then I realize I'm on crack and there's no way that would work; which, for no real reason, brings my attention back to rather unpleasant way the sand under my ass has wormed its way into the waistband of my rough, black jeans (girl jeans, skater jeans, fag jeans, not that it matters). Lying propped up on my elbows, the denim curve where the stiff material arches away from the curve of the small of my back (you know when you can see down the back of girls' pants and their nasty-ass ass cracks, yeah, that curve) makes the sands' mission easy. Apparently my belt does nothing to eliminate said curve, which makes it a useless fashion accessory, because that's the only reason I wear it, to eliminate the dreaded ass curve. You know it, The Belt. The one that absolutely everyone (with one or two exceptions has) black leather, squashed metal studs. Yeah, that belt.

Demyx beside me tries to scratch discretely at his forehead underneath the black stocking cap he's wearing. The cap means he was too lazy to do his hair this morning. He thinks we don't know; it's kind of cute. I mean… manly; very, very manly.

Ah, fuck it, I think I kissed any semblance of manliness away when I got emo hair and fag jeans, whatever. I steal the hat when he stops scratching and moves his arm back to support position and stash it underneath my ass where he can't get it.

"Se-xy," he whines, lower lip jutting out cutely.

"It's uncomfortable and you look better without it," I say stolidly, refusing to yield to the pout.

He pouts a bit more, and then resolutely ruffles his flattened hair with his fingers to eliminate the evils of hat-hair. This actually works for him, I've never seen it work for anyone else, but Dem, of course, can do it. Hail to Demyx, he who performs the miracle of hat hair banishing!

Hair successfully fluffed he settles back and watches the waves, silence settling around us like a comfortable blanket. That is, until he starts humming. Quietly at first, so I wasn't sure if I was hearing things or not. Then louder, and louder; and by then he's digging his heels rhythmically into the sand and swaying his shoulders into mine, so I have no choice but to join in. An ironic half-smile playing across my lips as I recognize the dulcet tune of my favorite song from three –four?- years ago.

The quiet sound of shifting sand drags my attention to Dem who's standing up, ear bud in one ear, the other in the hand extended to me. To my credit, I only hesitate a little before taking it, the ear bud and the hand. I slide the ear bud in and my smile widens as I stand up, my hand in his. He's the one who starts dancing, a lazy… salsa? I can't remember the names, only the steps. The physical education department at the high school decided to get inventive and add in various dances to the curriculum, to which all I can say is never, ever again. That and I'm dying of shock that it's actually coming in handy, in an odd sort of way.

His fingers twine with mine and his free arm loops across my shoulder, all but forcing me to join him. My free hand moves automatically to a place high on his waist, completely proper I assure you. Soft calypso (I think that's right, I never was good with the whole genre thing) rhythm fills my brain as we dance lackadaisically across the sand. Enthusiasm growing as we remember the steps, by the second verse, we're singing "Franky-boy lie in t'e grass wit' me, moon over Woodstock underneat' t'e tree, Just bloooooow… just blooooooooooow…" The vague, detached part of my brain registers that I'm dancing with Demyx on the beach in the moonlight singing about dead hippies and drugs, and blowing, Demyx is singing about blowing. But I don't really care, 'cause for once it isn't about sex or wanting, it just is. And if it had to be about anything, it'd be about weird druggie-songs. "RE-volution make yo' mind go free, peace 'nd freedom and a love communityyyy. Psychadelic posters on your wall, Jimi, Janice, yeah you knew them allllll. Ma-ri-uh-juan-uh in yo' brain." We're getting louder; we're getting closer, his hips almost touching mine, his fingers twining into my hair. Our foreheads pressing comfortably together, noses touching, breath mingling, and it's still not about sex. This has got to be a record.

My hand glides lower and over, resting on the small of his back, one finger hooked in the back belt loop of his ragged blue jeans, he moves closer to me in response, all chocolate chip cookie breath and soft hair, "A spacey mushroom landed in yo' mouth. You couldn't tell your north from your south, No waaaay… no waaaaaaaaay."

He's right up next to me now, flush up against me, that's the phrase, and the pleasant sensation of the sand between the toes of my bare feet is somehow what makes the moment so damned perfect. He throws back his head belting the last bit of the final chorus, moving with me, against me, all the way, "While all the hippies make love under the stars, I'd rather do it on the back seat of a caaaar! Hare Krishnas mean the same old tune, the golden sixties was a time of fools! Ma-ri-uh-juan-uh in yo' brain!!" His forehead presses back against mine, my arm fully around his waist by now, pulling him close to me, breath mingling again at the final… bridge… thing? It doesn't really matter because it's all just so damned right and perfect, by which I mean I haven't jumped him yet. This is an improvement, really.

It's not until the song peters out and we're still pressed together that I realize just how damned close we are, or rather, how damned close his parted lips are to mine. I'd hazard a guess at around less than an inch. And the thumb of his hand still intertwined with mine is moving softly over the skin of my hand. And if it wasn't totally insane, I'd say it was almost a caress and that he knew exactly what he was doing, with the song and the dancing and now this, and fuck he's so damned close.

His lips are still so damnably, wonderfully close to mine, when his eyes flicker up to meet mine and I realize I was wrong when I said they were blue. Which isn't too say they aren't blue, they are, blue and a little something more; some indefinable shade of green that's unnoticeable until you're this close and then you wonder how you never noticed before.

It's probably just my wistful imagination but I could have sworn his lips were moving closer when a niggling little voice in the back of my mind wonders if Larxene knows what color his eyes really are. Then my arm is detaching from his waist and I'm stepping slowly back, shamed at how my hand (which seemed to have taken up a mind of its own) was loath to leave his.

And then the withering little voice adds that it is as likely that it is regret in his eyes, and his lips coming closer, as it is that I can across the path of molten silver slicing the black ocean in twain. And then it laughs and I settle back onto the soft sand, not nearly so comfortable now.

Demyx, still smiling, eternally smiling, sits besides me and other than a slight air of melancholy in the air, it's as it was before.

"So," he says when the silence became too much, "Are you coming to Rhapsody tonight?"

I shrug a shoulder, refusing to look at him, "Mmm, I wasn't really planning on it. Are you working tonight?"

He nods, "Mmhmm, I get off 'round one. You should swing by, could be fun."

Blue Rhapsody. The Islands' only night club, and it's not even on the islands. The owner lives on the islands though, so we can pretend. Because we all know the city council would never endorse the building of such a thing, so we pay the ferry fees and pretend that it's really ours, not the mainland's, like everything else. Demyx works as a DJ there most nights of the week, the pay isn't too great, he says, but it's something he enjoys doing so it doesn't really matter. Whatever.

I call Marluxia, who was heading over there anyway. I think he goes pretty much every night, and comes home with a different chick every night. He is the honored master of the one night stand, he even manages to make it not be hurtful when the next morning he rolls over, sees you in his bed, and asks you to get the fuck out. I'm sure he doesn't phrase it that way, and the majority of his bedmates only complaint is that they will always have to leave.

Marluxia had a girlfriend once. They were in love, he says, they were happy, he says, and then she left him for some rich, forty-year-old someone or other. Then he found a boyfriend. They weren't quite happy, he says, but they weren't complaining, and then he left him to be the kept-boy to some rich, sixty-year-old someone or other. He was a lot less broken up about it the second time, he says, he's not really gay anyway, he just didn't want to get his heart broken again; thought it would be different with a guy.

After the departure of the nameless boyfriend, Marluxia realized the best way to not get his heart broken would just be a serious of endless, nameless, one night stands. Most of us already knew this; he's just not so quick on the uptake. Most of his take-homes know what's going to happen come morning, I guess it's just hard to get rid of that damned hope that he'll see something special in you and let you stay. No such luck for any of them, Marluxia continues to spend his summer breaks from college getting laid as many times as possible with as many women as possible. He studies during the semester, only goes out three nights a week. I guess when you look as good as he does; you can get away with murder.

We met him last winter, a couple of days after New Years', when he tried to pick up Naminé, and Larxene bitch-slapped him so hard his eyes watered and the red handprint stayed for days. We, Dem and I, bought him an apology (how was he to know she was taken and gay) drink and then we started talking… next thing anyone knew he was agreeing to play in the band we were thinking of starting (just to give us something to do to while away the monotonous Saturday afternoons) but realized we needed more than the two of us.

Walking into anywhere with Marly, it's an experience; a lesson in invisibility if you will. He has… that thing… vibe, aura, whatever. It makes you want to know him, get close to him, and in the case of pretty much every straight female or gay guy, fuck him. He's just… like that, needless to say, no one some much as glances at me; skulking, slouchy shadow to the radiant pink haired god. Actually, the dye was starting to fade back into his original tan brown. (Dun, he'll say scornfully, it's dun.) He stares down at the writhing sea of people on the floor below him and smiles, I can't decide if it's like a magician who just executed a complex trick or a tiger before it pounces.

The actual floor of the club is dug down two stories below ground level, the middle level runs mostly in the back quarter and along the sides, the door is at ground level, giving you a feeling of omnipotence, surveying the horde of diminished figures. He turns to me and smiles like a friend sharing a particularly good joke (eyes crinkling up at the corners) and slings an arms across my narrow shoulders. "Shall we?" his tone is mocking, but I can't tell at what. His arm slides down from my shoulders and his hand catches mine, he parades down the metal grill stairs, hips already swaying entrancingly to the beat, pulling me in with him.


Baby, I want to bang you like a trash can lid and sell your kidneys on eBay... all night long.
Axel BGM: Stoned On Love Again: Lords of Acid

The thick, rubber soles of my knock-off combat boots scuff the ground as I walk along the sidewalk. The bass pouring from my ratty old headphones is loud enough, hard enough, to make my molars ache… rhythmically, of course, which makes it okay. The old lady I pass on the street eyes me curiously and it takes me a second to remember that you can hear the lyrics a couple feet away with the volume this high. Well fuck her. If she doesn't like it she can just get her own damned headphones, then she won't hear mine, stupid bitch. Stupid fucking Roxas, making me walk home. Well, so maybe it wasn't entirely his fault, but… Wait. What the fuck am I saying? Of course it's his fault, the stupid… fuck.

Which, for the record; is all I actually intended for him to be, a fuck, that's it. Now would be a great time for some Queer as Folk-ly comments on "the one night stand that never left", and honestly, I'd love to make them, but that's not how it happened at all. What did happen was this.

I kept trying to get into his pants, right? And he was continuously resistant; in a very loud, occasionally painful (not that I minded the pain) way. While this would deter the average person, I, in looks, intelligence, affinity for fire, and pretty much everything, am not average. Hence, my complete lack of quitting.

Even when Roxas had juggernauted so far out of the zone of "Hard to get" that it wasn't even a miniscule speck on the horizon, I continued. (For the record, he got out of the stage of "Hard to get" in a few short hours, the little brat is that damned repellent.) But somewhere along the line, it became a casual, habitual even, factor of our lives. I hit on him, he shoves me off, yells at me, or whatever, we move on. I think it was around that there we became friends, which is remarkable in itself.

I'm not sure if you've ever experienced this, but spending large amounts of time with someone who is trying to get into your pants ad infinitum, not in even in a joking manner, is really, really fucking annoying. Actually spending anytime with someone like that is really bloody annoying, especially when you happen to be as strongly against the idea as he was. (Which I still don't get, it's not like he didn't enjoy it. He'd moan like anything when I kissed him, or that one memorable occasion he woke up with a boner and I tried to jerk him off… but then he'd shove me off and glare or yell, usually both.) So, I guess I did sort of tire out of it, the game is only fun for so long. I mean, I kept hitting on him, that's for sure. I just kept it verbal, most of the time. There was still the occasion session of "Let's Pin Roxas To the Wall or Nearest Other Vertical (Occasionally Horizontal) Surface and See How Long It Takes For Him To Shove Me Off" (I think my record was about five minutes… he was a little tipsy(1)), but they were infrequent.

I still wanted him, I just showed it less. So then, Roxas, being a contrary little piss ant to this day, jumps me. Honestly.

I remember it (mostly) perfectly. We were sitting on his bed watching some stand-up comedian or another, because it was Winter Break and his friends were off skiing and mine were somewhere nice and tropical (or was it the other way around) so we had nothing to do, and nothing is better with someone else, nothing with Roxas is the best. Roxas' parents were, and are, a lot like Leon's dad, in that neither of them are ever there, therefore they can't bug you about eating nothing but junk food, or not doing you're homework, or letting your friends stay for extremely long amounts of time (and that was even before we were fucking). So they didn't care what the fuck we did, not like they would ever know about it.

One second I'd been laughing into the commercials at something the person on the television had said, and the next he's sitting in my lap, one hand in my hair, the other already making its way under my shirt as he sticks his tongue so far down my throat it felt like he was trying to lick my toes.

Which sounds gross and kind of painful but in reality feels really fucking good, or maybe that's only when Roxas is the one doing it to you. Either way I figured that he was just being a tease, but may as well enjoy it as much as possible while it lasted, right? So, I grabbed his ass and stuck my tongue down his throat. And I would just like to state for the record that we both stone fucking sober at the time.

It was what happened after that that really fucked with my mind. It wasn't like I'd never had sex before, and it wasn't like that for him either. I could tell. In the cold efficiency with which he removed all my clothes and most of his before I really had time to think. The lube and condoms in the top drawer of the bedside table were a good hint too. I'd even been in what could, be very loosely, called a relationship, the longest had lasted a month. And with no exception had I ever been stopped on my way out the door. To me, it had always seemed the thing to do, one of those little rituals of most of humanity. You drink coffee in the morning, and leave after you fuck. That's just how it worked. It mitigated the morning after awkwardness, but Roxas…

I got up to go, stiff and sore, but oh so satisfied, and he caught my wrist in his sleep as he rolled over onto his stomach muttering about hippos into his pillow, faintly bloody half-moon imprints from my nails on his shoulders gleaming dimly in the dawn light. Movements jerky, I shifted back under the covers and wondered what the fuck was I supposed to do now I was here? Was I supposed to touch him? Was it required?

I wanted to; I realized vaguely, wanted to slide my hands comforting over the bare shoulder blades, apology for the blood I'd drawn. But I didn't know… the kid was such a touch-me-not. Well, when wasn't pounding me into his mattress.

He settled the debate for me by slinging an arm across my shoulder, a leg across my hips and burying his nose in my collar bone. This… was different. He looked so damned…childlike in his sleep. When he wasn't focusing on being a cold prick he just looked cute. Sort of like Sora actually, which was a creepy and disturbing thought.

I was understandably pissed when he woke up in the morning and asked what the fuck I was still doing there.


Baby, I want to bang you like a trash can lid and sell your kidneys on eBay... all night long.
Cloud BGM: Do You Like Waffles?-Parry Gripp

"So… you and Leon…" Naminé leaves the sentence hanging as she thuds her heels rhythmically against the wall of the counter she was perched on.

I flip a pancake that looks like it has too many surface bubbles and say nothing. Neither does she. It turns out she is better at the silent-game then I am because it is I who yields with a highly intellectual, "Eh?"

She rolls her eyes, "Oh, you know."

Actually, cousin dear, the fact that I asked rather denotes the fact that I, in fact, do not know, so why don't you just tell me, hmm?

"Well," she says as if this is obvious, "You guys live together."

"Yeah." Way to state the obvious. I really was not aware of that.

"So, you guys are close, yeah?"

No, he lets me live here because he hates me.

Seeing that her masterminded interrogative process has yet to crack my brilliant mind (ooh, I feel like a genius) she sighs dejectedly and mutters, "Forget it, those pancakes done yet?" I flip two onto a plate and pass it to her, still saying nothing. "You don't talk much, do you?" I shrug, re-grease, and add batter.

"Cloud, m'dear, have I ever told you that I love, adore, and worship you?" Sadly, it's the wrong Leonhart.

I stick my tongue out in greeting to a bedraggled and sleepy Sora, Sure, doll face, love you too.

He beams at me, sunshine bright, and bounces over to the cabinet for a plate. Feeling sadistic, or maybe playful (is there even a difference), I flip three in Sora's general direction. He blinks once, twice, then with a disturbing amount of skill moves the plate about to catch them. Smiling beatifically, he strikes a victory stance, "Oh, yeah! I won!" (2) not noticing the way one slides off its precarious perch on the plate's lip as he does so, and lands on the floor with a greasy slap until it was too late.

"Nnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooo!" he yells, falling to his knees, waving his free fist about in semi-mock misery. "My life has no meaning!"

A soft laugh behind me tells me that Naminé is enjoying the display as I slide another pancake onto Sora's plate. He blinks at me with big blue eyes then springs back to happiness with an even wider (read: more maniacal) grin than before. Sliding his plate onto the counter he jumps onto my back, arms around my neck, legs gripping my waist tightly. I almost drop my spatula in the attempt to grab his legs.

"I love you, Cloudo!" yells the stupid monkey on my back.

"Cloudo?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh," his chin bumps into my shoulder as he nods enthusiastically. "I was talking to Selphie the other day, and she was saying something about… well, I can't remember what is was about because I wasn't paying much attention and she spoke real fast, you know how she does, because she was trying to beat the final boss of Resident Evil 4 and get her brownies out of the oven all at the same time, and well… anyway, I think she was talking about Japanese, like the language, for some weird reason… and anyway, there was something about adding an –o to the end of words… or was it names… Yeah, except you don't write it… or do you? Whatever, I think she's full of crack, she's such a crack-whore, like that time when-"

"Sora, for the love of god, shut the fuck up," Leon cuts in, his ever-cheerful morning mood already evident.

My head snaps around at the unexpected voice, banging painfully into Sora's skull.

"Ah, fuck," I mutter rubbing a hand to the sore spot.

"Cloud, stop stabbing me in the eye with your freaking spatula, you stupid son of a bitch!" Sora yelps.

"Eh, well, maybe if you weren't clinging to my back like a demented lemur!"

"Demented lemur! I'll show you a demented lemur!" A second later nimble, bony fingers were digging their way into my sides, making me squeak and jump like a girl.

"Your mother!" I yell, twisting and stabbing him with my spatula, hereby known as … The Death Spatula! Sora squeals as the sacred weapon scorches his traitorous flesh. Burn Infidel! Burn! You doubt the Spatula's powers and thine-own lemur-ness! Thou shalt pay! And pay dearly, my minute little adversary! I feel a victorious and no doubt sinister laugh bubble out of my mouth as Sora emits a series of yipping war cries.

"Guys!" a voice yells, is it Leon, or Naminé, all well, too busy to care. Oddly enough, it's remarkably hard to dodge someone's attacks when they're clinging to your back and you're contorting your back into chiropractor-enriching positions just to get back at him. The voice, or is it voices, yells again, but Sora and I drown them out as we maneuver, or attempt to maneuver, ourselves to a position where we have the advantage. I'm pretty damned sure that such a position doesn't actually exist, or at least not humanly possible, but we'll keep searching anyway.

"Guys!"

Sora's vicious barrage of two-fingered pokes continues and I retaliate by attempting to shove him off and stab him with The Death Spatula at the same time.

"The pancakes are burning!"

With a scarily effeminate yelp Sora yelps and shoves my shoulders around so I'm facing the skillet that is indeed giving off some noxious fumes and smoking heartily.

"Ah, goddamn it. Sora, fetch the trash."

"Why should I get the trash can? Not my fault they burned."

"Actually, it was, you demented lemur!"

"Well, maybe if your face wasn't so hideous that-"

Something nudges my thigh, beneath where Sora's legs are wrapped around my waist. I glance up to meet flat cobalt eyes. Slowly, a thin brown eyebrow raises imperceptibly, Sometimes I wonder about you.

My eyes widen innocently as I toss the ruined ones into the receptacle in Leon's waiting hand, I have no idea what you're talking about.

His other eyebrow raises as well, Yu-huh, right; shaking his head a marginal degree the brunette of my dreams walks away chuckling quietly. Naminé, still sitting on the counter, looks confused, she doesn't get it. Sora, from what I can see of his face when I crane my neck, just looks bored.

"Sora, c'mon, get off him," Leon murmurs quietly into Sora's ear, conveniently located quite close to my own so his long hair swings down to brush the bare skin revealed by the wide neck of the T-shirt I dragged on this morning, after realizing I didn't have to go to work.

Sora shook his emphatically, wayward spikes bitch-slap my neck and ears.

"Sora, you're sixteen years old, or you have sixteen years, if that's how you want to think about it, stop clinging to Cloud like you're four," Leon whispers in that voice that always seemed to say, "Listen to what I'm telling you or there will be consequences… bitch." I suppose I should give Sora credit for not immediately obeying the command, but honestly, I just wanted the little brat off my back. I was getting tired, especially after the fight.

I shrug, attempting to loosen his hold on my neck, "Sora, get off my back, seriously." He tightens his legs uncomfortably around my waist and shakes his head again.

"Why should I?"

"You are such an asshole," Leon mutters under his breath, I glance at him surprised. He's usually pretty tolerant of his little brother's retarded stunts, surprising for him to react so strongly. There must be some other emotion at play here, underneath the surface. He gives me a reassuring look that tells me he wasn't talking about me.

"Sora, I'm the one who does all the cooking around here, do you think you'll be getting anything decent to eat if you piss me off?" Evidently, I had found the way to enslave him, perhaps even better than the blackmail. There's a funny feeling in my gut that tells me this knowledge will come in handy later on.

Sora leaps quickly off my back and snatches his abandoned plate. "Aww, it's cold!" he wails.

"Wonder why," Leon mutters sarcastically as he drags his hair back into a loose braid to keep it out of his eyes.

"Can't imagine," I smirk at the stove, instead of him.

A loud polyphonic rendition of "Love Love Shine" broke through the silence. Sora yelps and dragged the loud and vibrating phone from the pocket of his jeans, "Riku!"

I guess he had that thing where specific people get certain ring tones. I can't give the kid many points for subtlety; he did set his boyfriend's ring tone to such a blatant love song.

Naminé, who honestly I'd forgotten was still there, slides off the counter and puts her dishes in the sink, "Thanks for breakfast," she murmurs, giving me a hug. I stiffen as her arms slide around me, unused to physical contact with anyone but my closest friends, who've I've known for so long it's like I hardly notice, I stiffen more so when she whispers softly in my ear, "You should hang out with him tonight."

She says it so softly I'm not sure if she did or not, she did it so quietly and quickly. The uncertainty of whether it happened or not gives the idea more validity in this mixed up mind of mine. As she walks away her cell phone rings as well, not a specialized ring though, and she glances at the screen before answering, "Hey, Rin, what's up?"

It occurs to me for some reason, as I watch her walk away, that I should reevaluate my opinion of my fair blonde cousin.


Baby, I want to bang you like a trash can lid and sell your kidneys on eBay... all night long.
Sora BGM: Barrel of a Gun-Guster

"Hey, Sora?" Riku's voice sounds uncertain. That's odd. Riku is never uncertain. You could ask him to do some complex trick, one he'd never done before, tell him his life depended on it and he'd still be cool and collected. And then, after he succeeded, as you know he always would, he could honestly tell you that he wasn't worried at all.

"Mmm, what's up? Other than Cloud and Leon being total hoes," I mutter in a quiet undertone.

"Heh, they screwing yet?"

"Oh, totally," I drawl sarcastically, "Please, Ri, do you even have to ask?"

"Ha, sorry. Wishful thinking, like maybe the giant stick up Leon's ass would disappear if there was something actually there."

"Dude! That's my brother you're talking about! Eww, that is so fucking sick."

"Ah, sorry. You're right. Um… that's not why I called."

"Geez, I should certainly hope not. How sick would you be?" I laugh easily into the phone. He doesn't, laugh that is. My smile dies, "So, why did you call then?"

"Uh, I was wondering if…" Why the fuck was Riku stuttering? Or at least speaking in a totally coherent and suave manner? "Sora, do you want to go out with me?"

Er, what? "Uh, Riku, isn't that what we were already, you know, doing?"

"No, see, technically were just dating, or something. But, you know, I've never actually taken you out… on a date. And so yeah, do you want to go to the movies tonight?"

"Riku, we go to the movies all the time."

"Yeah, but we just go as friends, we've never gone on a date to the movies."

"What, do we get a discount on popcorn or something?"

"No! Well, at least I don't think so… It's just you know… the principle of the thing."

"Um, sure." Oh lord, I do believe Riku's lost his mind. Pity.

"Okay, so I'll pick you up at like seven? Or wait, do you want to eat before or after the movie?"

"Riku, are you taking me out to dinner and a movie?"

"Err, yeah. Why is there a problem?"

"Well, you know I was considering anorexia…" I can't help but joke, "No, not really, other than that being the most basic date known to man, honestly I expect better from you." I can't tell if I'm joking or not, it is pretty trite, or maybe just banal? Or do they mean the same things?

"I was considering taking a long walk on the beach, but the beach is hours away." The sarcasm in his voice is biting.

I laugh, that would be worse, wait… "You are joking, right?"

Riku sighs, "Yeah, So, I'm kidding."

"Oh, okay, right. I figured you know but... 's good to check, yeah? Seven then?"

"Right, seven."


(1) He was, in fact, a lot tipsy. He was in a state most people refer to as "wasted" or "totally shit-faced".

(2) Recognize this and you get a big freaking cookie, for real. Well, the first person to do it, with the exception of blondevil, because she has an unfair advantage.


Baby, I want to bang you like a trash can lid and sell your kidneys on eBay... All. Night. Long!


Okay, the song Dem and Zex sing is Marijuana In Your Brain-Lords of Acid, and it's fucking awesome. You should all listen to it. And I cut out like half the lyrics, which took forever to find, because they were all wrong, something about Hare Krishna's stealing your car... it was weird, and annoying.

And is it just me, or is Sora kind of OOC?

Anyway, review please? You know you want to.

You also want to take the link in my profile and read my life in masochism, because self-advertsing rocks like that.