I'm so sorry that I haven't responded to anyone's reviews!!! ::cries:: My computer's being a douche and won't let me get into through my e-mail to send out replies for some reason. ::sighs:: Hopefully it will be better soon...

Anyway...back to Sora's POV now, which is a good thing. I was running out of stuff to write for Riku without having to dig into the stuff I want to save for later…

Enjoy!!…

WARNINGS: language…

Disclaimer: the characters and worlds of Kingdom Hearts belong to Square Enix and Disney…

"…Tonight let's be lovers, say you will
And hear me call, soft-spoken whispering love
A thing or two I have to say here
Tonight let's go all the way then
Love I'll see you,
Just for this evening
Let's strip down, trip out at this
One evening starts with a kiss
And I'll wait here…"

—"Say Goodbye" Dave Matthews Band…

Chapter Seven:
Friends and Lovers…

I don't think I would ever understand how people could willingly say goodbye to those they cared about. Just thinking about having to leave Maho behind in less than a week made me ill. Every time I began throwing more random things into the knapsack I would be carrying when Roxas and I left, I had to resist the urge to vomit. I was terrified.

As far as I could tell, though, Maho wasn't too suspicious. It seemed that Roxas and I had managed to hide our preparations well. That, or she knew and didn't care. I was willing to bet my life that it was the first. Knowing Maho, she would flip out when she found out that we were going to leave, even though she had known that we were going to have to one day. Her overdramatic personality was the reason why we had decided not to tell her until the last possible minute. It would probably hurt her more in the long run, but the three of us would be saved from many headaches.

Sighing, I rolled over on my bed so I was staring at the ceiling, trying my hardest to lose myself in the popcorn designs that decorated it. We would be leaving soon. Only a few days from now.

A quiet knock on my door drew me out of my thoughts.

"Come in," I muttered, not even bothering to look and see who it was. The familiar aura was enough.

Silenced echoed throughout my room, filled only by Roxas' quiet footsteps as he made his way to me. Only when he sat on the edge of my bed did I turn to look at him. He frowned and reached out to cup my face in a hand.

"You're upset."

I shrugged. "It's nothing new."

"I hate that we have to do this as much as you do, you know?" I nodded and he sighed. "Good. I was afraid that you were going to blame me for everything."

I frowned and furrowed my brow. "Why would I blame you? Running is our only option unless we want to become puppets. I knew that months ago."

He smiled sadly and moved so he could lie down beside me, curled up on his side. An arm slipped across my waist and I gave into him without a fight. I didn't have the energy to argue or struggle. I wanted and needed the comfort of him there with me. I only hoped that I wouldn't be hurting both of us by giving in.

"Maho's going out tonight. They're having a party or something at her work."

I nodded. "Yeah, she told me this morning. Said she'd leave us money for pizza or something."

"Yeah."

Silence reigned over once again. It wasn't strained, but it wasn't quite comfortable either. It almost felt like we had run out of things to say. I always thought that it would be impossible for that to happen between the two of us.

I rolled over onto my side so I could stare at Roxas. He let his arm fall away from my waist and I grabbed his hand, twining our fingers together.

"We're the two most pathetic masochists I've ever seen," Roxas muttered as he stared at our entwined fingers, his thumb rubbing back and forth across the back of my hand.

I snorted and moved so I could snuggle closer to him. I buried my face into his chest and he sighed, resting his cheek on top of my head. Finally a comfortable silence fell among us. I couldn't keep the smile from my face. It was nice. Every time I was able to spend a close moment with Roxas, I was reminded that I wasn't alone. There was someone else out there who shared my pain and was willing to help me cope just as long as I was willing to help them as well.

"I wonder what Maho would think if she ever walked in on us curled up like this?" I whispered.

Roxas laughed. "Knowing her, she'd think it was cute."

"Yeah, probably."

He sighed. "What're we gonna do tonight? Well, besides pig out and watch TV?"

I shrugged. "Whatever we end up doing, I guess. I'd be perfectly fine just pigging out and watching TV. That a problem with you?"

"It's boring."

"Okay, then. How about we bust out some board games? We'll play Scrabble and Uno and have all sorts of fun."

Roxas laughed. "You didn't have to say it in such a nerdy voice, dork."

"I happen to enjoy playing Uno, thank you very much."

"Which is why you're a dork."

I aimed my best puppy dog pout at him. Getting no reaction, I went to the next extreme. Smiling devilishly, I used all of my body weight to roll us over the edge of the bed. Roxas yelped rather indignantly when his back made contact with the floor, shouting out again when I landed on top of him. I sat on his chest triumphantly, smiling at the angry glare he threw at me.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you didn't see that coming."

A quick jerk and our positions were changed before I even had time to shout. Now Roxas sat on top of me with a happy grin on his face, but I didn't copy his angry glare. I pouted because that was what I did best. His grin was positively evil when he moved his face a breadth away from mine.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you didn't see that coming."

Before I had a chance to argue with him, his mouth was over mine and we were kissing passionately. My arms instinctively wrapped themselves around his neck to keep him from moving away and a hand buried itself in the hair at the back of his head. His hands managed find their ways under my shirt and his tongue probed imploringly at my lips. I obliged with a sigh that turned into a long moan as Roxas dragged a hand torturously slow across my chest and down my stomach.

"You're a tease," I groaned when he pulled away to work gently against the flesh of my throat.

He shrugged and nipped at the skin just below my ear, causing yet another moan to rip out of my throat and my back to arch.

"Fu-fucker."

Roxas smiled and ran a deft finger down e Hmy stomach, stopping just above the waistline of my jeans. With a playful nip to my bottom lip, he pulled away and stood up from our tangled mess of limbs on the floor.

"We should probably get going. Maho will kill us if we don't go to school today."

At the sudden change in mood, I sent my most vicious glare at him, but he just shoved it aside with a smile that radiated smugness. I had to resist the urge to smack it off when I pushed myself up from the ground.

"You're an ass," I muttered as I shoved my way past him and out of my room.

"Yet you still love me," he replied in a sing-song voice, the sound taunting me with every step I took down the stairs.

I grumbled weakly as I walked into the kitchen, earning a rather confused glance from Maho. She cocked her head to the side and frowned as she took a long drink from her mug of coffee.

"G'Morning, Mr. Grumpy Pants. What has your panties in a twist this morning?"

I aimed my most vicious glare at her and focused my attention on the refrigerator and the food that awaited me inside.

"Oh, don't be serious, Sora," Maho laughed. "You could never scare anyone with your glares. That's Roxas' forte."

I pulled the jug of orange juice from the fridge and slammed it on the counter. "Oh, yeah well… Witty comebacks elude me so…" I stuck my tongue out at her and continued on with my day, trying my hardest to ignore her laughter.

Unfortunately, the laughter continued as I poured myself a glass of orange juice and dug a Pop Tart out of the pantry. It continued as I plopped into a chair at the table and began to eat. It continued as Roxas came wandering into the kitchen with a curious frown on his face.

"What's so funny?"

"Sora and his lame comebacks," Maho gasped, wiping the tears from her face with the back of a hand.

"Seriously?" Roxas looked at me with a furrowed brow and I shrugged. "His lame comeback constituted laughing for ten minutes straight?" Maho nodded, and Roxas sighed. "Sora's comebacks are always lame, Maho. You should be used to them by now."

"Shut it, Roxas," I growled. My patience with him was growing dangerously thin after what had happened upstairs.

He frowned and cocked his head to the side, looking like he was about to say something, but I spoke up before he had the chance. I really didn't want to listen to what he had to say at the moment.

"Come on. We'll be late for school if we don't get going."

His nod surprised me. If anything, I had expected an argument from him. Instead, he finished up the glass of orange juice he had poured himself and gave Maho a quick hug before joining me out in the foyer. We slipped into our shoes and jackets in silence and slung our backpacks over our shoulders, me just a bit more violently than him.

Without waiting for Roxas to say goodbye to Maho, I flung the door open and made my way outside. The bitter wind stung my face and only helped to make my mood even worse. It was the beginning of March for the gods sakes. Why was it still cold?

"Your attitude is quite the turn-off."

I frowned and shrugged, but continued to ignore Roxas' presence at my side to the best of my abilities. He sighed in response to my attitude and punched me on the arm.

"Oh, come on, So. You can't be pissy. It's not in your nature."

"I think I can make an exception when someone messes with my head."

"Messes with your head? What the fuck? When did I do that?"

I turned around and glared at him viciously. "You don't call making out with me on the bedroom floor and then just leaving fucking with my head?" I laughed coldly. "Ri-ight, Roxas. Nice."

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious."

He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. "You are so gods damned frustrating sometimes."

"Explain these…these feelings to me and maybe I won't be so frustrating. Gods, Roxas. I don't even understand what's going on. You're my best friend. I shouldn't feel anything more for you than that, but I do and it's driving me insane because I know I love Riku more than anything. I feel like I'm cheating on him in some way by being with you like we were this morning, but I can't stop myself." I glared at him. "Now you try and tell me that I don't have a reason to be pissed off and frustrated."

"It's the bond."

"E-excuse me?"

"It's the bond that's making us feel like this," he said with a sigh. "The Twin Soul bond. Futago. We shared the same soul in the past. Now we…" He sighed again and shook his head. "Nevermind."

"We what? Feel like we need to be together because we're our own separate people now?"

"It doesn't matter how hard we try, we will never feel whole because we are our own separate people now."

I snorted and turned around, walking away from him. "Because that makes all the sense in the world."

He reached out and grabbed my wrist firmly so he could pull me back to him. "Jesus Christ, Sora. Won't you take a second and just listen to me, dammit? Is it really so hard?"

"Yes, Roxas, it is because all you ever do is talk to me in riddles. You never tell me anything straightforward."

"It's not like I don't try. You just don't know how to listen."

I narrowed my eyes and prepared to make a clever retort, but he cut me short by covering my mouth with his own. I shouted and beat at his chest in an attempt to push him away, but he held my face tightly with his hands and wouldn't let go. It didn't take long for the tears to come and then I was returning the kiss slowly. I couldn't help it.

"Why do we keep fucking doing this to ourselves?" Roxas breathed when he pulled away, my face still held between his hands.

"I don't know," I whispered and closed the gap between us again.

Even with all of the pain that was sure to come with whatever Roxas and I had going on, it was hard to pull away. I felt whole when I was with Riku and I felt whole when I was with Roxas. There was no way to describe how it felt except for torture. Riku was the one I was in love with and yet I couldn't keep myself from taking everything Roxas offered to me. I knew that it was cruel, but I didn't how to make it stop.

As it was, Maho would surely kill us when she found out we were late to school.

o-o-o-o-o

Maho wasn't home when we got back from school, but there was a note warning us not to damage anything too badly and twenty dollars for whatever we wanted for dinner. Downy was curled up on kitchen window sill, his favorite place in the afternoon because of the sunshine. He meowed in annoyance when Roxas picked him up.

"You better keep Maho happy while we're gone, you little shit," Roxas muttered as he scratched the cat behind the ears, receiving a few purrs of forgiveness in response. "You're gonna be the only one here for her."

I grabbed two Cokes from the fridge and plopped down onto a stool. "I wish there was some way that we could keep in touch with her."

Roxas sighed and put Downy back onto the window sill so he could join me at the table. "I know, but if we have any ties with her after we run they'll find out and I don't wanna know what they'll do to her." He shivered. "They'll do anything to find out where we've gone to."

My eyes widened briefly. I don't know why I had never thought of that before. Maybe it was because Maho was "human" and I didn't think that Ansem or Xemnas would bother with her. Whatever my reason had been, it was stupid. She should have been one of the first people I had thought of when it came to protecting those close to me from the hands of Akari or Kurai.

"Yeah, we can't let anything happen to her."

Roxas smiled sadly and downed the rest of the soft drink he held in his hands. There was something odd in the way that he was acting. It wasn't blatantly obvious, and I doubted that anyone outside of myself and maybe Maho wouldn't have picked up on it. I frowned and cocked my head to the side, resting a hand atop the one he had resting on the counter. He jumped and turned to look at me. His eyes were dead.

"Oh, Roxas. What's wrong?"

He shook his head and smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. They stayed as dead as they had been before. No glimmer, no happiness. Just numbness. I knew that feeling. I knew those eyes. They were the same ones I used to stare at in the mirror for hours. Just the thought of it made a shiver ripple through my body.

"It's nothing that won't go away in a bit," he muttered, "so don't worry so much."

"We've already established that we're going to worry about each other whether the other likes it or not, so don't even try to tell me not to 'worry so much.' I have every right to worry about you. Things are stressful. We had a difficult morning and we're going to be leaving the day after tomorrow. I don't want you to feel like you're going to be alone. I'll be with you the entire time. Remember that."

He nodded, but none of the life returned to his eyes. My frown grew and I reached out so I could hold the side of his face in my hand. Tears invaded my eyes when he flinched away and I dropped my hand back down to my side.

"Talk to me, please."

He smiled sadly and turned his face away from me so he could stare out the window. I waited patiently for him to say something, but nothing came. My hands balled into fists at my sides as the tears started to make their ways down my face. Dammit! This wasn't the way things were supposed to be.

Without a word, I pushed myself up from the stool and left the kitchen. I didn't look back to see if Roxas was following me, or if he had even acknowledged the fact that I had left him. I didn't want to know. There was no way that I would be able to take it if he had barely even flinched, not at least turned his eyes in my direction upon my departure. It would break my heart.

I didn't let the sobs gathering in the back of my throat free until I was closed away in my bedroom, my face buried in a pillow to muffle the cries. I doubted that Roxas would come running if he heard my sobs, but it was a force of habit. Mom beat me when I was younger for crying and keeping her awake at night, so I had been forced to learn the art of crying quietly.

I lay on my bed for what felt like hours before a soft knock sounded at my door. I sighed and let my eyes slip open, taking the time to focus on the The Used poster on the back of my door before I dared to open my mouth.

"Yeah?"

The door opened slowly. I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding when Maho's brown hair and green eyes peeked around the door jamb.

"You were expecting someone else?" she asked, taking a step into the room and closing the door behind her.

"Yeah. I thought you might be Roxas."

She frowned and made her way across the room so she could sit on the edge of my bed. "What's going on between the two of you? You've been acting strange lately."

I laughed quietly in frustration and shook my head. "It's complicated."

"It has something to do with that other place, doesn't it? That place you all say you have to leave me for."

"Something like that."

Her frown grew and she furrowed her brow. "You're not going to explain it to me, are you?"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry. I have a feeling that there's a thin line between what's safe for us to let you know and what might throw you into this as well. We're going to try our damnedest to keep you out of it."

"You boys will never cease to drive me crazy," Maho muttered, shifting around so her legs were stretched on the bed and her back was against the headboard, letting me rest my head on her lap.

I sighed as she started to run her hands through my hair gently. "Yeah, we seem to do that to everyone who comes in contact with us. We're cursed."

"I disagree. I say that it means that you're loved by everyone you come in contact with. You're infectious like that. Your personalities are like a nasty virus. You can try everything you can to hate you, but once you have the infection it doesn't matter. Someone will love you even if they hate you."

I snorted. 'If only everyone over in Akari and Kurai thought along those lines,' I thought, but said, "You're too optimistic."

"You used to be once upon a time, if I recall correctly. What happened to the little boy who used to smile brightly when he got an F on a homework assignment, saying that it was just another way for you to learn a lesson? What happened to the person who wore a smile on his face for everyone when he was really dieing inside?" I could hear the tears gathering in her voice. "You're falling apart. Both of you are. I can tell, and it kills me to know that there's nothing I can do about it."

"We'll be out of your hair soon enough," I whispered.

"What if I don't want you out of my hair?!" she shouted.

Hearing such a broken sound come from Maho startled me. I had to open my eyes and sit up so I could look at her face. What I saw did nothing to comfort me. Tears were flowing in a constant stream down her cheeks, smearing her mascara and making her green eyes sparkle inhumanly. Roxas and I weren't the only ones who were falling apart.

"We would stay if we knew we could protect you and that there was no way for us to be caught. As it is, they know where we are and they're not afraid to kill anyone who gets in their way. They'll hurt you, Maho. They'll use you against us."

"I don't care! I can't stand the fact that you two are going to be out on your own, especially after everything that happened on Halloween. You tried to kill yourself, Sora! Or have you forgotten that?"

My eyes widened and I looked away from her. My hands instinctively went to the scars that marred my wrists. "No, I haven't forgotten," I whispered.

"Then how can you believe for even a moment that I'll be okay with just letting the two of you go?"

"We don't believe that you'll be okay. We know that it's going to hurt you as much as or more than it's going to hurt us, but we can't let it stop us. We can't stall. We have to take action now while they're giving us the chance. Any delay could cost us more than our lives."

"God…." She sighed and closed her eyes, burying her face in her hands so she could continue weeping.

It broke my heart to have to see her like that. I reached out and tried to comfort her to the best of my abilities. A small hug. Running my fingers through her hair. Nothing seemed to work. I was grasping at straws when she finally lifted her head from her hands and wiped her cheeks. The black streaks left behind by her mascara would have been comical at any other time.

"Just promise me that you won't leave without saying goodbye first."

"Maho…"

"Dammit! Just do it for my peace of mind."

I sighed and closed my eyes. I couldn't bear to lie to her, but I didn't want her to suffer any longer either. As it was, Roxas and I really hadn't decided whether we were going to leave when she was home or not. Would I really be lying to her if I said okay now, but we ended up leaving without saying goodbye later? I tried to convince myself that I wouldn't be.

"I promise." The words left my mouth in a bare whisper.

Maho smiled sadly and cupped the side of my face in a hand. She pulled me forward and kissed me gently between the eyes before she moved to get up.

"If I get home after the party and you two are gone, there's going to be hell to pay."

I laughed quietly and watched her leave the room, settling back down into my bed once the door clicked closed behind her. Gods, things were so fucked up. At least it was nice to know that my life still had some sense of normalcy left.

The overload of emotions from what had passed throughout the day drained me. I was asleep before I even closed my eyes.

o-o-o-o-o

Another body was curled in the bed beside me when I woke up. I sighed and stared at the checkered sweatband that donned the wrist that was connected to the arm draped across my waist.

Roxas.

I sighed again. His games were really starting to get on my nerves.

"Please don't hit me."

"How did you know I was awake?"

The arm across my waist shifted and I rolled onto my back so I could look at Roxas' face. He had a sheepish look in his eyes and the blush across his cheeks was almost too out of place for him.

"You don't really sigh so heavily while you're sleeping. Only when you've just woken up or something's bothering you while you're awake."

"Why are you in my room?"

He was silent for a moment and I watched as the sheepish expression turned into one of sadness. "I didn't want to be alone."

"You wouldn't have been alone if you had just talked to me instead of shoving me off like you do every other time."

Roxas flinched, and in some dark part of my mind, the gesture gave me satisfaction. In the lighter part of my mind, I knew that it was wrong. I had just hit below the belt. But it was too late. The words were out in the open and there was no way to take them back.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"I know."

Silence filled the room once again, only slightly less tense than it had been before. I was still mad at him. Nothing could take away the frustration and anger that he had made me feel for the greater part of the day. I would get over it, yes—shove it aside—but it would always linger in that darker part of my mind.

"Did Maho talk to you too?" I nodded. "She worries about us too much."

I sighed and closed my eyes. "It's nice to know that there's someone out there who does worry about us."

Roxas echoed my sigh. "Yeah, it is."

Then silence…again. It was obvious that he wasn't going to say anything about what had happened earlier. It was kind of hurtful. He at least owed me an apology of some kind, even if it was a half-hearted one. But I couldn't bring myself to put the topic out there either. I had already hurt him once, and as much as something in me wanted to do it again, I wouldn't let myself do it.

My eyes snapped open when I felt a mouth cover mine. I stared into the brilliant blue eyes in front of me for a bare second before my eyes slipped closed again and my arms wrapped around Roxas' neck. I surrendered to the feeling of being dominated.

When all of this was over, I was going to Hell. I was sure of it. At least I knew of three other people who would be there with me. We could have a party.

But then Roxas pulled away from my mouth and started to work at my neck, and my mind panicked. The hands that had been buried in his hair moved to his shoulders to attempt to push him away, but he rolled so he was lying on top of me and there was no way that I was going to get him to move. I wiggled and writhed, bucked my hips, tried anything to get him off of me, but nothing worked.

"St-stop, Roxassss!" I hissed.

He chuckled low in his throat and licked the hollow my throat. A shiver rippled through my body.

"I found one of your spots," he whispered.

"Roxas, please!" I cried, tears beginning to gather in the corners of my eyes. I wasn't going to lie and say that I didn't want it, but I couldn't let it happen. I just couldn't. I would be betraying more than myself if I let it.

Thankfully he stopped, but the empty look in his eyes when he pulled away so he could look at me broke my heart.

"Sora, please. Don't deny me this. Not now."

The tears that had been gathering in my eyes broke through their dam. The salty rivers rolled down my face and I had to close my eyes.

I didn't know what to do. Give in and let him have what he wanted, or turn him down. Would I regret it if I gave in? Most likely yes, at least sometime in the future I would. Would it be fair? In some twisted way, it could be. Did it mean that it was right? I had no fucking clue. Was I willing to find out? I wasn't sure, and all the questions were making me even more nervous than I had been before.

My lack of argument seemed to fuel Roxas' advancements. He slid his hands under my shirt, his palms gliding across the planes of my stomach and up to brush across my chest. I gasped when his fingers brushed across a nipple, squeezing my eyes closed at the pleasure and guilt that came with the touch.

This was wrong, but something within me refused to let me tell him no. Something within me wanted this. A notion began to take form in my head that I would be complete if I let him have his way this once. I would be even more complete than when I had been with Riku, than when I had woken up with my memories. I would be whole.

It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

"Riku… Forgive me."

The heartfelt apology sealed my fate and I let the waves of sin pull me into their dark depths. Things were about to get even more complicated than they already were. Wonderful. But there was nothing I could do to stop it.

TBC…
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A/N: ::sighs:: I'm actually pretty happy with this chapter. It's complicated, full of angst, with some funny parts and some sexiness. Geez…I just can't give the poor boys a break, can I?…Bleh…I just hope that you all don't hate this or me for writing it. It's not something I just threw in. I had actually been planning on it for a while, but it just managed to fit in sooner than I had intended…

GIANORMOUS thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter. I know that it was a pain in the ass because of the stupid review system, but I'm thankful to everyone who took the time to send a review, or a PM if the site said that they couldn't review. It really means a lot to me…::hugs::…And, once again, I'm am SUPER sorry for having not responded to everyone's reviews. I got and read every single one and kept them all at heart, but my computer's being retarded. I hope it'll be better so I can send out replies for this chapter...

Welps...I guess that's it. Until next chapter, adieu…