Dance With Me

Description: As a college freshman, Sora faces a choice: the brotherly bond he has formed with his roommate or the possibility of love with a sophomore who loves to dance. AU, Amazing Grace crossover. SoraxRiku, LeonxCloud, ChristianxJustin, J'nelxIrene.

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and all the Final Fantasy games belong to Square-Enix. Amazing Grace and its characters belong to me.

A/N: I suppose one of the good things about writing about a book that no one has read is that no one accuses me of the characters being OOC. Christian, while not entirely OOC, has been quite a bit more subdued than normal so far. This chapter finally gets him more into the character that readers would recognize, and it sets up the final pairing.

As another note, I'm so glad that most of you want to hug Justin rather than smack him. Of all the AG characters, he's the one I relate to most, other than K'nsolear who doesn't appear here.

Ten: Back to Back

Back to Back: A four bar figure.
1-2: Partners dance two traveling steps forward, passing right shoulders and moving slightly to the right.
3-4: Partners dance two traveling steps backwards into place, passing left shoulders.

"What the hell was that all about?"

My ears registered Leon's voice, how it had spoken the words in my own mind, but my body was still in far too much shock to turn to him. What I had just witnessed was something I never had before. I was used to the looks of disgust, the preachy, Bible-thumping speeches, the pathetic attempts to convince me it was only a phase. But that amount of sheer fear, as if merely being near Cloud and Leon put his own soul in mortal peril, I had never seen anything like that before.

And Sora …

Quietly, Cloud began to explain to Leon about the young man who had just fled from us in such terror. Again, I heard the words 'withdrawn' and 'suicidal', and Cloud added 'obsessively devout' and 'deeply hurting'.

"And Sora has resolved to do anything and everything in his power to make Justin happy again. Even if it means denying himself our friendship."

Sora …

Next to me, Chris rose from his seat and picked up his tray. I asked him if he was leaving, and when he answered he was, I stood up as well. I had mostly finished my dinner, and the food didn't look very good anymore anyway. We said our goodbyes, returned our trays, left through the lower doors, and headed back to ML. The silence wrapped itself around me as we walked, but I did nothing to change it. I didn't trust my voice at that moment; my throat hurt too much.

Somewhere between the train tracks and the field house, Chris asked, "Where do they live?"

I hadn't expected him to speak, so it took me a moment before I replied, "Sora and Justin? Parish, fourth floor. Why?"

He was looking straight ahead, an odd expression on his face that I couldn't read. "When I get back to my room, I'm going to print out some music for him and then take it over. Try to convince him to play for us."

"I doubt he'll even open the door for you. You're impure, remember?"

"He doesn't know."

I smiled to myself without the slightest trace of humor. "Then you're contaminated by association. Either way, neither of us will see either of them again."

Chris stopped walking and finally turned his head to me. "You're giving up on Sora? Just like that?"

I stopped, too. Shrugging, I answered, "I don't see how I have a choice. After what Irene said yesterday and what we saw today, he's as good as straight to me."

Chris frowned darkly, and I saw a spark of something in his brown eyes that I hadn't seen for nearly a year. He started walking again, his strides long and fast, and I hurried to keep pace with him. "You can't do that," he said, almost to himself. "I won't let you."

"You won't let me?"

"That's right." He flicked his eyes over at me, and I saw it clearly. The fire. Christian had a mission again. "There's very little worth fighting for in life, Riku," he told me solemnly. "So when you find something, you should fight for it. Fight for it hard. And love is the one thing that is always worth fighting for."

"Maybe so," I conceded, "but it's not like I love Sora, and I truly doubt he has any feelings for me."

"Is that so? Remind me to get my eyes checked then since I could have sworn I saw actual sparks passing between you two."

My face instantly flushed. "What the hell is with you tonight?" I demanded, trying to keep my voice level. "I don't think I've ever seen you this fired up. You're like a completely different person."

He smiled, and a hint of that same unreadable expression entered his face. "I guess I am. After all, I finally found my soulmate."

My feet stopped as my whole body froze in shock. I stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, just staring at him. He had stopped as well a few paces away and watched me with that damned smile on his face.

"What?" I finally cried. "You can't mean …" He nodded, but I still couldn't believe it. "You and that homophobic, suicidal --"

" -- confused, lonely, and above all scared young man, yes." He took a few steps to diminish the space between us and put a hand on my shoulder. "I know it's hard to believe, but I felt it, his heart. Underneath all the layers of protection he's built, under all the sadness and blackness, I felt it there, and I felt it connect with mine." He smiled one more time before turning and beginning to walk again. "Justin is my soulmate, and I'm going to fight for him."

"Have you lost your mind?" I called to him.

"Nope," he answered. "Just my heart."

"Chris, wait!" I ran to catch up to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and pulled him around to face me. "Think about this a minute," I insisted. "You're going to try to convince a kid who's so religious that he knows his prayers in Latin of all things that actually the Bible is a load of bullshit and homosexuality is okay and by the way, he should hook up with you?"

He laughed, although whether it was from my words or the look on my face, I didn't know for certain. "Well, not exactly like that," he answered. "But I suppose that's the general idea."

"How?"

He lifted a hand to push off mine which still gripped his shoulder. "Calm down, Riku," he said, kindly. "I'm not stupid. I fully intend to take it slow."

"But how? What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to be his friend," he answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm going to stick with him and get him to open up and trust me. I'm going to pull those walls down and push the sadness away, and I'm going to help him be himself. Just like Sora."

Like Sora. Thoughts flooded through my head in a rush. Thoughts of Sora -- his sad face that night at the playground and again tonight as he left us -- and of Irene -- her worried expression and the way she had said, "It's complicated."

I grabbed Chris's eyes with my own stern gaze. "And through it all, you're going to pretend to be straight, aren't you? You're going to get him to trust you by lying to him. Just like Sora."

His face fell slightly at my harsh accusation. I could almost see some of the fire die down. Quietly, he answered, "It's necessary, and once he's out of the darkness, he'll understand why I did it."

That answer did not satisfy me in the slightest. "I wouldn't be so sure," I warned him. "You're so convinced that everything will turn out all right if only you work hard enough, but sometimes that just isn't true, Chris. Sometimes we can't get the happy ending no matter how hard we try."

His eyes immediately lit up again. "And if there's the possibility that it might not turn out the way we want, is that good enough reason to not try in the first place?"

"Well, no, but --"

"And if I just might get hurt by trying, does that mean I should run away instead?"

"Shit, Chris, that's not what I meant!"

"Well then," he asked with some of his usual humor, "what exactly did you mean, Riku?" He folded his arms across his chest and regarded me with a small smile.

I stared at him for a moment, trying to piece together something to say that might actually make a difference. I had thought I was crazy, to become so attracted so quickly to someone else based on one short conversation. But this soulmate talk of Christian's was just insane. There wasn't just a possibility of failure; it was damn near assured. And one or both of them was going to get seriously hurt.

"Just … be careful," I finally managed.

He grinned at me. "Of course. Aren't I always?"

"No. You're impetuous and spontaneous and utterly carefree." I sighed heavily and shook my head. "This is complete madness," I muttered to myself. Christian only smiled and, taking me by the elbow, pulled me forward until we were walking again.

Our walk ended as it had begun: in silence. However, instead of a heart aching with sorrow, I now had a stomach tumbling with worry. I half-hoped that Chris's enthusiasm would wane once he had smacked into a few of the walls he would surely encounter, but I knew in my heart that it wouldn't. If anything, those walls would make him more determined.

By the time I had reached my room, I had pretty much accepted that there was nothing I could do except support him in any way I could. It was pure insanity, what he was planning to do, but as his friend, I would not abandon him simply because he would not take my advice. But I would have no part of the lies. It's one thing to not announce one's sexuality to the world; it's another to deny it to gain the approval of others. If Justin ever asked me, I would tell him, and that was that. I have never in my life been ashamed of who I am, and I wasn't about to start feeling that way for anyone.

Not even for Sora.