"And it was over."

/

What would I do, lonely as you? Pleasure or pain, I can't choose. What would I do, lonely as you? Pleasure or pain, I can't choose. Wake up, you're dreaming. I can't stand your screaming; drowning out these prayers, just some words without meaning. Spare all the preaching. My secrets' worth keeping. No one understands like I do. Keep out of reach; I'm your leading deletion. Hide behind these masks, though they still see right through them. Every now and then, you're down and out my friend. Down and out again, but I'm down with you.

One more time for the last time, one more time for release. One more time for the last time; everyone wants to believe.

Blame it on you; thought these years I've been losing. Blame it on the past, it's the last place I knew you. Blame all the children, their raging and ruin. Blame it on the black and the blue. Every now and then, you're down and out my friend. Down and out again, but I'm down with you.

One more time for the last time, one more time for release. One more time for the last time; everyone wants to believe.

Every now and then, you're down and out my friend. Down and out again, but I'm down with you.

One more time for the last time, one more time for release. One more time for the last time; everyone wants to believe.

One more time for the last time, one more time for release. One more time for the very last time; everyone wants to believe, all right!

/

Sora laid the multi-page novelization of the past few days on the counter in his bathroom. A hand ran up through his hair as he read the last few lines over, before picking up the pen again to sign it. When he was finished, he relinquished the pen and replaced it with a knife.

The bath water was still running hot when he twisted the faucet to the 'off' position. Fingers slid through the warm water, causing the smallest of ripples in the clear liquid. He sighed, stripping off his clothing unceremoniously before sliding into the bathtub. 'This is it. This is it. This is it,' kept running through his mind over and over again. His eyes flicked to the doorknob. Locked. His mother was at work. No one would pay it much mind if he didn't go outside. He hadn't been out for days at a time before and everyone was used to it by now.

Though they wished he wouldn't, but they were used to it.

An open bottle of pills lay on the counter next to his note. Anti- depressants. When he first became withdrawn, his parents became worried and took him to a therapist, who told them to take him to a psychiatrist, who prescribed anti-depressants. He laughed. What a joke it had all been. He refused to talk to the doctors, to open up to them. He merely answered their questions in the simplest way he could. More than once he'd answered with an angry "bite me" or "fuck off." The assessment was depression and acute borderline personality. He had a lot of rage and guilt in him, so they gave him pills.

"Pills."

Like that would help. It wasn't a chemical imbalance or some other stupid scientific problem causing him to feel this way. It was himself. He caused his own problems. He was his own master. And now he was going to end it all.

Moments before, he swallowed all of the cursed pills, hoping that if a loss of blood didn't kill him, poisoning would. In the back of his mind, he wished for a gun. But how much fun would it be if it only took a second? So maybe he was a bit of a masochist. So what? He'd fucked himself up pretty good, so there was bound to be a lot of stuff wrong with him. Hm. Enough stalling. Let's get this over with.

Sora sat up in the tub; his knees pulled up to his chest. The knife was held carelessly in one hand while the other he held out in front of him, examining it. The blue and purple veins coursed beneath his flesh. In his mind he could already see them torn open, little scarlet ribbons running down his tan skin. His gaze shifted to the knife. The silver glinted in the morning light that streamed in through the small window. It hypnotized him. He gently ran a finger over the edge, wincing as the sharpened blade sliced through the skin. He caught the reflection of his eyes in the red-stained metal. Lost and hollow. Inside, he felt something snap. He really had lost all hope, hadn't he? And for the first time in a long while, he lost all his reservations.

And he cried.

"I'm so pathetic." He sobbed, burying his face in his knees. "What would Riku say if he saw me like this? He'd tell me to stop. He'd tell me to be strong." The logical side of his brain argued, but it was overthrown by his madness. "But I can't be strong! I can't be anything without him..." He threw his head back, releasing one last, anguished, strangled cry before he looked back down to his wrists.

"No more keeping my feet on the ground."

The edge of the knife was cool against his heated skin, though he was already drenched in cold perspiration. Sora clenched his eyes shut, dragging the blade through his skin, ripping veins, tearing tendons. And it felt so good. He was being released, released from his self-created hell that he had lived in for nearly a year. No one knew that he and Riku had been lovers. No one knew really what happened that day. "The darkness took him." That was all he said. And it was true, if not very descriptive.

He cried, in spite of the weight that seemed to be lifting off his shoulders. Maybe it was because, deep down, he knew this was the wrong way to go. But in his mind, Sora was beyond redemption. He was beyond hope, caring, and feeling for anything at all. Except for Riku.

The cut bled into the warm water, red filling the tub and surrounding him. After the shock of the first step subsided, he moved the knife into his injured hand, letting it slide through the untouched flesh of his other wrist. So, that was it. Now all he had to do was lie back and wait; wait for the darkness to take him as well.

He had surrendered.

And like a fool,

He loved it.

Sora's eyes shot open. He tried to gasp for air, but there was none. He found himself in a bottomless lake of red water. The red. The red was... Blood. His blood. He glanced at his wrists in his panicked fury to find the surface. The cuts were still there. He was running out of air, but no way was up. That's the fun of being trapped underwater. There is no 'up'. You can only hope to find light. But Sora saw none.

After several moments of panicked searching, Sora realized that he was almost out of air. 'Oh shit.' He thought, but then realized his intention had been to kill himself in the first place. So he exhaled what little air was left and took a deep breath of the surrounding red-stained water. And nothing happened. He was still alive. Well, no, he wasn't alive. He /couldn't/ be alive if he could breathe under water. Consciousness and unconsciousness blurred together and he forced himself to pick a direction and swim. Even if it wasn't to the surface, at least he'd be heading /somewhere/.

Finally, he found the surface of the endless expanse of water. The surface didn't seem much different than being beneath the waves. Waves. He was in the ocean. Salty air overtook him; that all-too-familiar smell of the beach, though no land was in sight. He did a 360 and saw nothing but sky and clouds all around. And the water was red for as far as his eyes could see.

'I'm dead. Really dead.' He thought. 'So... No angels? No wings or halos? Not even a hell? There's nothing here. Just... Empty.' Sora assessed his surroundings with confusion and a sudden loneliness. 'Does everyone go here?' "Or only suicides?" He said aloud. Even his voice sounded empty. So flat and lifeless...

"Hello?" He shouted, hoping in vain to reach the ears of anyone or anything. "Is anyone here? Hello?" But only silence answered. He suddenly noticed a vacuum of sound. Even the gentle lapping of the waves was silent. Worry seeped into his mind and he shuddered involuntarily. 'So I guess I'll do what I did before.'

"Pick a direction and swim."

And swim he did. He swam for what seemed like hours, never once feeling the least bit winded or tired.

"This is fucking hopeless." He muttered, finally stopping. "What the hell is this place, anyway?" He asked no one. He resigned, shifting to lie on his back. 'Guess I'll just float forever.' He thought, staring up to the blinding light concealed by clouds. His eyes then picked up something floating slowly downward. His interest piqued, he lifted himself up again, watching the little something descend to land beside him. He picked it up, studying it carefully.

A feather.

Well.

"What the hell is this?" He sighed. "Well, a feather means birds, right? And birds mean land. But I don-" Sora didn't get to finish his sentence, for he was suddenly overcome with an immense pain in his shoulders. He drew his hands in fists to his chest, doubling over at the shock waves coming from his back. It felt like his skin was ripping itself open, and his very bones were trying to remove themselves from his body. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the pain stopped. Sora released the breath he had been hold, panting and clutching his neck. "What the hell was that? I feel-- different."

Sora soon noticed what was different. He felt that he could control a new set of muscles. This new appendage came from his back. He flexed one and turned his head to the side to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that was now attached to his shoulders.

Wings. But not white like the feather he had caught. His wings were black. Cautiously, he stretched out a hand to touch one, sliding his fingers along the velvety surface. "Wh-How?" He questioned, startled at their appearance. "Why black?" He became pensive, looking down at the water, brows drawn together in confusion and dawning fear.

Then, a thought dawned on him. "Hey, wings mean I can fly, right?" He said a bit cheerfully. "So, uh, how do these things work, anyway?" He flexed the new muscles, trying to gain a certain understanding of them. After a few attempts to extend and contract, he got more confident, drawing them in and out faster, much like a bird would do.

All of a sudden he had lifted himself completely out of the water, his toes barely skimming the surface. He smiled and nearly laughed out loud from the exhilaration of the new feeling. Up, down, sideways, frontward, backwards, any way he could go he did, savoring every new feeling. He flew higher and higher, until he reached the clouds, until he could touch the clouds-

"Hey, wait a minute. The clouds feel strangely - solid."

And they were. He flew up until he was level with one and tried standing on it. It felt like a very soft pillow beneath his bare feet. He smiled, bouncing on his heels for a few moments, before surveying the area before him.

"Wha-?"

Ahead of him, scores of angels stood, talking, walking, and carrying on as if the clouds were a giant meeting point. The thing that startled him the most, though, was that every single angel -/every single one/- had pure white wings. Not to mention that they were also clothed. Even if they were just wearing a thin band of translucent cloth, at least they weren't stark naked. Sora felt his cheeks redden as a few angels looked toward him, muttered something to each other, and looked away.

Feeling embarrassed and completely out of place, Sora did his best to look dignified as he pressed on through the crowd, which seemed to part before him. He didn't quite know where he was going, and he didn't feel much obliged to ask around, so he just continued, keeping his chin up and his wings close.

As he walked, a girl, not much older than he, stepped out before him. Her long, dark hair seemed to glow with the pale greenish-tinted band of cloth that covered her chest and waist, her forest green eyes glinting in the unseen sun. "How long have you been here, child?" She asked, causing Sora to stop.

"I-I'm not sure. About an hour or two, I suppose." He answered uncertainly, caught up in her appearance and the fact that he was speaking to an angel, no, a Saint.

"You poor, poor boy." She said softly, extending a hand to stroke his face. He shuddered slightly at the gentle caress of her fingertips before she spoke again. "Do you know where you are?"

"I don't really know." He said, looking down. "Is this-Is this Heaven?" She nodded gravely. "So, why are my wings black? I don't underst-"

"My child, you are damned." She answered sadly, resting her palm on his cheek. Sora tensed, his eyes widening. "You are to see Heaven for only a day, so as to make your suffering in hell that much more difficult. I am sorry." Her eyes showed true regret for this stranger. "Tell me, is there anyone you would like to see before you must go, or would that only make it harder for you?"

"No, I-I want to see him." Sora answered, gathering up what little strength he could muster in that moment of revelation. The woman nodded again.

"What is his name?"

"Riku. Riku Motosuwa." Sora said firmly, so there would be no mistake.

"Ah," she said knowingly, "you must be Sora." He looked at her curiously. "Do not be surprised. He speaks of you often." She paused, her temporary happiness giving way to more sorrow. "It will break his heart... to know that you cannot be together."

They were both still and silent for a moment, neither knowing what to say.

"Did you kill yourself for love?" She asked, almost silently.

"Yes."

She shook her head. "Galàndria did for me as well. I have not seen her in 200 years..." She closed her eyes, bowing her head. "I am Lórien. I will take you to Riku now. Follow me."

The two pressed on in silence. Both Sora and Galàndria had made the same mistake. Sora only wished he could have known sooner how serious the consequences for his actions would be. Tears began to sting to corners of his eyes. After today, he would never see Riku again? He only wanted to see him sooner.

Perhaps in hell, he would find Galàndria, and they would cry forever over the ones they were foolish enough to lose.

+++

No, it's not over. I tend to do this, don't I? Intend on making this big- ass thing, get about halfway done and go, 'oh, screw it; and post. Whatever.

I'm going to reformat, edit, and reorganize this story into a novel-type thingy. Then I will print it and get it hardbound. Because I am crazy. No, I won't do that, but I am gonna reformat and re-post it as a novel. Because this is my best-loved fic I've ever done. 85 reviews. ^^ Yaaay... I'll make the lemon better, too, since my citrus skills have been improving.

Jo, signing out.

Epilogue Part Deux, coming soon.