Author's Notes: Oh, GOD! FINALLY! Cheer for motherfucking Hallelujah, everybody! I finally uploaded the freaking chapter!

Okay, so here's the pitch. I've been stuck for the past three frickin' days fighting this bitch and betting my ass it was my Internet connection. Apparently I wasn't the only one having problems loading? Yeah, I kept getting a blank page or an error page. It was fine until, like, what...Monday? I was like..."What. The. Fuck." And so I was stuck with no uploading but only writing, having fun in Cancun.

On Monday, we went to Isla Mujerres (Island of the Women). Here we went on a big ship, traveled around a little on it, went to the island, and did some snorkeling, which was AWESOME. The fish were, like, right up by my face, and if you followed the guide around they swarmed around him for food. So I got to touch a few that way. The reef looked GORGEOUS when you looked down - I mean, the water was so blue that you could see how deep it went. Of course, my friend Lomesir got a live lobster waved in her face. She yelled "Not funny!" in Spanish.

Then we moped around, then on Wednesday we went to Ixcaret (or however it's spelled) and we were planning on swimming through an underground river (kickASS), but my stepmother got heat exhaustion so bad she couldn't stand. And me and Lomesir were feeling pretty wrecked, to - the place was all open-air with no AC. So we went back home early and moped around some more. Then yesterday and today (Friday) we did a little more of nothing, but I found out I can run faster now! Swweeeet.

So to make up for my absence, you'll notice a little back-to-back update going on. We left off on, what, thirty-seven? So now you're gonna get...not one...not two...but THREE! chapters. Because I ROCK HARDCORE LIKE THAT. (ego, anyone?) So enjoy the freaking chapters, you loveable little ducks!

Chapter 38

"On The Rise"

Sunday, September Eighth

Seventeen Days Missing

Cloud didn't particularly enjoy his photoshoot in the afternoon. He was so busy thinking—thinking about Tuesday, which he'd surmised was the day Grievers would be coming to pick up Riku and Sora. And thinking about Sephiroth, who was questioning him more and more about the children. They hardly ever bedded together anymore, too—Cloud saw through this trick after the first day. Sephiroth thought Cloud would talk if he deprived the blond of sex. Cloud was very concerned over how this was turning out. He'd never seen this side of Sephiroth before, and he wondered if he was still talking to the same man he'd fallen in love with. So far, it didn't seem that way.

"Don't worry about it, Strifey," Marluxia had told him after the shoot. "I'm sure Mister Penna's just in a bad mood. He's not going to fire you or anything—let it all blow over, and things will be fabulous again in no time!"

Not as if the pink-haired cameraman knew about their relationship; though sometimes, Cloud did wonder. Marluxia talked with a certain entendre that implied he knew things that he shouldn't, yet he was clever enough to disguise it that only Cloud ever considered the thought.

I sure hope he doesn't fire me, Cloud thought as he drove home. I can't imagine what I'd do to support the children and the house. This made him sigh as he pulled up into the driveway and made it back to the couch overflowing with kids by three. Lately, the press had grown quite bored with the Strife household—Riku and Sora were the juicy story now. What luck for him that they didn't yet know the two were there. Ah, but Grievers—Cloud clenched his fist as he sat down and watched the children play.

He couldn't begin to describe how upset Grievers made him. He insisted on coming even still; Cloud had tried again and again to persuade him to remain at home, but Grievers had a will like iron and wouldn't bend. If any of the tabloids or papers found out the boys were here, Cloud knew it would be back to the Defcon-Five routine again. He knew full well how much the children hated that. Only in the past week had they finally been allowed to play outside again; breaking their hearts by telling them to close the curtains again was not something the blond looked forward to.

Maybe if he played his cards right, when Grievers came he could make it look like it was just a visitor—they could leave at night, and then...

Hmm, Cloud pondered this as the night went on. That doesn't sound like a bad idea. He nodded several times as if to assure himself. Yes, I think that just might work! Now he smiled in a wily manner to his computer screen as he checked his e-mail. Cloud Strife, you are a genius.

But then the inbox pinged in a new letter, and he saw it was from Sephiroth Penna. Frowning, Cloud opened up the e-mail. It was short—no more than a sentence or two.

The more we talk, the more I know you're hiding something.

Please tell me what it is.

I miss you.

- Sephiroth

He scoffed. Talk? What talk? You hardly say a friendly word to me, Seph... Cloud got a pout on his face now as he slid his fingers together like threads and rested his chin on their knuckles. Tell me why you're doing this. I can't read your mind, baby, you know that...

Cloud was now thoroughly certain Sephiroth was suspicious of him hiding Riku and Sora. He wouldn't deny it was true, but it still worried him. Why would Sephiroth have such a pressing interest in it? Where did he fit into all this? It made Cloud shake his head and sigh. He didn't know what to do—the only thing he could think to help it along with was to simply do nothing at all. But it was the doing nothing part that bothered him the most.

There must be something he could do, right?

The computer rang in a new message for him.

GrieversKeepers: Somehow I can still picture a scowling face behind your screen.

Cloud looked at the sentence, then he smiled, and wrote back.

RiddlezindaMiddlez: thank you for picking up my mood.

"C'mon, cut it out. I feel cramped already!"

"And whose bright idea was it to hide in the closet?"

"Don't shift like that! I can feel your gonads! Ew, this is so disgusting!" Kairi smacked Tidus in what she thought was his head, and Tidus ended up covering his face.

"Ow! My nose!"

"Push yerself up against the coats or something! Can't a lady have some space?" Kairi kicked Tidus' shin.

"OW! Nasty little—!"

"Yer hand was on my boob!"

"Well, I was trying to get the wall, okay? Jeez! I wasn't feeling you up or anything!"

Kairi growled. "Just make sure you know I'm taken, ya pervert!"

Tidus grumbled something under his breath. Sora, when you get home from wherever you are, I swear to God I'm going to kill you.

Roxas swung open the door to the hallway closet in Sora's house, a mischeivous grin on his face. "Now, how did I know I'd find you two in here?"

Tidus and Kairi both pointed at each other.

"He started it!"

"She started it!"

"I didn't start anything!" wailed Kairi.

"You started whining about being in the closet!" Tidus snapped. "It was your idea to hide here in the first place! I was here first!"

"Oh!" huffed Kairi, stomping her foot. "It was a bad idea to share a spot with you! I'm never hidin' with you again!"

Tidus waved frantically at her, eyes wide. "Roxas, she's a siren! Tell her! Tell her I'm not a boobie-grabbing lech!"

Roxas quirked an eyebrow at him. Kairi caught it and glowered at the sandy-haired blond, who threw up his arms.

"I swear to God, I'm innocent!" he cried. Kairi sighed.

"I guess I can forgive you...if ya treat me to a bowl of ice cream."

Tidus waved his arms to Kairi again, bewildered. "Can you believe her, Roxas? She expects me to treat her like a princess!"

"I am a princess!" Kairi snapped, crossing her arms. "Sora tells me so."

Tidus hissed demonically and strangled the air, pretending it was Sora's neck.

"Sounds like your boyfriend spoils you," Roxas snickered. Kairi got a dreamy smile on her face and sighed romantically.

"He's so sweet. He buys me ice cream on hot summer days and takes me for walks on the path." She frowned, sighing more stressfully this time. "I miss Sora. Gosh, I hope he's okay."

"He won't be okay when I'm through with him," snarled Tidus under his breath, kicking up a miniature translucent storm cloud with his foot. Mrs. Tilmitt had been so worried that she'd neglected to clean the house lately. It was collecting bunnies of the dusty variety.

Roxas leaned over to Tidus as Kairi walked off, declaring she would go find her sister. "Remind me never to move down south," he said to him.

Tidus grumbled and crossed his arms, pouting. Roxas snickered.

"Come on, it ain't that bad. She's pretty hot..."

"Yeah, and she's a redheaded, finger-pointing witch. Did you forget that part?"

Roxas smiled nervously. "Well, at least her twin's a little less hot-headed..."

The sandy blond muttered curses and began to walk with Roxas to somewhere in the house where they figured Selphie was hiding. They'd been doing this for a while now, mostly to relieve the tension of Sora's absence. But unfortunately, the old tensions were replaced with new ones as Tidus and Kairi continuously argued and generally got along not-so-well.

"Maybe you should give her that bowl of ice cream," Roxas suggested. "You know, to sedate her or something. Then you should set yourself up with one so you can fall asleep on the couch."

It didn't take much for Tidus to consider this. He couldn't stand Kairi, and sleep seemed to be the only salvation he had right now. Maybe he'd give her a few dozen scoops of Double-Fudge Brownie and hope for the best. He might already have a shot at it—he heard Kairi speaking with an elated tone to Sora's parents in the kitchen.

"Yes, he's going to come down and visit tomorrow and stay for a couple of days." Lisa drank from a cold glass of martini. "I feel like I'm home again. Everyone's giving their support, just like in the good old days."

"It'll be so fun with Hayner around!" Kairi agreed with a nod of her auburn-haired head. "Maybe when Sora gets back, him and Hayner can do some catchin' up! I know my baby just missed him so much when he went off to try for the marines. It'll be a great comin'-home surprise!"

Sora picked at his plate in the downstairs bedroom. Cloud and Fuujin had helped to prepare a Japanese dinner, so he was looking at a simple spread of sushi and tempura, but he just wasn't feeling that hungry. Riku had finished his dinner hours ago. The tempura must have gotten cold by now. (He wasn't worried about cold sushi, because sushi is always cold.) Sora sighed and checked the clock. 9:43 P.M. He felt like it was eleven.

"Are you gonna eat that?" Riku asked, pointing to his tuna sushi. Sora resisted the urge to turn his nose up, he was feeling so strange, and handed the whole plate to the other.

"Go ahead. I'm not hungry."

Riku blinked at him and then at his plate. "Are you serious? Usually, you eat like a little piglet. You're not going to eat any of this?"

Sora shrugged. "I'm just not hungry... ." He said passively.

Riku sat down next to him, though, setting the food in question aside. "What's the matter, Sora?" He got a guilty face. "Is it about a couple days ago...?"

Sora said nothing right away, but he shook his head—though whether he was saying "no" or "I'm not sure", he couldn't tell. After he'd had too many of those Jello shots (never again would he touch the things), he blacked out and couldn't remember much after Riku had taken him downstairs. But when he'd woken up, not only did he have a killer headache, but his and Riku's legs had been tangled together and he had a hand up his shirt—it wasn't one of his. The immediate reaction had been Sora screaming, "OH MY GOD!" And leaping out of bed dusting at himself and tugging at his boxer shorts like an ultimative sin, running around like a headless chicken and demanding to know what had happened last night. Then after finding out he hadn't actually slept with Riku, he receded into a few hours of red-faced silence as he drank glass after glass of water, peeing several times in the process and thinking of nothing but what had transpired. Then the next morning, the confusion settled in, and ever since Sora had somehow lost his bottomless pit of an appetite. Something had put a plug on the Black Hole for Food.

"Listen, if that's what's been bothering you, I'll say again how sorry I am." Riku told him sincerely. "I mean, I wasn't thinking, and you were drunk, and it was just...it was a bad decision. So, I'm sorry."

Sora got something on his lips that was halfway between a frown and a pout. ("It's a Frout," Riku had so graciously named it.)

"No...that's just it..."

Riku tilted his head curiously, but when Sora didn't elaborate, he asked, "What? Making out?" Sora glanced at him sideways and groaned.

"Do you have to call it that?"

"Oh, come on, you know that's what it is."

"Yeah, but I..."

"Are you still homophobic?"

Sora glared. "I am not homophobic!"

"Then stop acting like a clump around me. You're the one who wanted to kiss, remember?"

The brunet sighed again and ran his fingers through his spikey hair. Riku nudged him a little bit. "Hey, is this about your girl?" he wondered. Sora briefly questioned how Riku had gotten to be so good at reading his mind.

"...Kind of," he admitted. "I mean...just now, I was thinking about her. I miss her. I wanna take her on walks again and get her ice cream—you know, boyfriend stuff. But..."

Riku quirked one eyebrow. "But...?"

Sora pouted now. "...After that night..." his brow creased as he thought of how to say this. "...It's like...shouldn't I be feeling some sort of regret? Shouldn't I be panicking and wondering if, you know, if we did something?"

Riku laughed in amusement then. "You mean running around the room screaming wasn't panicky enough? Where did you grow up?"

Sora groaned again, looking at Riku. "That's not what I meant," he sighed. "I mean, I should still be panicking. I shouldn't be getting over it this fast..."

The silver-haired teen shook his head. "Sora, do you know what you need to do? Learn to relax. You're thinking too much. If you keep trying to analyze things, you'll never figure it out. Let it go and let it happen, y'know?" Riku grabbed Sora's plate and chomped on a piece of tempura. Sora thought for a while, and he thought hard. He still wasn't feeling okay with it. He should be thinking about Kairi, shouldn't he? But lately, all he could concentrate on was Riku. Maybe it was just because he hadn't seen her in a while—yeah—that had to be it.

So why did he get the weirdest feeling that wasn't the answer at all?

"Sure you're not gonna eat this?" Riku ate another bite of the food. "It's good sushi."

Sora was silent for a great deal longer, until the clock almost read ten. He turned to look at Riku just as he was about to finish off the plate.

"I think I want to try again." he said.

Riku looked up. "Try what?" As if psychic, he read Sora again and added, "Making out?"

Sora turned a little pink, but he nodded. What've I got to lose, anyway? He thought.

"You already know what it's like," Riku argued.

"No I don't. I was drunk, remember?"

Riku smiled at him and swallowed the last bite of sushi, then put the plate down and licked his lips. "Mmm, I think I should brush my teeth first. I have fish breath now."

Author's Notes: On to 39!