A/N: I wrote this like 10 months ago and then completely forgot about it and never posted it so here we are, no KH3 spoilers here, just an AU

Takes place after the final battle with Xehanort, everyone's saved and been home for a while. Vanitas and the BbS trio are all basically their same ages due to darkness and heart-comas and the like.

This was an idea I had that was vaguely inspired by a conversation with GuiltyKingOmashu. I think this is the first one that has the POV of someone other than Vanitas, but don't worry, he's still in here.

Also, I pretty much never write Vanitas as as much of a jerk as he actually is, but he's basically completely insensitive here and I hope no one gets too offended by that.

Warnings: suicide mention

Sora's breath puffed out in little white clouds even under five layers of blankets. The thick fleece barely did anything to keep out the chill. He swore when he peeked his head out from under the covers that some of the snow flurries were sneaking in through the windows. It was like someone was blasting Blizzaga at the glass over and over again. Was Vanitas playing some kind of practical joke again? If so, it wasn't very funny.

"It's not that b-bad," he told himself, teeth chattering. "It was n-nice of Ven to invite the three of us over for C-Christmas…"

He would never tell his new friend, but he liked the island's version of Christmas much better. There was no winter wonderland, but at least there he could've enjoyed the holiday rather than freezing through it.

And there, the nights were much shorter…

Sora wanted to use a Fire spell, but the last time he'd tried that, he'd nearly burned down his house before he could cancel it out with a shot of Blizzard. His mom hadn't appreciated the destruction, and he doubted Aqua would either.

"It's okay, I'm f-fine…"

He shut his eyes, trying to block out the howling wind. In the darkness behind his eyelids, though, the sound became the cries of Heartless, the cries of his friends, his own cries as he succumbed to the darkness…

Bolting upright, he summoned his keyblade in a bright flash. That flash stilled his heartbeat for a brief moment. Light. Light was what he needed.

Gathering the blankets around himself with one hand, he stumbled over to the light switch and flicked it on. His eyes burned at the sudden shift, but it was the good kind of burning. The kind that burned the shadows away.

Though he wouldn't tell any of his friends, there was a reason beyond the cold why he'd had trouble sleeping lately. "Lately" meaning ever since freeing the hearts trapped inside him for the final battle with Xehanort. That was supposed to be the end of it, the last stand against darkness.

Unfortunately, that had been when Sora's problems had really begun.

"It's o-okay… it won't happen t-tonight…" It wouldn't. It had happened the last four nights in a row, and sporadic nights before that. Even when he'd used drive forms, the odds hadn't been that high. Surely his bad luck had run out by now.

Because that's what it had to be, didn't it? Some kind of bad luck. Not that his darkness was getting stronger…

Cold sweat broke out on his skin. His heart plummeted. He tried to cast Cure, but he knew it would be too late. The five layers of blankets couldn't hide the dark smoke already wisping from his hands. The keyblade, his one line of defense, slipped through his fingers. It vanished before it even hit the ground.

And then Anti-Form was upon him.

XXX

Hearts hearts where are they? Gone gone gone They left us Left us all alone Why did they leave us? Just one heart now Only one So lonely lonely alone Not enough Not enough no no no Where are they come back COME BACK Have to find them Close close CLOSE

COME BACK

XXX

Nngh… what happened? Why was he so cold? Where was he? Hadn't he just been trying to sleep…?

Sora tried to peel himself off of Castle Departure's unforgiving marble floor, but his elbows were too weak to support his weight. His cheek smacked back down.

"I'm… I'm okay…" He told himself, even though his whole body shook – and not from the cold this time. The Kingdom Key flashed to his hand; at least he had enough energy for that now. He hugged it tightly, as if it could lock away the darkness in his heart as easily as it locked doors.

Memory slowly returned to him. Waking up from Anti-Form was like emerging from a nightmare, one he had no control over. Like being a Heartless all over again. Like a Heartless, he only had one instinct: get more hearts. Unlike a Heartless, Anti-Sora was a little more specific.

Ven's heart. That's why he was face-down in the hallway in front of the other boy's door. Somehow Ven hadn't woken up, but Sora wanted to be gone before he had a chance to. Unfortunately, he still couldn't move.

I shouldn't have come here. It's not safe for me… It was bad enough when Anti-Form triggered on the islands, and he would destroy his room or jump out the window and nearly drown himself in the ocean. Depending on if Namine was staying with Kairi or not, he would find himself outside her window, which would be super creepy even if he wasn't a dark monster. Twilight Town was bad too – if he spent the night there and Anti-Sora reared its head, he would find himself halfway across town, searching for Roxas and Xion's hearts. And now he couldn't even stay in the blizzard-cursed Land of Departure.

"Why does my heart have to be connected to everyone?" He groaned. He'd let his heart be his guiding key… but now it wanted to guide him to destroy the people most important to him. It was all wrong.

It's my darkness… how did Riku stand it? It's eating me alive…

He tried to stand again, and this time made it to his knees, bracing himself against the ground with the tip of Kingdom Key. If only there was a way to get rid of it for good…

He stared at his keyblade, then at the door behind him. Ven's door. Ven, someone who actually had gotten rid of his darkness.

And then he had an idea.

XXX

"What in the name of Kingdom freaking Hearts are you doing?" Vanitas yelled, dropping from his perch on the lip of an archway.

Sora screamed, dropping his keyblade, which had been pointed directly at his chest. Where the freaking idiot's heart was.

"Vanitas! I – uh – nothing! Just going to sleep! Bye!"

Vanitas lunged forward and grabbed the back of Sora's nightshirt before the idiot could run away. He struggled there for a minute before finally going limp. He was just lucky Vanitas hadn't made him "go to sleep" the hard way.

"Look, I've got stuff to do, so how about you make this quick?" He might've helped the face-stealing idiot beat Xehanort, but that didn't mean he needed to waste more time on him. Bad enough that Ven had let him and his loser friends crash Vanitas's first Christmas since coming back to life. In fact, he should've just let him do whatever it was he was doing with his keyblade. If he decided to commit suicide a few days before the holiday, that just meant more desserts for Vanitas.

"…How long were you up there?" Sora asked nervously. Maybe that was because Vanitas still had him in a grip by the shirt, so his back was to him. Vanitas rolled his eyes and released him, making him let out a sigh of relief.

Vanitas shrugged. "Long enough to see you make an idiot of yourself." Not that that was a surprise. What had been a surprise was seeing some Heartless-looking thing in front of the door when he'd snuck out of Ventus's room. He'd hid on top of the ledge to see what it would do, only for it to collapse and fade into the light-crazy hero of all people.

"Heh…" Sora stared at the ground, toes reaching for his keyblade. Vanitas stepped down on them. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Because you're annoying me."

"Says the one who stomped on my foot! And nearly jumped on top of me!"

Vanitas rolled his eyes. "I wasn't anywhere close to landing on you. And if I had, it probably would've saved your worthless life. You should be thanking me."

"I wasn't going to kill myself!" Sora shouted, cheeks turning red enough to see even in the snow-blasted moonlight. It was still surreal to see his own face make expressions like that. He raised an eyebrow, and Sora insisted, "I wasn't. I was just going to take the… nevermind."

"Very convincing," Vanitas replied with a mocking nod.

"Shut up," Sora snapped back, in what sounded like a higher-pitched version of his own voice. Uncanny as heck. "Ven's trying to sleep, anyway. We're going to wake him up if we keep yelling."

"I doubt it." Vanitas snorted. Ven slept like the dead. Plus, Vanitas might have just happened to cast a Sleep spell on him. Made it much easier to sneak around and steal his chocolate that way.

"Well he might—"

"Shut up," Vanitas cut him off, showing his non-evil clone how you were supposed to say it. Just the right amount of bite, and low enough to be intimidating. None of that soprano crap. "Unless you're going to tell me why you planned to take a keyblade to your already screwed up heart, that is."

Sora sighed, sinking back to the ground and pulling his dorky excuse for a keyblade into his lap. "Don't remind me… that's the problem."

Vanitas crossed his arms, waiting for a better explanation than that. Eventually Sora gave in to his gold-eyed stare.

"It's my darkness, okay?" He suddenly burst out. "I guess I might as well tell you. You hate me anyway. You're probably the one person I can't disappoint."

Ironically enough, he was right. It was hard to disappoint someone who had no respect for you already. Still, just for the sake of arguing, Vanitas said, "I don't hate you. I think you're an idiot. There's a difference."

Sora barely mustered a glare. Ugh. Ventus was way more fun to insult than this. He was going to have to break this loser in too before he would be worth toying with. Of course, that required Sora to actually survive long enough to grow a spine.

"It's no surprise you've got darkness," he continued, deciding to settle down on the floor too. His skirt-like garment spread around him like a jagged pool of shadows. "Everyone except Ventus and your girlfriend does."

"Kairi's not my girlfriend," Sora protested weakly, as if that was the point. Besides, if she really wasn't his girlfriend, he wouldn't have automatically known who Vanitas was talking about. "And you're wrong. Aqua doesn't, either. And I don't think Mickey does, or even Xion."

"Wrong, wrong, and wrong." Vanitas laughed. "Just because you've never seen them crack doesn't make them unbreakable." He'd seen Aqua crack plenty of times since his return. She still hadn't fully recovered from the Realm of Darkness, it seemed. He thought the hardened edge suited her.

"Well, maybe they do, but I shouldn't," Sora mumbled, still gripping his keyblade like a lifeline. "They all look up to me. You don't know what it's like, Vani. I have to be strong for them."

He was right about one thing – Vanitas didn't know what that was like. People basically let him do whatever he wanted, as long as it didn't involve hurting anyone. Minimal expectations suited him just fine.

"Tch. Let them be strong for themselves for a change. Void knows they need it."

"That's not it—" Sora sighed. "Nevermind. You wouldn't understand. I should go back to bed."

Vanitas's arm snapped out to grab his keyblade, holding him in place. "Not yet. I'm not convinced you won't do something stupid."

His brown-haired copy eyed him suspiciously. "Why do you care, anyway?"

"Aqua and Ventus would never forgive me if I let you kill yourself," he replied brusquely. Though that wasn't the whole reason. Sora might be an idiot, but he was an important idiot. So many hearts were connected to his. Even though Vanitas was free from him, who knew what would happen if he started tampering with his heart again?

"I told you, I'm not going to kill myself!"

"Fine, let me see if I got this right then," Vanitas drawled, letting go of Sora's weapon. "You'll just stick your keyblade in your heart and see if it sucks out the darkness. And then you'll just be a perfectly normal, happy human."

Sora squirmed under his gaze. "Well… when you put it that way… I was tired, okay? I haven't been thinking straight lately…"

As if that much wasn't obvious. Vanitas snorted. "Look, Sora. Maybe you screwed around with your heart before and everything turned out fine, but it doesn't always end up that way. Look at me and Ventus."

"But you guys are fine. He got his darkness out and now he's okay."

Vanitas's laugh started out as a low chuckle, almost a growl, but it quickly escalated into a mad cackle.

"Okay? You're calling us okay?"

Sora flinched back, but he didn't stop.

"You have no freaking clue! When we first got split, Ventus was going to die. You of all people should know that, since you fixed his broken heart. And that's just Ventus. Do you know what happened to me?"

Sora slowly shook his head. Of course he didn't. Vanitas had never told anyone before.

"I had all the anger and hate and pain of a whole heart, with none of the good feelings to make life worth living. My whole life I wanted to die. Or at least reunite with Ventus and make it stop. But even when I tried, it turns out I couldn't, because your freaking heart had already butted in. That's probably the only reason they could kill me." He'd never voice the thought, but it would explain a lot. He had been stronger than Ventus. Their union should've gone off without a hitch.

"I'm sorry," Sora interrupted. Looking into his eyes, his own reflected blue, Vanitas could almost believe him.

"Tch. Whatever." He shrugged it off, standing up. This was supposed to be his solitary castle-roaming time, not swap-feelings-with-his-ugly-clone time. "Just don't go screwing with your heart. Some things even you can't fix."

"I won't," Sora promised as Vanitas started to skulk away. "Vani, wait!"

He sighed. "What? Need someone to walk you back to your room? Aqua's the mom, not me."

"No, I— I was wondering… if you could help me." He winced, as if it was painful just to ask. "Since you know how to control your darkness and all…"

That stopped Vanitas in his tracks. Sora? Hero of light? Asking him for help? He smirked and turned around.

"I don't know, I'm pretty busy…"

"Please, Vanitas," Sora practically begged, keyblade hanging limply at his side. "Anti-Form keeps triggering every night. I can't control it, and I'm so scared I'm going to hurt someone…"

He slowly walked back to where Sora stood, a halo of light from the snow-blasted windows outlining him, gleaming off the layer of sweat that still wet his skin. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

The sight dredged up a memory Vanitas had fought to bury long ago – the first few times he'd summoned the Unversed. Dark creatures leaking from his skin. Screaming, crying, powerless to stop the monsters from clawing their way out of his heart. What difference would it have made if he'd had a mentor other than Xehanort, someone who would have taught him how to control the negativity rather than having to learn it all by trial and error? How much pain could have been avoided?

"Fine," Vanitas relented. As Sora grinned, he held up a finger. "On one condition."

"Anything!"

Anything? That was a pretty bold promise. He could've asked for him to streak naked through the castle, or go jump in a frozen lake, or any other embarrassing and painful act. Lucky for him, though, Vanitas already knew what he wanted. He smirked.

"I get all your Christmas candy."