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Why have you waited to embrace me, my dear?-The Cross, by Within Temptation

"Where are you, little brother?"

Axel inhaled deeply, rubbing his face tiredly, when he heard Larxene's voice from his cell phone. "I'm with Riku." He said stretching his left hand above his head, since his right was currently occupied. He looked around the house, still cleanly for the most part, though it looked more lived in now, since he had moved in. It would almost seem as if he were looking for his lunar-haired, aquatic eyed man, but Axel knew he wouldn't find his lover.

Since Sephiroth had been hospitalized, Riku had been absent a lot of the time Axel was there. In the week and a half since Axel's arrival, ten days total, Riku had been out eight nights. Axel had no doubt in his mind where he had gone. Riku would let his body be used by the men at Hollywood and 10 th to escape the pain of his brother's absence from his life.

Clearing his throat from the disuse it had undergone in the almost sleep he had been near, and dismantling the rage inducing image from his mind of Riku staring blankly up at a fat, pig-like man, he continued with his sister, "Where are you?" His rage at her from over three weeks ago bubbled and hissed inside his chest. Three weeks and not word one from this treacherous bitch of a half-sister, the only family he felt he belonged to. He had begun to think she had been killed on one of her dates, but, of course, his parents hadn't said a damn thing to him in her absence, making him fret even more. She was their true child but did nothing for her…

Axel wondered if it should be legal for such dispassionate people to reproduce.

But instead of the answer he had indirectly been demanding out of her, she asked him a question in return, her voice loud and unbelieving. "You're with Riku? Riku Melosine?" She screeched. "The one who hates you with a passion? Why?"

The questions fired rapidly at him, made him growl in frustration. What right did she have to demand these answers of him when it was she who had been gone for so long? It wasn't as if he had just walked out of the house while she was asleep, as she often did to him. No! She had been the one to leave without the slightest word as to where she may be headed. Sleep totally forgotten, he sat straighter in his seat, ignoring completely the television that was playing right in front of him. "You answer me first. You owe me at least that much!"

He heard her sneer from the other end of the line. "How do you figure?"

He didn't know what the hell her problem was, but it was irritating nonetheless. "How do I figure? You kind of left for three weeks! You didn't tell anyone where you were going! You didn't leave a time when you would return! You didn't even take your cell phone!" He hollered that last exclamation into the phone, and he hoped to hell she flinched when she heard his anger.

Knowing her, however, it would take a fair bit more to even chip her selfish exterior. She had done nothing without the thought of herself first and foremost in her mind. He discarded the times when she had defended him to her parents, not having a good explanation for why she would do that for him. It was the only thing about his sister's attitude that didn't fit; her unadulterated want for Ansem and Ruxy to look at Axel as their son, not their burden.

But true to typical form, she scoffed. "It's not like this is the first time!" She bit back at him, and her glare was visible even through the phone line. "What does it matter? I'm alive, right?"

"I didn't know that for the last three weeks!" He grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I was under the assumption that one of your boy-toys had finally had enough of your noncommittal ways and had slashed your throat so another man couldn't have you."

There was a pregnant pause, one in which Axel rubbed his right temple with his free hand again. Then comes a stifled giggle from the other end of the line. "That's more than morbid, little brother."

"I can't help what comes screaming through my mind in your unannounced absence." He told her in a droll tone. His anger already spent towards his sister—he had never been able to hold a grudge against his protector—he sighed, wearily, and again asked, "Where are you?"

"I'm at home." She said with a despairing sigh. "Mom and Dad had a grand old time when I returned. I think their wondering if they can actually ground me at twenty."

"That's funny." He told her. "They didn't actually seem to give a rat's ass while you were away. I was calling the police, and Ruxy told me to put the phone down!" He told her, his right hand flying into the air at the remembered incredulity of his step-mother's cold voice telling him he'd best not call anyone if he didn't know what he was doing.

She hummed in her agreement to his statement. "It sounds like them. They don't give a shit when we're not here, but when we get home we're supposed to pretend that they love us. We're supposed to pretend to be ashamed that we want to escape them, even for just the tiniest second." Her words were bitter, almost as bitter as his thought about his parents were. She obviously felt just as spurned by their actions as he did, though they both knew the redhead had more of a reason to be. Still, the feeling of resentment reverberated in both of their minds, sending a foul taste to their mouths anytime they thought of their cold parents.

Her sigh alerted him again to the conversation at hand. "Where did you go for so long?" He asked, sullenly.

"On a cruise with some nameless idiot holding too much cash in his hands and not enough brain-cells to out maneuver a water pump!" She groaned, suddenly. Axel heard the pain in it and immediately opened his mouth to ask on her well being, but she moaned out, "I'll be right back," before he heard her set the cell phone on something, then silence. In the distance, he heard something that sounded akin to his sister's awful metal music playing. It wasn't blaring, so she obviously wasn't trying to anger their parents, only trying to sooth her nerves, but it comforted him in an abstract way.

She was gone for several minutes. In that time, Axel watched an episode of Law and Order, waiting for either his sister to get back, or for his Riku to get home. With a swift glance to the clock on the wall above the television, it would be more probable for his sister to return, as it was only ten at night. Sure enough, his sister returned to her cell, her voice hoarse as she said, "Sorry about that. I've been feeling a little under the weather lately." She groaned again, but with less pain. "I must have eaten something really awful on that damn trip." She said with an air of humor.

"Did you have fun, at least?" He asked, his eyes staring ahead of him to the T.V.

She laughed. "Oh, it was fun, to say the least. I could have lived without my suitor there, but life goes on." She said in a dreamy voice. It was a voice he missed hearing in her three weeks of absence, despite his soreness about her abrupt departure, he wouldn't have been the same had he found out she was gone for good.

His quietness must have made her nosy again, because she asked, "Why are you at Riku's house? I thought the two of you didn't get along?" In no more than two seconds, his mood switched from withdrawn, to completely exhausted, at only the mere thought of why he was here.

Riku had absolutely refused to see his brother in the hospital, and in doing so, he was shutting himself out in various ways. Sephiroth was off the table for conversation. Axel was not to even look at Sephiroth's room, and after he had rescued Riku's belongings from the upstairs bathroom, Riku had practically taped it off from the house. It was odd. Granted, Riku didn't normally talk about his brother, but he was mentioned, spoken of as either burden, or hero-figure. But now that the elder Melosine was in the hospital, Riku only acknowledged Sephiroth when Aerith came to check up on them, which had involved some rather embarrassing moments, including when she had nearly walked in on them…ahem…doing the dirty.

Aside from that, he had practically begged for Axel not to leave him alone during the winter Holidays. Riku had never begged to anyone, and it was certainly disconcerting when he had begged to Axel, who had been his sworn enemy for near three years, who Riku had only began to want around him a week and a half ago. But he had stayed, only leaving when he went to get his clothes, or when they went shopping for foods around the house.

It was odd how leisurely it was to fall into the boyfriend/boyfriend scene. It was made even odder by the fact of who the two of them were, and what they had once been to each other.

But he had strayed from the question at hand and he realized it when he heard his sister's impatient, 'Ahem,' from the other end of the line. He sighed, "Riku's brother was hospitalized." He breathed, imagining the brief flash of pain that shot through his lover's eyes when the topic was brought up. "He asked me to stay with him." Now that he thought about it, it wasn't the best explanation; it didn't even make sense to him when he thought about it. But he tried not to think about it. It was best to do what his heart told him to do, where Riku was involved.

He had expected Larxene to snap at him, to tell him that didn't make sense to her, but she didn't. There was only a pause so inexplicably heart-wrenching, followed by the choked, strained, and seldom heard shocked voice, saying, "Sephiroth's in the hospital? When?"

It shocked him to hear his sister's voice break at the subject of Sephiroth. He didn't think that they had even met, let alone had time enough to wrench a reaction like this from her. Confused, he told her, "A week and a half ago…he has this disease. It's called An…"

"Angel's disease." She finished the name, pain lacing every syllable. "I know what he has." He went to ask how she knew what Sephiroth had, but she beat him to speaking. "How's Riku taking it?"

He took a deep sigh reminiscing on the third day he had been with his distraught…whatever Riku was to him. They had been in the living room, attempting to conduct the essays Vexen had demanded they write over one another, and he had to admit, they were accomplishing it much faster now that they could actually stand to be in the same room. Arranged in damn near the exact position they had been in when Axel had first visited Riku, with Riku in his armchair, and Axel sitting in front of him, they asked each other several questions when they reached a dead point in their papers. Axel remembered asking Riku if he preferred boxers or briefs. It had been nice and comfortable.

Of course…it didn't stay that way.

In the blink of an eye, Riku had seized up, becoming stiff as a board in his chair. It passed in only seconds, but when Axel had turned around to look up at the teen in the chair, Riku had looked at him with a deep curious gaze.

"When did you get here, Axel?" He asked, confusion written clearly on his features. "I thought it would take a while for you to get here. Where's the Japanese you said you were going to pick up?"

Axel could only stare at Riku with a mirror image of the other's confusion. He had no idea what the other was speaking about, and to show just how confused he was, he very eloquently asked, "What?"

Riku huffed, a very un-Riku-like thing to do. "You said you were going to pick me up some Japanese food before you went to Demyx's. Did you forget it?" He asked.

Axel turned around on the floor, struggling to get up to his knees so he was even with the lunar-haired boy before him. He looked into the other's eyes, hoping for some clue as to what was going on in them, but they gave no hint. They were as clear and, well, as bright as anyone like Riku could ever hope to get his eyes. The man had been through so much. His face scrunched, unattractively, as he tried to figure out Riku's game. "What are you talking about? I'm not going to Demyx's today. He's still trying to patch things up with Zexion."

"Who's Zexion?"

Axel cocked his head to the side, looking Riku up and down appraisingly. "Demyx's roommate. The man I was telling you about yesterday? He's an accountant, hates people, doesn't understand why he even bothers trying to understand Demyx?" He looked into Riku's face for any sign of acknowledgement.His statements had become questions, hoping that maybe he had imagined telling Riku about some of Zexion's character flaws. But there was no way he could have missed them all. "I told you he nearly threw Demyx out for breaking his ten-key?" Riku's face was surprised by this last question, but there was no sign that he remembered any of it.

In fact, Riku told Axel in a very frank tone. "You weren't here yesterday. We haven't seen each other since school ended last Wednesday."

"…I think Riku has it, too." He told Larxene, his voice taking on the identical pain in her voice.

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A/N: I want everyone to know that I hate this chapter with mucho amounts of passion! I had to rewrite it twice, and then I thought I had lost it because of a stupid habit I have when I send it to my beta! Oh, man it was frustrating and this is so completely stupid I can't stand it! Huff! But it moves the story right along, and those of your who were like, 'Where's Larxene?'

Hey! There she is!

I'm so freaking sorry it took me so long to write it. I had the outline for it done at the end of the last chapter, but I started writing it, and nothing I did would flow the way I wanted it to. I was like…this is so fucking hopeless. But I'm like eight or seven chapters away from the end I'm just sitting her going, 'Please, Iggy! Come on you can finish ONE multichapter story!'

So have no fear! I am not abandoning this! I am detirmined to finish one multi-chapter!

…it just may take a while, because no matter how much I love this story…after twenty chapters, I'm like, "Be DONE already!" Ya know?

Sorry for that long rant…I'm bored out of my mind around here.

I was supposed to be taking three classes this semester, but my first one was canceled. So I'm just sitting here, schooless and workless, reading series after series of book, only stopping to write on a story that pops into my head, and if you know me…that's a bunch!

Love and hugs go out to all those who review, even if I can't squeal at you myself, know that you are appreciated.

And…

Ramble, end!

InnocentGuilt