Disclaimer: I don't own it, but that much is obvious. SquareEnix, you have my undying respect.

Summary: Riku wants nothing more than to remember Sora forever. So, it should be perfectly fine to use Roxas, who is (and isn't) a copy of Sora.

Pairings: RikuRoku main

Special Dedication: Sakueishi Am-Jam, my sugar-pie-honey-bunch. That's from a terminally old song called "Sugar" or something of the sort.


Chapter Two: Forest Fires

Well, I thought I heard you say 'I like you'

We can get out

We don't have to stay, stay inside this place.

-My Chemical Romance, "This is the Best Day Ever"

When Riku opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Roxas.

Sora's cousin is sitting there, elbows propped up on his knees, pale hands (paler than Sora's which were ever so slightly tanned) holding the sides of his angel-face. His eyes seem to be staring straight through Riku, and the silver-haired college student is unnerved by it. He looks so pissed off, but the reason for which, he can't fathom.

"I used to fuck Sora."

Oh. Yeah.

Riku looks at Roxas's eyes-so much like huge pools of water-and tries to drown himself in them.

"Start talking." Roxas suggests. It has an undercurrent of Or I'll slit your throat to it, and Riku swallows. The blonde gives him a devil's smile that seems lopsided on his angel's face. It looks wrong and perverse, and Riku wants to cover his eyes and childishly say, "Make it go away!"

"I…met Sora at a café in the beginning of the year." Riku says nervously, running his tongue over his lips. A mantra is running on repeat on his head. Don't screw this up, don't screw this up, don't…"I thought he was annoying. Too much energy, too innocent to possibly be a college student."

Take a breath. Exhale. It hurts, yes, it hurts. But continue anyways. You owe this to him, at the very least. "He brought me a blueberry muffin, I told him to get lost, and…it just snow-balled. And before I knew it-"

"Hey, hey, Riku!" a voice squeals, looking over the side of the library's cubicle. He's dangling a Saran Rap-wrapped muffin in front of him, casting a shadow over Riku's textbook.

"I'm busy, Sora." He says tightly. God, this kid was just always there, wasn't he?

"Riku." Sora put his face very, very close to his own. "There is always time for muffins."

"-I-I just liked him, you know? And we just went with, worked things around our relationship. But stuff slowed down, cooled off. I had practice with my band, and Sora had-"

Wait. What did Sora have-had? Riku realizes with a shock that he didn't know what kind of job Sora had worked at, or even what kind of shift he'd worked. You horrible boyfriend, he chastises.

"-stuff to do."

Lame. Lame, lame, lame. He squeezes his eyes shut, wishes to be struck by a bolt of lightning or for the floor to swallow him up, or something. Just make it end now, he silently breathes, and we can call it euthanasia.

"My fault." Riku breathes. "It was my fault, Roxas. Sora shouldn't have died. I killed him, did you know that? I killed him. I did."

"I'd jump in front of a car to save you."

He says it so casually; you would've thought he was merely remarking on the weather. But Riku stiffens beside him, his eyes widening just ever so slightly.

"What?"

Sora rolls over, toying with the over-grown bangs. It was getting to the point where he had to pocket some of Selphie's barrettes in order to sweep them out of the way so he could see properly. Axel only let him grow it out because he said the ladies liked it. Sora was the one who wanted him to grow it long; he had an affinity for styling hair. Which was rather gay, if Riku had anything to say about it.

"If I had to, I'd jump in front of a car to save you."

And he says it so matter-of-factly; Riku feels the urge to cry.

"I didn't mean to, but..."

"Sora! Listen to me!"

"No!" he howls. Riku can hardly understand him, the tears are causing the words to mesh together and disfigure each other. He had snot running down his chin, tears are turning those gorgeous blue-like-the-skies bloodshot, and Riku was damned if he'd ever thought that Sora had never looked so beautiful.
"Sora, just-"

"I don't wanna hear it!"

"You know what happened. You went to the funeral."

Obviously, he hadn't. He had stayed in Axel's apartment, curled up in his best friend's bed with the huge, clunky stereo headphones clamped down over his ears. He had stayed in bed during his boyfriend's funeral. Tried to ignore it, make it go away.

"You saw him die."

It kept replaying over and over again in Riku's mind. Sora yelling, Sora pulling away from him, Sora screaming over and over like a holy mantra (if holy mantras could pierce the heart) "I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU". Sora running out into busy traffic, the car slamming into that precious boy-

"Sometimes, I wonder…what if-"

What if Riku hadn't been so stupid?

What if he hadn't placed Sora second to the band?

What if Sora hadn't jumped to conclusions?

What if Roxas had arrived just a little bit sooner to pick Sora up and whisked him away to the campus?

What if Riku Kisaragi hadn't screwed everything up?

"Look, Riku." Roxas cuts in. His face is crumpling down into itself, and his body language is stiff, but all Riku concentrates on is that hand-reaching out to him. "I don't…think you killed Sora. I don't think it's your fault. I don't think you could've been capable."

Those plump, soft lips part and deliver the words he most wants to hear:

"It's not your fault."

True enough, Roxas sort of mutters it at the floor instead of at his cousin's boyfriend, and his face is contorting itself like he doesn't really want to forgive Riku, doesn't really want to make peace. But Riku recognizes an apology, even if it's poorly made. He's a crappy apologizer himself.

"Thank you." He says politely, taking the hand that Roxas is shoving at him. He just sort of shakes it limply (It feels awkward as anything. Sora never shook his hand. That was for hard-eyed, muscle-bound, manly men. Not for cutesy, doe-eyed brunettes with over-sized shoes.), before dropping their hands on the coffee table. His pale hand rests on top of the blonde's own tanned one, and for a moment, Riku pretends that this is Sora, this is normal, and they are in love.

But it's just pretend, isn't it? It's just a bit of play-acting, just a bit of tomfoolery for poor, lonely Riku. He's just trying to make himself feel better by holding hands with Sora's cousin Roxas.

Riku tells himself this, but he immediately forgets it when he looks directly at Roxas's large, oceanic eyes.

Urge overtakes etiquette, and Riku nearly lunges across the table and places a hand on the back of Roxas-who-is-not-Sora-but-he'll-do-just-as-well's neck, drawing him closer. Lips collide like a rock slide, and he closes his eyes and oh, Roxas is squirming, before just relaxing like 'I'm in deep stuff already, might as well follow through'. Riku can feel their mouths moving together, but he also feels like he's watching someone else kiss. He wants to look away, pull away, and he tries (he tries, oh god, does he try) but there's still Roxas in front of him, with every bit of that star-shining beauty that Sora had.

You are disgusting, his mind fires at him, as he stands up, wrapping his arms around Roxas. You are such scum. You're nothing but a filthy little whore, Riku.

"But I'm not." Riku mumbles, as Roxas peppers his face with kisses, struggles to close that half and inch of space between them. "I'm not."

You think it's okay to use him? You're so conceited. God, it makes me sick.

"I'm not," Riku mutters, as he presses Roxas against the wall, and allows his hands to roam. There's still that baby-soft skin, the same delectable sun-kissed color as Sora's. His hands get greedy; they strive to encapture this perfected facsimile of Sora. "I'm not using him."

Nothing but trash, Riku. Why are you burrying everyone else in your garbage? Yourself...Axel...Sora...Roxas...it's just never enough, is it?

The silver-haired guitarist desparately ignores his mind, focuses instead of Roxas, Roxas's big blue eyes, those lips, that skin...The mattress creaks ever so slightly as he slides the younger boy onto it, and then Riku shuts his eyes tightly, and violently wishs that he'll have an early-on attack of Alzheimer's, or short-term memory loss or something, so that he'll wake up with knowing nothing but the tickly feel on Roxas's mouth his own.


But wishs don't always come true.

Even if Riku takes care to watch for the shooting stars and times his wish at just the right moment, there's a 99.9 chance that the wish will be lost among the endless night sky.

Roxas knows this too, and instead turns away when Riku murmurs, "Look, Rox. A shooting star."

"I don't believe in those."

And Riku finds himself wishing that he could be with someone who still believed in that measly 0.01 percentile.

But that person is currently being suffocated by piles of dirt, eyes shut tightly to the wonders that are shooting stars. He can't see the stars anymore.

"I wish..."

But wishs don't always, don't ever, come true.


"Do you love me?" Roxas breathes as he sits up, looking the silver-haired boy in the eye. "Or do you love that I'm like Sora?"

Oh, lord. Riku's got a hankering for death and ever-lasting guilt; because he gives Roxas that cheap, flimsy smile that he flings away to the band's fans like free samples, and says, "Both?"

But he's still got his rapid-fire comebacks, even if he hasn't got his own apartment, or a (live) boyfriend. "Do you love me? Or do you love that you can have a piece of something that belonged to Sora to remember him by?"

The silence stretches like taffy, and Roxas sighs. "Co-dependent relationships end like forest fires."

Riku doesn't look away. "I don't care if I get burned."


A/N: Goodness, I'm tired. But I feel accomplished, even though I'm very, very stupid and I couldn't figure out how to add a new chapter. Stupid, stupid, so very stupid, eh? D: And I like this section loads, for some reason. Yeah. This got moving, didn't they? Now for a bit of prose, in the vein of Eric Carle.

Writer, writer, what do you see?

I see a REVIEW BUTTON looking at me!

Look at it, so purple and nice. It looks lonely. Why don't you review, eh? Big hearts and huggles-wuggles-muffins to those who reviewed the last chapter of this series.