A/N: O_o

I am so sorry this took so long. How long was it, exactly? Two and a bit months?? *grimace* Sorry. It's here, now, and you'll be pleased to know that it's kind of nearly double what i usually write =D That's why it took so long, see? This is my favorite chapter among them, so be kind with it. Enjoy :D


Chapter 4: I Don't

For something as deep as pain to be understood, one must be able to feel the pain, experience the ache, the loss, the searing fire of something mental and physical and emotional combined into one long, screeching nail against the chalkboard; the scar and the shiver and the shriek, the burst of freezing air against your skin, the chip in the chain of happiness, of security. If one doesn't do that, then one would not be able to feel the pain that they think, possibly, they could feel. It would be a lie; a little delusion cast because the truth was the real hurt, the one you didn't want to face.

Sometimes pain sounded like the patter of tears against a pillow. Hacking sobs –dry and cut and hushed –, the moaning of sorrows of someone in their bedroom, locked up and left alone so that no one else could hear them or see them or offer a consoling hand, because they didn't want that, not then or later or ever. And afterwards, when the tears stopped and the someone of the rather fell asleep in that fitful manner one would be in if they fell asleep with a heavy heart, you would be able to hear the twist of the sheets and the muffled sound of the mattress, and even, possibly, if the pillow they cried on were to miraculously speak, you would listen to it tell you everything the tears said, everything the moans meant. It would soak up all the pain as if it were one depressing, ominous sponge, and it would whisper everything to you in its non-sound in the middle of the night.

And sometimes pain sounded like the groans and hisses of someone being hurt, the sound of boot hitting flesh, the breaking of a rib or a jaw or some bone of the like and the crack of it, groan and scream, the thud of someone falling. It would even sound like the recovery; hiss as plaster scrapes against raw skin, tears as a healing bone moves out of line, slight burn from the stretch of muscle, the knitting of it, invisible and conscious mending.

And sometimes pain sounded like something next door; scary and unknown and worrying and completely unexpected and ringing in your ears. Sora hesitated in his drawing, silver pencil hovering over the page and doing nothing constructive as he listened to something that sounded awfully like a muffled scream emanate from behind his white picket fence. It was promptly followed by the ring of metal hitting solid ground and another muffled grunt and – was that laughter? Sora grimaced, knowledge dawning on his conscience because that was Riku he had heard, he was sure of it, and his suspicions were confirmed when he heard a strangled shout that sounded a lot like Riku's voice (though he had never heard Riku angry, so he couldn't be sure) forming words that sounded something like "Stupid piece of junk!" followed by a grunt and a strange ringing of metal and more merciless laughter.

Sora said a silent prayer for Riku (and didn't know why it was a stage prayer if no one could see him), hoping that he would be able to see him again soon, preferably not on his death bed or not while trying to wake him from a concussion, and definitely not while Mitch was still there, because that would be more than awkward and wasn't worth the effort (and Sora had to stop himself from shuddering from the mere thought), because Sora knew what Mitch was capable of, could hear it from a distance away and could imagine it (though he tried not to), and he was thankful that had had a younger sister like Amanda and that she wasn't like that.

When Sora returned his attention to his drawing, hand holding the pencil no longer hovering in the air but sitting on the page, waiting to be picked up and used, Riku's aquamarine eyes watched him intently with a non-glare that Sora thought suited him, white-silver hair half colored in so that one part of his face was framed by still strands of white-silver, half his bangs covering one eye, while the other half still consisted of light grey sketch marks that really didn't do anything or resemble anything but just sat there, representing. Sora smiled, then, hummed to himself because he was just that happy, and continued from where he had left off, white-silver hair around Riku's face slowly materializing into more than the something it had been left as. There was a sudden but welcomed rhythm of another metallic sound, a little like feet hitting metal but he wasn't sure, exactly, and Sora tapped his foot along to the sound and he couldn't help thinking the sound was foreign but known, on the tip of his tongue but Sora couldn't quite remember where he had heard the noise before.

The beat of possible feet hitting metal ceased, then, and Sora had to look up and wonder why that was so. He shifted his position, the too-wet-but-nice grass under him making his butt slightly damp, but that was okay, and his tree (he felt bad about not knowing what type of tree it exactly was) felt rough and solid against his back, bark scratching just a little through his t-shirt fabric.

Sora's eyes scanned the garden out of sheer instinct, not looking, just roaming, and just as he looked back to his drawing he had to double take the picket fence because, hey, there was someone there. And it was Riku.

Wait, what?

And before Sora could come to terms with what was unfolding in front of him Riku was hopping off the fence, and before Sora could react to even that he was walking towards him as if nothing had happened and, no, he did not just jump off a fence and into his neighbor's backyard and, no, he hadn't scared the crap out of Sora. And even though Sora was in a state of shock, he did note the faint bruising on Riku's cheek and the smudges of what he thought was oil on his hands, and he knew that if he wasn't so mind-bogglingly confused he would have felt bad for Riku.

"No hello?" Riku murmured, humor in his eyes but his face otherwise a mask of nonchalance.

Sora blinked, because it was necessary. And blinked again, for good measure.

By this time his mind hadn't fully grasped what was going on, but he did realize that Riku was in his backyard, and that Riku was talking to him, so he was able to manage something of a reply.

"Uh, hello?" And care to tell me why you're in my backyard?

His reply wasn't very witty, but it was sufficient, and at the moment his relationship with Riku (and he wondered why he had called it that, exactly) could easily last on sufficient and nothing any more intimate or thought through, and that sudden realization gave Sora hope. Hope because, he had to face it, he didn't exactly have many social skills. And he kind of felt bad about that.

"So," Riku started, glancing for the first time away from Sora and to his white picket fence; nervous jerk of the head and scan of eyes. "I'm not here, okay?" And he was talking to Sora in profile, acknowledging but a little distant, and it kind of made Sora feel uncomfortable. He had no idea why.

"Why aren't you here?" Sora asked him, sly glint in his eyes and teasing but Riku never saw that, head still half-turned and facing neither Sora or the fence, more rather the space in between the two, like he was indecisive. Maybe he thought it was safer, that way, or maybe he just wanted to have a profile conversation. Sora didn't like this; these profile conversations. They made him feel distant and a little unwanted but he ignored the feelings, boxed them up in that familiar little part of his mind. Tried not to touch the other feelings there.

"Because if I was here, we'd both be dead," Riku said with a frightening finality that hung in the air.

Sora was the kind of person who never said no. Or, more correctly, could not bring himself to deny what someone else wanted. Maybe it was the way he was raised or maybe it was a kind of retribution he thought up to get back at life for making his own life the anti-fairytale that people thought was a did-not-happen; the kind of thing that only happened in bad dramas, but hey, look over here, Sora would sometimes think, I'm a does-not-happen! I'm living proof that life isn't always perfect! What do you think now, huh? In any matter, it was in Sora's nature to be the 'yes' and not the 'no', so when he detected the sentence Riku wasn't saying hidden behind the other words he was saying, going something like help me hide from my brother, Sora knew he was going to help him. Not that he didn't want to.

"Fine," Sora said, smiling when Riku (thankfully) turned his head back to Sora so that the profile conversation had ended and Sora could see his aquamarine eyes study him in that seeing-your-soul kind of way that made his heart jump into his throat, and he nearly couldn't keep talking, but he managed. "But if Mitch finds out, I had nothing to do with this." And as an afterthought he added, "That's your bother's name, right?" And he tried to ignore the tightening of his chest.

Riku paused, that studying non-glare still on his face, and, Sora noted with uncertainty, looked like it was looking for something, like the detective who was trying to get the incriminating evidence out of the suspect sitting across the metal desk with his hands clenched in fists and sweat dripping down his neck because they both knew something, but was it what they were looking for?

Sora let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when the non-glare in Riku's eyes disappeared.

"Yeah," Riku chuckled, shaking his head (and Sora noted distantly how Riku's hair caught the light), and that made his heart leap into his throat. "Yeah, that's his name. And you better hope that's the only thing you'll ever know about him."

Sora gave a sheepish smile and a slight shake of the head, too, like agreement and something else he didn't know how to interpret.

He was beginning to think that he had made the whole thing up; that Riku hadn't looked at him with that kind of scary non-glare and it was all in his imagination, or maybe he had tried to see his drawing in Riku's eyes. Or something. Just not the something that was lingering in the air, the I want to know something accusation that wasn't asked but was felt, sort of, like not seeing the wind but being able to feel it against your face. You know it's there but you can't see it; don't have that visible, solid proof, but you know.

With a start Sora realized that Riku was plopping himself next to him, leaning against his big tree with no name and sitting on his too-wet grass, huff of air through his nose when he made contact to the ground and he was close enough that Sora could feel his body heat. But he was sitting next to Sora, and Sora was drawing a freaking portrait of him right at that moment and god he didn't even think to hide it but it was too late now, because Riku's eyes were roaming and they were studying and they fell onto Sora's lap, where the sketchpad was sitting innocently in an idle sort of fake-calmness (and Sora really thought it was evil when he heard it laugh flippantly, not that it could), and he didn't even have time to flinch before Riku shuffled closer to him and asked –

"So is it nearly done, now?" And after a sincere pause, "Hey, I look pretty good."

Sora froze. He didn't move when he saw the slight hurt in Riku's eyes when he didn't reply, didn't dare move, didn't want to take that risk because he was trying with all he had to not flee into the confines of his house. The déjà-vu was tangible; the feeling of stone, of being trapped in one position and not being able to even breathe, feelings like horror and uncertainty going through his body, freezing one part and then another in careful succession, and his heart (which had somehow ended up in his tightening throat) had befriended those stupid freaking butterflies in his stomach and now they were playing hopscotch together.

And his head was full of thoughts he should have been acting on, but wasn't. Oh shit Riku is sitting next to me and I have my sketchbook and I'm drawing a picture of him! He shouldn't be seeing this, Sora you idiot idiotidiot IDIOT. What is he thinking I hope it's nothing bad he probably thinks I'm sick dammit Sora DAMMIT. He should have been doing something, but he wasn't, for the same reasons businesses had bosses and TV's had remotes; for control.

Could've, should've, would've. Why was it that Sora's life was filled with i-don't's? Oh, I could've said hi back to that Kairi girl, but I didn't, because I was too afraid that when I had to leave again, I'd remember her, which I did anyway. I should've told Amanda to run instead of stand behind me, but I didn't, because I thought she'd never make it. But she could've. I would've made Him pay if I knew what he was going to do, but I didn't. I didn't. It was always I didn't. Sora never did anything.

He never did.

Sora didn't reply to Riku, just like he didn't say hi to that Kairi girl or how he didn't tell Amanda to run or how he didn't make Him pay. He realized, after a moment that felt like a minute but might have been less, he wasn't sure (and in his defense he wasn't perceiving time very well), that he couldn't reply to Riku. Or say anything, for that matter. But he didn't even have the strength to muster up trying.

And, to top off his misery (and profoundly growing anxiety), Riku didn't seem like he was going to say anything, either, and the silence that grew between them was screaming its awkwardness. Just. Screaming.

If Sora wasn't scared frozen to his bones, and if he wasn't realizing how much he just didn't do, he would have tried to fill the silence with something quirky and random. Something him. And maybe something to do with Riku's portrait, if he could muster up the courage. But he wasn't feeling very Sora-like, so he didn't. It was like a different being was crawling into him and saying, Man, you're life sucks, while rummaging through his thoughts and throwing him the most terrible thoughts he had.

These pessimistic thoughts weren't him. They just weren't.

From his peripheral vision Sora could see Riku shuffle in his place and stare at the floor with what seemed like too much attention.

The pause in the air (that felt long, oh so much longer than a pause but Sora just wasn't sure anymore) was a lingering blanket; waiting, just waiting to suffocate them both and laugh flippantly with Sora's sketchbook because they were both in this catastrophe together, working as a team to obliterate the only kind-of-friend Sora had had since … well, he didn't remember. And that was kind of discouraging. It didn't help that his sketchbook, his only solace (and, he supposed, his only friend, but he didn't want to admit that an inanimate object could replace his friends), was working against him instead of with him, like it always did. Sora wondered idly when this change occurred. Maybe it was now, or maybe it was yesterday morning, when Riku first saw his portrait, or maybe it was years ago and Sora was only realizing it now.

Or maybe Sora was flipping from all the stress he was putting himself under.

But that doesn't matter, Sora suddenly thought up in all the mess his head was in. The past doesn't matter. It's the now.

And right now he was slowly breaking the only remnants of a relationship he had with Riku.

Shit.

"Uh," Sora started, and Riku jumped a little, and it was painfully obvious how he didn't expect there to be any more conversation after Sora had rudely just stopped talking to him and now he was studying Sora again, maybe a little confused but definitely, definitely angry. He blinked, and then there was his non-glare, flashing in his eyes and looking, searching, and shit no that wasn't supposed to happen and Sora could feel it piercing through his flesh as he tried to remember what they were supposed to be talking about (because it seemed like the only plausible solution that he continue where they left off and make it seem like there was just a very long pause). When he did, unfortunately and fortunately remember, Sora took deep breath before – fuck, oooh shiiitt … crap how the hell did I forget that Riku was looking at the portrait and that we were talking about the portrait and that he shouldn't be seeing the portrait in the first place? There were only a small amount of times were Sora's complacent mind could not comprehend how to save itself from a bad situation, and all of those times had something or everything to do with Him. So, Sora concluded to himself, he was in deep shit.

Still, he swallowed his fears and kind of laughed, but it was caught in his throat so it sounded like a cough. "Uh, um, yeah." Laugh-cough, stumble of his tongue and he had to wet his lips so that they'd keep moving. "Yeah, it's nearly done."

Oh, great save.

Maybe God had decided that Sora had had enough for the day, because Riku's non-glare seemed to dissolve as Sora spoke, like it was being sieved through his words and dispersed into a neutral expression that seemed to want to say something, to Sora's delight.

Yes, Sora. Whatever it is you're doing, keep doing it.

Riku blinked, something like an abbreviation for a nod (Sora suspected), shuffled on the too-wet grass beneath them and smiled at Sora; small, a little sheepish but god did it give Sora's heart a jolt.

You better keep doing whatever you're doing.

Riku ran pale fingers through white-silver hair, bangs flopping rather pointedly back into his eyes before he said, "Cool," not a whisper but it could have sounded like one if it were louder outside, if the dull ringing of metal was closer and the music Sora could hear from a static-filled radio (probably from where Mitch was working) was turned up, a little more.

There was silence. Sora wasn't quite sure whether it was a comfortable silence or if it was awkward, thought to himself that he didn't have enough experience with conversations to tell the difference between the two unless it were completely obvious, so he opted for it being something in between.

He was a little fidgety, a little on the edge and a little nervous and just not very Sora-like, but he surprised himself by picking up the (now fallen) silver pencil and continuing with the last of Riku's hair, grabbing other colors as well and finishing off the shading, the little flecks of blue-grey color in Riku's eyes and the curve of his bottom lip, darker skin color for emphasis, shadow from his bangs covering his forehead (glanced at Riku once and a while to make sure he was getting it right). And then the portrait was finished, and he was putting down everything and just staring, really, not sure what to do but (try to) feel proud for his work, another small accomplishment in his sketchbook, and ignore the flaws he kept spotting. And he realized that his sketchbook hadn't turned against him, after all.

Then he decided that he might as well stop feeling bad for himself right about now.

Riku had stopped watching him a while back, respecting his silence, leaning is head against the tree and watching the sky above them instead (not the clouds, because there wasn't enough of them to look at). There was a feeling much like relief bubbling in Sora's chest, and he thought maybe that was because Riku hadn't realized that Sora had finished his portrait. Though he didn't know why he'd feel like that.

"Hey," Sora said, breaking the silence.

Riku started, lolling his head to the side to properly look at Sora and his half-happy half-anxious face, raising his eyebrows and sitting himself properly on his butt, picking off a piece of bark that decided to make itself stuck in Riku's hair and laying his head back down with a slight thump.

"Mm?" Riku replied, flicking the bark away.

Instead of replying, exactly, Sora gripped his sketchbook in his hands and held up Riku's portrait in front of his face, blocking the view of Riku with plain paper and saying, "I finished it," and he couldn't help but sound proud of himself (because he was). He smiled behind the sketchbook and waited.

There was a pause before Riku cracked up laughing.

And it wasn't just laughing, either. It was uncontrollable, hysterical; he was rolling on the floor and gasping for breath and choking on his laughter. Choking.

Whatever pride Sora had in his portrait shattered, replaced by utter, undeniable mortification. His eyes widened and his heart sank into his gut and he felt like absolute shit, like an absolute moron, because his portrait was being laughed at by the only person with the opinion that mattered.

Pride and dignity hurt beyond anything Sora had felt for a while, he put his sketchbook down beside him and glared back at Riku, because it freaking hurt to know that he thought his portrait was so bad that he would laugh at it.

"What the heck's so funny?" Sora snapped, and his voice cracked at the end of the sentence.

Riku calmed down, wiping imaginary tears from his eyes and clutching his stomach and looked up in time to see the utter hurt in Sora's eyes before he could hide it away with a proper glare. Saw it, then with a startled widening of his eyes sat up abruptly and looked at Sora with as much seriousness as he could muster while trying not to laugh.

"Sora, I think my portrait is awesome, okay? Remarkable. You're just –" Riku stifled a laugh, "You're not getting the joke."

Confused, the glare in Sora's eyes was gone and replaced by the furrowing of his brow.

"Um, obviously."

Riku clutched at his stomach and suppressed more laughter, shaking his head from side to side much like a wet dog before spitting out, "You had my face!" And he exploded into another fit of laughter.

I … what?

For one short, distressing second, Sora thought that Riku was crazy. Really crazy, like locked up in an asylum crazy. Like should be locked up in an asylum crazy, because how the heck was Sora supposed to have his face? Then with something that might have sounded like a click and might have looked like a light bulb above his head, he realized what Riku was talking about.

Oh. Oh.

And just like that, any hurt that Sora had felt was washed away and replaced by the laughter bubbling in his chest.

"I – I had your face," Sora snorted, and burst out laughing.

They stayed like that; comfortably laughing in each other's presence as the sun decided to set and cast shadows across the too-wet grass like a looming presence of authority, vast and growing and creeping along their skin. There, dark and sashaying, telling Sora that it was time to go back inside. Without Riku.

Now.

He was ignoring it, though, chatting idly with Riku as they looked upon the orange-pink-blue sky. Riku sat right beside him (hadn't moved since he got there), pulling strands of grass and tearing them down the middle and piling them up just next to Sora's still hand. The grass tickled his fingers.

"You can't go to the beach and not swim," Sora stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and Riku just wasn't getting it. "That's like … like –" and he paused for a second to think out a good comparison, "like not licking your spoon after eating ice-cream." He crossed his arms as if to strengthen his point.

One white-silver eyebrow rose to hide behind equally white-silver bangs. "Not licking your spoon after eating ice-cream?" Riku smirked.

"Exactly."

"You're one funny kid, Sora Knight."

Sora's heart decided to quite pointedly send too much blood to his face. Ignoring the increase of fluff balls in his stomach, Sora glared at Riku. "I really hope that that was a compliment." He hid his sincerity behind sarcasm.

Riku sat up and raised his hands in mock surrender, shaking his head with amused, wide eyes. "I never said it wasn't."

Sora lightly punched Riku in the shoulder, and Riku fake-winced and fake-rubbed his arm and they both laughed, Sora still not sure if he should be offended or not but he didn't care, anyway. Anything and everything that mattered was right and perfect and laughing with him under a now-dark sky and against his tree-with-no-name and on his too-wet grass, there with him, taking refuge in Sora's backyard and unwilling to go home, but it was more than that. Sora could tell, could feel it in the air and in his stomach and in his chest and could see it in Riku's eyes. It was something, something more, but he didn't know what. Didn't think it even mattered. It was just nice to know it as there.

Riku glanced at the sky, dark and navy blue and clouded, huffed in the nether space of the fence and the ground and brushed off his grass-covered hands onto his black denim jeans.

"I should probably go."

"Yeah," Sora agreed, looking from the dark sky to the glowing white of his fence to the not-glowing white of Riku's hair. Not-glowing hair. That was a strange way to put it. Hair didn't glow.

There was an absence of warmth as Riku shuffled and stood himself up, wiping off grass and dirt and whatever else was on the ground that had found itself stuck to the buttocks of his jeans. He stretched, reaching up to the navy blue sky and flexing his fingers, and then he looked down at the unmoving bundle of Sora who, in turn, looked at him. There was a pause, there, Riku tall and looming and Sora huddled and small and for a second Sora felt as if he were a mouse sitting right next to the most amazing, mouth-watering piece of cheese he had ever seen. Atop a very dangerous-looking mouse trap.

And even though that made it sound impossible to get close to Riku, the smartest mice always took the cheese without getting hurt. He was smart. Maybe he could find a way around the trap and to the cheese.

Riku dropped his arms to his sides and sighed, deep and long and with his eyes closed. Stayed like that for a second, then rubbed his neck and started walking away, slow but Sora thought the movement was too quick, too sudden and he surprisingly disliked it. But he said nothing.

Before he really had a chance to walk away, there was a slowing in Riku's movement and he turned around to Sora, hand up in a lazy wave and an equally lazy smile on his face.

"See you."

"Yeah, see you," Sora smiled.

"And thanks. For drawing the portrait, I mean."

Sora's face glowed, and that was all they needed to say.

(And as Riku climbed the fence down to the other side he realized that the sound of feet hitting metal was Riku on his ladder).

* * * * * * *

He'd been trying to avoid it, but his mother had other ideas. These ideas involved a larger-than-necessary shopping list, a long trip to a) the two dollar shop on the corner b) the grocery store and c) Office Works and other similar chain stores, and, to his utter dismay, a whole day lost to shopping.

Sora hated shopping for school nearly as much as he hated going there. It was pointless, and in the end they ended up using half the stuff they bought and had to leave behind what they hadn't used because they couldn't take it with them the next time they moved. It was a waste of money and resources and time. So, even as he walked down the street with his larger-than-necessary shopping list in his bulging back pocket, he was thankful that he was doing the shopping. This way he could cut down what was on the list and save them a bit of money, and even though his mother would be angry, in the end she'd see that he had done the right thing.

Hopefully.

First up; the two dollar shop. Sora didn't know exactly what they needed from there, but he went in anyway and searched the shelves for anything useful. It was less than empty, and the store clerk was talking on her mobile in what Sora guessed was Japanese. She didn't even notice that he had walked in. Not minding, Sora grabbed a red plastic basket from the pile next to him and started through a promising isle. He retrieved the shopping list from his back pocket and patted the money in his other (not-so-bulging, but comfortingly there) pocket and searched. It was repetitive; walk, pause, walk, grab, and repeat. He could put himself on auto-pilot and no one would notice. There was no one to notice.

It was repetitive, like a lot of his life. Run, move, pause, move, and repeat; a year summed up into a sentence and a lifetime summed up in something like three. Sora didn't realize how hopelessly dismal it was. How hopelessly dismal he was.

But that was his normal. Anyone else's normal was something like schooling, being raised, getting a job, marriage, kids, and death. Peaceful, content, trustful and planned out in front of them. To them his normal was strange (dangerous), and to him their normal was all he ever wanted, the right to it robbed from his possession by Him, the man he wished, oh god he wished would just crawl up into a ball a die. Long, slow, and painfully, maybe behind bars and starved to death or tortured or – or just die. Because he was the reason Sora was not a part of "them". It was funny, how Sora could split himself from everyone else so that he became the "him" and they were the "them"; two different groups with too many similarities to be properly separated.

But the differences in the similarities couldn't be ignored, anyway. And he hated how that was apparent and not apparent at all. Hated that it defined who and what he was.

There was a packet of blue ballpoint pens to his left, and he checked the list to see how many they needed. Blue pens X 15, it said in his mothers rushed scrawl. He decided to get a packet of ten.

The rest of his trip went on in much the same way;

Pencil case X 4. He got two.

Ruler X 2. He still had his old ruler from Ohio, so he got one for Amanda.

Sharpener X 3. He got two.

Rubber X 5. Why did they need five rubbers? He got three.

Stapler X 2. He got one.

Scissors X 2. H got both (he lost his and Amanda's broke).

Glue X 4. He got two.

Mech. pencil X 6. He blinked when he read that, shook his head and grabbed a packet of four.

Mech. pencil lead X 4. He got one, because it had enough lead in it for two freaking years.

The store clerk (who had decided to finish her conversation), did, however, notice Sora as he walked up to her desk with items in basket and money in hand. There was no conversation, no smile, just a quick scan of items and a short "$28.75," and the rustling of plastic. No thank you, no wave, nothing. She must have had a bad day.

The grocery shopping was worse. It was as if Sora's mother wanted to feed both themselves and Riku's family and an army. If there were any fridge that could hold all the meat she wanted, it would be a miracle (for his mother, and a disaster for him). He wasn't at the checkout soon enough.

The checkout was the most interesting experience of Sora's boring day. He was tired and grumpy and pissed off at the broken wheel of his shopping cart pulling him in the wrong direction. Some can from some soup shelf decided to fall onto his toe, so now he was limping (because it hurt like shit) and that was awkward enough without having to stop repeatedly to get out of the way of some other shopping trolley pulling some other person in the wrong direction. And to top it all off the cues were longer than the isles.

Long cues or no, Sora was having trouble not thinking. About Riku, mostly, about the walls around him and the difference between friends and boyfriend and about what was in the difference, what he liked and what he didn't know and what he thought was possible. And just Riku, just Riku and him and his tree-with-no-name and his sketchbook and the sky. And the fact that he shouldn't be thinking about this at all, and what made him think Riku was even gay?

There wasn't much that could interrupt his thoughts; not the shopping, not the can (well, it did, but only for a second), not the veering in the opposite direction or the shopping list or the cues. His head, however, popped up in alarm as he heard someone shouting over the intercom, because alarmingly enough the voice was pretty loud and held no tone of customer service whatsoever. And it freaked him out.

"Axel, if you fucking do that one more time I swear to god your head will be the centerpiece on my dining table," the intercom bleared at him, static filled and buzzing but he could understand it well enough. So could everyone else, apparently, who all had decided to look pointedly at the cashier two counters to his right. The cashier with the blond hair and the deep blue eyes and the checkered wristband around the wrist that was connected to the hand, tanned and all, that was holding up the pencil-like microphone that bleared his voice to the entirety of the grocery store. Who was, in turn, glaring at another cashier one counter to Sora's left.

One counter to Sora's left came another voice, deeper and not so angry but equally static-filled.

"If you wanted to ask me to dinner, Roxas, you could have just asked," said a cashier with an amazing shock of long, red hair and spikes and unbelievably green eyes and teasing smiles and triangular tattoos under his eyes. Axel, Sora was sure he had heard. Axel and Roxas.

"That is it, man," Roxas retaliated with a burning intensity that may or may not have been affected by the static. "You're dead shit."

"Uh-uh-uuh, Roxy baby. It's not nice to threaten your boyfriend."

"I'm not your boyfriend!" Everyone winced as the static screeched against his shout in its own attempt to overthrow Roxas. Sora did not ignore the coloring in Roxas' cheeks (that he could see). Roxas, he concluded, was a bad liar.

The boy named Axel winced. "Now, that's mean. I think I deserve –"

"What the hell are you two doing?" Someone in the crowd shouted. Axel and Roxas both turned very equally silent. There was a parting in the crowd; quick, fluid, and in that small parting stood the man who owned the voice; a man with long blue-silver hair and an X shaped scar on his face. By the all-black three-pieced suit he was wearing, Sora could have safely guessed that a) it was Axel and Roxas' boss, and b) they were in deep shit. Oh, and c) Sora's questions were about to be answered, because he (as well as everyone else) also wanted to know what the heck they were up to (and whether or not they were gay or just teasing).

"Hey, Boss," Axel cough-laughed, raising his free (shaking) hand in a kind of half-surrender. Roxas looked like he wanted not to be there, simple and definite on his face. There was no surrender, but there was no fight, either. Something like firm acceptance.

"Turn off that goddamn microphone and get your asses over here," the Boss growled.

Axel dropped his microphone onto the plastic countertop, but he didn't move from his place. He was eyeing his Boss and the lines that characterized his frown and the fists at his sides and the way his lip curled over his teeth. There was no fear, in Axel's eyes, more like reluctance. And Sora might have possibly understood that reluctance as Axel flicked his gaze in Roxas' direction. Roxas had somewhat dropped his microphone, too (somewhat being that he still held onto the cord), but he was holding the countertop like a lifeguard and standing rigid, tensed and maybe that was how he showed that he was frightened, because the look on his face was not equal to Axel's at all and the determination in his eyes was clouded with worry (fear).

"I said," the Boss growled, and the people that stood near him all backed into Sora's direction, so he had to stand on his tiptoes to see over all their heads. "Get your asses over here."

Sora could see, with his newly acclaimed view, Axel linger his gaze in Roxas' direction again. Only this time Roxas saw him and nodded his head, just the tiniest bit, faint ghost of a smile on his lips. Axel turned his attention back to his Boss and Sora could see the smile replicated in his eyes.

"You can't tell us what to do, Xemnas," Axel said, loud enough so that he didn't need the microphone to carry his voice to Sora.

"The hell I can't," Xemnas barked, stalking slowly forward and parting the crowd so that they stepped back in waves. Sora felt someone bump their elbow into his stomach and didn't care.

"Look," Axel started, voice loud and full of authority and teasing; laughing, dancing like fire and it was too easy to hear it above the rumbling of footsteps and voices of the people around and near. "We've put up with your bullshit for way too long, Boss," and the insult in the word was tangible. "So we –" and Axel punctuated the 'we' by glancing pointedly at Roxas, who smirked, "quit."

Sora felt like clapping was necessary right about here.

"What. Did. You. Say?" Xemnas trembled with anger, literally trembled, and he took a step with every word.

"We quit," was stated by both Axel and Roxas.

"You punk-assed kids can't just go around saying you quit!" Xemnas shouted, and nearly everyone in Sora's sight flinched. "Now get your goddamn butts up to my office so I can tell you that your pay has been docked to zilch."

It was then that Sora (and, it seemed, everyone else) noticed a whole lot of bulky men in black stalking through the crowd. Toward Axel and Roxas. Fast.

"So …" Axel stopped and scratched his head, nervous flick of eyes at Roxas who was edging his way to where the mall met the grocery store ever-so-slowly. "We're splitting now …" And just like that, the security guards pushing their way through the crowd were getting way too close and the crowd (bless them all) were trying to get in their way so that Axel and Roxas could just bolt already. Because, weirdly enough, everyone was on their side. Even though no one really knew who they were or what they were doing or what their definition of 'bullshit' was, they were on their side. That was … that was nice. It was nice to know that nice people could look after other nice people like that; that they could care. Sora liked to know that.

Sora was one of those people.

He was one of those people, and realized just in time that the person who elbowed his stomach was one of those men-in-black security guards and promptly stuck his foot out so that the stumbling guard fell flat on his face.

"Sorry!" Sora exclaimed with a smile, raising his hand in mock apology. "My bad." And he tried not to laugh when the guard grumbled and (failed to) get up.

Axel and Roxas didn't miss nor waste the crowd's efforts. Axel spun on his heel and ran for it, Roxas following up behind him in what Sora thought was slow-motion (or ought to be). Everything was in slow-motion. Roxas was just slower.

There he was, right in the distance, there; a security guard who was not part of the his companions in the struggling crowd but separated, hidden, coming at them from a staff door. Bulky but fast, ever so fast and with an advantage of age and longer limbs. Where Roxas did not have either of these advantages. And he was in slow-motion.

And this security guard was gaining speed, fast.

Sora could see it; it was a taser gun, black and bulky and close, so close to Roxas' back that it looked like it might be touching. If he wasn't so worried Sora would have wondered why the hell a grocery store guard would have a taser, but that was irrelevant in the situation. Spoken guard was gaining speed, almost-touching taser gun suddenly alight with blue and humming over the humming of the crowd. He was about to touch Roxas, Sora could see that, short limbs pushing against the speed of longer ones but it was futile, it was going to touch Roxas and the guard knew and Roxas knew and Sora knew –

But Axel was faster.

His hand gripped Roxas' wrist and pulled, pulled as if he were playing tug-of-war with only one end attached to a person. Pulled, and with that Roxas stumbled forward and, though he did not fall flat on his face like one stumbling security guard, rather tripped his feet together in the middle of flying and landed quite haphazardly onto the floor. There was a moment that could not really be counted as a moment, by how fast it was, where Roxas was still and swaying, but then the (still moving) Axel propelled him forward and he was moving and trying to get a rhythm into his feet.

They weren't out the entrance and into the congested crowdedness of the mall soon enough.

Sora's shopping was somewhere ten feet away from him, between a family and an elderly man and other people that really didn't have a classification. He didn't care. Nor did Xemnas, or the security guards (who tried and failed to follow Axel and Roxas), nor the crowd or the employees lined up on the side. That was okay.

"Those teenage bastards will get what's coming to them," Xemnas grumbled a little ways away from Sora.

Sora decided that he liked Axel and Roxas and did not like Xemnas. The good side was always the most fun, anyway (in his opinion).

* * * * * *

He had heard too many times before that people could die from staying in an underground car park. People with claustrophobia, or fears of cars, or fears of choking on fuel, or fears of dripping pipes. Panic attacks. Those were the cases he had heard of. They were sad, accidental and intentional, once, but did that really affect how abnormally abnormal it was? To have a fear of dripping pipes or exhaust fuel? Though, he had to admit, there were weirder fears, like anatidaephobia – the fear that anywhere, at any time, a duck is watching you, or – which is, ironically, the fear of long words. There were weirder fears, he did admit, but they were people's fears. Fearing something shouldn't be classified as 'weird'. He understood that. He understood that fear was not weird. Ever.

Sora was very, very aware that he was in a car park, and he was very, very glad that he did not have any of those fears. Because his mum was taking much to long to pick him up. He was left with these thoughts and with his shopping to stand awkwardly at the only free parking space close to the entrance and ward off those who wanted to park there.

He may not have had claustrophobia or a fear of choking on exhaust fuel, but he was scared of getting hit by a car (parking or not).

There were fifteen grueling minutes between Sora's standing there and his decision to move. In those fifteen minutes eight cars wanted to park in 'his' space, and those same eight cars with the very same pissed-off drivers went around his space at least twice, telling Sora varied ways to piss off (some had the decency to be civilly annoyed). After Sora saw the eighth car pass him again, the driver glaring at him through her tinted window, he had enough. His life was not worth a parking space. So with his trolley pulling him in the wrong direction, he stumbled onto the little should-be sidewalk along the wall and followed it along to the back. Thought he might as well walk around and look like he was doing something useful while he waited.

The car park was bigger than he had thought. That was okay, as long as he didn't get lost (or run over, or die of a panic attack). At least, if anything, he had room to move around. Explore the hidden depths of long-forgotten corners of long-forgotten areas of the fuel-infested, concrete-stained underground cavity.

He got up to nearly no exploring whatsoever (just turned a few tight corners and stumbled around another and trudged along a few paths) when he heard laughter. Hushed laughter, strained laughter, like whoever was laughing was having a hard time breathing.

No, it was two people. Two different laughs echoing off unfamiliar walls to Sora's right.

There was another corner, and Sora turned it, left the trolley behind because it made too much noise. This was a time for sneaking. The corner ended and another appeared, at a sharper curve that Sora kept himself to, stood stock still and peered around, out to the cavity of space where he assumed used trolleys were to be left. This cavity was void of trolleys, though; none of the metallic and/or plastic, unreliable pieces of junk met his eye, not from the round of the corner from where he stood, at least. He didn't care. Because this cavity may not have been filled with trolleys, but it was most definitely occupied.

By two distinctly familiar boys, laughing.

It was Axel that caught Sora's attention first. He was bent at an awkward angle, like he was kneeling but his head and part of his torso had ended up on his side, shaking and heaving. His red hair fell about his face and covered it, hid the gasping smile and the squeezed eyes but Sora didn't need to see either of those things to know how much he was laughing. Roxas was lying on his back just beside him, feet hidden behind Axel and he was clutching at his stomach, side of his face pressed uncomfortably into the grimy ground and facing where Axel's face probably should have been. Tears were streaming down his reddening face and his laughs had started to turn into harsh, humorous sobs.

Apparently, they had made it out of the (utterly ridiculous) infestation of guards alive. Sora was glad, if not surprised.

"Hey," was Sora's only warning that Axel was indeed calming down and starting to flick his hair back so he could look at Roxas. He tried to melt into the wall as much as possible. "Hey, shut up," Axel stifled a laugh and sat himself upright. Roxas had apparently not heard him and was continuing his uncontrollable sobbing against the grimy floor.

Axel had since calmed down to the extent that he could look at Roxas. "Roxas," he murmured, tapping the knee closest to him as if he were patting down his pillow. There was no reaction from Roxas or his sobbing. Axel paused. There was a humming in Axel's throat, and then a shuffling on his knees, and then he was leaning over; on top of Roxas, looming and close and his hair nearly reached Roxas' cheek.

Sora could hear his voice, though it was little more than a whisper in Roxas' ear. Could hear it, and regretted it, because it wasn't the teasing over the microphone, no, it was … real. With depth, with finality and definition and – and no, it was not a public thing. It was two private words whispered in Roxas' ear and meant only for them.

It was a purr, a closing of his eyes and a half-touch of cheek-to-cheek, it was a breath of air that might have tickled Roxas' cheek.

"Roxas, baby."

There was definitely a reaction, this time. Roxas' face instantly calmed down, and his eyes opened and he was looking at Axel from the corner of his eye, quiet, now, the tears drying up in salty lines against his cheeks and against the grimy floor. Axel hadn't opened his eyes.

Roxas filled the space between them and kissed Axel's cheek. Axel didn't open his eyes. Roxas sat up, and pushed Axel backwards so that he did, too, and Axel didn't open his eyes.

Sora didn't stay to find out if he ever did.


A/N: *laughs* I finally put Axel and Roxas in here. Don't worry, you'll be seeing them a lot more later on. And maybe some actual, serious Sora/Riku. Guess you're just gonna have to wait and find out, hey? XP Urgh, i don't like any of the middle of this, though - It's kind of hitting a nerve. Like, i know something has to be changed/fixed/removed, but i don't know what it is. Maybe you guys do? I dunno, if you have any suggestions to what is the 'it' i'm fussing about, please tell me. Or just send a smiley-face review. Anything.

Got it? Yeah, i know you do.