Title: Collecting the Stars

Genre: Romance/Drama

Rating: M (for those who noticed, yes, it's now MATURE hehe)

Disclaimer: I no own

Note: This fic is AU, has slight OOC, and contains Yaoi. You have been warned.

Summary: [AU. Yaoi] – I'd like to tell myself that my life would've been fine had Axel not snuck into my window that first night.
Main AkuRoku. Background Riso.

Thank You Le Tenn for being my beta!

"Blah" means talking

"Blah" means phone conversations

Blah means thoughts

Chapter 3: The Garden

(SORA'S POV)

Oh oh I really wanted that thing
I just want to sing
I love you baby
Won't you bring
All the flowers you
Find out in the garden
Don't tell me the truth
That your heart has hardened

But you don't want me anymore
How can it be
Look what you've done to me oh oh

Apparently "hanging out" in Twilight Town lingo meant having a huge ass party in that creepy mansion in the woods. The party was the kind of scene one would see in a B-rated horror movie. Like House of Wax; not the original, the remake with Paris Hilton. I just kept imagining someone there getting their head hacked off like Paris. Which really was one of the best parts in the film.

But I'm getting off topic. It worried me a bit that Roxas was knocking down jell-o shots like there was no tomorrow. If I recalled correctly, Rox never drank. It upset me to know that this was his way of coping with things. Unfortunately, I was being a hypocrite because I'm no better; sex was my way of dealing with things. Hot, wild, crazy, passionate: sex. There was no Riku in sight; he was still on the train, coming returning from Radiant Garden.

With a sigh I took residence on the rooms only seating arrangements, a white chaise, and waited for Riku to call me.

I bit my lip and felt my back arch on its own accord. Riku's mouth kept its relentless teasing, up and down and up and "FUCK." I whimpered. He had my hips pinned; he knew what he was doing. Chuckling around me, making me claw at the sheets.

Riku had come to get me at exactly ten on the dot. I told him where I was and he followed the path we had gone on earlier that day. But by then, I had took a hit or two of the weed filled hookah with Roxas, both of us laughing at how odd and awkward and WRONG we were about our lives. Then Riku showed up and I was so horny with pent up raw emotions, everything was too much to handle. Especially when he kissed me.

We were in an upstairs bedroom in Naminé's mini-mansion. Riku had called a villa, but that was so long ago. It didn't matter. Right now I was a little high, and he was a little drunk, and Naminé let us take one of the many spare rooms that were upstairs.

My phone was ringing, but I didn't care. The music from downstairs was so loud; it drowned everything out. The party was still in full swing, and I knew that there were other couples in rooms right on the other side of ours, only the thin walls separating us. I didn't care about any of it. What I did care about was Riku, laughing at me and teasing me and torturing me.

It was an awful sort of pleasure.

He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew which spot to hit with every thrust, he knew just how to kiss me to make me tumble and fall over the edge, he –"oh. My. God. Riku. Right there. Right there! RIGHT THERE!"

Nothing else mattered; none of the horrible things that I had felt when Aeris dropped that bomb mattered. All that mattered to me was Riku, French-kissing me while making me see stars.

The first thing that I noticed was the sound of Riku's voice. He was using my phone, talking to someone about something. I sat up a bit more when he turned to me, looking a little worried.

"Who was that?" I asked, my voice low; I was practically whispering, almost afraid to say anything too loud. The music playing on the floor below us was still on, but turned down to the lowest setting.

"That was Cloud," Riku sighed, rubbing his face. He was wearing nothing but his boxers.

"Oh fuck," I moaned while rubbing my own face, "shit, we gotta get back to Cloud's place. Oh man, we didn't even call him to tell him where we were."

Riku nodded and sighed, standing up and handing me a damp towel, "here, clean yourself up as best as you can ok?"

I nodded and took the towel, watching my significant other get dressed. "You're going to go get Rox?"

He nodded and left the room silently.

I just felt cold and out of place. With the music practically silent it felt as if the magic was gone. There was no laughter downstairs, no obnoxious yelling about some stupid drinking game. No headboard banging against the wall, no sweet nothings whispered in the ear.

Riku was acting a little differently than usual, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. He's been this way for a while now. Kairi had teased me earlier this week and said it was trouble in paradise, and it worries me that she was right on target with that comment.

Trying to wake myself up a bit more, I got up and pulled my clothes on. After finally managing to place both shoes on my feet I left the safety of the secluded room.

The lights were still on overhead. The chandeliers were twinkling and shining.

Bodies littered the floor below. People were just piled on top of each other, were there really that many people here in the beginning? Would Roxas make being here for these parties a habit? I hoped not.

Riku was just waking up my twin when I approached him. Roxas was half asleep and half drunk, which was never a good combination. I let him lean against me as we headed towards the oversized exit.

"Axel wasn't here," Roxas slurred, nuzzling against my cheek. "He has red hair like a fire truck."

Riku rolled his eyes and we followed the lanterns that were still on in the trees back to the town.

We managed to get back to Cloud's by five,sneaking in through the window and just dumping Rox on his bed, he was asleep before his head hit the pillow. I didn't envy the hang-over that he was going to suffer once he woke up.

I was wide awake now standing in an awkward silence next to Riku.

Riku moved a hand through his hair and took in a few deep breaths. "This is probably the most inappropriate time for this, but Sora, what's going on with us?" He was staring at me expectantly. And I really didn't know what to say to him. It was all so confusing right now for me; it was all too much happening too fast.

"You're seventeen, I'm sixteen... I think we're acting how people our age act once they get in a serious relationship," I stated, although I really had no idea what I was talking about. Because right now I was very tired, not sleepy, just tired, and ready to just collapse right next to Roxas.

"Sora, I think we should break up." Riku wasn't looking at me, he was staring at a spot above my head.

I then closed my eyes and felt my bottom lip tremble before managing to blink away the tears, because Riku was right, we should break up. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Because Riku understood me, he knew what he was doing. It pained him just as much as it did me, but it needed to be done.

My best friend looked at me with those intense green eyes that I loved more than anything and opened his arms for me. We fell asleep on the floor, holding each other, a feeling of bittersweetness engulfing us.

Riku woke up before me, I knew this because he lifted me and placed me on the bed next to Rox. "Call me when you think you're ready for us to happen again," he whispered into my neck. He kissed my forehead before getting up and leaving. I curled up next to Roxas, allowing a few tears to fall down my face and onto the pillow below. Life was just a big mess.

I was a big mess.

I woke up again a few hours later to an empty bed and a quiet house. It felt awkward to wake up in a foreign environment and know that you won't be able to leave any time soon. It was early evening according to Roxas' Moogle alarm clock, just after four.

Blinking my eyes a few more times, I turned to the window and discovered that someone was opening it from the outside.

"Oh shit!" the person yelped as they tumbled right into the closed blinds, making it collapse onto the floor with them.

I remained silent, watching the tall redhead stand up and hold the blinds out arms-length from himself, before looking back at the window and readjusting them. "There we go," he murmured. He apparently had yet to notice me, and that was a good thing I guess, it made me be able to observe him without him putting on a front.

Red hair like a fire engine...this was Axel.

The red head turned and literally jumped when he saw me sitting on the bed, watching him, "ohmyGod!" he put a large hand over his heart, taking in a deep breath. "Jesus Roxas, didn't I tell you to warn a guy next time?" he then looked me over, green eyes roaming over my face and body. "You're...not Roxas," he stated lamely.

"Nope," I agreed, "but you're Axel."

Axel gave me a cocky grin, "looks like my reputation precedes me. So Roxas-look-alike, what's your name?"

I arched an eyebrow, "Roxas looks like me, since I am older than him. I'm Sora."

"Ooooh! You're Sora," we remained in an awkward silence for a moment or two before Axel stated, "well, I'm only here to steal some food, so if you don't mind." He left his sentence hanging, because the truth was we both knew that I didn't care.

"Go right ahead, I think I'll stay here. If the food's good let me know." I grinned at him, he grinned at me, and then he was gone.

Even though my brother never mentioned anything about it, I could see why he liked Axel.

I can also see that Roxas and I had a thing for green eyes.

A few minutes after Axel left the room I decided to leave as well. Grabbing some fresh clothes from Roxas' closest and dresser, I made my way out of the room for a much needed shower. And maybe a quick finger brush of the teeth.

There was a man sitting at the dining room table, reading the newspaper with a forgotten plate of food in front of him. He wasn't ugly, in fact he could be deemed as model quality had it not been for the scar that ran across his face.

"Excuse me," I coughed a little, "sorry to be a bother, but where's the bathroom?"

He looked up from his paper, stormy gray eyes staring at me. A long pause was interrupted with, "upstairs. It's the first door on the left."

"Uh...thank you." I then walked as fast as possible towards the stairs, if only to avoid the man's all-knowing eyes. I wasn't stupid, that was probably Leon, the mysterious cousin that Roxas had said we suddenly had.

"So Sora, what do you want to do?" Axel asked, sucking on a bar of sea-salt ice cream.

Roxas watched the action with intensity in his eyes that made me extremely uncomfortable.

I stared into Axel's acidic green eyes. He looked like a demented clown to me, with his wild red hair, unnatural eye color, and freaky Cheshire grin. He was all bones and awkward angles. Yet Roxas was obviously attracted to him.

"I want to fall from the sky." I answered.

"Like sky diving? Parachuting?" Axel asked, eyebrows rose with interest.

I shook my head, "no, like the world is swallowing me whole."

The red head whistled lowly, "that's deep, kid."

Roxas looked at me and then at Axel, confused. Before he got to open his mouth an instrumental verson of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song began to blare from Axel's pocket.

The older guy winced, "that's the momster. I'd better get going. See you guys around yeah?" He stood, stretching a bit, before making his way to the window.

I shifted next to my now-sleeping brother, he seemed dead to the world. Twilight Town was eerily quiet at night, with only the distant sound of the train passing every few minutes. On the island one could always hear the lapping of waves along the orchestra of crickets and frogs.

My life was a mess; it was like shit hit the fan and landed everywhere. My mother wasn't exactly the woman that I remembered and thought her to be, and that bothered me more than I cared to admit. It didn't seem right to have to second guess a person once they were dead. It didn't seem right to think bad thoughts about them. There was nothing they could do about it now.

And Cloud...God, I treated him like shit. I was just awful and hurtful and resentful. I wasn't me, it was like this ugly darkness took over and I no longer had a heart when it came to dealing with the man whom I had always considered as nothing more than sperm donor.

In a way I was happy that Riku had decided to leave me here, he always knew just how to deal with certain things. I needed to find out what exactly happened between my parents. I wanted to know what their argument had been about, it couldn't have been so bad that my mom didn't want Cloud to have to do with anything in my- our- lives? She had never seemed the grudging type.

But then, I realized, I hadn't really gotten to know mom further than her being my mom. She was always just Mom, never Tifa Lockheart. That thought made me a bit queasy, there were people out there, people whom I've never had the chance to meet, that knew her much better than I did or ever would.

What I wanted was for Riku to hold my hand. But what I really needed was to grow a pair and ask for answers.

A cold feeling suddenly began to spread through my stomach and into my veins as I realized something else. Something that made me feel even worse about myself, because even though I was now going to stay in Twilight Town for who knows how long, I hadn't done something that I should have done from the beginning. Something that was very important.

I had yet to meet Cloud in person.

TBC

ECK: Okay, I wanted to end the chapter there partially because it seemed like a good ending spot, and partially because I wasn't exactly sure what to write. Sora's chapter is the shortest because I thought it was boring lol, thus is why this chapter is the shortest one up to date. Despite all of that, I love Sora and wanted to show how things are on his side of everything.

Apparently I put a bad link before, so I came in here to edit it :], if you're too lazy for this, there's a link on my profile:

http: //www. playlist. com/user / 9653212

Don't forget to take away the spaces!!!

Please review, flames are always welcome.