Sorry, I didn't do this last time. Hi! I'm Akaiba and this is my first story on This story is going to be off on a very angsty and sad trail with much sadness and a romantically sad ending. Please don't yell at me if you cry. Oh, and if you don't like Yaoi, then get off this page. I specifically said in the description it was Yaoi. If you're dumb enough to read anyway, then that's your problem not mine, I don't want to hear your whining. Anyway, Kingdom Eharts isn't mine, wish it was but it's not and this story is in no way related to the makers or creaters of Kingdom Hearts. Enjoy...
Letter one
Sora sat gazing out of the window. It had been something he'd grown into a habit of doing ever since Riku had left. It reminded him of the day before they'd been pulled apart, when they had resolved their problems… or at least agreed on them…
Riku had been so sad. Sora had originally thought his lover was thrilled to be going off and having an adventure, at least the silver-haired male had always proclaimed loudly and defiantly that he hated being trapped in the island where everything was all the same and there was nothing to do. When they were younger Kairi and Sora had finally given in to Riku's nagging and built a raft to go to other places... but something had gone wrong. He couldn't remember much becasue when they'd rushed to find their raft, Kairi had been knocked against a wall and balckewd out, Sora... just didn't remember for some reason but a few months after the black storm had come and gone at…
"Sora!"
The dozing brunet blinked sleepily and looked round half-heartedly… he was sleepy… couldn't people see that? Silly people demanding all of his attention...
"Sora! Wake up you lazy arse!"
Sora growled and got to his feet, swaying as he stood beneath the boughs of a particularly shady tree he was not about to give up even if he was now ready to defend his honor.
"Oh, you are alive… I thought you might have been dead…" Sora whirled round and faced Riku head on, an attempted scowl on his face that morphed into an adorable pout, "And here I was getting ready to poke you with a stick…"
Sora folded his arms and glared at his boyfriend, "And here I thought you were a gentleman with the widest streak of chivalry I've ever seen… we must both be mistaken."
Riku sniggered and bent down, hooked a finger under Sora's chin and kissed the pout on his boyfriend's face away. He broke the chaste kiss but kept his face tantalizingly close to Sora's, "Have I been forgiven?"
Sora's now peaceful face regarded him skeptically, "That all depends on how you make it up to me."
"I kissed you, didn't I?"
"Hmm, yes you did. But that's not going to get you off the hook." Sora smirked and turned around to sit back at the base of the tree when Riku's arms were suddenly wound around his shoulders.
"Mmm… but you love it when I am naughty, that's what makes your dreams so good…" Riku whispered huskily into his ear, the elder's tongue flicking out to like the shell of his ear. Sora shuddered and Riku lent on him heavier, about to push him down.
"Riku! We're in school!" Sora hissed, resisting the devilish temptation to just fall onto the soft grass with Riku.
"So? Half the school knows about us anyway, and the other half know but are still getting over the news Mr. Xemnas and Mr.Saix are a couple." He grinned against Sora's neck, "Hate to break it to you, but against them, our news kind of pales in comparison…"
Sora was about to reply when Axel came into view, kicking a blue ball and dodging past Demyx and Roxas who attempted to tackle him, "Sora's in my team!" Screamed the redhead at the oblivious brunet and even more confused silveret as Axel continued to sprint, keeping the ball between his feet with ease, "Pass back to me!" Axel seemed really intense, his actions all powerful and everything done with precision... but there was something wrong...
Time seemed to slow, In the brief instance before Axel rocketed the ball through the air, Roxas, Sora and Riku both spotted the familiar change in Axel's face, his fingertips alight with flames and his eyes completely wide with his pupils the size of pinpricks. Roxas froze in horror as the ball was launched off the redheads' foot and towards Sora.
"No! Axel, no!" Roxas screamed.
As soon as the ball had touched Axel's foot it had burst into crackling flames.
"Axel put it out!" The dark blond screamed at the redhead, but Axel was still reeling from using the darkness, he wasn't hearing anything.
Turning as if the air was suddenly heavy water, Roxas watched in horror as the ball sped to Sora's frozen form. With Riku still wrapped around his shoulders it was impossible for Sora to move in time even if he had been capable of it. He'd only realized Axel was accidentally slipping into his dark powers; he hadn't seen the fireball that had previously been a football which was hurtling straight for him.
But Riku had.
The last second before the ball would have collided with Sora, Riku pushed him out of the way, but in turn put himself in the way.
"Riku!" Sora screamed as he hit the floor and saw the ball going to Riku now.
Then Riku was engulfed in a blinding flash of white light which made everyone watching turn away and shield their eyes. Looking back fearfully, Sora's mouth dropped open.
Riku stood completely unharmed, his hands clamped firmly around the handle of an enormous…key? It was long and formed an odd crown shape where the head of key would be, there was an odd keychain hanging off the bottom of the handle and the key itself was so huge Sora didn't dare to imagine just what it opened… or shut away…
"R-Riku…?" Sora asked, wondering just exactly what had happened and whether his lover was okay or not.
Riku didn't hear him, his wide-eyes staring at the odd blade he held in shock and fear.
Sora sighed; at the time Riku hadn't any idea exactly how much he should have been afraid of that thing. Axel had almost died of shock and guilt when he came to and realized what he'd done even though no one had been hurt. At first, everyone thought Riku might have turned out to be a Child of Darkness too, even though he had had parents… before they died.
When Sora was small, his father had left his mother and they had been like that for a long time, just Sora and his mother. Then when his mother found out about Riku, she had insisted that Riku came to live with them, even though Riku would have to share Sora's room and she'd be on the fold out bed. His mother was generous like that, but she never considered herself special. Sora did. He depended on her for everything, until he and Riku started dating she was the only one Sora had eyes for. Then she'd been killed in a car crash.
From that moment on Riku and Sora had been joined at the hip, they'd been living together for about five years by that point. Then one day… Riku never came home. When Sora asked him about it he just said he couldn't go back to where there were so many memories of someone who had been his mother for so long. Sora had nodded his head and let it drop; in truth it was hard for him too, but he had nowhere else to go. Neither had Riku who he'd found sleeping on the beach when he'd gone for a walk at two in the morning because he couldn't sleep. They'd agreed to both go back and live in the house together, it wasn't obvious then to either of them but being without the other for so long had definitely made them worse for wear.
Riku hadn't laughed in a long time and it had been days since Sora had smiled. But then everything was okay, they were together again and each had someone who actually cared whether they ate regularly, got home on time or slept normal hours. And from there… they had ended up getting together.
Sora closed his eyes, blocking out the painful memory and shutting his mind to everything, its seemed like everything was conspiring againse him to take away his happiness. The only other time he'd been without Riku had been for about a week and a half when Riku had left the house they shared and it had been disastrous to both of them. It was now close to three weeks and Sora had stopped going to school. He'd stopped sleeping; he'd even stopped eating the past few days. He'd locked every window and door so no one could get in and ignored them when they banged on the house's front door. It wasn't like anything they could say or do to him would get him feeling better again. The only person that could do that was million's of miles away probably fighting for his life.
Sora hadn't moved for the past seven hours, not even to go to the toilet. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything for a long time so it wasn't like he had to go to the toilet either. His eyes opened half-way and revealed the extent of the damage done to him; black bags rimmed his eyes until they were more like circles not 'rims', his usually bright and deep blue irises were dull and almost gray-blue in color as he looked out to the sea. His skin was pale and clammy, Sora was almost certain he was very sick, but he didn't care.
Something glinted along the shore line, being pushed to and fro by the pulling and pushing tide, it glimmered in the receding sunlight, almost another day over with, Sora mused, not fully focusing on what had captured his attention. Then it shone brightly at him and he looked down at it. He almost had an expression of surprise hit his face, but the feeling wasn't strong enough. His face remained emotionless, just like it had since Riku had left.
What lay on the beach was a bottle; a glass bottle being thrown about by the waters but persistently stayed just on the sand. Peaking Sora's curiosity in his state was actually quite hard but it had managed to do so. He got the insane urge to go down and retrieve the bottle as he watched it move. Not even having the energy to question himself, he robotically through the windows open wide and swung himself over the ledge and then let go. He landed in a crouch and stood up effortlessly, making his way to the end of the garden surprisingly quickly for someone sitting prostrate for over seven hours.
He reached the thick hedge at the end of the garden and grabbed it like a wall, his hands clenching fistfuls of leaf and branch. Sharp thorny offshoots dug into his palms and made him bleed but he was so numb he felt nothing. He shoved his feet into the hedge, haphazardly finding a foothold and heaving himself up the giant plant. It bent and swayed, trying to refuse his alarmingly light yet unwanted weight as he relentlessly crested the top, the exposed skin from his vest, shorts and bare feet a myriad of cuts.
Deciding not to bother climbing down, Sora leapt from the top of the hedge to land on the wooden promenade that led down to the beach. This time he bypassed the normal beach entrance by making his own way from his back garden, though he paid the price even if he couldn't feel his bleeding skin.
He moved swiftly, almost gliding over the planks and sand as he kept his eyes straight ahead on the prize that still glinted at him teasingly. His bare feet pressed into the cooling sand and kicked it up around him as he sprinted, gaining speed as he strove to reach the bottle, just incase the tide decided to take it back without warning. Everyone seemed to be working against him to make his life miserable by taking first his mother and then Riku, why wouldn't nature be against him too?
Skidding to his knees and sliding through the foamy water he clamped his hands around the bottle's neck and clutched it close to his chest, his breathing heavy and suddenly the horizon seemed to swim, everything moving and coming in threes, even the birds flying in the distance that went from two to six. Something wasn't right…
Sora heaved as he began to feel seasick, then it clicked. He'd been sat completely still, as if dead, for hours and then suddenly burst into action… his muscles and body were having a fit and he was suffering his lack of thought by threatening to heave whatever could possibly still be in his stomach onto the beach. He took deep breaths and eventually regained his composure enough so that the scenery didn't spin and the various things he focused on were in twos… eventually only one if he stared hard enough.
Tiring of the whole deal he lifted the bottle so he could see it. At first he thought, I've gone through this for a God damned bottle! Then he saw what was inside. It was a small rolled up piece of paper pushed inside with a tight cork in the top to stop any water leaking into it. Curiosity once again overriding any other things he might have felt; he pulled the cork out and put it in his pocket, more interested in the letter. After several failed attempts at removing the letter from the bottle which it seemed more than happy to stay inside the glass and his imagination was intent on creating a voice for the piece of paper which was taunting him mercilessly; he crawled back to the promenade and smashed it open on the wooden planks.
Scrambling through the shards of broken glass that scratched and embedded itself in his hands he took hold of the letter shakily. Opening the crackling paper he almost fainted: the handwriting inside was Riku's. He swallowed hard and read avidly:
Dear Sora (This is not meant for anyone else but Sora so fuck off if you aren't him)
Okay, this is pretty stupid 'cos I am going to end up throwing this into the sea near the battlefield, but I just have to hope or at least empty my mind somehow. I want to talk to Sora, hang on… I'm writing to Sora so I'll talk to you then. I'm sorry... I'm being odd... but it's just so... so ugh...
I hope you aren't feeling as crap as I am. It feels like that time we were apart before, remember? I didn't think it would happen again, but I'm starting to think that if I don't concentrate I am going to get myself killed. I can't stop thinking about you; all I want to do is go home. There's a pain in my chest that won't go away and it's getting worse. Mickey's wizard friend gave me a medical check-up but I refused to let him wave his little stick (WAND!!!!) over me, according to him, anyway, I'm perfectly fine.
Bullshit. Merlin, that's the wizard, doesn't believe me when I say that I miss you. He says that's not enough to make me sick unless I'm faking. I think the King believes me… but he won't meet my eye when I ask when I can go home. I know I'm seventeen but I am tired of this, war isn't fun… not like I thought it was but its worse then you could possibly imagine. When we joined the main army, I thought we were going to win easily; there were so many people fighting, men and women all with incredible strengths and powers… more than half of them are dead now. The things we're fighting… I've never seen anything like it before. They move and look like shadows but they have glowing yellow eyes and vary in sizes, there are so many too… its like a plague.
Mickey says that I'll somehow be able to get rid of them all with the Keyblade. Like that's possible, it's just one of me against thousands of them. I can't possibly win. Plus the fact that I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not meant to anyway, or no one expects me to anyway.
I am seriously out of hope, sky. I don't think I can possibly focus long enough to get through this. I'm not saying these things to scare you, believe me I'm not. I just… I need someone to confide in. You know I hate it when people think I am incapable or weak… but I'm not a superhero... I'm human and I can die… and I don't want to. I want to be able to come home to you and hold you again.
I've been thinking about home a lot. As much as I complain about it, I'd give anything to be on that beach with you and all our friends right now. But the beach I remember in my memories isn't the one I see when I imagine what it could be like if I get home. The sand is black and its always night, the moon is large in the sky and the waters are as black as the sand. Where there would either be the cliff sides of the Island or the jetty there's jagged rock formations that claw at the sky and twist like dead trees.
Please talk to me, sky. Please get this letter. Please reply. Please be safe. Please don't ever think I don't love you. I will love you after I die and on until the end of existence. I promise.
Riku
xxxx
Sora had been crying, he hadn't even noticed. His heart had ached harder with every word that burrowed into both his memory and his heart until he was shaking uncontrollably and clutching the crumpled paper to his chest, trying to bury it within himself.
If he had thought that things couldn't have gotten worse: they had. Even Riku had lost hope. Sora didn't think he could take much more either. He desperately needed Riku, he needed Riku now. How did the letter even find him? Riku was on another world, right? Sora decided not to question it and prayed it would work for him. He was most certainly going to reply… the second everything stopped turning black.
He hit the wooden promenade with a thud, exhaustion, malnutrition and excessive stress finally taking their toll.
Roxas pushed Axel's lips from his neck and looked around wildly, "Axel!" He said sharply when the redhead didn't obey his hands and continued his ministrations, "Can you not feel that?"
Axel blinked and looked up at the blond he was holding against a wall. He briefly probed the area and felt what Roxas was talking about, "Yes, I can. The Light is in trouble, again." Axel frowned, "I thought he hadn't left his house?"
Roxas reached out with his mind as well, he felt his consciousness being pulled in the direction of the beach, "Apparently he has. He's on the beach."
Roxas quickly smoothed out his hair and shirt and straightened Axel's t-shirt, then the two made a hasty sprint to the beach. Somehow, their group of friends had managed to keep Roxas' awakening of power to themselves. After seeing the treatment Axel and Demyx received when the Island found out, the fear people directed their way and the way some people would avoid them or Axel was blamed for a small fire or Demyx got blamed for a flood. It was all ridiculous and although both vehemently denied the accusations and they were dropped, no one who didn't know them truly believed them. So they had decided to keep Roxas' powers a secret even if it meant forfeiting the lessons the Axel, Demyx and the other Children of Darkness underwent to control their powers; courtesy of Mr.Xemnas who claimed he was one too; he refused to display his powers though.
The two secret lovers raced down the streets, it was dark now so no one was really out. The occasional person was passed by a blond and red blur but shrugged it off as a trick of the light or something. Roxas gritted his teeth, the closer the came to Sora, the more intense the pain he felt through his link to Sora. That was his power. He had a strong link to Sora and could feel when the other teen was in danger or in trouble, Axel had originally been jealous and thought it meant Roxas was meant for Sora or something but Roxas had quickly put his mind at ease.
Roxas' powers had no specific root, they weren't elemental or only encompassing one aspect of something like Chaos powers or Time powers or anything. He was an extremely fast fighter, he could move like the wind when he slipped into darkness and could do some rather odd moves with a sword in hand and he could feel Sora's mood. Because of his close contact to Roxas, Axel was beginning to catch the power too, that's how he shared the feeling of Sora's pain; but Roxas felt it stronger.
As they reached the beach, Roxas ran straight to where he felt his mind pulling him, Axel was forced to slow so he could follow rather than go off on his own and get it wrong. It felt like Sora was dying the pain was so intense, there was no time to be wrong.
Roxas spotted Sora… slumped to the floor with glass around him and thousands of cuts all over him that were seeping blood.
"Sora!' Roxas cried, skidding to his knees and tearing his jeans but he didn't mind; Sora came first, "Sora! Please don't be dead! God, please don't let him be dead." Roxas lifted Sora's worryingly light form over the glass he lay in and lay his head in his lap, stroking the soft brown hair, "Please… please don't be dead…"
Axel's mouth hung open in horror as he stared at the limp body his lover cradled sadly, then he suddenly realized something. It was the scariest and sickest thought he had ever had but under the circumstances... it seemed probable. Carefully he approached Roxas and gripped the hand that wasn't holding Sora, "Rox… what if… what if Sora wants to die?" He asked slowly.
Roxas' head shot up, tears streaking his face as he glared at his boyfriend as he wrenched his hand away from Axel, "How can you say that?! This is Sora we're talking about! He has always loved life! He would never want to die!"
"How do you know that? He hasn't smiled in weeks, its almost been six days since we even saw him and judging from how I can see his ribs through his vest and you were able to lift him so effortlessly, I don't think he's been eating." Axel shook his head sadly, forcefully taking Sora from Roxas who tried to cling to the half-dead body, "Do you want him to die?" Roxas let go.
Axel lifted Sora bridal style and began to walk back from the beach, careful not to jostle the body too much incase of increasing the brunet's injuries. The redhead looked over his shoulder to see Roxas wasn't following, in fact, he hadn't moved.
"Are you coming?" Axel asked.
Roxas twisted his hands worriedly, "W… What if you're right? What if Sora w-wants t-to d-d-die?" The words were choked out as they seemed to want to stick in his throat. It was so wrong to say such things about someone whom if asked would say he got up at six in the morning to greet the sunrise, thats how much life Sora had.
Axel sighed, "Sora may want to die, but we're here to stop him, right?"
Roxas' frown didn't go away, "But… what if… what if he never gets better? What if he's like this forever? He's like my twin brother… I don't think I could bare it if I lost him… but then I couldn't bear being so selfish as to force him to suffer."
"Roxy…" Axel walked back to Roxas and offered a hand to the blond, holding Sora in one hand easily: that worried him, but one problem at a time, "Roxas… the only thing that will get Sora better again is Riku. They are… or were, practically joined at the hip… always have been… they can't be without each other for very long without it damaging them, their hearts literally can't take it." Axel took a deep breath and pulled Roxas to his feet, "We just have to ensure that Sora stays alive so that we don't end up with two dead friends, of Sora dies I would bet you 5000 munny that Riku would follow in the space of three days."
Roxas nodded slowly and followed Axel as they began to take Sora back to his house, "You… you really believe that they love each other that much?"
Axel nodded, "You don't even have to believe it. Can't you tell just by looking at them? Sora's eyes say it all." He laughed but there was nu humor in it, "Sora's eyes always say it all… I can't believe that damn mouse never had the balls to look in Sora's eyes to see exactly what he was doing…"
"Careful... that's a king you're bad-mouthing…" Roxas chided softly.
"I don't care if it's a fucking God!" Axel growled protectively, "No one fucks around with what is mine! You are all MINE, Riku, Demyx, Sora, Namine and Kairi are all MY friends and you are MY boyfriend. If it were you in Riku's place I would have chained you down and refused to let you go."
Roxas blushed at the description of what could be taken in such a wrong yet oh so right way…
Axel was off in a world of his own with his angry ranting and remained oblivious to his lover's thoughts.
Throughout all of their conversation, Sora didn't move a muscle, his eyes firmly closed and mouth clamped shut, his body attempting to curl in on itself even with it being held firmly by Axel. Sora didn't want to wake up, ever… but there was no way in hell Axel or Roxas was ever going to let him go…
