Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, nor am I making any money off this fanfiction.

-o-o-

Author's Notes…

Okay. This is the last chapter, BUT… and I stress but… there's an epilogue after this, so keep that in mind, okay guys? That's all I'm saying. Enjoy the read!

-o-o-

A Careful Remedy

Chapter Seven

The Clock Struck Twelve

-o-o-

There is nothing to do. The parents are out, Riku is, too, and Roxas isn't speaking to me. I throw on a sweater and head upstairs into the attic, intent on doing—I don't know, something. Maybe sort through all of Mom's old ornaments, or dig out some memories. Anything to just give me something to do.

Boxes meet greet my immediate vision when I climb up far enough, and when I get up all the way, I find that they're neatly stacked everywhere. Huh. That's a change. Guess that took care of that job. Frowning, bummed, I venture deeper into the attic, searching.

The boxes are all labeled. Some are dated as old as when I was a baby—some before then. Getting dust up my nose each time, I open and close boxes, sometimes just to see what's inside of them. My sneezes ring out through the quiet atmosphere. It's really cold up here, but that's what the sweater is for.

Finally, I unearth a box of photo albums. My throat tight, I hesitate. I go to reach into them, to pull some out, but I stop. Do I really want to do this? It's going to be depressing as hell, I know it is, so why torture myself that way?

I sit down by the box, looking all around me. This place used to be a hideout for Riku, my brother, and me. We'd hang out up here all day. We had the boxes organized to how we wanted them, situated in a way that provided a sort of fort. Old sheets were hung up, a kaleidoscope posed as a telescope to peer out the tiny window at the world below, and hats were donned, jewelry from Mom's box was treasure.

Smiling at the thought of that, I tilt my head back and close my eyes. That was back when Roxas and me still had the same hair color, and he didn't buy his out of a box. No one could tell us apart except our parents and Riku. Even other relatives had trouble. We were so close…

I hear lone notes ring out from the piano. Roxas is making music again. This time it's not something I recognize. It's muffled, so I can't tell if it's his own piece, or if it's some tune I can't make out properly. Either way, it's haunting, sad. Perfect for the atmosphere. My heart twists with grief. He used to write happy music. Why did it have to change? Why did everything have to get so… destroyed?

"Hey, kid. You're lookin' a little melancholy. Where's your fire, eh?"

Slowly, my eyes open. I know who to expect, so I'm not surprised when I see Axel leaning over me, a grin on his face, his hands on his knees. His scythe is absent, and his hood is down. I forgot how spiky his hair really is.

"What do you want?" I mutter. Is he going to finish what he started earlier before Roxas interrupted? I find myself not looking forward to it. Death constantly lingering around me can't be a good thing—except it sort of makes sense, doesn't it? I am about to die. Again.

"Just want to know how you're holding up." Death shrugs. "Not getting any second thoughts, are you?"

I glare at him, putting everything I'm feeling into it, every bit of angst. I want to lash out at my situation, protest what's going to happen to me, and I accepted long ago that I'm stuck with what I've got. Having "second thoughts" will just get me in trouble. "Of course not."

"Good."

And just like that, he's gone.

I tilt my head back to its proper position, and my heart gives a little start. Axel isn't gone at all. He's sitting directly across from me now, his arms folded loosely in his lap. After recovering from that bit of fright, I glare at him again. Honestly. Can't he just walk around like a normal person?

"I didn't scare you the first time, so I thought I'd try again." Axel grins at me unabashedly. Thinking on it, I suppose he does have an awfully annoying habit of popping up when I least expect it. He enjoys this, doesn't he?

I huff and look away. "What do you want?"

"There's something you ought to know," he tells me for the second time. "Something important." His fingers drum on his knees, and he purses his lips and lets his gaze drift up. The sun hits his fiery hair and makes it look blood red.

So I was right. He wants to finish what he started earlier.

"Yeah?" I prompt, when he isn't exactly forthcoming with the information.

"Good deeds don't go unrewarded. Sometimes it seems like that at first—but in the end, you get what you reap. Life is funny like that, eh?" Axel shrugs his shoulders.

My heart flutters hopefully for a moment, biting onto his bait. "So I won't have to go to hell?"

He slants his eyes my way, and there's something in them that makes my flesh break out in goosebumps. It's that creepy look he does so well, the one where he seems ancient, where I know he can look into my soul and see everything that's written on it. Like this, I know he really is Death.

"If you kill yourself, you go to hell, kid—remember? All part of what religion you followed at the time of your death. Catholicism ain't changing their viewpoint on that anytime soon." Abruptly, his eyes change back to his good, smug cheer. "Nice try, though."

Then what the hell was the point of that comment? Annoyed, I stand up and dust off my legs. "I have to get back downstairs."

"So Roxy can yell at you some more?"

I don't even bother looking at him as I make my way carefully around the boxes and back toward the pull-down stairs. "Don't call him that."

I trip a couple of times on the way out, but eventually I make it there in one piece. When I glance back over my shoulder to where I'd been sitting with Death, I find that he's gone. Dust motes glide along in the sun's rays, and I'm reminded of the other day when I laid in bed with Riku for hours, just talking. My throat tight, I duck downstairs.

-o-o-

Riku sits in the pew, his head bowed down, his bangs covering his eyes. His cheeks are wet. His hands are curled into fists in his lap. The priest drones on from the front of the church, and after a moment, he invites those who want to speak to come forward. Riku stays where he is. His lips tighten. He looks angry.

Beside him, Roxas chews on his lip. His eyes stare straight ahead, but one can tell by looking at him that he's not paying attention to any of his surroundings. He's found a spot to fix his gaze on, and he zones out there. There are shadows under his eyes, though, and his eyes themselves are red-rimmed and haunted. His button-down shirt is wrinkled and rolled up at the elbows. He looks like he hasn't slept in days.

Mom is crying into Dad's handkerchief. Her shoulders shake, and her hair is carefully curled and pulled back off her shoulders. Her tears are silent. Only the occasional shuddery breath escapes from her. People are casting pitying glances in her direction. She remains oblivious, lost in her own grief. She looks heart-broken, devastated, and as though she'll never recover.

"I just don't understand," she sobs. It's a few moments before she can go on, and when she does, her breath hitches over nearly every word. "I thought—he—was happy again… I thought… he… was happy…"

-o-o-

I stumble against the wall on my way to the dining room. I blink rapidly, disoriented, trying to peel one world from the other. The premonition bleeds into reality with such clarity that I can't tell the two apart for a long time. Mom's sobs are still ringing in my ears. Finally, though, I can see again, see clearly.

The first thing I do is whirl around to try and find Axel. He's not here, though. Nowhere to be seen. Frustrated, I put my fists to my still wet eyes and try to breathe normally again. My heart hurts. Why is this happening to me? Why do I keep seeing the future? I don't want to know what happens—I just want to pass from this life into the next and be completely unaware of the goings-on in the world I left behind.

I grit my teeth and bear it. There's nothing to be done about it. I can only swallow my grief and move on. I still have things to do. Reaching out to my brother whether he wants me to or not is one of them.

He's at the piano still, though his hands rest above the keys, not moving. One finger goes to press down and stops. After a long moment, he lifts his head to look at me. I stop, swallowing. There's nothing in his eyes, no anger, no sadness, just a sort of… deadness. It hurts to see it. He should never have to feel that way.

"What do you want, Sora?" he asks flatly.

"Not to fight anymore," I whisper.

A half-smile crooks his lips, and he drops his eyes to his piano. This time, his thumb moves down and hits the key he neglected to touch earlier. It's deep and foreboding. "Too late for that one," he says.

I take a step forward and reach out to him. "Roxas, I don't want to—"

He brushes my hand away when it lands on his shoulder. Every time he does that, it cuts at me. Am I really so repulsive to him? Can't this just get any better, or does it have to keep spiraling worse and worse and out of control?

My throat closes up. "What are you going to be doing at midnight tonight?"

He gets up from the bench and doesn't look at me again. His fingertips rest over the keys. "I was thinking about leaving after dinner, to go out and maybe get a little drunk. It'd sure make this easier to deal with." He finally lifts his eyes back to me, and his half-smile seems more real. "You want to come, Sora?"

My heart surges in my chest. I start to answer yes, yes anything, just to spend time with him, but—

"Careful, careful, Sora," Axel suddenly hisses in my ear. I feel him right behind me, a powerful lurking presence that I just can't seem to shake. Death. Lingering. My spine tightens, and I fight the urge to shudder. I won't back down. "You have things to do at midnight."

Like throwing myself off the nearest balcony.

"I want to," I hear myself say. "But I can't."

Any sort of promise that had been in Roxas's eyes slides away, shuts me out. I can see the doors closing, and I know that all the chances I had are now gone. Roxas isn't going to be letting me in again, at least not anytime soon.

"You can't, huh? Figures."

"My medicine," I explain, and I remember that it's true, and a valid reason, and that even if I wanted to go out, I couldn't. I've gone so long without taking it that I forgot what it's like to be on it again. I have to be careful about everything I ingest. "I can't mix it with alcohol."

"Yeah, but you could have a drink or two," Roxas counters, clearly not willing to drop the subject just yet. Maybe he just wants to keep picking his bone with me. I can't say I blame him. I'd have a bone to pick with me, too.

"I could," I agree. "But it's not a lot of fun with me, trust me." I hesitate, getting ready to say the words I know I need to say. For some reason, they refuse to come out for a moment. It's like letting something go, I realize. Something important that I'm latched onto that I can't bear to be without, but for tonight, I have to.

"Sora…?" Roxas sees something in my gaze that's being unsaid.

"You should take Riku," I rush to say. I place both my hands on his shoulders. He leaves them there for the moment as his eyes turn sharp. "Take him with you. It'll be fine." Lies, lies, lies, it won't be fine, it won't. But what else am I supposed to do? Mom and Dad are early sleepers, and they won't be up when it's time to make my debut to hell. Riku, on the other hand, is going to be hard to shake. We share a room.

"What, you trust us to get drunk together?" Roxas's chuckle is harsh and grating in my ears. He steps out of my hands and away from the bench so he doesn't back into it. He's already starting to walk away from me. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"You think I'm going to let you test me? You'll lose this game, Sora." Roxas pivots to face me, his hands on his hips. "I can't control myself around Riku when I'm drunk. That's how this whole thing started." Oh, God, I don't want to hear this, I can't hear this—

"He can be really cutting when he wants to be, can't he?" Admiration colors Axel's voice. I want to punch him.

"He came up to see me one night after work," Roxas goes on. His shoulders shrug lightly, his eyes turn coy. "One drink led to another, and…"

"You already told me you haven't had sex with him," I interrupt, perhaps a little more bitter than I meant to sound. "Knock it off, Roxas. What are you trying to prove? I trust Riku. It's not you I have to trust. It was just an idea."

"What, throwing me together with someone I can't have?" Roxas's face twists into something like pain, and I drop my eyes to my feet quickly. "Now why would you go and do a thing like that, huh?" The words are light, but I can hear how tight his throat is, like mine had been.

"You're still friends," I say. "I'd be an ass to take that away from you."

"Or smart," he counters. He shakes his head and turns around, heading out of the room. "Don't follow me. I'm sorry I asked."

I let him go. As he vanishes from my sight, so, too, does the presence at my shoulder melt away.

-o-o-

Riku returns before my parents do. He drops our gifts on my bed, packages he clearly had someone wrap for him, as neither of us can fold paper that well. I trace my fingers over the pretty designs on each, musing on how Mom and Dad won't want to open these after my fall from the balcony tonight. Maybe they never will. Maybe it'll be too painful.

"Riku, I need you to do something for me," I nearly whisper. My throat's dried up. This takes a great deal of trust, something I'm not sure I have. In a normal circumstance, I wouldn't have it at all. Then again, in a normal circumstance, I'd be dead already, and it wouldn't matter.

"Anything," he says, and he sits beside me to put his arm around my shoulders and draw me into him. "What's up, Sora?"

I snuggle in close to his side, eager to get as much affection from him as I came before my time is up. "Roxas is going out drinking tonight. Can you go with him as a sort of chaperone? I'm worried he'll do something stupid…"

Riku's lean body tenses against me. His hand starts to fall away. "Sora, why are you…" He trails off and puts his hands in his lap.

I hide my face in his shoulder. "Please do this for me? Please? I trust you, okay, I just—I can't go myself. My medicine, and he won't want me to come…" Despite how he invited me. Riku need not know that. And by the time he does, it'll be too late.

"Sora…" He still sounds hesitant—worse, wary. He thinks I'm testing him. Just like Roxas said. This isn't good. It's not a test at all. Not really. It's just a way to ensure that what needs to get done… gets done. That's all it is. I wish I can tell him that. I can't.

"Do this for me? You said anything." I hate to throw his words back in his face. I've got to do what I've got to do. "I trust you," I say again. And if anything happens… well… I won't be here to do anything about it… they can be together while I'm gone… it's only fair… I don't want them to be unhappy again…

Shit. I'm tearing up. Not good. He'll start to question me more than he already is. He'll think it's what it's not.

I rise to my feet and quickly brush at my eyes before he can see them. When I'm done, I twist back to face him, trying on a grin. The muscles of my mouth feel strained. I don't do this often enough. "It'll be okay, Riku. I promise."

He tilts his head back to peer up at me. His bangs are hanging in his eyes. They need a trim. I'll need to cut them—no, I can't. Someone else will have to. What will he do once I'm gone? Will he realize he has to make hair appointments? Will he make Roxas cut them? I won't be there. I…

Tears rise fast in my eyes again, turning them hot. The lump in my throat refuses to go away. Damn. Despite all my best intentions, I still…

"Sora, what's wrong?" Riku grasps onto my hands and tugs me close. I stumble in against him, and our knees brush. "Talk to me. What's going on? Do we need to talk about Roxas?" He lowers his eyes now, briefly biting onto his lip. It takes him a few moments to gather up whatever words he wants to say. "…I'll go if you want me to. But why are you doing this?" He sighs and lets me go to rub his hands over his face. "I don't want to say this, but it feels like you're testing me, Sora, and I'm not sure what to think about that."

I'm not, but even if I was, would it be so wrong? He only came out into the open about his affair just last night. "It's not like that, okay?" I take in a shuddery breath, let it go. "I'm always honest with you—except about the pills." His eyes cut to mine, and hurt flickers there. Sorry, Riku. I know it hurts, but it's the truth. I tell the truth. I don't hide things from you. Things enough to send you teetering over the edge. "You have no reason not to trust me."

"And you have every reason not to trust me." He stands up and grasps onto my arms. I have to crane my neck to meet his eyes, and even then, my breath is a little short at the intensity in them. "Sora, I need you to know that I love you. I thought you didn't love me anymore, I thought we were over…"

I close my lips against the words that want to come out. They're biting, hurtful. I can't do this with him. I can't spend the last hours we have together fighting.

"What happened with Roxas…" He closes his eyes as pain clouds them. His face turns just slightly away from mine. "I just—I guess I just don't understand how you can be so forgiving! If it was the other way around, I couldn't forgive you. It'd be too much. I couldn't handle you cheating on me."

I can't handle you cheating on me, either. But you don't know that, Riku. You won't know. Not until tonight. God, what are you going to think of me now? "I love you, too, and I'm not selfish enough to think that none of it was my fault. I had a helping hand in this. It's my fault you thought I didn't love you."

"But if you love someone, there's no excuse to do what I did…"

"That's not up to you, that's up to me, and I say I'm fine with it. What were you supposed to do?" He's letting me go, walking away from me, pacing over to the window. I stay where I am. His hand buries itself in his hair.

"I could have broken it off with you. It would have been better than going behind your back."

"You didn't have sex with him." My voice cracks on the words. It surprises me—I thought I have myself more together than that. I guess I'm wrong. "Okay? You didn't, so—"

"Did Roxas tell you that?" The words are low, ominous, a rumble of thunder in my heart. It quickens, and I tense all over, muscles straining. I don't want to hear this. I don't. Instinctively, I know where it's going. At the same time, I know I can't make it stop.

"He did," I whisper. I'm staring at his back, at the line of his shoulders. His sweater looks so good on him, and his jeans on his ass are even better. He's always been mine, until recently, until I began to pull away from him. I think on this, in mute disbelief that my brother would have lied to my face like that. How naïve am I?

"He was trying to make you feel better." I can't see Riku's face. I can't see what he's thinking. I can only hear those soft, albeit firm words. Deep. Not reassuring at all. "I don't know why he would have said it, but it's a lie. I have slept with him."

"Riku, don't…" I can't listen to this. I can't. I'll fall apart, I'll—

"If I closed my eyes, I could pretend it was you…" Riku sounds a little choked now. I fight to stand my ground, to not go to him. I want to leave, too, I want to put my hands over my ears and block it all out. "I'd tell him not to say anything, because your voices are different. I'd keep the lights off. Anything that would make it seem like I wasn't fucking your brother. Anything to make it seem like you still wanted me." His laugh is a dry rasp. "It never worked, you know. No matter how hard I tried…"

I take a step back, trembling from head to toe. I want to rail against this, to protest. I feel torn. I feel angry at Riku, I feel sad for my twin. He still hasn't ever gotten what he wanted. It wasn't like he was imagining it at all, I know that much. God, that must have cut him so deep.

"So the truth comes out," Axel purrs in my ear. As usual, I shiver when he's this close to me. He's so cold. He's death looming on the horizon. Images flicker before my mind's eye, Riku crying in the pew, Riku curled up with his phone, listening to my voice message over and over.

My eyes clench shut. "Who started it?" I breathe. "Did he, or—"

"I did." Riku exhales noisily.

No, don't, don't—

don't, i don't want to listen

please don't tell me

please

"Every time."

-o-o-

I left my jacket inside, my scarf, my trapper, my gloves. The wind slaps cold against my face as I fling the front door open and fly down the steps at a straight run. Ice is slick on the driveway, covered in slush, and I slip but catch my bearings a moment later. I make it to the mailbox, then the sidewalk, and from there, I've got nothing to stop me, nothing to obstruct my path.

My lungs burn, protest. A cramp develops in my side. I'm so out of shape. I focus on the pain, letting it give me more energy. I use it to run faster. I can't stop. I can't let the agony eating at my heart steal me away. I have to shake this off. I have to make it. I've got hours left to go. It can't all end now.

Riku instigated every session with Roxas. Roxas never told him no. Riku was using Roxas as a replacement for me when I couldn't give him what he wanted, and Roxas let him. Riku's words ring in my head, that there's no excuse for what he did, and I want to believe them right then, because it hurts so much, what he told me. It hurts so fucking much.

I ache for me. I ache for Roxas. I want to throw something, smash something. I want to do something crazy, wild. Anything to escape the reality of what he did. It hurts more now than seeing that picture of the two of them embracing did. That's what started all of this. That stupid, stupid picture. And now I'm—

Unable to run any longer, I stumble against a tree. I've gone out of the neighborhood into a patch of woods blanketed in snow, and here I let all my grief out. I cry, I rail against the world. The bare branches spin above me, a cage against the sky, and I slump down the bark of my post until I'm curled up at its base. Snow seeps into my jeans. It's cold here, so cold. My face feels flushed from my tears and wind-chapped both.

Why did he tell me that? All of those things? I don't have to know them, I don't. Does it make him feel better, to unload himself like that? To devastate me like that? Does he want me to hate him? Does he want me to push him away? Does he think he doesn't deserve my forgiveness? Does it make him feel guilty?

Good! He should feel guilty! He should hate what he's done to me!

The sobs won't stop coming. I can't breathe. I can't think. I just want to curl up into a ball out here and die in the cold where no one can find me. I want this to be over. It's too painful. It's worse now. It feels like someone has scraped my heart raw with blunt knives. I can't make it go away. I can't shake it off. I can't forget.

I can't forget.

-o-o-

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Axel leans on the tree across from me, his arms folded. His hood is back up, and his voice is impassive. I stay curled up, my arms around my knees, my forehead resting on them. "You knew it would. Yet you pressed, anyway."

I try to ignore him, to shut him out. I don't know why he's rubbing my face in it. I know I can't make him go away, so I don't bother trying.

"So you see, giving him to Roxas won't help, anyway. Even when he was with your brother, all he really wanted was you. That probably kills him, doesn't it? Roxy, I mean."

I don't have the energy to tell him not to call Roxas that. I stay mute. I want it all to go away, and I don't know how to make it so. The conversation with Riku, the revelation, keeps replaying in my head, over and over, like a badly recorded film.

Death lets out a long breath, a very drawn out sigh. "Well, at least you'll go to your grave knowing the truth. And Riku will live his next few years layered in guilt for what he pushed you to do. He'll tell himself that he shouldn't have said anything, that he should have kept it to himself, if it kept you alive."

Go away, go away, go away!

"Then, once he's tired of feeling guilty, he'll tell himself that there wasn't anything wrong in saying the truth, that it was better that you knew it instead of the two of you living in a lie. He'll move on, find happiness with someone else, resolve not to lie or cheat ever again, and that'll be the end of it."

"You're just Death," I hear myself say hollowly. "You can't tell the future."

"But oh, contraire." Axel pushes away from the tree. "It doesn't take a physic to see the obvious. It's all happened dozens of times before. I'm no stranger to it. I claim everyone in the end eventually. No one escapes me. I see their life stories. I'm with you in the beginning, you know?"

"Why, because we're dying from the moment we're born?" I lift my head. "Maybe I should just go ahead and end this early."

"You could," he replies. "It'd be easier, wouldn't it?"

I look away. Nothing about this is easy. It never has been.

"It's up to you." He flicks his wrist, taps it. There's no watch there. "It is now 6:30 in the evening," he says. "Tick tock, tick tock." He vanishes, leaving me alone in the surrounding dark.

-o-o-

I come back inside, frozen stiff. Mom and Dad are home now. The former takes one look at me and ushers me to the bathroom.

"I've been worried sick!" she says. "Riku said you just rushed out. Go on, take a bath, dinner is almost ready. We can eat when you get out." She rubs my arms all the way upstairs. "You're like ice, Sora. What were you thinking? It's too cold out there! Not even a jacket on… surprised you didn't get frostbite… your pants are soaked…"

Numbly, I let her guide me. When I'm alone in the bathroom, I strip, the movements almost mechanical, purely functional, and I get the hot water running. I stare at it for some time, perched on the edge of the tub, thinking.

Well, look at the bright side, Sora, I think. When you're dead, you won't have to deal with this anymore. No. The nightmare will just get worse.

The water from the bath soaks into my bones. It's still not enough, not nearly enough. There's a chill in my heart that won't go away. I pull the drain, towel off, shivering in the cool air, wrap that towel around my waist, and head to my room.

Riku sits up on my bed, staring at me. In seconds, he's climbed over the edge of it and is walking toward me. He stops just centimeters from me, searching my eyes, clearly wanting to touch me and making himself not. Not until he knows what I'm thinking.

"I tried to follow you," he says. "But by the time I got downstairs, you were long gone."

I don't say anything.

"Sora… I shouldn't have said it to you like that…" he whispers, dropping his eyes. "I don't know what I was thinking… I guess I—"

"You felt guilty." My voice is only a rasp, and I clear it so I can speak louder, at a normal tone. "It's okay, Riku. I mean—until Roxas said you didn't have sex, I'd assumed you had. I just didn't want to know about it."

"No, I shouldn't have—"

"Stop!" I say. I surprise both of us with how loud it is. I hold up a hand. "I can't keep arguing about this forever. I'm tired. I don't want to think about it anymore." I don't have any more time to waste on it. "Okay? So just… stop… I forgive you. I still forgive you."

"Sora…"

"No." I walk over to my suitcase to get a fresh change of clothes. "Tell Mom I'll be right down."

"But I—"

"Riku, do you want to be together or not?" I throw my clothes down on my bed, suddenly livid. Why the hell does he keep doing this to me? I feel like we're constantly on a see saw, and I've had enough of it! "Tell me now, or stop driving me crazy!"

"I'm driving you crazy?" Riku's eyes blaze as he straightens to his full height, rigid with defensiveness. "Sora, I can't tell what's going on with you half the time anymore! First, you shut me out for months, and now suddenly you want to be with me again! I can't keep my head straight around you! It's one thing, then it's another, and you won't tell me what's up!"

"Oh, but I suppose that's worse than going and fucking your twin brother!" I scream the words, incensed. My hand clings onto my towel so it won't drop. "Yeah, Riku, I'm different! Maybe I realized I screwed up, and I needed to make it up to you! Is that such a damn crime?"

"It's not a crime! I just can't figure out why you suddenly want me again!"

"I've wanted you this whole time! I just didn't realize how I was acting until now!"

"And you just realized this out of the blue! Really? C'mon, Sora, don't feed me crap like that—"

"No! I didn't just see it out of the blue!" I'm treading on dangerous ground. I know I have to walk carefully. But we're up in each other's faces, hollering at the top of our lungs, and it's hard to keep my head on straight. "Someone gave me a picture of you and Roxas together!"

He stumbles back a step, breathless. "What?"

"That's right, Riku." I'm not shouting anymore, but my voice still wavers. "You were seen."

"Who?" he demands immediately, closing in on me again. "Who saw us?"

"It doesn't matter!" I yell. "What matters is that it made me realize that I was pushing you away! Yeah, I was pissed at first, but I got over it! I just want to get over this!" Tears rise all at once, and I curse and turn away from him. "God, Riku, I said I forgive you. What's it going to take to get you to believe me?"

"No, Sora—Sora, don't cry…" Riku touches my arm. I draw away. "I just—I didn't understand, I thought…"

I sniffle and wipe my face. I've never cried so much in my life until four days ago. "I'm over it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Not tonight." Not ever again.

He pulls me into him, and I don't resist. I rest my head on his chest and wish times were better. He soothes my hair and whispers apologies into my hair. I don't think this is over. He'll bring it up again later, or he plans to. But it's a dangerous road we walk, treacherous and waiting to lead us away from the right path. He has to proceed with caution. He can't bullhead his way through this like he does everything else.

"Change, and we'll go eat," he whispers. "Okay?"

I snuffle and nod. My throat hurts from all the yelling. I ache all over from the cold. My eyes feel swollen with crying. Things were going so good with Riku. I should have known it wouldn't last until I die. There's a lot of pain between us. It's not going to go away overnight. It'll lurk down, hide, and wait for a chance to spring forward. It won't go away. Only time can ease those sorts of wounds. It's time I don't have.

Riku.

I'm sorry.

He'll never get to put into words everything he wants to say to me, everything that needs to be said.

-o-o-

Mom looks awkward when we arrive in the kitchen. She's not the type to eavesdrop, so I'm sure she doesn't know what we were hollering about, but I know she heard the hollering nonetheless. No doubt everyone did. Roxas is already seated at the table, and Dad is clearing away a few ingredients that were used in the cooking.

It's steaks for tonight, with baked potatoes, green beans, and rolls. The scent of the meat hits my nostrils, and I realize how positively ravenous I am. I haven't eaten since lunch, and then that run through the neighborhood and accompanying woods… not to mention all the crying.

We bow our heads and say grace, and then we dig in. Throughout the meal, Mom chitters on about her day to the rest of us. Dad keeps the conversation flowing, and Roxas chips in from time to time. Riku and I are silent, eyes down, focused on our plates. He clears his away first, mine a short second. We sit there for the remainder of the meal while everyone else finishes, our gazes meeting only once and then darting away.

I don't know how to make this better. I don't know how to make the awkwardness go away. Realistically, I can't. It's a terrible feeling, to know that, to be so helpless. Axel's right. I pushed, and this is the end result.

Eventually, my gaze settles on Roxas. I will him to look at me. He doesn't. I have so many things to ask him—first and foremost, why he lied to me about sleeping with Riku. Was he trying to spare me? The truth would come out eventually… Maybe he was trying to cause trouble later between Riku and myself. I have no way of knowing. I have no way of knowing if he'll even tell me the truth when I confront him about it.

Everyone finishes eating, and we start to clear off the table. It's then that Mom suggests a board game for us to play.

"I can't," Roxas says quickly. "I was going to go out."

Mom blinks and sets the dirty dishes down in the sink. She turns on the faucet and drops her attention to getting them ready to place in the dishwasher. "Go out where? It's almost eight."

My heart jerks at the mention of that. It's almost eight. Four hours.

"Yeah, I know. I want to go and get a drink or something. It was a long week at work, and I still haven't managed to calm down from it yet." Roxas does jingles for infomercials. It pays him handsomely, though I suppose with the holiday season, he's been up to his ears in musical work.

"Oh. Well… you're not going by yourself, are you?" Mom looks over her shoulder at me. "Sora, you go with hi—"

"Can't," I say quickly, and I push away from the table. "My medicine." Mom reflects on that for a moment, nodding distractedly. Smoothly, I put my hand on Riku's shoulder and pat it. "Riku's going to go, though. There's been some pretty bad homicides at the department lately. He needs a few shots, too." I'm pulling that out of my ass, but it isn't too far of a stretch. Besides, neither boy is stupid enough to argue about the matter in front of my mother.

They exchange a glance, and then turn their attention on me. I grin disarmingly, ignore them, and go over to my mother.

"But I'll play a board game with you, Mom. How about Scattergories?"

I'm the best at it. No one knows words better in this household than I do.

-o-o-

I run upstairs to get the game. All of the board games are in my closet, on the top shelf, as I was the one who always wanted to play them most. That, and Mom's a packrat, so it's really the only place for them to go and not take up space elsewhere. Scattergories is on the very top, though, and I groan. That's going to be a bitch to get down.

Riku steps up behind me, lifts up onto his tiptoes, and pulls it down easily. The contents of the box rattle, and I hear the timer start to tick. He hands me the box wordlessly, then pushes me gently aside so he can reach his clothes. I kill time by taking off the box lid to find the timer and turn it off, but even when I'm done with that, he's still not said a word to me.

"Don't be mad," I whisper. "I asked you to do this for me before we fought."

"I'll go," he says. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it, Sora."

Fair enough. I let the matter drop and head downstairs to deliver my parents the game. They've already got the kitchen table set up, I see as I make my way toward it—only to stifle a yelp as I'm suddenly violently pulled into another room. The world spins, and when it clears a second later, it's because Roxas has let me go and I can orient myself.

The darkness of the dining room cloaks us, and Roxas leans in to hiss at me. "I told you I don't want Riku to come with me."

"Well, too bad," I hiss back. "Maybe you should have thought better about lying to me, and karma wouldn't be biting you on the ass right now." Annoyed, I shove away from him. I make it to the doorway before he wrenches his hand in the back of my shirt and pulls me backward. I flail, the box almost sliding out of my hands.

"Tell him not to come—to feign illness or something, I don't care what it is. I don't want him to come."

Good freaking grief. I right myself, hold the box to my chest, and fling my foot out at his shins. He darts away, deeper into the shadows. "Knock it off, Roxas. It's Christmastime. Don't be Scrooge. The two of you can spend a few hours together and make it back in one piece."

"You don't get it, do you?" Roxas blows out a long, frustrated breath, and I watch as he fists his hair.

"I get it just fine. He used you for sex, you're still in love with him, we're back together now, and being with him is super painful. I get it." Roxas is silent, so I know I've surprised him. I take a few steps forward, until we're toe to toe. "Now imagine what it felt like for me to find out that my boyfriend was sleeping with my twin brother. Think on it hard… hold onto it…" I let the words hang for a moment, and then I lower my voice to a whisper. "Feeling guilty? Great. Enjoy your evening out."

Roxas snags a hold of my arm. He's gripping me so tightly that it pinches. I hiss in a breath between my teeth. "Sora, don't—"

"No, Roxas." I disentangle myself from him as firmly as I can without doing him bodily injury. "You can do this for me."

"I'm not sorry for what I—"

I twist my fingers and thunk him on the forehead. He shuts up, clutching his head. "You are sorry. You hate every minute of it, because it's not what you thought it'd be. He used you. He used you again and again, and in the end, he still doesn't love you. You wouldn't have wasted your time if you had known that."

He sniffs, and I know I've gotten to him for the first time in four days, really gotten to him.

I touch his shoulder. "I don't know why you lied to me, but I forgive you, Roxas." I know what it's like to be so in love with Riku that you're blinded to everything else.

I step away again, and he doesn't stop me. Leaving him alone with his grief, I finish my trip to the kitchen. I have to squint against the light, since it's so bright in here. Much better than that gloomy dining room.

"You ready to play?" Mom asks me, pens already laid out on the table. We lost the pencils that came with the game a while ago.

"Yup." I pull out a chair and get settled in.

-o-o-

Riku and Roxas leave without stopping into the kitchen to say good-bye for the evening. Mom comments on the rudeness of that, and I don't say anything at all. It's nothing more than a mutter, anyway, so as not to distract us as the timer ticks. We've got words to think of, and with the letter J standing upright on the dice, we need all the brainpower we can get.

We go on to play a few more rounds, and then Dad announces it's time for them to get ready for bed. I glance at the clock and see that it's close to ten-thirty. I bite back a protest. I want to delay what's going to happen to me, but I can't. It's better that they're going to sleep. This way, I can leap off the balcony with no one to stop me.

I tell them to go on ahead, that I'll put the game back up. Mom kisses me goodnight, Dad claps me on the shoulder, and they both amble out of the kitchen. I stare after them, a lump in my throat. It's the last time I'll ever see them, and I close my eyes to sear the last couple of hours into my memory.

Mom, as she laughs as she makes up words and we both veto her. Dad, lips pursed in contemplation, pen moving furiously over his paper. The timer making both of them curse and look at each other and laugh. Mom's bright eyes as I surprise them with a good word. Dad's round where he gets only four answers filled in and Mom teases him constantly.

I open my eyes again, my lashes wet, and pile everything back into the box. A glance out the window reveals that snow is falling again. I think about how I'll be covered in a fine layer of it before I'm discovered. Like a candle being snuffed, my happiness evaporates, and I turn off the kitchen lights and head upstairs after my parents.

Light peers under the crack of their door. I pause outside of it, press my hand to the wood. I can hear their muffled voices from the inside as they get ready for bed. Smiling, I draw my fingers away and head back down the hallway to my room, which I passed on the way there.

I don't bother putting the box back up on the shelf. Screw that. I'm not tall enough. Someone else can do it later. I contemplate pulling open my laptop and surfing the Internet and then discard the idea. Why bother? I won't be able to concentrate, anyway.

I lay down on the bed and twist to face my alarm clock. It's 10:45. Nice. Mostly only an hour left to live my life. I find myself thinking about how I wish Riku wasn't mad at me, how he should have stepped into the kitchen to say good-bye. We could have kissed… hugged… something…

I love you, I think.

I'm expecting Axel to show up, and he never does. He's absent, and the silence and the darkness of the house swallow me. My eyes droop. I force them open, blinking rapidly. I can't afford to fall asleep. I can't miss it. I think about setting the alarm. No, that'll just make too much noise when it goes off. Not that it'd wake my parents. Still, I leave it alone.

The next hour oozes past. It's the longest one I've ever experienced. When I did this before, I hadn't timed it. I just went upstairs, looked down below, thought of how miserable my life was, and jumped with barely a second thought. Over, just like that. This time, it won't be so simple.

I marvel at how easily I threw all of this away. I was—am—such a weakling.

The clock says, finally, that it's midnight.

Easing in a breath, letting it out super slow, I roll off the bed and move over to the window. I don't hesitate. I unlatch the doors, push them open, swallow when frigid air blasts into my face. It's then, as I reach the balcony railing, that I hear the front door open and slam close again.

No—they're home already?

My heart pounding even harder now, I press myself up against the balcony, as close as I can get without going over it. The backyard is a long drop down, and I close my eyes against it as vertigo threatens to make me waver. I'll go headfirst, I think. That way, I risk more than a broken ankle or something. It's all about how you land, really.

"It's time, kiddo," Death whispers, and I find myself smiling. I knew he'd show up eventually. "We've got to go. You ready?"

I'll never be ready. I nod, anyway.

The staircase creaks. The wood is old, so even when you're trying to sneak up them, you can't manage completely. There's a thump, and a hiss to be quiet. "No, you be quiet," Roxas says, more loudly.

It's time. I can't afford to linger anymore.

"Now!" Axel hisses.

Good-bye, Riku.

I love you.

I climb over the railing, and I'm over the side. Death's sweet embrace waits for me below.