Wish You Were Here

Disclaimers: Kingdom Hearts © Disney and Square Enix; Wish You Were Here © Incubus; everything else © their original/rightful owners.

Ratings/Warnings: K+/T for morbid themes. Major spoilers if you don't know what happens at the end of Kingdom Hearts 1. (But really, who doesn't know?)

A/N: I entered this into SakuraCon '09's fanfiction contest (theme: Surprising Events), and I'm pretty sure I got Grand Prize because I was runner-up, but the winner wasn't present which made me Grand Prize winner. 8D (At least, that's what the rules were. At this point an official list has not been posted, and someone is claiming to be Grand Prize winner, so it's not crystal clear at the moment...but whatever, hahah.)

This is kind of a "what-if" fanfic, altering the ending to Kingdom Hearts 1. And that's about all I can say without explaining the whole damn thing, and what's the point in reading if you already know what happens? xP

Note: Candy Boy is still up and running; no hiatus on that. I'm just posting my entry. (Chapter 16 is up tonight!)

I dig my toes into the sand. The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket.

"It gets kind of chilly out here after the sun begins to set."

"Mm."

There's a sharp sigh from beside him--not spiteful, but fed-up all the same. Riku cuts a glance to the side, observes the boy beside him for a moment before his eyes flicker forward and settle once again on the pastel clouds stretching across the horizon. The light sparkles on the surface of the ocean and the colors bloom throughout the sky in soothing ribbons of pink, orange, red, and yellow--and farther up, fading into pale purple and blue where the night sky is bleeding through.

Sora sits on the arched trunk of the paopu tree; it's the oldest on the island, long and sturdy. It's also Riku's favorite, dangling out over the edge of the island bluff. They used to swing off the upper branch into the water below, when they were younger (and sometimes they'd still done it when they were older).

It is getting pretty chilly on the little island a mile off the southern coast of Destiny Islands. The sun is sinking below the ocean and stars are beginning to peek through the atmosphere above; there are birds calling and waves whispering, and beside him, Riku can hear Sora breathing. Soft and gentle. And, listening, Riku's lashes droop to half-mast and he can see the way Sora's chest rises and falls with each comfortable breath; can almost imagine how it would feel if Sora was leaning against him and his breastbone was rising and falling against Riku's side.

"I bet you're cold."

Riku shakes his head, staring down at his feet. "Nah," he dismisses in a sigh, "I'm fine. I'm used to it."

Sora scoots closer, and Riku knows the silence of his devious smile. He's grown to sense the nuances that signal Sora's mischievous moods, his attempts at coy stealth. He can feel Sora moving closer, inching his way along the trunk of the paopu tree with the shadow of a grin on his face, eyes deep and intense with concentration. He'd done it a million times before, pretending to be innocent but having more subtle motives in mind. It was as typical and adorable as any other first move made in the history of dating.

"Are you cold?" Riku counters, sounding nonchalant on purpose. In fact, it's hard to keep the smirk off his face. He knows Sora. He knows Sora well. And he knows that Sora is insisting it's too chilly because Sora wants to share body heat. Sora likes to share body heat.

Sora doesn't respond; he chuckles, light and crafty, and Riku can smell him now, he's so close. Riku stands patiently, arms crossed, and the small breeze that is drifting around the island carries Sora's boyish sweetness on its back to Riku's nose. Sweet and sun-kissed, but sharp with the spice of his body spray, the clean tang of his hair.

"Are you cold?" Riku repeats. He turns to look at Sora, turns to solidify the image he's conjured of the brunette's dopey grin, dark blue eyes in little slits because of the greatness of his glee. It's the face that Riku has come to know over the last ten years or so, the face he's come to store in the back of his heart.

But it's not Sora beside him, sitting on the tree. Instead, a different boy is peering at him, only reminiscent of the cherub Riku keeps secret in the recesses of his emotional memory--still the same in the corners of his face but utterly different in numerous other ways. His hair is dirty blonde, his eyes are a different shade of blue, and his expression is a more acerbic rendition of Sora's blithe one.

Roxas is peering at him, concerned in a profound way, concerned because he is somehow obliged to be and yet is still honestly worried. Of course he isn't cold, Riku realizes, gaze flicking up and down the boy perched beside him on the tree. He's wearing a leather coat, after all--and beneath that, even more layers of dark fabric.

As Riku's chimerical afternoon with Sora fades away on the breeze, he feels his chest tighten. It feels as though something has clamped around his torso and is constricting with horrendous malice. It's painful, rotten, and sickening; it makes his eyes sting and his knees quake with the raw emotion of it all. It's not the first time he's felt this knot in his chest; oh, no, it's familiar by now, and just as hard to bear each time. It's a sense of helplessness, of injustice, of loss and rage and love and fear all at once.

Roxas seems to notice the change in his eyes, reaches to touch Riku's shoulder but reconsiders as a voice rings out from the wooden walkway connecting the island bluff to the shores:

"Riku! Look at all the shells I found!"

Riku twists to look over his shoulder, grateful for the distraction from his blurring vision and clenching throat. He just doesn't feel up to mourning anymore; he is eager for anything to pay more attention to than his heartache. Perhaps that's the weak way out, but it isn't as though he has anyone to tell him otherwise.

Kairi trots across the little bridge, skirt flapping on her slender thighs as the ocean breeze picks up again; trailing after her is another boy dressed in all black, tall and lanky and seemingly uninterested even though he keeps an unwavering eye trained on the girl at all times. Beside Riku, Roxas huffs a delicate sigh, and Riku can sense him shrinking away now that the other two have returned--shrinking away mentally and physically.

"You guys ready to head back to the castle now?" The boy flanking Kairi's side rakes his fingers through the starburst of deep red hair slicked back off his face. "It's getting late, and I'm not too keen on listening to another lecture about 'curfews' and crap from the big guy."

Roxas slides off the paopu tree and Riku follows, silver hair dancing in and out of his vision as he shuffles through the sand, destroying the tracks the blonde boy makes ahead of him; they meet the other two at the mouth of the wooden walkway and Riku notes that it's really starting to get cold now. The bedroom they'd assigned him sounds better and better as the seconds tick by.

"Show me your shells, Kai," he murmurs softly, nudging Kairi's shoulder with his own. She looks at him, startled by his honest interest, then breaks into a poor imitation of her radiant smile. She holds a little shell up for Riku to see as they trail the two boys in black uniforms, making sure he can view it before they step into a portal and the light is temporarily dimmed.

"This one is a really pretty blue," she says. "It reminds me of--"

"Sora's eyes. I know." Riku laughs, but it's manufactured. Just going through the motions of having emotions. "Every time we go to the island, you pick up the same kind of shell and tell me the same thing. 'This one is a really pretty blue. It reminds me of Sora's eyes'. Seriously, Kairi, I probably have enough on my dresser to fill an entire bucket by now."

I lean against the wind. Pretend that I am weightless. And in this moment, I am happy. I am happy.

It was more than surprising. It was life-altering, heart-wrenching, beautiful and terrifying and, ultimately, it is done. Unchangeable and irreversible, and it doesn't stop haunting him, lying awake in a pseudo guest bed. They are just children after all, and after a few futile events of retaliation, Ansem's Nobody has concluded that they are not a threat and their rooms are a portion of the freedom given to them therein--freedom, albeit disgraced. Because they are merely bait, their very hearts attracting sacrifices to Kingdom Hearts's altar while they amble feebly around the castle. Riku accepts this now, and he's gotten Kairi to accept it, too.

They'd found them in Hollow Bastion, empty-eyed and empty-stomached and empty-handed, he and Kairi huddled together behind the main stairwell. And they hadn't hesitated at all; they'd collected the two children left behind by the chaos and brought them back to Castle Oblivion, their sympathy just dripping with sarcasm and bad humor. And Riku and Kairi had become the Organization's captives a day and a half after Sora had been swallowed by Darkness; a day and a half after Riku had, in a frenetic reaction to Sora's demise, slain his demon--Ansem, Seeker of Darkness; a day and a half after Kairi had clung to him bawling uncontrollably and they'd crawled behind the staircase and stayed there, reduced to a child's vision of womb-like security.

The Organization is civilized, but they are not empathetic. They can be complete jerks and are proud of it. But they give their prisoners food, rooms, and clean clothes; they are otherwise given the liberty of walking the floors freely and can leave the castle as long as a Nobody flunky is at their side. They treat their captives amiably but there is always a trace of contempt. Their leader, eerily similar to Ansem but somehow more tolerable, rubs their losses in their faces--sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not--to fuel their ill will. Perhaps in hopes of using it to benefit his "Kingdom Hearts". Riku has told Kairi to not let it get to her when he tells them their savior is dead, when he laughs at their sadness and mocks whatever vengeance may still exist in the pits of their chests. He scoffs at their anger, frowns at their smiles, and stares at them as if they are the most interesting pets he's ever stumbled across.

Maybe at one time, his and Kairi's hearts could have been useful to this morbid organization of facsimile beings--but after the course of a few months, their hearts have weakened into a collection of memories and longings, and the only way Riku can acknowledge he's still alive is how his shallow breathing moves his chest. And with that, he has to take care of her. Sora would want him to take care of her.

He has trouble going to sleep, lying alone tangled in the bed sheets he doesn't want to call his own. They're crisp and clean and white, but they are suffocatingly so. They make him feel like a legitimate prisoner because they are alien and not homey at all. The room is not homey. The clothes they were given are not homey. The people are not homey. Everything is pale, bleak, and empty.

Hollow Bastion, in front of the last keyhole. Kairi had been unconscious. Nearly comatose, in fact. A Heartless. And Sora had been doing what he did best--thinking of other people before himself. Riku had been struggling for control over his own conscience, possessed by the demon that was to blame for all of this, but before he had been able to scream for Sora to wait, to pause, to give him a second chance, Sora had seen Riku's blade lying there. And he'd used it to unlock his heart.

He doesn't want to fight them. At first he did. At first he wanted to, but he never had the actual will to do so. The angry stage of his mourning is weak and fragile, just as numb as all the other stages--excepting the grief, of course. The grief is the most painful, the most persistent. Kairi doesn't want to fight, either. She cried a lot the first couple weeks, but after that she began to spend more time with the younger girls of the Organization--little blonde Naminé, and Xion, the Nobody who could very well be Kairi's twin. She started to mend herself together with their help, and Riku thinks that it's easier for her because she wasn't connected to Sora like he was. To him, just knowing he's gone--knowing how and why things got to that point--is Death itself.

Riku curls into a ball, buries his face into the Organization's plain sheets. His insomniac mind relives the scene over and over until the dam breaks and he can't be strong anymore. He doesn't want to be; has no reason to be. He cries because it's his fault, because it's Sora's fault, because it's Kairi's fault. Because it's done, it was so unexpected and shouldn't have happened like it did, but it's done and Sora is gone. A Heartless, perhaps. Somewhere.

I wish you were here.

Nobodies are created when a strong heart becomes a Heartless. They are the recycled parts of the deceased heart, the leftover portions like memories and thoughts and appearances. And just as Xion (the fourteenth member and greatly similar to Kairi) remembers Destiny Islands, Roxas remembers, too. He remembers Sora's life. He has his memories and it's both a blessing and a haunting. Roxas asks him questions sometimes, and Riku doesn't mind talking. But sometimes the talking turns into something else, a verbal ache.

Roxas almost looks the same, almost sounds the same, almost has the same mannerisms and stature and his laugh is almost as exhilarating, but Roxas is not Sora. Riku has to face this every day when the blonde boy aims for some kind of interaction, and normally around the time Riku begins to allow himself the liberties of getting lost in the perfect blue of such familiar eyes, Roxas breaks his trance and brings him back to the reality of this bad, bad dream.

Riku wonders if Roxas is kind to him because he's supposed to be. Because even though he's different from the rest of them, he's still a Nobody. Sometimes Riku considers whether or not the sly look in Roxas's eyes is the same sparkle he used to see in Sora's--a simple mischief--or if it's a more covert kind of delight. A spy's delight. Maybe even a little boy's delight, a little boy with a doll that is all his own, pitied by others but sympathized by him and completely under his emotional control.

Riku then tries to remind himself of the good in people, but he usually has to toss that effort because it brings back far too many memories of a far too munificent heart.

I lay my head onto the sand. The sky resembles a backlit canopy with holes punched in it. I'm counting UFOs. I signal them with my lighter. And in this moment, I am happy.

Roxas's nose is warm and soft, pressed into the nape of Riku's neck. Eyes shut, the silver-haired boy leans against the wall of his bedroom, the blonde's arms tightening around his waist. His body is warm--a bit smaller, scrawnier, but Riku can feel his latent muscles beneath the cloth of his shirt. It's familiar, from the feel of his frame to the scent of his skin, to the unruly hair poking him in the eye. Familiar enough that Riku can relax, just a little.

"I'm sorry," Roxas whispers, warm and soft on the lobe of Riku's ear. "I just make it harder to bear, don't I?"

Riku thinks about it. He thinks about Roxas having Sora's memories, about Roxas being so taken by Riku since the first day they'd met, about the way Roxas looks at him and smiles at him and talks to him, about whether or not Roxas has the guts to be clandestine and cruel with his secondhand affections in the first place.

"Not really," Riku murmurs.

There's a silence for a few moments before Roxas asks, mild and composed, "Do you like to pretend I'm him?"

Riku doesn't have to think hard about this one. "Sometimes, yeah."

"How can you do that?"

Roxas's mood shifts like an emotional fault-line, sharp and without warning, but Riku takes it as blasé as ever. "Easily. How can you play around with my head, rubbing his memories in my face?"

Roxas grits his teeth, glaring at the silver-haired prisoner that his arms are around. "Easily," he spits in return, too disconcerted to find anything clever for his response.

"Roxas, you probably just tell Xemnas how weak and stupid I am, falling for your little act of compassion."

"I am not that cold-hearted! And Xemnas...Xemnas wouldn't be either. He just wants us all to feel alive--"

"You're not that cold-hearted because you're just a Nobody." Riku shrugs, watching as Roxas recoils an inch or so. He notices that Roxas's eyes look like shards of ice when he's upset. Sora's looked like stormy water. "But there's hardly a difference between you and I anymore, Roxas. I'm practically a Nobody by now, too. Stuck between dark and light, not really feeling alive."

Roxas does something then that Riku doesn't understand at the moment, but will later, later when Axel confronts him in the hallway--Roxas flings his arms around Riku's neck, abrupt enough to knock the taller boy's head against the wall, and then the blonde crashes his mouth into Riku's in a lip-smashing kiss. Riku grunts, eyes widening; he thinks, He just wants to feel what he remembers, what he remembers Sora felt for me, but he never will.

And within five seconds, Riku's bedroom door is flung open and Roxas is running off down the hallway.

I wish you were here.

"Get over him."

Riku blinks, expression slipping out of its carefully aligned glower and into one of true disbelief. "What?" he breathes, turning and frowning up at the Nobody looming over him.

"Don't play dumb," Axel sneers. "Just do it. Get over him. Sora's gone, Riku. He's not coming back. And he's certainly not alive in Roxas."

Riku's jaw drops open a bit, the clouds in his eyes shifting with the dawn of realization. He's not sure how Roxas's haphazard management of his own emotions played out to create this situation--Riku being at fault and all--but somewhere along the way, the game of telephone has twisted the truth again. Riku frowns. "It's not like that, Axel."

"You don't think I know that?!" Axel cries, flinging both hands into the air in exasperation. "Roxas is one screwed up kid, I know that. He's got a demented moral system and he's impulsive, yeah, but he's also young. Naïve. Imagine being naïve in the midst of the Organization, Riku. He's gonna follow his elders' examples of manipulation, alright? Got it?"

"I get it..."

"Roxas has Sora's memories, but that doesn't make him Sora. It makes him vulnerable to the ghost of those memories, the presence of those emotions, the trace of those thoughts. These 'ghosts of memories' are susceptible to reminders like you, just like your feelings are susceptible to his similarities to your little boyfriend."

"I--that's not--"

"You know what I'm talking about, kid. And it's not fair to you, and it's not fair to him."

"What are you getting at?"

"I'm getting at this, so commit it to your damn memory, alright, Riku? Roxas is not Sora. Roxas is Roxas. And he's mine. You can understand that logic, right?"

And it hits him then, suddenly. Riku gets it; he gets it all. It's as if a flower of recognition is abruptly blooming before his eyes, and it's all so perplexing but so, so enlightening. Axel feels for Roxas just as Riku did--does--for Sora. Roxas and Axel are Nobodies, so maybe that means Nobodies aren't empty in the heart after all. Sora is a Heartless, somewhere in some world, one of the many that are slowly being conquered by the Organization in their quest for Kingdom Hearts. Sora's memories belong to Roxas now, and Roxas belongs to Axel. Riku and Kairi belong to the Organization, luring Heartless and strong hearts to Kingdom Hearts while they are held hostage in the castle, waiting for something to happen, waiting for a change that will never come.

The world's a rollercoaster and I am not strapped in.

The soles of Roxas's boots clack on the pristine floor as he moves across the corridor to where Riku sits on the stairs leading up to the fourteenth level, waiting for Kairi to leave Xion's company and join his. The blonde stops a few inches away and Riku can feel the tension burning the air between them; but when he looks up, he finds Roxas more sheepish than grudging, absolutely awkward and embarrassed and utterly apologetic. Riku can't deny the look in his eyes, so he sighs and props his chin in his palm and says, "I hope you're not going to blame me for...whatever happened in my room."

"I'm not. That was me. That was completely, totally me."

"Mm, and maybe a little bit of Sora."

Roxas scoffs, a kind little sound below his breath. "Whatever. Listen, Riku, I... I'm sorry for making his absence even harder for you."

"So I take it you know Axel and I had a little chat," Riku grunts off-handedly, and Roxas suddenly becomes more flustered than ever--enough so for Riku to honestly believe everything Axel has told him. The blonde boy begins to shuffle from foot to foot, blushing in shame, and Riku rolls his shoulders in a limp shrug, even smiles faintly at Roxas's bashfulness. Roxas chuckles then, nervously, not knowing what to say in return, and Riku's smile broadens a bit because he understands. It's kind of a truce, he supposes. It's easy to come to terms now with the fact that the blonde boy is himself and no-one else, and in spite of any amount of memories and their power, that's not changing. And maybe it's easier to grasp now because Riku understands what it's like to look at someone and think, They're mine.

The silver-haired boy, in the silence that follows, mulls over a thought that has been nibbling at his mind for quite some time now. Finally, he asks, "Roxas... What, exactly, is Kingdom Hearts?"

Roxas blinks, dark lashes fluttering on deep blue eyes. "...I'm not entirely sure. Xemnas says it's going to benefit us, though. That our organization will be government of all the worlds. But, primarily, he says it will make us feel alive again. All the beings without hearts... It will give us meaning."

Riku observes Roxas's solemn face--every curve and every angle, every piece of Sora's that remains hidden there--and after that and a quick deliberation, he nods, smiles, and makes up his mind.

Maybe I should hold with care, but my hands are busy in the air.

Riku pushes through the broad doors to the Organization's meeting hall, steeling his exterior for the stares that are going to hit him the moment he steps onto the center platform. He's interrupting their meeting; he knows that. He also knows that this is his only chance to properly approach their Superior.

His bare feet whisper against the polished face of the floor and he thinks that finally, he is making the right move. He's not sure what he's getting himself into, but it's something to occupy his stranded hopes. He climbs the steps to the platform and fourteen pairs of eyes are suddenly upon him, and that's intimidating, but Riku makes his way to the center of the floor.

He lifts his head, silver strands falling out of his face as he meets the sharp stare of the leader of the Organization. "I want to help," he says, voice ringing clear and strong in the stunned hush of the meeting hall. "I want to help you achieve your goal--Kingdom Hearts. I'll work for you, if you allow me to." Whispers start to circulate then and his gut clenches and his skin crawls anxiously; he wonders what his pals Roxas and Axel are thinking as they stare down at him. But then he thinks of Sora--how, without him, he's nothing but a Nobody, too. And if he's a Nobody and Sora's a Heartless somewhere, that makes them both beings without hearts, and that makes Kingdom Hearts a shred of hope to them just as much as the Organization. Riku feels a paper-thin smirk perk at the corners of his lips, much steadier with his newfound optimism, and his words echo in the curious silence:

"I want to feel alive again, too."

I wish you were here.

I...wish you were here.

A/N: Total inspiration for this goes to both Shinrai Faith and Incubus's Wish You Were Here.