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Title: Get Well

Author: Cold Silence

E-Mail: Cold Siience@aol.com

Pairings: Roxas + Sora, Leon + Sora.

Warnings: Shounen Ai.

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and its characters belong to Tetsuya Nomura and Square-Enix.

Comments: This fic was written for Miss Kalloway's contest. I still haven't found out if I've won anything yet. :(




Get Well


"On the house.~"

Sora gave the redheaded shopkeeper in front of him an incredulous look. When he came to Scrooge McDuck's stand for some sea salt ice cream, he was surprised to find a new employee taking the rich duck's place. Now he was even further surprised over the fact that he was being offered his favorite treat for free. Obviously this person didn't know much about his boss; Scrooge wasn't the kind of guy that liked giving freebies.

"Are you sure you want to do that? I wouldn't want you to get in trouble with Scrooge," Sora said, even though his munny bags were feeling kind of light nowadays.

"Maybe I like trouble," answered the shopkeeper with a chesire cat smile. "Besides, it's not every day that I get the one and only Keyblade Master as my customer. You should live a little kid; don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Sora thought on it a few moments and decided that it was true: he had been working pretty hard lately, and therefore he deserved free ice cream. He turned a bright smile in the shopkeeper's direction as he said, "Alright, I'll take it! But don't say I didn't warn you if you get fired."

"My being fired is the least of your worries," murmured the shopkeeper as he walked inside the frigid ice cream stand to fetch Sora's order. When he returned, his teeth were chattering and his body was shivering beneath the fleece jacket that he wore. He extended the popsicle to Sora. "Don't lose a tooth on it."

"Thanks." Sora received the treat and gave it an enthusiastic lick. The first taste was always best. "It tastes tangier today." He glanced up at the shopkeeper and found that he was at the subject of an intense green gaze. It made him uncomfortable to be stared at in that manner, so he decided that now was a good time to rejoin his friends. "I really appreciate this; my munny was kind of low, so.. I'll see ya later."

As Sora began to walk away, the shopkeeper answered in a demure tone of voice, "The things I do for you."

/The things I do for you/, echoed a distant memory. Recognition made Sora stop in his tracks. Something in his heart was sent humming with those words. "Do I know you?" he asked as he turned to face the shopkeeper, but to his surprise, there was no one in front of the stand. Sora scanned the rest of the marketplace, hoping to catch a glimpse of the tall boy with vividly red hair, but there was no sign of him.

Odd. Why did he leave? And why was he suddenly so familiar to Sora? He sucked on his popsicle as he contemplated this strange mystery. Whatever that was all about, he couldn't malinger on the details for too long; Donald and Goofy were waiting for him. So with a soft "hm" of wonderment, he left to rejoin his friends.

From the shadows, the shopkeeper watched Sora walk off, the tear shaped tattoos on his cheeks at odds with the wide grin on his face.


--------------------------------

"What took you so long?" Donald demanded when Sora finally regrouped with his companions.

"I wuz getting ish creashm." And the ice cream was so good that Sora didn't want to take it out of his mouth to speak.

Donald gestured with his scepter at the cool treat, as if he intended to zap it out of Sora's hands with a Thundaga spell. "You're gonna get fat if you keep eating that stuff."

"Ah might loosh a toosth too," added Sora with a grin.

"Ah hyuk, maybe it won't be so bad if Sora got fat. Big Bodies are fat n' they still give us a hard time," commented Goofy.

Unfortunately, Donald didn't take well to being undermined by Goofy's well-thought commentary, so he sent a lightening zap to the seat of the knight's pants to make him be quiet. Poor Goofy was launched into the air from the butt-fire.

Sora tilted his head back to watch his comrade fly high into the air. It never ceased to amaze him that Goofy was able to do that. Since this was an everyday occurrence with their trio, he saw fit to continue the conversation distractedly, "It's not like I get to eat ice cream every day." He mentally calculated the trajectory of Goofy's flight, then started walking in the direction of the Boroughs where the knight was sure to land.

Donald followed him, ranting and raving the whole time about brushing his teeth and fat heroes. A year ago, Sora would have been annoyed by the squawking voice constantly making noise in the background, but nowadays he didn't mind so much. It was almost reassuring in a way.

Was it a year ago that I met him?

His thoughts circled back to the shopkeeper. For some reason, the clothes that the redhead had been wearing bothered him. The tan colored, fleece jacket and relaxed denim jeans didn't seem right. The colors were too bright.

When heartless began to bleed up from the grounds of the residential district, Sora let go of his mental meandering. Like clockwork, Goofy fell from the sky like a rejected angel and landed directly beside him. The boy silently congratulated himself at the fact that he was getting really good at predicting the places where Goofy would fall.

In any case, it was time to get to work. Sora's lips twisted around the remnants of his popsicle in a grim smile of determination and then launched himself at the creatures of darkness. The keyblade manifested in his palms and he slanted it to the side as he planted one foot on the ground in preparation for a leap.

But something was wrong. His legs suddenly turned to jelly and a wave of nausea shot up from his stomach. The ground rushed up to his face in a fast-moving blur; the last thing he heard before he blacked out was the sound of exploding claymores and his friends yelling out his name in alarm.


--------------------------------

Hot. It was so incredibly hot. The heat was cooking his skin and his sweat was doing nothing to cool it off. Sora opened his eyes a sliver and found that he couldn't see anything beyond his own damp lashes. He barely registered that he was naked beneath a thin white sheet and that he was in someone's home. All that mattered was the cool touch of a wet towel on his forehead. "Mom," he uttered brokenly to the person assuaging his fever.

Aerith smiled down at Sora in amusement as she continued to press the rag to his forehead. "That's the second time you've called me that."

"Aerith?" Sora's eyes adjusted to the dim light and he found himself looking up at Aerith's sweet face. He felt relieved to be with someone that he could trust. "Where am I?"

"You are in my home. You were brought here after you collapsed." Aerith gave Sora a reassuring smile, one that turned worried when the Keyblade Master attempted to sit up. She placed her hands on Sora's shoulders and gently guided him back to the mattress. "Please, don't sit up Sora. You are very sick."

"Ugh." Sora shut his eyes tightly as waves of nausea kicked up with every movement. He lowered himself back to the mattress with a suffering expression. "What's wrong with me?"

"We are not sure. We have tried curing you many times, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. Merlin was here a few moments ago to examine you. Our friends are talking to him now," answered Aerith. She lightly brushed calming strokes to Sora's cheek.

"This is crazy, I can't be sick." Sora's voice was full of pleading as he looked at Aerith with wet and luminous blue eyes. "I gotta find Riku, I gotta defeat the Organization, I gotta -"

"You 'gotta' rest. You can't do much in your current state." Aerith picked damp hair from Sora's face and silently understood how hard this was for the boy. She continued in a soft voice, "I am going to see what Merlin has to say. Get some sleep, Sora."

Sora's pout at the mere mention of sleep made Aerith smile. Thankfully, she didn't have to go too far to rejoin the meeting with Merlin; they were in the living room of her home, so it was a simple matter of walking out of the guestroom to rejoin them.

Already gathered were Cid, Leon, Yuffie, Donald, Goofy, and Merlin. The latter was standing in the center of the room and explaining the nature of what they were dealing with. "So you see, the effects of Cure spells and potions will not work on his body due to the resistance of the curse."

"How 'n the hell did the kid get cursed?" Cid shot an accusatory stare at Donald. "Ain't you a damn sorcerer? Why didn't you do your job and stop this from happenin'?"

Donald responded by hopping on one foot and revving up one arm as if he were getting ready to punch the man for his comment. Before he could get too far, Yuffie grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. The duck didn't seem to notice and continued to squawk and fume at Cid.

"Yanno, Cid's got a point," Yuffie said thoughtfully despite having to hang onto Donald. "Curses don't come easy do they?"

"Most certainly not! Curses are a blight on the very blood of the victim." Merlin sniffed imperiously. "He would have had to bleed on the cursed object, or have swallowed an enchanted potion."

"Daw, izzit possible that that there curse could'a come from ice cream?" Goofy found himself at the center of many stares upon asking his rhetorical question. Even Donald stopped trying to beat up Cid. "He was eatin' one just before he fainted."

"Ice cream?" Merlin said incredulously. He shifted his mustache in thought. "Well, I - I suppose it could be done. A frozen potion maybe. We are in more modern times."

"Where did he get the ice cream from?" Leon's words sounded more like a demand than the question that it was meant to be.

Goofy tapped his head in thought before answering. "I suppose he got it from Scrooge's place. That's where you get dem popsicles, right?"

There were times like these that Goofy revealed that he was a lot more intelligent than he looked. Leon made a mental note to check out Scrooge's place for clues as to the person responsible for giving Sora cursed popsicles.

"So how are we supposed to break this curse?" asked Yuffie. Since Donald looked like he got over his momentary bout of anger, she let go of his collar and turned her attention back to Merlin.

"How are you supposed to break the curse - what a simple question! You break the curse the way all curses are broken of course." Merlin was incredulous over the fact that no one knew how to solve such a simple riddle. He adjusted his glasses before continuing his impromptu lecture. "Let's see, we have here a curse of sickness, so the only thing that will cure him is a symbol of health."

"A what? Where are we supposed to get that?" Yuffie tilted her head with her question.

"My dear, the quest for such a symbol is half the battle. If I were to tell you the anti-curse, it would reduce its effectiveness." Merlin tapped his cane on the ground to signify that he was adamant about keeping the cure to himself.

"That's bullshit," interjected Cid. "What the hell are we supposed to do then?"

"Start searching," Leon answered in a terse voice.

Cid flooded the rest of the conversation with curses, but was the first to abruptly stop when he noticed that Sora was standing at the entrance of the guestroom.

The poor boy stared at the people gathered, barely able to control the way he was shaking beneath the blanket tightly clutched around his bare body. "I'm cursed?" he asked thickly.

Before anyone could really answer the question, Sora fell into another faint.


--------------------------------

Witnesses said that they saw a redheaded male with tear-shaped tattoos on his face give Sora the ice cream. Scrooge testified that he had never hired such a person to maintain his stand, and further confirmed that no popsicles were missing from his inventory. Fliers were posted all over Radiant Garden to announce a reward for anybody who knew any information pertaining to the whereabouts of the faux shopkeeper. The members of the Restoration Committee received many tips, but none of the leads panned out. Either there were a ton of tattooed redheads out there, or the mystery man was very good at hiding himself.

The quest for the cure had its own dead ends. They tried every symbol of well-wishing that they could find, including teddy bears, balloons, get-well cards, uplifting books - anything and everything that they could possibly get their hands on. Sora's room was filled to the brim with gifts, but none of them were able to cure him.

He was bedridden for two days with weakness and nausea. However, the sickness was nothing compared to the worries that plagued him: every day lost was another day that Riku slipped further from his fingertips; every day lost was another day that he wasn't home with Kairi. He often tried to get up and force himself to continue his mission, but if Aerith didn't catch him wandering, then the fainting spells would. Sora hated his own helplessness.

"Makes ya mad doesn't it?" asked a familiar voice one lonely night.

Sora slowly blinked his eyes open. Beside his bed, hovering just off to the side of his peripheral vision, was the redheaded shopkeeper. He was dressed in the exact same way that the boy remembered, and even now, the clothes still looked wrong. A sense of danger made Sora's jaw clench tightly.

"You just stand around while the people most important to you walk out of your life, thinking /damn/, I wish I could do something. But in the end," Axel said, walking closer to the bed and making himself comfortable on the edge of the mattress, "you're just a loser that can't do much at all." A wide grin stretched his lips when he finished.

"You did this to me," uttered Sora, his anger more apparent in his eyes than in the weakly spoken words.

"When you say it like that, it sounds so naughty."

Then again, Axel didn't mind naughty. The Nobody began to reach for Sora's neck, and for one, terrible moment, it seemed that he was going to wrap his spindly fingers around the delicate flesh and choke the boy to death. Instead, he caught a bead of sweat that had pooled in the hollow of Sora's throat and brought it to his lips for a taste.

Sora's face contorted in disgust and he struggled to lift his heavy limbs to prevent more violations of his body. Waves of nausea made him gasp softly with the effort. "What do you want from me?" he asked in a tortured whimper.

In answer, Axel brought his face so close to Sora's that their noses almost touched. "I want the part of you that you took from me," he said huskily. "Have you remembered it yet? My name?"

Sora turned his head to the side to avoid contact with the intruder, teeth clenched with anger. "I don't know you!"

The intense expression on Axel's face vanished completely, leaving his façade flat and empty. Wordlessly, he leaned away from Sora and reached over to pluck a teddy bear from the nightstand. He stared down at the plush animal, one that had no doubt been sent to the Keyblade Master to wish for his health. In the next instant, its brown fur burst into flames.

"Don't fucking play games with me, Roxas." Axel's brief apathy was replaced with burning anger. His green eyes were as full of heat like the fire was. "I know you can hear me. I know you can come out. Don't make me take drastic measures."

A sudden flash of light warned Axel to jump away from the bed moments before the Kingdom Key went crashing down on his head. Sora had summoned the keyblade beneath his blankets and tried to hit the Nobody with it, but he had missed. Sadly, that maneuver cost the boy much of his energy and now he was breathing heavily with the effort of merely holding his weapon.

"So you're going to do this the hard way huh? Typical." The floorboards of the guestroom began to crackle and burn. Fire quickly spread through the bedroom, consuming all the sweet gifts that had been given to the Keyblade Master to become well. The flaming teddy bear was carelessly tossed to the side and it burned to ashes in midair.

"Guess I'll have to move to plan B. Kidnap you -" A pair of chakrams appeared in Axel's hands. "- then fuck the nobody out of you! You like that, Roxas?"

"Roxas," uttered Sora, "isn't my name!"

Although the keyblade was pointed threateningly at Axel, the Nobody strode through the flames in the room and fearlessly knocked it out of Sora's hands with his chakrams. A spike of fear went through Sora's body as he flexed his empty fingers and called the weapon back to him.

"It doesn't matter if you have a keyblade or not. You're too weak to use it." As if to prove Axel's words, Sora dropped the Kingdom Key almost as soon as it reappeared in his palm. He was too weak to keep a good grip on its pommel. Axel grinned down at the helpless boy. "I hope you like it hot."

No! The heat was too much. Darkness was creeping into the edges of Sora's vision and he fought valiantly to keep himself from fainting; however, he couldn't win. His muscles turned to water and his mind completely shut down. He limply slid to the mattress in a faint.

Axel grinned in triumph. He wished that he had thought of poisoning Roxas a long time ago. Just as he began to collect his prize, the door to the guestroom exploded off its hinges. He wheeled around with teeth gritted to face the interloper that dared to interrupt his reunion with his old comrade.


--------------------------------

It had been a close call. Leon came to check on Sora with Goofy and Donald, and discovered Aerith knocked out on the floor and house filled with smoke. He used his gunblade to blast the guestroom door open and found none other than Radiant Garden's most-wanted man hovering over Sora. They fought to save the Keyblade Master from the Nobody's clutches and eventually managed to chase the redhead away.

Unfortunately, they were unable to save the house; it burned to the ground that night. Aerith was now temporarily staying with Yuffie and Leon personally made sure that Sora stayed in his own home for safety. Merlin charmed Leon's house so that it was fireproof and dimensionally sound, so it would never catch on fire and no one would be able to teleport in or out of it.

Taking care of Sora became an around-the-clock job. Aerith would see to his needs during the day, and then Leon took over the duties when it was nightfall. Donald and Goofy guarded the house all day long, although when it was late they tended to fall asleep on the job. Leon occasionally kicked them awake, but that only managed to keep them up for an extra half-hour.

To see the Keyblade Master so sick bothered Leon. It wasn't in Sora's character to be weak in any shape or form. Even though moving was likely to make him vomit, the boy still tried to walk to get his own food, use the bathroom, or go outside. He often became pouty when he was forced to go back to bed; he hated lying around all day and being a leech on everyone's time.

That was why it was so surprising when he came to Leon's side one night for help. He stumbled into the living room, pale and nauseated, and tried to rouse the sleeping man from the couch. The words "help, help" were muttered over and over again until Leon finally opened his gray eyes.

Immediately sensing that something was very wrong, Leon jolted upright and held Sora's shaking shoulders. "What's wrong?" he demanded softly.

"There's a boy in my room."

Considering that this wasn't the first time that a stranger approached Sora in the middle of the night, Leon immediately stood up from the sofa. He told Sora to stay put while he grabbed his gunblade from its ready position beside the fireplace and stalked to the bedroom. Upon arriving, he cautiously opened the door and used his weapon to flick the light switch on.

When Leon peered inside the room, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. To double-check, he looked beneath the bed, rifled through the closets, and checked behind the curtains. Nothing was amiss. With a scowl, he returned to the living room where Sora was sitting on the couch in a slumped position. "There's nobody there."

"He's right there," Sora whispered. He was peering in the direction of the shadowed fireplace. "He looks at me from the darkness."

Leon looked at the fireplace, but saw nothing. To give Sora the benefit of the doubt, he even got on his knees and stared into the chimney to make sure that there weren't any strange boys lurking there. Again, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. He came to the conclusion that Sora's sickness was progressing to the point of giving him delusions. Since Leon didn't want the boy to feel worse, he decided to pretend that he believed in his visions. "What does the boy look like?"

"Me," Sora said softly. "But he's blonde. Pale. He's always here." A tear slipped from Sora's eyes and painted a path down his face.

The hairs at the back of Leon's head stood on end. He couldn't imagine what this was like for Sora; it was obvious that seeing these visions were frightening him. Leon walked over and took a seat next to the boy, hoping to comfort him with his presence. "Maybe he's here to protect you."

Sora closed his eyes with a shiver. "He kisses my mouth."


--------------------------------

From then on, Sora was never allowed to be alone. Although he never mentioned the blonde-headed boy ever again, Leon knew that the delusions never left. Every time he saw Sora staring at some dark corner, or spotted him tossing his head to the side with a grimace, he knew what the Keyblade Master was seeing.

Leon kept what Sora told him a secret. He told the others that Sora's delirium was getting worse, but left out the uncomfortable details. They redoubled their efforts to search for a cure, but like before, nothing they found ever worked. Eventually, Leon began threatening Merlin for the information that they needed and the old wizard prudently decided that now was a good time to take a vacation in the Bermudas. That pissed Leon off even more, but there was nothing he could do to stop the wizard from vanishing from Radiant Garden.

Sora was still frightened by his unwelcome visitor; at night, when it became too much, he would creep to where Leon was and fall asleep beside him. Eventually, he stopped sleeping in the bedroom all-together and simply curled up next to the man whenever he could. It became common for him to sleep with his head in Leon's lap or cuddle beside him on the couch. Leon allowed it to go on because he pitied the boy; however, there were some occasions when he found himself not minding the company. On some nights, he even liked it.

"Dude, that guy is popping such a hard boner for Roxas," said Demyx as he stroked the strings of his sitar. He was sitting on a rooftop beside Axel, who was glowering in the direction of Leon's house.

"Shut up. Are you in on this or not?" Axel hated having to resort to help from other Organization members, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The last time he faced Sora's friends alone, he nearly didn't make it out alive. They were viscous bastards when it came to protecting the Keyblade Master.

"The orders were to kill the traitor, not kidnap him. You're gonna end up branded too if you keep this up, VIII." To accentuate his words, Demyx changed the slow song that he was plucking into a funeral dirge.

"And you're going to end up dead. You really think you can take Sora on?" Axel grinned when Demyx suddenly played a bad note. "If we can get the old Roxas back, then we won't have to worry about beating his other half."

Demyx heaved a sigh. "You so owe me for this. I'll do the waterworks, but the rest is on you."

"You chicken shit."

"At least I'm a living chicken shit. Unlike what you're going to be."

Axel didn't care. What he wanted, he was going to get, one way or the other.


--------------------------------

Fire tended to attract a lot of attention, but water was an insidious entity when used correctly. Leon didn't know something was wrong until he felt wetness lapping at his sides. He opened his eyes at the odd sensation and turned to see what the deal was this time.

What he saw made his mouth fall open. His living room was flooded. The water was almost three feet high, enough to begin creeping over the edge of the couch and drench his pajamas. Leon sat up quickly, his movements jostling Sora who was wedged between himself and the back of the sofa. The boy murmured softly from the disturbance, but otherwise clung to sleep.

Leon bit back a curse when he stepped into the frigid water and scooped Sora into his arms. He couldn't begin to guess how or why his house was in the state it was in, but one thing was for sure: someone was going to pay dearly for it. He cradled the boy close to his body as he trudged through his living room in the direction of the window; upon reaching it, he shifted Sora into one arm and used his free hand to unlatch the window and push it open. He carefully climbed outside with his burden and took a few backward steps to see what in the world was happening to his house.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There was no rain, no broken pipes - no sign that anything was amiss. Even as the water level continued to rise, it didn't pour out of the window that he just opened. It was as if there was an invisible fish bowl keeping the liquid from gushing out into the streets.

"What the -" he began, dumbfounded.

"Looks like someone could use the plumber."

Leon turned towards the source of the voice and found himself facing the redheaded man that they'd been trying to track for the past week. Today he wasn't dressed in the fleece jacket that people had identified him in, but instead he was cloaked in the black uniform of the Organization. Leon narrowed his eyes dangerously. "I should have known that you were one of them," he growled.

Axel merely grinned. "I would have told you that before, but you interrupted me before I could. But that's all water under the bridge." After dropping that last, wry comment, he abruptly became serious. "Now hand Sora over. You don't have your friends to back you up this time."

Where the hell was Donald and Goofy? Leon searched the premises and finally spotted them near the front door of the house. Stars were dancing around their heads, indicating that they had been knocked out. Axel probably took them out while they were sleeping on the job again.

With a scowl, Leon gently placed Sora on the ground. The boy didn't take well to the feel of concrete against his back, so he finally began to stir from his slumber. He murmured in a gruff voice, "What's happening?"

"There's a problem I have to deal with. Stay there." Leon straightened up and turned to face Axel. Belatedly, he realized that his gunblade was still in his flooded house, which meant that this confrontation was not going to end well if help didn't show up soon.

Sora blinked his eyes open and stubbornly tried to sit up. His body protested every movement with waves of nausea until he surrendered and slumped back on his side. "Wait," he said to Leon.

The man looked over his shoulder, but turned back when a sudden fierce light flowered between his hands. The Kingdom Key appeared in them, its weight sure and steady. In the next instant, the keyblade went into momentary flux and took the form of the Sleeping Lion. Now understanding, Leon gave Sora a grim smile.

Sora mirrored the expression and then lowered himself completely to the ground. For once, he was going to give up his stubbornness and let Leon do all of the work for him.

Chakrams appeared in Axel's hands upon seeing Sora's weapon transfer to Leon. "Your heart is such a whore, Roxas," Axel said bitterly before turning the ground beneath his feet into a molten inferno. A wall of fire spread out towards the barefoot Leon, threatening to burn him alive before he even had a chance to swing the keyblade.

"Freeze," whispered Sora. The keyblade reacted by shimmering briefly and then counteracting the fire with magic ice. The two opposing elements met a few feet from Leon and canceled each other out with a hiss of steam.

Relieved that he would be able to counter Axel's fire with Sora's magic, Leon egged Axel on with a taunt. "Got any other tricks?"

"Plenty," answered the Nobody, just before launching himself at the man.

They clashed in a flurry of weapon strikes and magic. Sora continued to utter enchantments as needed despite how tiring the use of magic was. He was starting to black out again, but he did his best to stay awake for as long as possible for Leon's sake.

As Axel suspected, he was an even match for Leon without Donald and Goofy to back him up. No one would come to the man's rescue; there was a barrier around their battle area and they were out of range of the protective charms that had been placed on Leon's house. Now that his target was out in the open, all that stood between reclaiming Roxas was the man currently attacking him.

However, there was one drawback that Axel had not counted on. As Sora began to fall into unconsciousness, a dark portal appeared behind him. Demyx stepped out from its depths, grinning like he'd just won the lottery. "This is the easiest mission that dirty bastard has ever sent me on," he said, summoning his sitar. With a crazed grin, he planted one foot on Sora's limp body to hold it in place while he got ready to bash the kid's head in. "Sorry Axel, but orders are orders."

Axel shoved Leon aside moments before witnessing what Demyx was up to in the background. "NO!" He shouted shrilly before vanishing into a teleport that left Leon swinging the keyblade through empty space. He reappeared on the other side of Sora's body in time to catch the heavy side of Demyx's sitar before he hurt the boy. "I'll fucking kill you!" he yelled at the other nobody.

Just then, something white cleaved through the sitar and ripped it in half. Startled, both Nobodies stumbled backwards holding the mangled ends of the broken weapon. Demyx looked like a fish caught out of water as he held onto the broken bridges of his sitar. "My baby!" he exclaimed forlornly.

Axel was staring hard, but it wasn't at Demyx or the broken instrument - it was at the ghostly white hand that was sticking out of Sora's chest, its palm grasped firmly around the Oblivion that had torn through the sitar as if it were tissue paper. The rest of the figure began to rise from the boy's body, revealing windswept hair and a blank expression. Roxas emerged wearing the same things that Axel had last seen him in: a pair of khakis and a white coat that bore a checkered design. He was surrounded by an unearthly white glow that faded once he was fully separated from his other.

"Roxas," breathed Axel.

"Roxy!" Demyx gave the blonde-headed kid a petulant look. "Why did you break my baby? This is the fifth one you messed up!" He literally squeaked when Roxas swung his keyblade violently at him. The Nobody backed away a few feet out of range with a bewildered expression. "Roxas, I thought we were pals!"

"You just tried to kill me, asshole," gritted the boy through clenched teeth.

Demyx rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish expression. "Kill you? Hah hah, I wasn't trying to kill you! I was trying to kill Sora."

"I am Sora."

The keyblade was spun like a baton until it became a vortex of white, which Roxas launched at Demyx. The Nobody threw himself to the ground just moments before a fast moving Strike Raid shaved off more than a centimeter of his spiked hair. Demyx shook with pretend fear. "Oh, would you look at that, hah hah. It's dinnertime at the Castle of Naught. Catch ya later!" The Nobody sank into a portal of darkness, leaving Axel to deal with the handful he'd managed to conjure.

Meanwhile, Leon stared dumbly at what was going on. At first, he tried to creep up on the nobodies while they were fighting over Sora, but he stopped in his tracks when he witnessed the apparition of the blonde-headed kid come climbing out of Sora's chest. His grip on the keyblade went lax as he muttered, "He's real," in awed reference to the delusions that Sora had complained about.

Catching the expression on Leon's face, Roxas smirked. Axel, on the other hand, was far from impressed by the blonde's entrance. His green eyes seared into the person that he had been searching for since their last fight in Twilight Town. "What's this 'I am Sora' crap? Quit joking around, Roxas."

"It's no joke." Roxas leveled a serious look on his former comrade. "I am one with my heart."

"Bullshit!" Axel shouted. "You didn't want this! You wanted to know who you were, but you never wanted to change."

"Of course I didn't want it," Roxas said sharply. "I didn't have a heart to want with. I felt nothing. Just like you feel nothing, Axel. You're the one who's full of shit, pretending to care when you're really empty inside."

Axel clenched his teeth. Distantly, in the way all Nobodies know, he knew that he should have been hurt by Roxas's words. So his lips turned down and his eyebrows cinched, conveying what he knew he should but ultimately could not feel. "If I don't care, then why am I here? Why do I keep chasing after you? Why the hell am I risking my very existence just for the chance to see you again!"

Roxas turned his nose up at Axel and smirked. "Because somewhere inside, you know you're supposed to be jealous."

A deathly silence fell after those cruel words. All semblance of emotion drained from Axel's face, leaving it utterly blank. In the next instant, he attempted to rip Roxas's head off with one of his weapons.

The chakram was blocked by the Oblivion with a resounding clang. Despite the force that Axel was applying to his weapon, Roxas was able to meet it almost effortlessly. His voice held no discomfort as he spoke, "When I reunited with my heart, I thought the first emotion I would feel for you would be camaraderie, friendship - that maybe I might even miss you. But honestly, the first thing I felt for you was pity."

Roxas shoved Axel away and chased him across the battlegrounds to put some space between them and Sora. Leon took the opportunity while they were distracted to snatch the unconscious boy from the ground and escape. Unfortunately, he didn't get very far before he ran into the barrier: translucent, hexagonal patterns rippled at the point where the man could not pass, leaving him to curse at the string of bad luck that just wouldn't end. He then turned to face the two people who were fighting. Whatever fate was ahead of Sora and himself depended on who won.

"Déjà vu, eh Roxas!" Axel yelled almost gleefully as he sent burning chakrams hurtling toward Roxas. The boy pointed his keyblade at the flying weapons and cast Magnet to stop them in their tracks. Axel stared in disbelief. Apparently, merging with Sora gave Roxas more benefits than merely gaining a heart.

"Heh." Roxas pointed his keyblade at Axel and shot the nobody with a ray of incandescent light. Axel fell to his back with a sharp cry of pain and ceased further attempts at attacking.

/What does it matter anyway/, Axel thought to himself. His sore chest was crushed beneath Roxas's foot, and although it made him wince in pain, he grinned defiantly, even when the keyblade was pointed at his face. "Just to set the record straight. You know, before you gut me and all. I didn't do this because I should be jealous. I did it because I know I should care."

Roxas stared impassively at the redhead. "You're lying."

Axel laughed bitterly. "Is that what your heart is telling you?"

The keyblade never left its threatening position in front of Axel's face, but Roxas seemed to stall in his next actions. After several long moments, he finally retracted it and allowed the weapon to vanish in a swirl of white. Whatever it was that his heart was telling him, it seemed to entail sparing Axel's life. "Don't bother us again." With those words, Roxas turned and began walking back to Leon and Sora.

Before he went too far, however, Axel pushed himself up from the ground. "Roxas!" When the boy paused in his tracks, he added in an even tone of voice, "Is having a heart really that great?"

"No." Roxas looked over his shoulder, allowing his old comrade to see the smile of pure happiness on his face. "Having Sora as my heart is great."

"Poor Sora," said Axel dryly. Roxas's happiness was something that he didn't have the heart to understand, but somewhere, in the way that all Nobodies know, he knew that he should be happy for him. So his lips pulled up into a bittersweet smile and then he vanished in a swirl of darkness.

The barrier surrounding the area finally dispersed, but there was no longer a need for Leon to make a break for it. Instead, he stared at Roxas, who was now approaching them at a slow pace. "Who are you?"

Roxas came to a stop before Leon and answered simply, "I'm Sora."

"That's not possible."

"It's your choice if you don't want to believe." And judging by the way Roxas peered at Sora fondly, Leon wasn't the person that mattered most to him right now. He placed a hand on his other's shoulder and murmured, "We don't feel as sick when we're sleeping."

Leon watched Roxas warily, noting the look in his eyes and the intimate way he touched the sleeping boy. He began to piece together the things that Sora said about the blonde ghost and understood why it made the boy so afraid. Sora could barely stand being hugged, much less resist the advances of.. whatever Roxas was. "You've been causing Sora a lot of trouble."

"I didn't mean to. I've been trying to tell him something." Roxas tilted his head up to peer at Leon. "Jealous?"

Leon snorted through his nose. "You seem to like calling other people jealous."

"Sorry. I always forget that other people have their own hearts." Roxas lowered his eyes. "I will be returning to Sora now." His body began to glow white, just as it had when he first began to separate from Sora. "Do me a favor and keep this between us. Can't have him freaking out while we're going after the Organization. Keep this secret, and I might let you kiss him."

Leon gave the fading Roxas a bewildered stare. What was wrong with that kid? Another thought suddenly occurred to him, one that had him calling sharply to the other boy, "Wait! Do you know anything about curing him?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell him." Roxas's voice sounded faint, as if he were speaking from the other end of a long tunnel. "Looks like it doesn't count if I wish myself well."

With that, Roxas faded into streaks of light and Sora resonated with a brief glow of his own. Leon was startled by the shine that suddenly erupted from the body in his hands; when the light faded, he spent several moments staring at Sora. The boy was still sleeping peacefully, and it didn't look like anything had changed after Roxas merged with him again.

Leon wondered if it was in his place to tell Sora what happened while he was unconscious. Roxas was right - there would be a lot of trouble if the Keyblade Master suddenly had an identity crisis while they had more important things to do. Afterwards then. When the battle was over, then he would sit down with the boy and have a long talk.

"Leon!" called a familiar, raspy voice.

"'ey Leon!" And there was its dopey counterpart.

Leon gave Donald and Goofy a flat look. Now they decide to wake up and help him. He opened his mouth to say something to that effect, but the noise of shattering glass and gushing water distracted him. He turned in time to see water burst from his house like air from a popped balloon, breaking windows and unhinging doors in its path. Whatever magic that was holding back the liquid finally released. It was with utter dismay that Leon watched the destruction.

"Dah, Leon, your house is flooded!" Goofy exclaimed.

"No shit," Leon answered through clenched teeth.


--------------------------------

"I swear to god, if my house gets burned t' the ground, or flooded or whatever the flying fuck, I will knock some heads together, ya'll hear me?"

Unfortunately, since both Leon's and Aerith's homes had been destroyed, Cid's house was the next on the list for storing Sora and the now-homeless Leon. Cid convinced himself that Sora's curse also extended to destroying houses, so he was worried that calamity would befall his home just as it had to the others.

Leon simply rolled his eyes at Cid's ranting and made Sora as comfortable as possible in the extra guestroom. The boy was as feverish and sick as ever, but at least he was conscious for once.

Sora looked up at Leon and bowed his head in apology. "I'm sorry for your house."

"It needed to be mopped anyway," answered Leon as he finished tucking Sora in. "By the way, have you seen that kid with the blonde hair lately?"

Sora shook his head. "I haven't seen him in a while. Maybe I'm getting better?"

"Maybe," echoed Leon. In his opinion, Roxas probably got the hint and decided to leave his other half alone. Now that Sora had nothing to be afraid of anymore, Leon would no longer need to keep him company at night. He felt a little wistful as he told the boy, "Try to rest."

"You're not going to stay with me?" asked Sora.

Leon was taken aback by the question and he searched in Sora's eyes for the reason behind it. "Do you need me to?"

"I was just wondering." Sora's cheeks were red, but then again, he was always flushed thanks to his cursed sickness. He closed his eyes against Leon's searching look. "Good night, Leon."

"Good night."

Leon left the guestroom and tried to get some rest, but it turned out to be a fruitless effort. Too many things had happened that night and now his thoughts were racing as he processed everything in his head. He especially wondered about Roxas and why he said the things he did to Axel and himself.

In the end, he got up from the sofa and checked the house to make sure that they were completely safe. He was glad to see that for once, Donald and Goofy were awake and taking their posts in front of the house seriously. Cid was in his bedroom, snoring away without a care in the world. An atomic bomb could drop and he would probably sleep through the explosion. Leon snorted at the lazy image that Cid made before walking to the guestroom to check on Sora.

He found the boy deeply asleep. Although Sora was breathing shallowly, Leon knew that he was peaceful because Roxas had said that the sickness didn't touch them in their dreams. The man took a perch on the edge of the mattress and gazed down at the Keyblade Master.

/Worrying about you is going to be the death of me/, he thought to himself. Leon was now certain that he wasn't cut out for the caregiver role - not if it gave him this much stress. He lowered one of his palms and brushed Sora's bangs from his forehead to check his temperature. The poor boy was still burning up and Leon's chest gave a small squeeze in sympathy.

/Now I know I'm in trouble/, he thought, because his heart was telling him that he was fond of Sora. A corner of his lips quirked in a half-hearted attempt of a smile and then he found himself leaning down. His brown hair fell forward as he pushed Sora's bangs up to kiss his brow.

"Get better," he whispered.

Then Leon remembered what Roxas told him, and without a thought, he brushed their noses together as he went lower and pressed another gentle, caring kiss to Sora's lips.

Get better.


--------------------------------

The next day, everyone was surprised when Sora strode out of the guestroom fever-free and feeling like a million bucks. He danced a jig, ate the biggest breakfast in the history of breakfasts, and strolled outside to breathe the sweet air. Donald and Goofy were overjoyed to see their friend back at 100%, but sadly, it almost meant that they needed to return to their quest. The time to leave Radiant Garden was finally upon them.

Everyone gathered in front of Restoration Committee's headquarters to say their goodbyes. Even Merlin returned from Bermuda to wish Sora well. They were all glad to see the boy raring to go, but there was one thing that they simply needed to know before he left: How in the world did he finally shake off his curse?

Every time someone asked Sora that question, he would grin bashfully and say, "I don't know, I guess it was everyone that helped me," and they seemed to accept that explanation.

Before Sora left to return to his gummi ship, he clasped Leon's hands in his for a manly handshake. "Sorry for taking up space and ruining your house," he said with an embarrassed smile.

Leon felt something crinkle between their hands and raised his brows. "Forget it. Just stay healthy from now on."

"I will," Sora said cheerfully.

"You better, I don't think we got enough houses in Radiant Garden to outlive your bad luck," snorted Cid.

Sora laughed. It was a beautiful sound. Leon found himself smiling.

"I guess this is it then." Sora looked at everyone and then lifted one gloved hand in a wave. "I'll see you guys later!"

"Don't stay away too long!" Yelled Yuffie.

Everyone waved as Sora walked off with Donald and Goofy, who were also waving madly. They disappeared into the transporter beam of the gummi ship; Leon turned his gaze to the sky to watch the gummi ship's after-burn streak through the clouds.

Then, after making sure that nobody was looking at him, he carefully unfolded the piece of paper that Sora had passed to him during their handshake. The following message was scrawled on it:

Thank you for taking care of me when I was down.

I would have never been cured without you.

~ Sora.

Leon glanced up and found Merlin looking in his direction with a knowing smile.

So that was why.

Now Leon understood why Roxas kissed Sora on the mouth.


The End