Warnings: Swearing, I suppose.

Disclaimers: Not mine. Sadly. If I owned them, we would have Kingdom Hearts II: Slash Edition

Notes: So it’s been, what? Almost a year since this was last updated? Funny how things go. I started writing this when I was a senior in high school, when fandom was the most important thing to me. Then I completed my first year of art school and met a lot of crazy people and my perspective changed a lot. I had a breakdown. I wrote another novel with original characters and plot. It was a novel that had been two years in waiting to be written. I finished that novel, the second one I’d written in about six months and the first one that really meant something to me in a long time. My fandom muse packed up and left, replaced by a whacky set of characters that had sprung entirely from my brain.

Occasionally I got the odd review in my inbox for something I’d posted on good old fanfiction dot net but I kind of ignored it. Then, a few days ago, this awesome girl named Dualism updated Surgeon General’s Warning for the first in a very long time and I remembered this dumb story that had been scrawled in my notebook, back when Kingdom Hearts was my whole world, and I remembered how much fun it had been to write. So I figure, I owe it to you guys to at least give it another shot.

I make no promises though. My priority will be, from now on, to work on my original stuff and get ready to look for a publisher, but I figure this will be fun.

We’re all very lucky that I had the foresight to map out the plot in my notebook, or else I’d have no clue what was supposed to go here.

Wow this was both long and morose.

--

Sora tugged uncomfortably at the tie around his neck, trying to adjust the knot to no avail. There was simply no way to get rid of the sense that he was being strangled by 17 munny worth of cheap silk. He glanced sideways at Roxas and saw him struggling with his own tie and grinned at him apologetically. Roxas shrugged and tossed his tie nonchalantly over his shoulder in a show of bravado, offering Sora a small smile before straightening his tie and then reaching over to fix Sora’s.

“It’s just Mom,” Sora repeated to himself. “It’s not like I have to fight crazy old Xemnas equipped with nothing but my house key.” He laughed nervously at Roxas, “Right?”

Roxas nodded, though he privately thought he’d prefer a round with Xemnas before he had to show Mrs. Raine around the house. Looking over at Sora wasn’t doing anything to improve his anxiety; Sora kept glancing at the window, walking away to pace a few circles, and then returning to peek through the window before repeating the process. Leon, in contrast, sat on the couch and stared forward as if he thought that glaring long enough would freeze time and Raine would never show. Not that Roxas actually thought it would be effective, even if it did happen. Raine was the kind of woman to defy the freezing of time just on principle.

It was going to be a horrible day, to say the least of it.

There was simply no escape.

When an unassuming black car pulled into the driveway, Roxas swore he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Sora ran to the front door and began unlocking in before flipping the latch back to locked and unlocking it again. “Are you sure we can’t just run?” he asked hopefully. “We can sneak out through the backyard. There’s a local church…they can offer us sanctuary.”

“Sora…we’re gay. I think the church is out of the question.”

Sora groaned unhappily as he nodded in realization before finally opening the door and plastering on a smile. Roxas wasn’t sure how well Raine could read faces, but Sora seemed to have “please don’t eat me” written across his in large letters.

“Hi Mom,” Sora said uneasily as he pushed open the screen door.

“Sora!” his mother said warmly, throwing her arms around him. “It’s been so long. When was the last time I saw you? December?”

“Yeah!” Sora agreed. “Christmas!” To his credit, Sora seemed to be calling on every single ounce of sunshiny happiness that resided in his body to keep from simply melting and running.

Leon stood up, a forced smile on his face. “Mother,” he greeted her.

Raine stepped back, smiling vaguely at her oldest son, looking him over with a critical eye. “What on earth did you put on a suit for? It’s just me. Isn’t it?” She glanced over at Sora, “Is that your school tie?”

Sora shook his head, still grinning helplessly, “No! Of course not!”

Raine looked at Roxas next, “Last I checked, I didn’t have a third son. Who are you?” Before Roxas could answer, Raine formed the conclusion for herself, “So, you’re the other boy who lives here. What’s your name?”

Roxas straightened under her scrutiny, meeting her blue-gray eyes with his own cobalt ones. Damned if he was going to let this woman push him around in his own home, to screw with the people he cared about most. “Roxas,” he said shortly. “Roxas Strife. My brother, Cloud, is at work today and will be here soon.”

If Raine was put off by Roxas’ frankness, she didn’t display it, other than a briefly raised eyebrow. “Sora!” she asked sweetly. “Why don’t you show me around the house?”

“Of course!” Sora replied, though his smile suddenly looked a little strained. He waved a hand at the living room, eyes skimming over all the cracks in the ceiling with a nervous air, praying his mother didn’t notice them. “That’s the living room, of course,” he said lamely. “And the kitchen’s this way,” he pointed to the other side of the house, opening the door to show her.

“Oh, how nice,” Raine agreed. “Who decorated?”

“Friends,” Sora filled in. It was the truth, mostly. Naminé had scrambled and found some paintings of flowers that she’d done in last year’s art class that her parents had got it into their heads to frame. They figured Raine would find it more acceptable kitchen décor instead of Roxas’ print of Saturn Devouring One Of His Children hanging by the calendar.

“Who’s the artist?”

“My classmate, Naminé,” Sora replied again. “She’s really talented.”

Raine seemed pleased by this, but continued, “Your girlfriend?” Sora was clearly trying not to choke too badly.

“Ah, no! She’s just a friend!” Sora protested.

Raine looked a little less pleased. “Why aren’t you dating a girl?”

“Well, I’ve been so busy with classes and stuff,” Sora mumbled. He backed hastily out of the kitchen and went up the stairs. “It’s all just bedrooms here,” he explained, gesturing at the closed doors. “Here’s my room,” he opened the door.

“It’s awfully cluttered,” was Raine’s only comment, casting her glance around the room.

Sora had just cleaned it last night.

“Whose room is this?” Raine asked, pointed at the door to Cloud and Leon’s room. Sora inhaled nervously but opened the door.

“This is where Squall sleeps,” Sora said, showing her the single bed that Cloud had made that morning, with drum-tight military corners.

“Well,” Raine said brightly. “Nice to know he’s learned to clean up after himself!”

Sora’s shoulders slumped in relief and he sighed slowly. Hard part was over, right?

--

“So, explain again, what exactly your aunt has roped us into?” Zexion demanded of his boyfriend, looking helplessly at his tambourine. To be honest, he was kind of a terrible percussionist, but Demyx had really wanted to make sure the love of his life was involved in his band somehow, so they’d set him up on backup vocals and tambourine duty.

“Just a gig,” Demyx said evenly. “Nothing to worry about.”

“The last time one of your family members booked us for a gig,” Luxord reminded them, voice silken, “We were almost shot to death by the Viera Woods Archery Team because they didn’t like our rendition of Kiss Me Goodbye!”

Demyx frowned and then shrugged, “Okay, yeah, that might have been some really bad decision-making on Mom’s part. But we got paid remember?” He tried to keep everything positive. “Anyway, this time it’ll be much better.”

Larxene cracked her knuckles, glancing at her drum kit. “And then there was the time at the Head Bangaa’s Ball. Do you remember how well that went? Well?”

Demyx quailed at the nymph’s penetrating glare. “You had to buy a new snare drum because that Ba’Gamnan guy put a whole through it.”

“Yes, Demyx. A hole. Through. My. Snare. Drum!” Larxene said sweetly. “Do you remember who it was that booked that gig? Do you?”

Demyx groaned, “My cousin.. But come on, Yazoo’s crazy. C’mon! It can’t be that bad.” He looked helplessly at Marluxia. “Back me up here buddy, please?”

“How much are we getting paid?”

“A lot.”

Marluxia shrugged, “I’m in.”

“Two against three!” Demyx said. “Almost halfway there!” He looked at Zexion pleadingly, “Come on, Zexy. Please guys, my mom said it was, like, mega urgent.”

Larxene rolled her eyes, “Why are we asking your aunt for the hook-up anyway.”

“Look I don’t know!” Demyx protested. “Apparently her whole neighborhood is conspiring to hook up these four guys—“

“Foursome? Kinky!”

“Shut up, Luxord!” Demyx squawked. “Two sets of guys. Can we focus for a second, please?” He glared at each of his band mates in turn, the stare he’d learned from Aunt Aerith. It was a fearsome stare. It was the sort of stare that had cowed greater men than his fellow band members. It had sent Sephiroth down the aisle and Riku up the honor roll. It was the stare anyone with Gainsborough blood used when they were not. To. Be. Fucked. With.

The room went into a pronounced hush.

“We’re playing at a beach,” he said, all business now. “Three-hour set. Bonfire and barbecue deal. We get paid plus free drinks and food all night. We’ve been hired to do a little mood music, so you had all better brush up on your rendition of Kiss The Girl.”

--

Roxas kind of wanted to die. The tension in the air was so thick he could have beat his forehead against it to manage a truly satisfactory clunk. Raine was sitting on the couch, politely sipping on a cup of tea that her darling son Squall (and the mere mention of his real first name had set his spine ramrod straight like a soldier as he fearfully marched out of the kitchen) to bring her.

“And Cloud will be home soon?” Raine asked sweetly. “I don’t remember him very well. We met quite briefly when he first moved in. It certainly was a fortuitous arrangement, you two sending little brothers to the same school.” Then she changed the subject, looking at Sora, “And how do you like your new school? I hope it’s worth the separation from your mother.”

Sora wanted to point out that, after going to St. Amano since he was twelve, it was hardly his “new school” but he certainly wasn’t going to argue. “It’s great!” he said brightly, “I really love it there.”

“Good, with the cost of tuition,” Raine concluded. She laughed at Leon, “I don’t know how you manage it, even just paying half the tuition. I mean, working in construction.”

“Senior Construction Management of Hollow Bastion Historical Restoration Committee is hardly a low-paying job,” Leon shot back. “I’ll be in charge of the company in three years if I play my cards right.”

Raine gave a patient, longsuffering sigh, “But Squall, your father and I raised you for better than that.”

“I’m doing important work for the community,” Leon replied. “I get plenty of satisfaction and it pays well. Perhaps it’s not the most prestigious job, to you and Father, but I’m proud of what I do.”

Raine just sniffed, “I suppose that is the important thing.”

“Cloud’s home,” Roxas announced, looking out the window. A wilting Sora suddenly perked up. This must be their second wind! Surely Cloud would distract Raine long enough!

“He drives a …a motorcycle?” Raine asked faintly. She frowned, “Why does he have that rainbow sticker on it.”

The rising panic in Leon was obvious. Roxas improvised. “Some hippie slapped it on the fender a month ago and it just won’t come off,” he explained. Never mind that ‘some hippie’ actually meant Sora, who’d thought it would be great to put the sticker there.

“How unfortunate,” Raine said.

Roxas went to open the door and made eye contact with Cloud, trying to communicate, with frantic motions of his eyeballs, just how dire the situation was getting. Cloud nodded minutely before stepping in the door.

“Nice to meet you,” Cloud said, stripping off his motorcycle gloves. “Sorry I was so late. I’m Cloud Strife.” He held out his hand for Raine to shake.

“You ride a motorcycle?” she asked reprovingly.

Cloud nodded, already prepped with a smooth answer, “Well you know how bad gas prices are, I’m sure. With the smaller body, a motorcycle takes less gas.” Roxas knew how much it pained Cloud to refer to his baby as simply a vehicle of convenience.

“Well,” Raine said smartly. “Since you don’t have proper transportation for us, I guess we will be taking my car to lunch, won’t we? Sora, you’re in the front seat.”

Ah, the front seat. Also known as sitting shotgun. Some nasty part of Roxas wondered just how literally Raine might interpret that if anything her sons did might displease her. It was an awful nice car though; perhaps she might hesitate before getting bloodstains all over it. Roxas wasn’t sure if he really held out that much hope for it though.

--

Riku kind of wished he was drunk.

Instead, he was in his mother’s kitchen working through another slice of cake while Kadaj sat across the table on a laptop trying to order spy cameras in bulk off a disreputable website. “Sora’s mom can’t be that bad,” he asked Kadaj. “Right?”

Kadaj looked at him sideways, “You should know from Mother that all parents are intimidating.”

“Yes, but we’ve never rearranged her whole house in a desperate bid to lie to her,” Riku pointed out to his brother.

“You forget the time Yazoo and I were seven and you were five,” Kadaj argued. “And you stepped in Mother’s favorite flowerbeds and crushed all of her galbana lilies and we, your good, protective, older brothers, scrambled and begged every gardener in town for help.”

“Yeah, but you were seven. Cloud and Leon are in their mid-twenties.”

“You have a point.” Kadaj paused and then flipped his computer around, “Do you think we could bug their house with these?”

“We could, but I’m pretty sure it’s not legal, Kadaj.’

“So?” he asked.

Riku pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the stress headache that was starting to build. It didn’t work. Instead he just picked up a chunk of cake and shoved it in his mouth, because food was easier than thinking. Not for the first time he reflected on how insane their family was. He wondered what that meant for him.

“I stationed everyone at all the best restaurants in town,” Kadaj added. “Someone has to be able to spy on them and report back! No worries, Little Brother.”

Riku stared at Kadaj, dumbstruck, “You what?”

Kadaj looked at him innocently, “What? We just wanted to make sure everyone would be able to know what was happening.”

Riku could feel that headache really blossoming across his temple and forehead now. “Kadaj. Pardon my language, but what. The. Fuck. Were. You. Thinking!?” Riku groaned. “That’s really expensive, for one, and really fucking creepy for two. And what if they notice!?”

Kadaj waved a hand dismissively, “Don’t worry. We tied up Yuffie and tossed her in a box, so we don’t have to worry about her.”

Was that supposed to be reassuring? Riku’s head was starting to throb now. Sure, Yuffie was contained, but that meant nothing about Selphie or Irvine or, worst of all, Reno and Axel.

“If this gets fucked up somehow,” Riku warned. “I’m gonna make it my personal mission to steal Dad’s old sword and put it through all your major organs.”

And then Kadaj blanched. “Now that I think of it. That’s the room we threw Yuffie into. The room with the sword.”

“Are you serious!?” Riku asked again, this time genuinely agog. “You left that crazy wannabe ninja in the room with Dad’s sword mounted one the wall!?”

“We were in a hurry!”

There was a loud whoop of delight and a clang as Yuffie freed herself.

“LOZ!” they hollered for their older brother.

--

Leon wanted to die. He wanted the ground to open, spewing legions of black demons to usher him to hell right now. Because even that would be preferable to trying to choke down Cobb salad with his mother’s gaze traveling between his fork and his mouth like a cat-eyed clock.

“So, Cloud,” she asked pleasantly. “How did you meet Squall?”

Sora did his very best not to choke visibly. Remember all too well how they’d met. It was a very funny story (to him anyway) and involved copious amounts of alcohol, Yuffie, and lasagna. It was a very funny story and it was totally inappropriate to tell toe Raine.

‘Mutual friend,” Cloud explained. “Similar situation.” He gestured to Roxas. “We’re from out in Twilight Town, but we needed to move to Hollow Bastion so Roxas could have an easier commute.”

Raine smiled, “It’s nice to know that people in this day and age have some family loyalty.”

Ow, Mom. Sora thought. Ow. Direct barb at them moving away much?

“Well,” Roxas said, unable to bite back the barb. “After our family kicked the two of us out, we’re all each other has.” His tone was flat and his eyes were coldly narrowed as he stared down Raine Leonhart.

If Raine was intimidate by Roxas’ glare, and Sora knew lots of people who were, she quickly mastered her fear. “Well, isn’t that nice?” she smiled benevolently. “Like I said, it’s so good of you two to stick together. He does a lot for the sake of your education doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Roxas replied, eyes still leveled coldly at her. “We never forget that.”

Sora was starting to share in Leon’s fantasy of the ground opening up and devouring him to spare him from this fate, but for the time being he had to give Roxas props for standing up to his mother. He was too stunned and kind of gleeful to pray that Roxas would have the good sense to reel it back before his temper got really worked up and he started shouting about how much his family mattered.

And then, Sora took a glance to the left, behind his mother and he really choked. Over the top of a set of menus, Sora could see three redheads, all with the last name Tarshil. Trying not to flinch right in front of their mother, Sora tried to catch their attention with his eyes, frantically moving them from side to side and beg them not to cause trouble.

“Sora, what on earth are you doing?” Raine asked. “Are you having a seizure?”

“No!” Sora said, his voice hitching a little too high out of nervousness. “A bug flew in my eye.”

Raine shook her head, “I told you we shouldn’t eat on the patio when there were still spaces in the dining room.”

“But it’s too nice outside,” Sora protested, forgetting who he was arguing with for a second, before sinking down in his chair, cowed before his mother said anything.

“If you say so,” Raine said.

--

“Sora saw us,” Kairi hissed at her cousins, who were pretending to consider spaghetti Bolognese while spying on Messrs Strife and Leonhart. She still couldn’t believe Kadaj had organized this. Not only had he put Yuffie in a box, he’d sent her on a spy mission. Kadaj had scouted out all the top restaurants within a twenty-five mile radius and organized groups of spies. Not only that, he’d organized it so that whoever didn’t get the task of spying ended up having an enjoyable lunch. Tidus was currently enjoying a date with Yuna while Selphie and Irvine flirted over cheeseburgers. And Kairi? Kairi was having a fun day with the family.

Luckily, Kairi was part of the Tarshil family and everyone, from her sweet old granny to her wicked cool cousins were at least off-kilter, if not full-blown crazy.

“At least it was Sora and not Roxas, yo,” Reno whispered back. “He’s got his back to us at least.”

“If he sees me, he’ll get up and start breaking things, Sora’s mom be damned,” Axel warned.

“I think Sora’s having a seizure,” Kairi. “No…. no he’s just trying to communicate with us.”

Reno rolled his eyes. “Because that is so much better. His mother’s going to notice!”

Kairi raised her eyes to Sora and held up a hand in a peace sign and then sent the direction of her gaze to Roxas and laid a finger against her lips in a shushing motion. Sora offered her a small, relieved smile before going back to conversation with his mother.

“You couldn’t pay me to be over at that table,” Axel commented. “Everyone looks like they’re just about ready to die.”

“You should have seen their faces when they got her phone call,” Kairi replied. “You’d think someone had told them hell had just opened up and they were the first ones on the list.”

“She looks scary, yo,” Reno replied.

Axel, meanwhile, was busy extinguishing and relighting the candle on the table over and over, much to the ire of his cousin and twin.

“Ax,” Reno said warningly. “You know my new job lets me have a stun-baton? And the second it is in my hand I will test it on you unless you stop giving me reasons to fry your ass.”

“But it’s fun.”

“Can we focus on the espionage please,” Kairi grumbled, her eyes still locked on her quarry, “and not on how my favorite cousins are trying to kill each other. If you die, I will miss you and then I will be very, very angry.” She glared firmly at her brothers until they both quieted and resumed spying.

--

“It was a good plan,” Aerith said gently to her son, gripping his shoulder. Yuffie’s escape, aided by Loz (who saw that coming? They certainly hadn’t), had left chaos in their wake. Not only had the thief nabbed their eldest son’s heart, she’d run off with a basket of cookies she’d been preparing to send over to the Leonhart-Strife household as a congratulations for surviving their visit.

“It was a good plan,” Aerith said again. “You just forgot the Yuffie Factor.”

Riku, meanwhile, was too busy just staring at the path of destruction Yuffie had wrought, shaking his head. “You have to admit, it’s impressive.”

“She ruined my favorite vase,” Aerith said sadly, picking up glass shards to get to the discarded bouquet of galbana lilies. But all the same, she nodded with a laugh. “It was certainly impressive.”

--

By the time they got back to the house, Raine seemed satisfied that her sons weren’t dragging the family name in the mud. She happily drove them back to the house, apparently all smiles.

“Roxas, Cloud,” she said warmly. “It was so nice to meet you.”

Then she turned to look at Leon and Sora suddenly felt scared all over again.

“Squall, darling,” Raine said. “Next time, don’t lie to me about your lover.”

She slid into the car and left her sons stunned and panicked in the driveway.

--

Notes: Well, uh, it only took me about ten or eleven months, right? I hope this was worth it. I’m still getting a feel for this again.