Warnings: Uh, slash, swearing, fighting, and the like. Pretty much a total lack of humor this chapter. Sorry?

Disclaimers: Oh yeah, someday I’m going to take over Square Enix and make them write Kingdom Hearts III. Oh yes, I’m one of those fans. … No, no I’m not. I don’t own anything.

Notes: I swear, not even my fanfiction is safe. Remember that novel I mentioned in the last chapter? A big part of it is fucked up family relationships and, uh, it seems to be coming out over here too. Oops.

This chapter is probably my least favorite yet, without a doubt. All the humor is kind of sucked out of this one and I’m pretty sure the characterization’s gone all to hell. But, whatever, I’ll just do better next time. Right guys?

--

Four pairs of eyes watched as Raine’s car pulled out of the driveway and four mouths were open in shock.

“Fuck,” Sora said lowly, anxiety spilling into his stomach.

Leon and Cloud looked at one another, faces unreadable, but Sora knew they were distressed and keeping up brave faces for their little brothers.

“What does this mean then?” Cloud asked.

Leon shook his head, “I don’t know.” He was troubled. “I’m legally an adult. I can do whatever he want but I’m not Sora’s guardian.” He let those implications hang in the air.

Cloud and Roxas both looked shocked. Roxas’ face darkened as he crossed his arms over his chest. He was trying to look calmer than he felt, but everyone could see the tautness of his frame and the stubborn set of his jaw. “She’d try and take Sora?”

“I don’t want to go back with Mom and Dad!” Sora announced. “I like it here! Anyway,” he kicked a stone, “I won’t do her any good. I’m gay too.”

Leon reached over to ruffle Sora’s hair. “We’ll be fine. She won’t take you away, not if I can help it.”

Sora looked up at his brother for a long moment before hugging him very tightly. “We’ll be okay,” he repeated, letting go after a second.

Cloud went into the garage and came out with his motorcycle, looking up at Leon. Leon nodded, going into the garage as well to wheel out his own bike. “We’re going for a drive,” Cloud said. “We’ll be back late.”

Neither Sora nor Roxas objected; they both knew how much their brothers needed this. They needed the roar of an engine and the endless stretch of the Great Maw Highway to outrun their rage and anxiety and leave the memory of the day behind in the dust. Almost as one, Cloud and Leon got on their motorcycles and the two engines roared to life, the sound of two bikes shaking deep into everyone’s bones. Sora and Roxas waved them goodbye as they took off down the street, the sound fading off into the distance.

It took about two seconds after they were gone that Sora looked at Roxas and said, “I’m going to the beach.”

Roxas understood Sora the way he’d understood Cloud and Leon and nodded. “Yeah, I think I’m going for a walk.” He needed to clear his mind too and he preferred to be alone when he needed to think.

“Hey Roxas,” Sora said, walking inside the house for a change of clothes.

“Yeah Sora?”

Sora grinned easily, thinking of happier things, before he reached over and pulled Roxas into a one-armed hug. “I’m glad I’ve got you and Cloud too. You’re my family.”

Roxas remembered what Cloud had said the night before and returned the hug, squeezing Sora’s shoulders, “Same to you, Sora.”

--

“What the hell happened to your house?” Axel asked, looking at Riku’s living room with a stunned sort of appreciation for whatever could cause that much devastation.

“Hurricane Kisaragi,” Riku explained. Yuffie and Loz had gone on an extended rampage in protest of her capture before they bolted out the door and off into the sunset before anyone realized she’d seduced their eldest brother into becoming her willing accomplice. In the back of his head, he couldn’t help but wonder how those two had come together in the background of all this mad hook-up conspiracies. Best of luck to them at least, Riku thought. It was a match made in Happy Go Nuts Land.

Kadaj looked pained and waved away Axel’s question, “Never mind this.” His eyes narrowed and he stared them down. “Well, you were the ones who saw them at the restaurant! What happened! Were our efforts to preserve their secret successful?”

Reno shook his head, “You know how all of the guys in that family are, like, stoic as rock except Sora?”

“Yes?”

“They looked like they were all waiting for the earth to crack open and eat them,” Kairi finished for her cousins.

“Yeah!” Axel chimed in. “They looked like wrecks!”

Reno nodded emphatically, getting right in Kadaj’s face, “It was crazy, yo!”

They started to spill out their story, constantly interrupting one another while poor Kadaj tried to sort out what the hell they were saying as words piled one on top of the other. Kairi, meanwhile, started to dwell on other things.

Kairi couldn’t help glancing over at Riku. This had all started as a madcap scheme to hook him up with Sora that had quickly evolved into some kind of neighborhood-wide conspiracy. But, up until today, it had all been for the sake of fun, laughs, furthering the course of one true love, and all that good stuff. Seeing Sora’s face today at the restaurant was starting to weigh on her. He had looked honestly frightened and distressed when he saw them, as if the slightest mishap could send everything tumbling down in unimaginably horrible ways. The efforts they had taken to dramatically rearrange the house had been fun for her, but she didn’t think she’d seen any of them so spooked before.

Selphie still thought it was all for fun and was absolutely, positively convinced that everything would work out but Kairi was feeling less sure.

While she was thinking all this, Riku was looking right back at her and Kairi was somehow unsurprised to see her expression mirrored in his face. She scooted away from Kadaj and her cousins, whose clamor had just gotten louder and louder, and sat next to him.

“Your little conspiracy went a little crazy, didn’t it?” Riku mused.

Twenty-four hours ago, Riku’s knowledge of the grand master plan would have put Kairi into a panic. Now she just nodded. “He was scared Riku.” She looked at him intently, “You knew him when you were younger. Why does his mom scare him so much?”

Riku shrugged, “No idea. But she scared him that much back then too.” He looked back at Kairi with equal intentness. “Him being scared of his mom is what got us started fighting to begin with.”

“Why?” This was certainly the first Kairi had heard of any of this.

Riku shook his head, “I fucked up when we were kids ‘cause I got mad about something he said. I did something that would’ve fucked things up even worse if his mom found out. Didn’t get it back then.”

Kairi’s eyes widened and then she looked away, giggling softly. “It makes sense now,” she said softly, laughing.

“What?” Riku asked, clearly a little shocked.

There was no one around who couldn’t be disarmed by Kairi’s smile. She was the kind of girl who smiled from the heart so that light and goodwill seemed to just flow out of her. Right now, she had one of those smiles.

“You had a crush on him back then, didn’t you? When you were still friends,” Kairi deduced.

Riku said nothing.

She laughed and then became quiet again, gently slugging Riku on the shoulder. “You know, you might have a chance if try and find him right now.”

--

The beach was surprisingly empty that afternoon but Sora didn’t mind. It was one of the few times in his life that he needed to be by himself. Sora thrived on the energy of others, surrounding himself with friends no matter what he felt, happy or sad he was always in the middle of a crush of people. That was Sora, who didn’t let negativity weight him down, who always believed one hundred percent in the silver lining on the worst thunderclouds. He was always the guy that people went to when they wanted a good cheering up and he’d always been happy to fill that role.

But right now, surfboard under his arm, Sora wanted to jump into the ocean and paddle out until he hit the horizon where the ocean hit the sky and left the land and all its complications behind.

There were hardly any waves today but that was fine. Sora sat upright on his board, looking back at the beach and the little rock islands surrounding it. If he had to leave, he’d really miss this beach. He’d learned to surf here with Riku and learned to skateboard in the nearby park with Roxas. The surfboard he was sitting on right now had come from Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s Surf Shack a little ways off the beach.

He’d really, really miss it here if he left, Sora thought. And this was only the beach. If he started thinking about school, his heart sank. If he thought of the rest of Hollow Bastion, with its parks and arcades and all the historical houses that Leon worked to restore, his heart about broke. Sora couldn’t even bring himself to think about home.

Morosely, Sora’s shoulders slumped and he sprawled forward on his surfboard, sighing.

What about all the fun stuff that would happen in the future? If Sora had to leave now, he wouldn’t be able to go to all the bonfires and free concerts that made this beach great. He’d miss out on prom and getting to know all the girls from the school they’d just merged with. He wouldn’t get to play a part on the next neighborhood raid on crazy Xemnas’ house.

He’d miss everything about his crazy neighborhood if Raine tried to make him leave.

Leon talked bravely about how no one would take Sora away from him, but what could he do? Raine was his mother and legal guardian and Sora was underage.

Sitting up again, Sora looked over at one of the little islands in particular. It was easily the smallest one, made mostly of sand and a weird, crookedly growing paopu tree. Looking at it, Sora smiled, remembering back to when he was eleven and he and Riku had nicked Yazoo and Kadaj’s surfboards and gone to the beach. They’d been pretty hopeless first time surfers and eventually just paddled up to the little island to hang out and laugh about the hijinks and how badly Yazoo and Kadaj would gut them later.

Sora would miss those days the most, the days before everything with him and Riku went to hell.

He might even miss Riku too. Even if he was an arrogant prick who’d kissed him, not once but twice, in a closet against his will.

An arrogant prick who, according to Roxas, was in love with him.

Sora smacked impatiently at the water, trying to usher the thought away. He couldn’t even deal with the thought of that right now. Especially not right now.

It still made him smile thinking back to when they had just met.

Impulsively, Sora turned his surfboard around and began paddling toward the little island. He needed a place to sit and think and if there was a better place for that right now, Sora certainly couldn’t think of it.

Sora remembered it taking practically forever for the two of them to paddle out to the island when they’d first started out, but now he made it in a matter of minutes. He circled around to the side ladder that was miraculously still intact and hauled his board up behind him, settling into the sun-warmed sand.

Off in the distance, Sora could see another surfer closing the space between them. Curiosity was soon replaced by dread when Sora realized that the approaching surfer wore a blue and black wetsuit and had long silver hair tied at the nape. Sora groaned, flopping backwards in the sand. Maybe Riku wouldn’t see him at that angle. Maybe Riku wasn’t even going for the little island at all and all would be well.

“Anyone up there?” Riku asked, at the bottom of the ladder.

“Fuck off,” Sora said without much actual venom to it.

“Oh,” Riku said dispassionately. “You.” He pushed his surfboard up first before climbing up the ladder himself. “I haven’t seen you up here since we were kids.”

Sora had stopped coming to the little island after Riku had kissed him in the closet; this had always been more Riku’s spot than his. In response to Riku, he just shrugged before lying back down.

Riku stood there awkwardly for a minute before sitting down on the crooked trunk of the paopu tree. “So…” he said. “When are we getting our stuff back from your house?”

“I don’t know,” Sora replied. “It could be after I move out for all I know.”

That caught Riku off-guard. “What do you mean move out?”

Sora exhaled slowly. “Mom found out. We don’t know what she—“ Sora cut himself off and glared at Riku. “What do you care anyway?”

“Why would you be moving out?” Riku persisted.

“None of your business,” Sora replied. He stood up and grabbed his surfboard. “I’m going home.” He had one foot on the first rung of the ladder before Riku jumped down.

“Wait!” Riku said, staring at Sora.

For a second, in the lengthening shadows as the sun we beginning to creep down, Sora saw Riku at eleven years old, when they were still friends. Then he blinked and it was just the same old Riku, arrogant jerk extraordinaire. But for a second, he’d looked like a lost little kid whose best friend was abandoning him.

Sora didn’t think he liked that feeling.

Grudgingly, Sora sat down on the edge of the island, his upper body twisted to look over at Riku. When it came down to it, Sora just didn’t have the energy to fight right now. It was just easier to sit down.

“Mom figured it out on her own,” Sora explained slowly. “Said it right before she drove off. We don’t know what she’ll do. Worst case scenario is that she makes me move out and go back with her and Dad and go to a new school.”

“Just because youe brother’s gay?”

Sora nodded lamely and looked down at the water below them. He half-expected Riku to laugh and shake his head in derision, but he didn’t.

“Dude,” Riku said after a long pause. “That sucks. Sorry.”

The conversation was getting decidedly too close to friendly for Sora’s liking.

“Sorry about yesterday,” Riku added.

Sora almost jumped out of his seat, “What?”

Riku nodded his head as if to confirm that, yes, he had just apologized. “Sorry for what I did yesterday,” he repeated. “In the closet.”

Well what the hell was he supposed to say to that? Sora just shrugged. “It didn’t change anything anyway. Mom still found out.” The kiss seemed almost inconsequential now. He lay back in the sand again, contemplating the sky.

“It’s getting dark,” Riku said before standing. “Let’s get to shore.”

Sora just nodded and climbed down the ladder to settle on his surfboard again, paddling forward to give Riku some room to join him. Sora wouldn’t admit it, but if Riku hadn’t reminded him, Sora might have stayed there lost in thought until night fell and it was too dark to get back to shore safely.

--

Axel was many things. Subtle was not one of them. In fact, Axel and subtle was probably the worst combination since the peanut butter and napalm sandwich.

Riku was the subtle one. Riku was the one who had said two words to Kairi and then sneaked out past his big brother arguing with Axel and Reno. Riku was the one who had once been friends with Sora and knew, without a second thought, where Sora would be. Riku was the one who knew what to say in times like this.

Axel was the loud one who’d stormed out, with the idea planted in his mind that he should go find Roxas, even though he had no clue where the half-pint would be.

It was a piece of sheer luck that Axel had seen Roxas at the top of the hill that overlooked Hollow Bastion and the edges of Twilight Town. There used to be playground here, where he’d met Roxas in fact.

Roxas was leaned up against a low stone wall, looking pensive, maybe even sad.

“Why so blue?” Axel asked, walking up the hill behind him. “Visit not go well?”

“Fuck off,” Roxas said without turning around.

Axel rolled his eyes but grinned wryly, “In public? I might get arrested.”

Roxas gave a wordless shout of frustration, bringing his fists down on the stone fence in front of him. “Why can’t you leave me the hell alone! What’d I ever do to you?”

“Well,” Axel said thoughtfully, “there was that time you almost made me suffocate and die, but for now I’ll be generous and let bygones be bygones.” He smiled again.

Roxas spun around, “Are you talking about something from nine years ago?” He looked at Axel, hands on his hips, “What is your problem!?”

“Look kid!” Axel snarled. “I never did anything to you to make you hate me! We just made it clear we have no reason to hate each other! No goddamned big destructive fight like Riku and Sora. You just always hated me for reasons I can’t even guess! I should be telling you to leave me the hell alone!”

“Then why don’t you!?”

“Damned if I know anymore!” Axel’s fists were clenched. “I tried leaving you alone and I tried being friendly and that didn’t work, so I don’t know why!”

“You won’t leave me alone! You’re a creep!” Roxas snapped. “You follow me around all the time!”

Axel rolled his eyes. What goggles were Roxas looking through to see this shit? Maybe he was a little weird and sure he’d been looking for Roxas this time but that was hardly the norm. “So walking up a hill and saying hi is being a stalker now?” Roxas spun around, fists flying, hitting Axel squarely in the jaw.

Axel countered with a punch to Roxas’ shoulder to knock him away before thinking the better of it and lunging forward, grabbing Roxas’ collar. “If thinkin’ you looked good and wanting to get to know you makes me a stalker, well I’m so sorry.” He shook his head, “Commit it to memory, kid, I’m gonna fuck off like you asked because I’m sick of getting beat up just to say hi.” He shoved Roxas back and turned around to walk back home.

Axel was not a subtle person, especially when he was angry. If that was how he looked in Roxas’ eyes, well fuck it.

Somehow, he was unsurprised to see Reno at the bottom of the hill, looking at his brother. “I could hear the shouting from up there,” he said. “You’re never going to win him over at this rate.” Reno paused and looked at Axel, “Shit man, you have a bruise on your face. Did he punch you again?”

Axel shrugged, “Yeah. Guess why.”

“Did you come up to him and say hello or something.”

Axel let out a bark of laughter, “Yeah. That was all it took.” He paused. “You know what Reno?”

“What?”

“The hell with Roxas. The hell with all those girls plotting shit. The hell with him hating me for no reason. I’m over it Reno.”

Reno nodded somberly.

--

Miles away, in a biker café just off the Great Maw Highway, Cloud and Leon sat at the counter, hunched over cups of coffee and half-eaten cheeseburgers.

“Do you think Mom will try and take him?” Leon asked, staring morosely into his coffee.

Cloud shrugged, “Leon, I don’t know what your mother is like. I never met her before today.” He took a long drink from his coffee cup before holding it up for the waitress to refill. “The school’s too good to take Sora out of it and his grades are too good in his classes.”

“There are good schools back in Balamb too,” Leon pointed out.

“But Sora won’t be happy in them.”

“I have a feeling she’d think that was secondary. She’d probably say he’d get used to it. He fought leaving every step of the way to Hollow Bastion when he first moved in with me.”

“He was eleven.”

“Which means he’ll have a better understanding of what he wants,” Cloud replied sagely. He reached over and squeezed Leon’s hand. “This shit’ll all work itself out. It has to.”

“What I don’t get,” Leon finally said, “is how the hell she knew. We didn’t say anything. She didn’t question the rooms. It seemed like everything was going fine until that last minute.”

Cloud shrugged, “Moms know. They just know.” He looked at the hand on Leon’s coffee cup, how tightly it was clenched. Leon was more upset than he would ever, ever admit. To the normal viewer, he seemed fine, though perhaps a little tense. As his long-term partner and the love of his life, Cloud knew differently. He’d grown up with Roxas and he knew how to recognize moments like these. Leon, who normally sat pretty straight, was slouched over, his pose closed off to the outside world, and his whole body rigid. “We did what we could,” Cloud said simply.

“I could have done more.” He replied. “I don’t want to lose Sora. Mom has no idea. She has no fucking clue how to take care of him. He belongs with us!”

Cloud picked up a French fry, eating it slowly, “If Sora’s meant to be with us, Leon, he’ll be with us. We’re talking about him like he can’t handle himself, but he’s smart. He’d figure out a way to hitchhike back to Hollow Bastion if he had to. He’d tame a wild chocobo if that were the only way to get him home.”

Leon laughed despite himself and signaled the waitress for the check. “I’ll pay this time.” Cloud didn’t argue. They never argued about something as small as this. Sometimes Cloud paid. Sometimes Leon did.

They left the diner and stood out in the parking lot, looking at the sunset that turned the Great Maw Valley from unremarkable blue rock to a scene full of color.

“We had our first date here, didn’t we?” Cloud asked.

Leon shook his head, “Don’t get so sentimental on me. Last thing I need is for you to start with the tears and the heartbreak.”

Cloud punched Leon lightly on the shoulder, “Watch your mouth!” He closed the distance between the two of them, kissing Leon soundly. He threw his arms around him, pulling Leon close and they just stood there for a long moment, their faces close together.

“Raine won’t break up our family,” Cloud promised. “Never.”

--

Kairi, Selphie, and Naminé were walking home, with Selphie gushing about her date with Irvine. She’d been sent off to a hamburger joint that no one really expected the Leonharts and the Strifes to go to. It was a masterstroke, Kairi thought, in Kadaj’s otherwise botched plan. Selphie would be too preoccupied with her “Irvypoo” to realize she’d been had and sent somewhere to keep her from interfering with the rest of them.

“It was fun,” Selphie burbled. “But I didn’t see Sora or Roxas!”

“At least you got to go,” Naminé pointed out. “Dad caught me at the door and told me that if I was part of any conspiracy and if I interfered, he wouldn’t let me go to my life-drawing class for three weeks.”

“Ouch,” Kairi said, giving her friend a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “I saw them at my restaurant,” Kairi said. “It didn’t look good.” She walked down a few steps to sit on the cool sand. People were starting to gather on the beach to set up for the bonfire tomorrow, including a couple of guys in black hoodies who were carrying around instruments and laughing at one another. She grinned down at the band and then saw something even more surprising, looking up she saw Riku and Sora paddling to shore on their surfboards together.

“Guys!” she grabbed Naminé’s and Selphie’s hands to get their attention. “Look!” She pointed down at the two coming toward the shore. “They’re not fighting!”

She didn’t feel as bad all of a sudden, watching them come ashore. Maybe they weren’t dating right now. Maybe they weren’t even good friends. But they were both standing there together and they certainly weren’t fighting. Riku had looked as troubled as she felt earlier today, back at his house. But now, even from this distance, Kairi could see a smile on his face.

Naminé sat down next to her and Selphie sat on Naminé’s other side. “Finally, something’s going right,” Naminé said, with a pleased smile on her face.

Selphie squealed in glee and clapped her hands and Naminé smiled quietly before she looked at Kairi. “You said something to Riku when you went to report to Kadaj, didn’t you?”

Kairi smiled sweetly, “I didn’t tell him much at all. I just told him to do what he would anyway.” She stood up, brushing sand off her skirt. “But let’s go, before they think we’re spying on them.” Her friends laughed but got up to walk with her. Kairi let them walk a few steps ahead of her as she turned around to wave at Riku and Sora before walking off to catch up with her friends.

--

“Hey!” a voice called from the beach. “Riku!”

Coming ashore, Riku searched for the source of the voice, finally realizing it was coming from the band. “Demyx?” he called out.

“Yeah!” Sora saw a tall blond man yelling at him, waving enthusiastically, his other arm around the shoulders of a shorter, slate-haired man. “Hey, how’ve you been?”

Riku ran up to Demyx, waving back just as enthusiastically. “Hey, we’re good. You’re playing here tomorrow?”

“Yeah!” Demyx was standing next to the black stage that was usually empty, but now had a partially assembled drum kit and some guitar cases, as well as some microphones, and, most incongruously, a couple of tambourines. In the midst of it all was an angry blond girl shouting loudly about her snare drums for anyone who came in hearing range.

“Is she the drummer you told me about?” Riku asked.

Demyx nodded sheepishly, “Yeah, she’s…she’s something.”

“Batshit insane,” the other man said.

Riku looked at the stranger. “Is he the boyfriend you told me about?”

This time, Demyx’s nod was proud as the grin on his face expanded even wider. “Yeah! This is Zexion!” Demyx squeezed Zexion a little closer to him for a second before Zexion made an aggravated face and disentangled himself from Demyx’s grip.

“I’m perfectly capable of introducing myself,” Zexion complained. He accepted a kiss from Demyx all the same before holding out a hand in greeting, “Hi.”

Riku took Zexion’s hand and shook it with a smile before Zexion moved on to Sora, who looked between Zexion and Riku indecisively for a second. They were Riku’s friends, not his. Demyx looked a little confused, wondering why Sora looked so uneasy. Feeling guilty, Sora shook Zexion’s hand and smiled. “Hi.”

Demyx looked between Sora and Riku and grinned, “Is he your boyfriend?”

Riku flushed a deep red and Sora began to sputter. “No, um, Riku and I are…” are what? Mortal enemies? Acquaintances? “I should probably head home actually.”

Demyx shook his head, “No, no! Stay!” He grinned, “Stick around and help us.” He grinned at Riku, “Come on, you have to help family at least.”

Sora grinned back, the awkwardness temporarily lost. “But I’m not family.”

Demyx looked at Sora and then looked at Zexion. “Hey Zexy, I think it’s time we took the next step in our relationship. Let’s adopt!” He grinned again, “Welcome to the family son, now get to work!”

“Gee Dad, you didn’t even ask my name.”

“Zexion, meet Hargreaves.”

“My name is Sora!”

“Sora Hargreaves Lockhart, the…uh…seventh!” Demyx corrected.

Zexion frowned, “He doesn’t look anything like me. But he has your eyes.”

Sora just shook his head and started to laugh, “Oh like this isn’t familiar.” Glancing sidelong, he saw that Riku was laughing too.

--

Sora was the last person to get home that night after helping move all the equipment and set up for the show. It had been fun, hanging out with Demyx and his band, even with Riku there. There had been pizza and music and new friends and the promise of a great show tomorrow.

Leon and Cloud were gathered up on the couch, not even out of their motorcycle jackets, their eyes closed as they slept. Leon, to his credit, cracked an eye open when he saw Sora and offered him a rare smile.

Sora smiled right back and went into the kitchen for a drink, unsurprised to find Roxas sitting at the kitchen table with a pack of ice on his shoulder, a bruise on his arm, and an expression that told Sora to simply not ask.

All the same, with all the shit that was happening, walking home to see the people he cared about most made Sora so happy. This was his family.

--

Notes: Well I tried for a little comic relief at the end there. this chapter really did come out a lot more serious than I would have liked but, hopefully the next chapter will go better.

Also, at a little over 5000 words and 9 and a half pages, this is the longest chapter so far.