Amor Fati: The Memory Yields.
Title: Amor Fati: The Memory Yields.
Fandom: Loveless/Kingdom Hearts 2.
Warnings: Some spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 2 and for Loveless volumes 6 and 7. Slash.
Characters/couples: Ritsuka/Soubi, Axel, implied mentions of Axel -->Roxas.
Summary: Axel knows that the boy has noticed that the heartless are following him. He hasn't looked around him towards the shadows of the darkening street, but he's walking faster now, cat ears pressed against his hair and he's holding tightly to his bag.
Rating: PG13.
Notes: Set in my Amor Fati verse, between IX and X. I would like to say it's not my fault that this 'verse made a comeback, but the novels'. Both Axel and Soubi are weak against the Kitten Frown and Wide-Eyed-Amnesiac-Boys, it seems.
Amor Fati: The Memory Yields.
"Hold still," Ritsuka orders, so Soubi stops trying to tell him that he can take care of himself, that even if he couldn't he can call Kio to have him help take care of the wounds.
Instead he does as he's told, keeping his eyes half open to the way Ritsuka is glaring as he cleans his wounds and bandages them, eyes focused and angry. Still, Soubi won't apologize for protecting him, even if the creatures they had had to fight aren't a pair of Fighter and Sacrifice.
He is Ritsuka's Fighter, against anything that might mean harm for him.
Soubi still hisses when Ritsuka presses a bit harshly to his ribs. Ritsuka falters for a second, ears pressed against his hair, before he continues. His touch is more careful, though, and Soubi can't help but love Ritsuka for that kindness he doesn't need.
"It's your damn fault," Ritsuka mutters, his eyes still grave and angry. "For fighting like that."
"Will Ritsuka punish me, then?" Soubi asks with a smile, taking a deep breath just to test how tight the bandages are and how much he'll be able to move.
Ritsuka clicks his tongue against his teeth and goes to clean at the cuts of his arms. He swaps the desinfectant with precise fingers, never hesitating, but it's still more careful than even Kio sometimes does it, as if Ritsuka was really trying not to
"You're punished enough with all these bruises, stupid."
Soubi smiles. For a boy who has lost his heart and vows he can't feel a thing, Ritsuka worries so much for him it's endearing. He wonders how it'll be, when they manage to find Ritsuka's heart again, when Ritsuka is complete again, when this Ritsuka with the autumn eyes and the quick fingers might turn into someone different.
He tries hard not to get scared by that idea. It's what Ritsuka wants, he thinks. To be complete. To have his own heart. Even if Soubi has offered him his, would gladly give everything for the boy, it's not enough.
"There," Ritsuka says, tying the last bandage and putting together again the first aid kit. "You have to rest now, Soubi. At least until tomorrow morning. Will Kio-san come and pick you up for school?"
"Most likely."
"I'll call him then," Ritsuka stands up. His clothes are dirty with blood, but Soubi is sure it's his. Ritsuka rarely bleeds, even during their cruelest battles, even against those 'Heartless' that have been appearing. Ritsuka makes a frustrated sound when he notices the blood, but then he just picks up his bag, cellphone and camera and looks at him. "I'll call him and tell him what an idiot you are and that if he sees that you're tired or hurt tomorrow he's to call me immediately."
Soubi can't help himself and he tilts his head, smiling towards the boy despite the way his ears are pressed flat against his hair.
"Are you worried about me, Ritsuka?"
As expected, Ritsuka's tail lashes angrily around his legs and Ritsuka's glare intensifies, the light dusting of a blush over his cheekbones.
"Even if I could be worried, why I'd worry about you?" Ritsuka answers, stomping towards the door, most likely ready to shut it as harshly as he possibly can. Soubi picks up his own cellphone.
"Ritsuka."
"What?" Ritsuka snaps, looking back. The flash of the camera makes him blink, moving a hand to rub at his eye and Soubi smiles softly at him, resisting the urge to kiss him.
"Ritsuka is my important memory," Soubi explains, pleased when he sees the boy's anger melt a little. He would move, hug the boy tightly, but Ristuka had told him not to, so instead he just holds his eyes. "And I don't want to forget him."
Ritsuka looks down for a moment, hand still holding to the door and then:
"Idiot."
The door closes softly after that.
**
Axel knows that the boy has noticed that the heartless are following him. He hasn't looked around him towards the shadows of the darkening street, but he's walking faster now, cat ears pressed against his hair and he's holding tightly to his bag.
The one reason he's there, Axel knows, is because Xemnas is still interested in these results, on what it'd mean for two people to share just one heart. He makes sure to follow at a safe distance. The kid so far hasn't shown any kind of ability, but that's no reason to believe that, if he's in danger and without that Fighter of his, he won't develop something. Necessity is the mother of all attacks, after all.
When the kid gets surrounded by heartless and falls to the ground, however, it's quite obvious that this is the exception to the rule, so Axel calls forth his chakrams before they even manage to touch Ritsuka, fire trailing from his arms and around him as he slashes through them. It's mostly a warning right now, because they are to push the kid, not hurt him when he's still important, when he might still have some answers about their hearts.
He turns to look towards the kid. He's still on the floor, eyes like amethyst wide and shocked before he glares at him, looking around for a place to run, so Axel grins at him and pushes down his coat so the kid can see his face, even if it's fucking weird playing the hero.
“You okay?”
The kid's glare doesn't ease and he stands up slowly, tail lashing and curling around his legs, still looking for a way to get away.
“You're not from Nanatsu no Tsuki,” Ritsuka says. “I... who are you?”
The kid really doesn't remember, then, walking through the darkness those two first times, or his stay with Naminé until he reacted. He's glaring at him, masking his fear completely. Axel can't help but blink when the way he's glaring seems awfully familiar, but instead of wondering about that he just grins.
“Don't you worry about that,” Axel says, shrugging. “After all, what's important is that you're okay, right? Heartless, but okay.”
Ritsuka keeps looking at him, distrustful. He has a hand over his jacket, probably thinking if he'd be able to call that Fighter of his, wondering if he should. After all, that man had gotten quite a beating from that Berserker Saïx had sent.
“C'mon, I'll make sure you get home so your pet doesn't get more hurt, mmkay?”
“You know I don't have a heart... you know what's happening!” Ritsuka asks, eyes widening before frowning again. “Tell me!”
“Tsk, manners, kid,” Axel calls forth a portal just behind the kid and then pushes him towards it, grinning. “Your brother never told you to say 'please' and 'thank you'? Not having a heart doesn't mean you gotta be rude.”
The darkness is too much of a shock for Ritsuka to answer. He pales and Axel has to keep pushing him so he doesn't freeze, picks up the kid's camera when he can't hold it, eyes blank and almost not breathing until they break through it to his room. Then he takes deep, shaky breaths, eyes focusing again as he falls to his knees, trembling all over for a second before he looks at him and stands up despite his shaking knees.
Axel ignores him instead to see the photos Ritsuka has stored on the camera, giving a low whistle under his breath.
“Wow, kid, obsessed much?”
“Give me that!” Ritsuka demands, but Axel just has to raise his arms and the camera is too above the kid's reach. He continues looking through the pictures: some of Ritsuka's classmates, the Fighter, he and the Fighter, his 'dead' brother, sunsets and animals and butterflies and flowers and sunsets and sunrises and the Fighter again, Ritsuka and the Fighter and on the photos, no one would know Ritsuka doesn't have a heart.
“No one ever told you obsessions are bad? Really, you don't need to take pictures of everything.” He asks Ritsuka, handing him the camera. Ritsuka snatches it and holds it close, glare intensifying before he shakes his head, looking towards the pictures, too.
“I don't take pictures of everything,” Ritsuka mutters. “I take pictures of what I want to remember.”
“Huh?”
Ritsuka shrugs.
"Memories are important because they make you feel that again," the kitten says, still looking towards the pictures he has taken. "Happiness or jealousy or sadness... that's why people treasure their memories, because when they're gone, you'll get to remember that once upon a time, there was something important for them."
Then he's looking at the picture of that long haired man that seems to be his protector and his voice, Axel could swear, comes out sad.
"But I don't have that. I don't have memories... and I don't have a heart to feel about the memories I've made. That's why I need the photos, because if not, I'll just lose them. And then I'll be..."
“Nobody?” Axel guesses. Ritsuka winces but nods, and Axel is tempted to tell him that he already is that, but there's still that weird feeling, the expression of the kid still so familiar that he can't bring himself to. Besides, it's Ritsuka who has to find about that.
"I want to make memories," Ritsuka continues, eyes wistful. "It's all that I have left. Even if I do disappear, if there are pictures, it'll be a proof that I existed."
“What about the people that know you?” Axel asks. He doesn't like the way this conversation is going, the way it's making him think of what'd happen if Roxas would disappear or go away, and that makes his chest ache. “Won't they also prove that you exist?”
Ritsuka pauses a moment and then shakes his head no. “I can't trust on something like that. Memories can be modified, and if they are, then I'll be gone completely, and no one would miss me.”
Axel snorts, standing up. Weird kid, making him think of stupid, useless things. “Well, I'm sure that man would miss you, even if he forgot your name.”
The kid flushes, eyes angry and surprised again and ready to lash at him so Axel grins and calls forth another portal, making the kid jump backwards a few steps.
“See you around, kid.”
"Thanks, uh..."
"Axel. Got it memorized?" The kitten frowns, taking it personal, but Axel just grins at that. "And since you were such a charming company, here's a tip: where do lost things are usually found?"
Ritsuka frowns for a moment, cat ears twitching, and Axel thinks that he might have to make a last stop in this world before going back to try and see if there is something like fake cat-ears that Roxas could wear.
"Try to think about that," he says with a wink before opening a path and walking away.
If the kid really is like Roxas, he'll figure it out soon enough.
**
Not three seconds after the weird man - Axel, he reminds himself, his name was Axel - disappeared, his phone rings, startling him.
He answers without checking the ID, already guessing who it might be.
“I told you that you had to rest, Soubi!”
“Are you alright?” Soubi asks. He keeps from sighing, because the question means that Soubi did, in fact, felt he was in danger. Knowing the idiot, he might be already out of his apartment and trying to reach him.
“Of course I'm fine!” He snorts, ignoring the unsettling words the redhead had told him, at least for the moment. “It's you the one that's hurt, idiot.”
He knows that there are few chances that he might have actually fooled Soubi, but he also knows that Soubi won't call him on that. Soubi rarely does. He tries not to think of when he disappears, if Soubi'll be fine.
“Soubi...”
“Yes?”
But he changes his mind at the last minute, the idea that Soubi might forget him making the silence inside him almost unbearable., and he doesn't want to admit to that and ordering Soubi not to forget him would be mean and impossible. He shakes his head even though he knows Soubi can't see it.
“It's nothing. Go to sleep. It's an order!”
Soubi's chuckle is warm and soothing and irritating, all at the same time. “If Ritsuka wants,” he says, and then his voice is even softer. “Good night, Ritsuka.”
Ritsuka hangs up after that and curls on top of his bed, and his wondering thoughts about where could the last place for his heart be mix up with thoughts of Soubi being able to forget him.
Fandom: Loveless/Kingdom Hearts 2.
Warnings: Some spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 2 and for Loveless volumes 6 and 7. Slash.
Characters/couples: Ritsuka/Soubi, Axel, implied mentions of Axel -->Roxas.
Summary: Axel knows that the boy has noticed that the heartless are following him. He hasn't looked around him towards the shadows of the darkening street, but he's walking faster now, cat ears pressed against his hair and he's holding tightly to his bag.
Rating: PG13.
Notes: Set in my Amor Fati verse, between IX and X. I would like to say it's not my fault that this 'verse made a comeback, but the novels'. Both Axel and Soubi are weak against the Kitten Frown and Wide-Eyed-Amnesiac-Boys, it seems.
Amor Fati: The Memory Yields.
"Hold still," Ritsuka orders, so Soubi stops trying to tell him that he can take care of himself, that even if he couldn't he can call Kio to have him help take care of the wounds.
Instead he does as he's told, keeping his eyes half open to the way Ritsuka is glaring as he cleans his wounds and bandages them, eyes focused and angry. Still, Soubi won't apologize for protecting him, even if the creatures they had had to fight aren't a pair of Fighter and Sacrifice.
He is Ritsuka's Fighter, against anything that might mean harm for him.
Soubi still hisses when Ritsuka presses a bit harshly to his ribs. Ritsuka falters for a second, ears pressed against his hair, before he continues. His touch is more careful, though, and Soubi can't help but love Ritsuka for that kindness he doesn't need.
"It's your damn fault," Ritsuka mutters, his eyes still grave and angry. "For fighting like that."
"Will Ritsuka punish me, then?" Soubi asks with a smile, taking a deep breath just to test how tight the bandages are and how much he'll be able to move.
Ritsuka clicks his tongue against his teeth and goes to clean at the cuts of his arms. He swaps the desinfectant with precise fingers, never hesitating, but it's still more careful than even Kio sometimes does it, as if Ritsuka was really trying not to
"You're punished enough with all these bruises, stupid."
Soubi smiles. For a boy who has lost his heart and vows he can't feel a thing, Ritsuka worries so much for him it's endearing. He wonders how it'll be, when they manage to find Ritsuka's heart again, when Ritsuka is complete again, when this Ritsuka with the autumn eyes and the quick fingers might turn into someone different.
He tries hard not to get scared by that idea. It's what Ritsuka wants, he thinks. To be complete. To have his own heart. Even if Soubi has offered him his, would gladly give everything for the boy, it's not enough.
"There," Ritsuka says, tying the last bandage and putting together again the first aid kit. "You have to rest now, Soubi. At least until tomorrow morning. Will Kio-san come and pick you up for school?"
"Most likely."
"I'll call him then," Ritsuka stands up. His clothes are dirty with blood, but Soubi is sure it's his. Ritsuka rarely bleeds, even during their cruelest battles, even against those 'Heartless' that have been appearing. Ritsuka makes a frustrated sound when he notices the blood, but then he just picks up his bag, cellphone and camera and looks at him. "I'll call him and tell him what an idiot you are and that if he sees that you're tired or hurt tomorrow he's to call me immediately."
Soubi can't help himself and he tilts his head, smiling towards the boy despite the way his ears are pressed flat against his hair.
"Are you worried about me, Ritsuka?"
As expected, Ritsuka's tail lashes angrily around his legs and Ritsuka's glare intensifies, the light dusting of a blush over his cheekbones.
"Even if I could be worried, why I'd worry about you?" Ritsuka answers, stomping towards the door, most likely ready to shut it as harshly as he possibly can. Soubi picks up his own cellphone.
"Ritsuka."
"What?" Ritsuka snaps, looking back. The flash of the camera makes him blink, moving a hand to rub at his eye and Soubi smiles softly at him, resisting the urge to kiss him.
"Ritsuka is my important memory," Soubi explains, pleased when he sees the boy's anger melt a little. He would move, hug the boy tightly, but Ristuka had told him not to, so instead he just holds his eyes. "And I don't want to forget him."
Ritsuka looks down for a moment, hand still holding to the door and then:
"Idiot."
The door closes softly after that.
**
Axel knows that the boy has noticed that the heartless are following him. He hasn't looked around him towards the shadows of the darkening street, but he's walking faster now, cat ears pressed against his hair and he's holding tightly to his bag.
The one reason he's there, Axel knows, is because Xemnas is still interested in these results, on what it'd mean for two people to share just one heart. He makes sure to follow at a safe distance. The kid so far hasn't shown any kind of ability, but that's no reason to believe that, if he's in danger and without that Fighter of his, he won't develop something. Necessity is the mother of all attacks, after all.
When the kid gets surrounded by heartless and falls to the ground, however, it's quite obvious that this is the exception to the rule, so Axel calls forth his chakrams before they even manage to touch Ritsuka, fire trailing from his arms and around him as he slashes through them. It's mostly a warning right now, because they are to push the kid, not hurt him when he's still important, when he might still have some answers about their hearts.
He turns to look towards the kid. He's still on the floor, eyes like amethyst wide and shocked before he glares at him, looking around for a place to run, so Axel grins at him and pushes down his coat so the kid can see his face, even if it's fucking weird playing the hero.
“You okay?”
The kid's glare doesn't ease and he stands up slowly, tail lashing and curling around his legs, still looking for a way to get away.
“You're not from Nanatsu no Tsuki,” Ritsuka says. “I... who are you?”
The kid really doesn't remember, then, walking through the darkness those two first times, or his stay with Naminé until he reacted. He's glaring at him, masking his fear completely. Axel can't help but blink when the way he's glaring seems awfully familiar, but instead of wondering about that he just grins.
“Don't you worry about that,” Axel says, shrugging. “After all, what's important is that you're okay, right? Heartless, but okay.”
Ritsuka keeps looking at him, distrustful. He has a hand over his jacket, probably thinking if he'd be able to call that Fighter of his, wondering if he should. After all, that man had gotten quite a beating from that Berserker Saïx had sent.
“C'mon, I'll make sure you get home so your pet doesn't get more hurt, mmkay?”
“You know I don't have a heart... you know what's happening!” Ritsuka asks, eyes widening before frowning again. “Tell me!”
“Tsk, manners, kid,” Axel calls forth a portal just behind the kid and then pushes him towards it, grinning. “Your brother never told you to say 'please' and 'thank you'? Not having a heart doesn't mean you gotta be rude.”
The darkness is too much of a shock for Ritsuka to answer. He pales and Axel has to keep pushing him so he doesn't freeze, picks up the kid's camera when he can't hold it, eyes blank and almost not breathing until they break through it to his room. Then he takes deep, shaky breaths, eyes focusing again as he falls to his knees, trembling all over for a second before he looks at him and stands up despite his shaking knees.
Axel ignores him instead to see the photos Ritsuka has stored on the camera, giving a low whistle under his breath.
“Wow, kid, obsessed much?”
“Give me that!” Ritsuka demands, but Axel just has to raise his arms and the camera is too above the kid's reach. He continues looking through the pictures: some of Ritsuka's classmates, the Fighter, he and the Fighter, his 'dead' brother, sunsets and animals and butterflies and flowers and sunsets and sunrises and the Fighter again, Ritsuka and the Fighter and on the photos, no one would know Ritsuka doesn't have a heart.
“No one ever told you obsessions are bad? Really, you don't need to take pictures of everything.” He asks Ritsuka, handing him the camera. Ritsuka snatches it and holds it close, glare intensifying before he shakes his head, looking towards the pictures, too.
“I don't take pictures of everything,” Ritsuka mutters. “I take pictures of what I want to remember.”
“Huh?”
Ritsuka shrugs.
"Memories are important because they make you feel that again," the kitten says, still looking towards the pictures he has taken. "Happiness or jealousy or sadness... that's why people treasure their memories, because when they're gone, you'll get to remember that once upon a time, there was something important for them."
Then he's looking at the picture of that long haired man that seems to be his protector and his voice, Axel could swear, comes out sad.
"But I don't have that. I don't have memories... and I don't have a heart to feel about the memories I've made. That's why I need the photos, because if not, I'll just lose them. And then I'll be..."
“Nobody?” Axel guesses. Ritsuka winces but nods, and Axel is tempted to tell him that he already is that, but there's still that weird feeling, the expression of the kid still so familiar that he can't bring himself to. Besides, it's Ritsuka who has to find about that.
"I want to make memories," Ritsuka continues, eyes wistful. "It's all that I have left. Even if I do disappear, if there are pictures, it'll be a proof that I existed."
“What about the people that know you?” Axel asks. He doesn't like the way this conversation is going, the way it's making him think of what'd happen if Roxas would disappear or go away, and that makes his chest ache. “Won't they also prove that you exist?”
Ritsuka pauses a moment and then shakes his head no. “I can't trust on something like that. Memories can be modified, and if they are, then I'll be gone completely, and no one would miss me.”
Axel snorts, standing up. Weird kid, making him think of stupid, useless things. “Well, I'm sure that man would miss you, even if he forgot your name.”
The kid flushes, eyes angry and surprised again and ready to lash at him so Axel grins and calls forth another portal, making the kid jump backwards a few steps.
“See you around, kid.”
"Thanks, uh..."
"Axel. Got it memorized?" The kitten frowns, taking it personal, but Axel just grins at that. "And since you were such a charming company, here's a tip: where do lost things are usually found?"
Ritsuka frowns for a moment, cat ears twitching, and Axel thinks that he might have to make a last stop in this world before going back to try and see if there is something like fake cat-ears that Roxas could wear.
"Try to think about that," he says with a wink before opening a path and walking away.
If the kid really is like Roxas, he'll figure it out soon enough.
**
Not three seconds after the weird man - Axel, he reminds himself, his name was Axel - disappeared, his phone rings, startling him.
He answers without checking the ID, already guessing who it might be.
“I told you that you had to rest, Soubi!”
“Are you alright?” Soubi asks. He keeps from sighing, because the question means that Soubi did, in fact, felt he was in danger. Knowing the idiot, he might be already out of his apartment and trying to reach him.
“Of course I'm fine!” He snorts, ignoring the unsettling words the redhead had told him, at least for the moment. “It's you the one that's hurt, idiot.”
He knows that there are few chances that he might have actually fooled Soubi, but he also knows that Soubi won't call him on that. Soubi rarely does. He tries not to think of when he disappears, if Soubi'll be fine.
“Soubi...”
“Yes?”
But he changes his mind at the last minute, the idea that Soubi might forget him making the silence inside him almost unbearable., and he doesn't want to admit to that and ordering Soubi not to forget him would be mean and impossible. He shakes his head even though he knows Soubi can't see it.
“It's nothing. Go to sleep. It's an order!”
Soubi's chuckle is warm and soothing and irritating, all at the same time. “If Ritsuka wants,” he says, and then his voice is even softer. “Good night, Ritsuka.”
Ritsuka hangs up after that and curls on top of his bed, and his wondering thoughts about where could the last place for his heart be mix up with thoughts of Soubi being able to forget him.