Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Alkalinity ❯ Strontium ( Chapter 4 )

A/N: I can't stop writing this story, and I'm really behind on my homework now… XD I mentioned this to my Great Books teacher today, and he looked me dead in the eye and said “what you write is more important than any assignment anyone in this school, including me, gives you.” T_T Call me a sap, but it was touching.

 

 

Not many people have brought it up, but the spoken vote seems to be to keep the English names. And so I shall.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

Roxas had grown intensely fond of his kitchen. He saw no reason, in fact, to venture beyond it for meals. He stayed in, Namine stayed with him, and they both pointedly ignored the unspoken questions that hung heavy over their heads.

 

 

Coffee had developed as well, from The Gross Stuff to his new best friend. It left him jittery and ill-tempered, but not much more so than usual.

 

 

He slept in fifteen minute increments every few hours, with two cell phones, his alarm clock, and the oven set to wake him before he could fall too deeply.

 

 

The smudges around his eyes morphed from lilac to plum to almost-black. Namine painted intricate patterns around them in the morning, and smeared shadows under her own eyes to match. They looked dead, and they welcomed it.

 

 

He had tried sitting through Chemistry once after the last dream, and had made it through a little over an hour as he stared at a fixed spot on the floor and heard nothing.

 

 

Then too-hot fingers fell lightly on the square of gauze peeking from his jacket and tried to pull the material back. He bolted before the slow words that shaped from a voice like mulled wine could reach him.

 

 

Third block on “niger” days became a sanctuary, curled up like a cat on Namine's couch. They smoked and watched silent movies. She ran her fingers through his hair in perfect time, never faltering. He felt safe, and pretended he was still in the womb.

 

 

No officials came stomping down the door. Perhaps it was just the lack of an intercom, but no frazzled summons to visit the opulent offices were relayed.

 

 

They abstained from life in small doses.

 

 

After eleven days of sleep snatched and released before quiet, dark release could take hold, Roxas crashed. He would later blame it on the mice, keys, and swooping black shapes that kept appearing at the edges of his vision.

 

 

He was not hallucinating, he mentioned fervently to the dancing candlestick that was keeping him company.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

He caressed the strings delicately, making no sound as his fingertips ran down the length of the lute. The tightly wound gut cut into the fleshy pads, but he continued until all the strings gleamed with his blood in the sputtering firelight.

 

 

He would not play tonight. The crusaders currently struggling to coax the flames back to life were not the glorious heroes for whom tales were written.

 

 

For years he had sung stirring tales of war. Now, having seen it, he knew that only those in ignorance could make it glorious.

 

 

A hand tangled itself in his thick hair, just enough pain to be pleasurable. He did not start or flinch. The heat in the skin would have told him who towered behind him, had he not known already from the sound of the owner's footsteps and the pattern of his breathing.

 

 

Without taking his hands from his mistress, her strings drinking his blood, he craned his neck to meet the eyes of his master.

 

 

The Lionheart ignored the sudden exclamations of his soldiers and the conspicuous silence that had settled over the surrounding campfires.

 

 

The king did not speak.

 

 

His eyes said “come”.

 

 

The Lionheart turned and strode away without a stutter in his fluid stride, not once glancing over his shoulder. Roxas followed him, of course. At the front of his bright tent, the king held the flap open so that his minstrel could enter first.

 

 

He watched with clinical distaste as a tousled brown head shot up and the body attached to it jerked into sun-bleached robes. Sorrel darted away like a mouse, and Roxas was left more sickened than ever by the fact that he could be so often compared to that.

 

 

Sorrel was a minstrel, but not the king's. Sorrel was more innocent in the eyes, less sparing in his speech. And English, Roxas reminded himself with a snort. Never send an Englishman to do a Frenchman's work.

 

 

He did not consider Richard Coeur de Lion an Englishman. He might have been their king, but his soul was French.

 

 

Richard paced, his reddish mane catching in the poor light of tallow candles. When combined with the intensity and efficiency of his movements, it made him seem a lion in more than name.

 

 

Roxas was told to sing and he did so. He sang soothing, meaningless ballads of rolling hills and clear skies until the king sank to the mess of cushions and tapestries that served as his bed. When a gleaming jade eye fixed him with a baleful glare, he began singing stories of love.

 

 

“Why do you stay here?” he would ask the Lionheart.

 

 

“Because it is all I am,” would be his answer.

 

 

When scarred hands closed over his mouth, he was silent. They fell away, as did the mantle of sovereignty, and left only a man tensed in desperation.

 

 

“He wasn't me.”

 

 

“How could he be? How could anyone? It was like sawdust and smoke.” The voice that rang out over battlefields was rough with despair.

 

 

Richard ran callused fingers over his lips before kissing him. It began softly, and grew in urgency when Roxas did not respond. He remained cold beneath heated ministrations. Finally the Lionheart sunk his teeth into his minstrel's shoulder and roared his helpless rage.

 

 

“Why?”

 

 

It was so soft against his skin he almost missed it.

 

 

“Once you have me,” he murmured into his king's ear, “you will not need me. So long as you have not had me, you will not let yourself die.”

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

When Roxas woke he felt stretched with wanting, as if his entire being was housing a building pressure that left him shaking.

 

 

He chose to confront matters head-on for once, as logic and data could always be counted on to reduce that which was inexplicable to smoke and mirrors.

 

 

And after being assailed by crude portrayals, again and again, of the fierce, flame-haired king the French had called the Coeur de Lion, he began counting all the painkillers thoughtfully stocking his bathroom cabinet.

 

 

Namine found him, as always, and meted out espresso and steady distraction until the sun rose and it was time to begin it all again.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

When he washed his clothes, he felt the grittiness of sand.

 

 

It was the first thing he taught himself to forget.

 

 

It wasn't the last.

 

 

x(X)x

 

 

Whew! Two in one day. o.o Not as long as I had hoped for this chapter to be (sorry) but as long as the story required.

 

 

Leijhana tu'sai to all readers and reviewers! Never forget the evil review-eating monster that lives under my desk and holds stories for ransom! (whaps monster on nose with newspaper)