Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Tattered Soul ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

Summary: Takes place before “To Save a Life”. Zexion is cold and distant, but he wasn't always like this. He decided to drink once and ended up having his heart and soul ripped out by a cold, heartless jerk. Because of one stupid mistake. Now he can't trust anyone. Not even himself. AU. mpreg. Mild MarluxiaxZexion. Later Zemyx.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Kingdom Hearts nor am I making any money by writing this.

Timeline: This takes place a few years before “To Save a Life”.

Explanation: I was writing chapter 2 of To Save a Life and all of a sudden, I got an idea for a side story involving and focusing on Zexion. Thus, this was born.

Pairings: Mild (very very mild) MarluxiaxZexion, MarluxiaxLarxene, later Zemyx, and possibly some AkuRoku. Please note that most of these are yaoi (boyxboy) pairings so no bitching, because I warned you beforehand.

Note: You don't have to read “To Save a Life” first in order to understand this. And you don't have to read this before “To Save a Life” for that to make sense. You can read them in any order you want.

Second note: I apologize to my readers for rewriting this yet again. I wasn't happy at all at the way it had turned out so far. It was much too rushed. So I'm gonna start again and slow things down even more and develop things a lot better. And I'm gonna make sure there are no typos or other grammatical errors. It may mean that it takes me longer to post the chapters, but that's okay. If the spacing is messed up, blame MS Word. It likes to mess with the spacing for some reason. Sorry there are so many author's notes. There won't be as many in future chapters. This is just the beginning notes and stuff.

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Chapter 1

Zexion was a loner.

He had been like that for as long as he could remember. He had been born different. He barely resembled his parents—his eyes were a combination of his mother's blue and his father's violet eyes. His hair, which was dark ebony like his mother's at his birth, turned to dark silver by his second birthday. He was thin, pale, and petite, much smaller than boys his own age. He was different.

When he was four, he lost his parents in a car accident. He scarcely remembered anything except waking up in the hospital, crying for his mom. Because he didn't have any known living relatives, he was put in foster care. For the next nine years, he was shifted from one family to the next for various reasons. One turned out to be full of drug dealers, another abusive. Once he was put in the care of an older woman, but she died. He moved from one town to another, never staying in one place for more than a year. Because he moved around so much, he never made any friends.

He tried at first, but after a couple moves, he gave up, and closed himself off in his room, reading. He liked books more than he liked people. He loved what he could learn from books. He retained all the knowledge he gained from them and it helped him greatly in school. The other students looked down on him because he was smart and actually applied himself. It made making friends even more difficult.

When he was thirteen, social services managed to track down his godparents Cloud Strife and Leon Squall. They were a gay couple who lived in a small town called Twilight Town. Zexion, who had been living in the nearby city of Radiant Garden in between foster families, was sent to live with them. Normally, it was next to impossible for a gay couple to adopt, but Zexion had been giving social services grief for nine years and frankly, they were glad to be getting rid of him.

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Zexion nervously paced around his empty bedroom. Everything had been packed except his furniture; his godfathers had assured him that he didn't need to take his furniture. The only thing he needed to bring with him was his possessions. Zexion didn't really have much; just his books, clothes, and some other assorted things.

His godfathers would be arriving soon to take him to his new home in Twilight Town. He didn't know what to expect—he had never met them. He didn't know what they were like or even what they looked like. All he had to hold onto were two names and the knowledge that they were gay. He knew what it meant to be gay; he wasn't as naïve as people made him out to be. Personally, he didn't care if someone was gay or not. He didn't like people anyway, so it didn't matter.

He heard the doorbell ring downstairs, followed by the front door being opened. There were low voices in the hallway and then the social services woman he had been staying with called up to him.

“Zexion, your godparents are here!” she called.

Taking a deep breath, Zexion left his room. He hated meeting people for the first time. No matter what, it was always painful. He reached the bottom of the stairs were the social services woman was waiting with two unfamiliar men—his godparents.

He was surprised to see how young they were. Both of them were in their mid-twenties. One of them was a brunette, the other blonde. The brunette had hazel eyes and a long scar across his face. The blonde had stunning clear blue eyes and very spiky hair. They were well-dressed, but not in fancy clothes the rich wore. They had money. Not a lot of it, but enough. Both of them studied Zexion carefully.

“Hello Zexion,” the brunette said softly, stepping forward. “You probably don't remember us. You were quite young when we met. I'm Leon and that's Cloud.” Zexion didn't say anything.

“He's a bit shy,” the social services woman explained.

“I see. He and Cloud will get along great. He doesn't talk that much either,” Leon muttered. “Are your things upstairs?”

Zexion nodded. “It's the second door on the left. It's open.”

Leon headed for the stairs. The social services woman went into the kitchen, leaving Zexion with his other godfather, the one Leon said didn't talk much. The two of them stared silently at each other until Leon came with a large cardboard box in his arms.

“Cloud, can you help me bring the boxes down?” Leon grunted underneath the box's weight.

Cloud nodded and went upstairs. Zexion hesitated, unsure of what he should do. Finally, he decided to go upstairs and see what he could do to help. He ended up carrying a box of clothes down, following Cloud. Outside was a silver SUV with the trunk open. Leon was stowing boxes in the back moving carefully between his car and the social services woman's sleek convertible. He didn't notice they were there until Cloud squeezed through the small space between the two cars and Leon bumped into him. Leon dropped the cardboard box he was holding and cursed. He whirled around and seemed to relax when he saw Cloud.

“You scared me,” he said.

“Sorry,” Cloud replied.

It was the first time Zexion had heard him say anything.

Leon bent over and picked up the fallen box. He shoved it in the back on top of some other boxes.

Several trips later, all of Zexion's things were fit nicely in the back of the SUV. Leon slammed the trunk shut. Zexion politely thanked the woman from social services and said goodbye for what he sincerely hoped was the last time. He was sick of being moved from one family to the next just as much as social services was sick of placing him in family after family. Then, he crawled into the back among the boxes.

Zexion stared out the window as he drove, wondering why he hadn't left out a book or two to read on the drive from Radiant Garden to Twilight Town. It was an hour by car, four by train to his new home. He had expected Cloud and Leon to endlessly interrogate him about himself like all his other guardians, but they didn't. They weren't bothered by the silence like most people were.

At last, the small town of Twilight Town came into view. It was just like Zexion expected; a small, quiet, unchanging place where the younger generation couldn't wait to get as far away as they could and the older generation never wanted to leave. It was a place where everyone knew everyone, meaning it would be hard for Zexion to fit in.

He would be the outsider, a poor orphan boy shifted from one family to the next. It would be presumed that he was the reason he was moved from one family to the next. He was some sort of troublemaker, they would think. Otherwise, why would it have been so hard for him to find a home? They would never stop to consider that he wasn't the problem, but the families were. Zexion had been through all that before and this place would be no different.

The first thing that came to Zexion's attention as they approached the town was a large, run down mansion protected by a large iron gate. It sat on the outskirts and stuck out next to the modern, well-maintained buildings in the distance.

“That's the Old Mansion,” Leon explained when he asked. “It was owned by a rich family once, but their youngest and most-loved daughter died in an accident, and they packed up and left. The mansion fell into disrepair until it was bought a couple years back by a man named Xemnas. Strange guy. Anyway, it was renovated, and is now used by the gang known as Organization XIII or just The Organization. All of `em are real strange. There are a lot of rumors circulating about them and none of them are good.”

“What do you think?” Zexion asked quietly.

Leon looked at him in the rearview mirror, surprised. “Me? I think they're harmless. One of the reasons they banded together in the first place was because they were different and people looked down on them. They think everyone should be the same. Took them a long time to accept us.”

Zexion shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Homosexuality was still a debated issue no matter where one was. Finally, they pulled up to a nice two-story brick house. His new home. It didn't look bad at all. It looked…average. He supposed that this was what he was in for—an average life in an average town. Well, that suited him just fine.

After everything he'd been through, he was ready to have a nice, quiet, unassuming life. He wasn't planning on doing anything special or noteworthy with his life. All he wanted was to live quietly, peacefully, and with dignity. He didn't want to be noticed by anyone. It was going to be hard because as the outsider, all eyes would be on him. His every move would be watched and carefully scrutinized. He could not afford to make even one wrong move. He was used to it, though, and had become good at being extremely careful. He had no doubts that he could do this.

The house, as he expected, was average. There was a large kitchen, a dining room, a sitting area, and a bathroom on the main level, a finished basement that served as the living room, and an upstairs with a master bedroom that Cloud and Leon shared, a bathroom, a guest bedroom, and his new room.

It wasn't exactly large, but it was at least bigger than any of his other rooms. Zexion sighed and sank down on the edge of his neatly made bed, casting a quick glance around. It was comfortable and quiet, unlike some of the other places he had been. He shuddered as he remembered the house by the train station. His window opened to the town and he could hear the distant chiming of a bell.

Zexion rose and started unpacking boxes—there wasn't much else for him to do. He didn't start school for a couple days. He hadn't even been enrolled yet. It didn't take him long to unpack and arrange his things the way he wanted them. Clothes went in the drawers. He didn't have enough clothes to put in the closet so that remained empty at the moment. Books went on the shelves. Everything else found a home in his desk. He didn't have that much stuff because he didn't need that much. He was happy with what he had.

There was a quiet knock on the door.

“Uh…come in,” Zexion said, standing instinctively.

The door opened partially and Leon stuck his head in. “Hey. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right and settling in.”

“Yes.” Zexion nodded. “I'm fine, thank you.”

Leon smiled. “I'm glad to hear that.”

And he left. Unlike most of Zexion's other guardians, Leon and Cloud didn't hover every waking second. They seemed content to let him do what he wanted, within reason of course. As Zexion's first day in Twilight Town drew to a close, he felt like he was going to fit in just fine. Maybe he could do this after all.

***

A/N: I'm sorry if the details are off about foster care. I've never been in one so I don't know how it works or what it's like. So I'm taking a bit a bit of artistic license, okay? I'm going to be doing that quite a bit. This is a story. If every single little detail isn't a hundred percent accurate, tough. It doesn't have to be based off pure fact. Some details can be off a bit as long as it's still believable. I wouldn't mention it, except I've had some problems in the past with people bitching about stupid things like that. I'll say this once: don't bitch about small things because I will bitch back. And post it for everyone to see. It won't be pleasant.

I'm sorry if I'm being really bitchy, but I'm tired of people and their stupidity. I do like criticism. Don't get me wrong, I really do. Let me know if there are typos and grammatical errors. I'll fix them at once. Though I've gone through this several times, I'm sure there are still things that I've missed. I do like to hear your opinions and thoughts about what I write. I'm just sick of really stupid reviews. Look at the reviews for Identity and you'll see what I mean. Not all of them because most of them are wonderful. But there are some for the last 2 or 3 chapters that just really piss me off. Or maybe I'm just overreacting. Sorry for rambling so much. I'll stop that. I promise.