Burn

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters associated with Kingdom Hearts or Kingdom Hearts II. I'm merely borrowing them.

A/N: This just randomly entered my brain and I thought I would write it down before I lost it. Please be warned that this is my first Kingdom Hearts fic so there will be much OOCness. This is also AU, so said OOCness will be sort of understandable. Please let me know if I'm doing anything wrong because I really want this to be right. Everything will be explained in time.

Warning: This will be an AkuRoku yaoi fic so if you are not comfortable with this pairing, then leave now or forever hold your peace. There will be other yaoi pairings as well—Soriku and Cleon. I couldn't resist putting in the first couple and the second…well you'll see.

Chapter 1 Sora

Roxas jumped today.

I should have seen it coming. I mean, the signs were all there. He was depressed, moody, restless, irritable, withdrawn, sullen, and angry. Why didn't I see it beforehand? So much for twin intuition. I wasn't able to stop him from jumping but an awning did, thank god. Or else there'd be my brother's guts splattered all over the pavement under the clock tower. Thank god for the awning. Of course, it wasn't able to hold his weight and he fell anyway, but it wasn't as far and it wasn't as painful. I think. I'm not the one who tried to kill myself by jumping off the clock tower.

Roxas's friend Olette was the one who saw him at the top of the clock tower, too close to the edge. She was just afraid he was going to lose his footing and fall. She couldn't believe it (and neither could I really) when Roxas jumped. Even from far away, we could tell that he had jumped and not simply lost his footing and fallen.

Olette's eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth as she watched my brother fall. I ran forward but there was nothing I could do. Thank god for the awning. It had only been there a couple days, a new experiment. It looked hideous, but without it, my brother would have died instantaneously. He ripped through it and crashed to the concrete pretty hard. There was a sickening crunching sound as the majority of his body weight pressed down on his left arm and the bone snapped under all the pressure. The back of Roxas's skull came in contact with the concrete with a dull thud. After a few moments' hesitation, Olette ran off, screaming for help. I ran forward, my eyes wide.

"Roxas! Roxas! " I cried. No answer. "Roxas please!" Roxas was unresponsive. Several people came running, being led by Olette. Someone called an ambulance. I stared at Roxas's body tangled in what was left of the awning. The only part of him that moved was his chest, rising and falling with every breath he took. It was the only sign that he was still alive. The paramedics came and lifted him onto a stretcher, being careful to not jolt the broken arm. They placed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and wheeled him to the ambulance. I stepped forward.

"Please let me come," I pleaded. "He's my brother."

The paramedics shared a surprised look.

"All right. Come on," one of them growled.

I followed them. Roxas was loaded into the back. The less grumpy of the two paramedics extended her hand and helped me into the back. The doors were closed and we took off. The paramedic in the back examined Roxas and then turned to me. She asked me questions about Roxas, such as his age, date of birth, medical allergies, ect. Once I had answered her questions, she turned back to Roxas. I got lost in my own thoughts at that point about the two of us.

We're twins, you know. Not identical, though ironically enough, we have a lot in common looks-wise. We have the same shaped face, the same nose, the same lips, and the same shaped eyes. Our eye color is slightly different—his eyes are a shade or two lighter than mine even though we both have blue eyes. Our hair color is also different. He's a blondie and I'm a brunette. However, our hair does stick up in the same annoying way, though I've been told that my hair is a bit spikier than his. People are always able to tell that we're twins.

My thoughts got interrupted when we arrived at the hospital. Roxas was wheeled out and taken into the hospital. I followed…to a certain point. After a while, a nurse ushered me into a waiting room.

"Is there anything I can get for you, dear?" she asked in a kind voice.

"Do you know where I can find a phone?" I asked.

She gave me directions. I thanked her and she left. I waited for a few minutes before leaving. I wandered down the halls until I found a row of payphones. They were all vacant. I chose one at the very end. Thankfully, I always had a bunch of spare change in my pockets. The first person I called was Riku, my boyfriend.

"Riku?" I asked, when he picked up.

"Yeah?" he responded.

"It's me. Sora."

"What's up?" he sounded concerned.

"Riku…my brother tried to kill himself," I said in a small voice.

"What?" Riku asked, taken aback.

"He tried to jump off the clock tower. I'm up at the hospital."

"Okay. I'm coming to the hospital. I'll be there in ten minutes."

"Okay." I sniffed softly, fighting back my tears.

I hung up the phone, pulled out more change, and called more people. When I had finished, I went back into the waiting room. About five minutes later, Riku walked in, his sea green eyes filled with concern.

"Sora…are you okay?" he asked, stepping forward.

"I…think so," I answered weakly, moving into his waiting arms.

He wrapped them around me and pulled me close to his chest. I shivered slightly and shook in his arms. Tears cascaded down my face and I sobbed into his shoulder. He simply held me into his arms. Finally, I calmed down enough to allow him to lead me over to a set of chairs in the corner. We sat, out fingers intertwined. People began to arrive, people we knew. I had only called a handful of people so those people must have called more people. Friends I knew from school had come, friends of both Roxas and mine—Hayner, Pence, Olette, Kairi, a blonde girl I had seen at school who had her eye on Roxas named Naminé, our godfather Leon and his boyfriend Cloud, and many others.

"Sora…are you okay?" Leon asked warily. He was not very good with things like this.

I nodded. "I think so."

"What exactly happened?" Cloud asked, his piercing blue eyes fixed on me.

"I…I was downtown…doing some shopping and…Olette came running and said that Roxas was up on the clock tower and he was close to the edge. She was afraid that he was going to fall so I came running and…" I took a deep breath. "He jumped. Just like that." Riku gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Are you sure he didn't just lose his footing and fall?" Leon questioned.

"I'm absolutely sure, " I whispered.

"I saw him fall too," Olette spoke up. "He definitely didn't slip."

Leon sighed softly and rubbed his forehead. "But why? Why would he do such a thing?"

"I don't know!" I choked out, grief overcoming me once again.

"Shh Sora," Riku murmured, passing me a tissue. "You've gotta calm down, okay? You've gotta be strong."

"I don't know if I can." I wiped my eyes with the tissue Riku handed me.

"Excuse me?" a male voice asked. I looked up. There was a tall, broad-chested man with russet colored hair in a stained lab coat standing in the doorway. A doctor no doubt. "You're Roxas's brother right?"

"Yes."

"How is he?" Leon demanded.

"Are you the boy's father?" the doctor asked.

"I'm his godfather," Leon answered harshly.

"Where are their parents?"

"Not here. I act as the boys' guardian when their parents are not present."

"I see."

"How is Roxas?" I asked.

The doctor sighed softly. "His physical injuries were minimal. He bruised a few ribs, fractured his arm, and he has a slight concussion. But…"

I didn't like where this was going.

"But what?" I demanded.

The doctor sighed softly again. "For reasons we cannot explain, he has fallen into a coma."

"What?!" I cried, getting to my feet and letting go of Riku's hand.

"We cannot explain why this is. We think he's mentally unstable and are requesting a full psychological evaluation to be done as soon as he wakes up."

My head was swimming. Mentally unstable? Full psychological evaluation. Oh god, no. Not Roxas. Not sweet Roxas. I wanted to cry. My throat tightened.

"Can I…see him?" I asked.

Everyone stared at me.

"I'm not sure…that would be the best thing for you right now," the doctor said softly.

"Please," I whispered. "He's my brother. I need to see him."

The doctor sighed softly. "Very well. Come with me. I'm afraid I can only let you go in."

"What? Why?" I asked.

"We've moved him into another room with a young man who also attempted suicide. He's also mentally unstable and having a bunch of people in the room might upset him."

"Okay. I understand."

I followed the doctor down the halls that all looked the same. Finally, he stopped.

"This is the room," he said. "I just want to warn you about the other young man inside. His name is Axel. Be very careful because he's very unstable and gets upset easily."

"All right." I nodded.

The doctor opened the door in front of us. There were two beds on opposite sides of the room. One had curtains drawn around it for privacy. The other held my brother. I gave a soft cry and rushed forward. Roxas looked so much younger lying there. Beneath all the messy blond hair were bandages wrapped around his forehead. He had been dressed in a standard hospital gown. His left arm was in both a sling and a cast. Perspiration clouded the plastic oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. A machine monitored his vital signs. He was perfectly normal…except for the fact that he was in a coma.

"I'll leave you in peace for now," the doctor said.

He ducked out of the room. I walked forward and looked down at my brother's face. He looked…relatively peaceful, all things considered. I reached out and gently stroked his uninjured arm.

"Hey Roxas," I said softly. Tears clouded my vision.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" said a voice.

A pale hand reached up and pulled back the curtain on the other side of the room. The occupant of the bed was revealed, an older boy around seventeen or so. He had shockingly red hair and bright green eyes. Underneath each eye were teardrop tattoos. He also wore a hospital gown. His arms and legs were bandaged. He stared over at me with curiosity reflecting in his green eyes. He had to be Axel.

"Who might you be?" he asked curiously.

"I'm Sora. Roxas's brother," I answered plainly.

"Twins?"

"Excuse me?"

"Are you twins?"

"Yes."

How would he know that?! I thought wildly.

Axel's lips curled up into a smirk, as if he could read my thoughts. "You look a lot alike."

"Oh."

I didn't say anything else. I didn't know if there was anything else I could say.

To be continued…

A/N: Let me know what you thought of this. This is my first Kingdom Hearts fic so I don't know if it's very good. Any advice would be wonderful.

7/9/08-I made several corrections, fixing a bunch of typos I found. I'm mad at myself that I made so many errors, but hey, I'm only a human, right?

4/23/09-More formatting stuff has been changed. Thoughts will be in italics now. I know how to get them even though document manager always seems to eat them. XD Stupid fanfiction dot net. Also, I'm aware that the spacing is screwy. Again, blame document manager. I think I've managed to find all the spacing errors, but let me know if you find any more and I'll fix them. It's fine in MS word but as soon as I upload it into the document manager, the spacing gets screwed up. Not nice!