I'm sorry. I'm a horrible updater. I have no other excuse than pure and unadulterated laziness.

Thank you to all those who reviewed, though. You're awesome. :)

The usual: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. If I did, you know that it'd be as it was meant to be: AkuRoku all the way.

His blood pressure is dropping fast. We're losing him. Roxas, if you can hear me, open your eyes...

"WAKE-UP CALL!"

Between that obnoxious bellow and a nurse throwing open the curtains and flooding the room with light, I was more than a little irritated the following morning, which, of course, marked my first full day at McLean Hospital. Although it had woken me up from my dream, I was accustomed to usually being woken up by Sora, a sweet smile on his face. This wake-up call was more akin to the rare ones my mother doled out when Sora was for some reason unable to do so.

I glanced at the clock (not a digital one, of course, since I might strangle myself with the cord) and adjusted my eyes to the blinding light pouring from my window to read that it was seven in the morning. The slow ticking of the clock instantly irritated me; it seemed to be mocking me: tick, tock, your life is draining away as you sit in this hospital, tick, tock...

I finally managed to sit up to find Riku was already awake, gathering clothes from the closet. He already had a towel sitting on his bed, so I had to figure that he was going to the showers. I sniffed tentatively at myself; I had sweated through the whole night and definitely smelled more than a little rank. The putrid smell emanating from my body decided for me that I should probably also go for a shower.

"Good morning!" Riku said cheerfully when he looked over to find that I was awake.

"Morning," I mumbled, although it came out more as an incoherent grunt. I gestured over to the towel. "Are you going to the showers?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Do you want me to show you where it is?"

"That'd be great," I answered. I managed to uncoil myself from my disgusting, damp-with-sweat sheets and went over to the closet, grabbing a towel and some clothes to change into. Although this was not my favorite time of the day, my shower most often was; I enjoyed leisure time to just soak under a hot spray, attempting to cleanse me of all my problems. However, I was fairly certain it was going to take a lot more hot water than the hot water tanks held to get rid of the problem of McLean. The prospect of a nice shower, however, brightened my mood considerably.

"It's down there," Riku said as he shut the door behind both of us. He pointed to the double doors at the very end of the hallway.

"There's no line," I said happily. Riku glanced over at me with a strange look but said nothing as we made our way to the the double doors. When we got there, I could see the doors were the kind of swinging doors that some kitchens have , and it had a big sign that said 'MALE' on it.

Riku swung one of them open for me, and immediately, I was enveloped in a large billow of steam that grew bigger when the door swung shut behind us, blowing some of the steam back in. It took me a moment to get my bearings, but once I did, the good feelings I had gotten earlier from the idea of a show faded into anger and annoyance.

I had pictured a large room with nice little shower stalls, a neat row of sinks and mirrors on the opposite wall. Instead, what I got was a large room with shower heads every so often, and everyone just stood under one, with no sort of barrier between them. There were some mirrors on the far wall, but they were so steamed up it would be impossible to see anything in them at all.

"It's a...communal shower," I said, the horror and disgust evident in my voice.

"Yeah, what'd you think?" Riku asked, tossing me an incredulous glance. "It's no big deal. Didn't you have to do it in gym class?"

I didn't feel like mentioning that I hadn't had to deal with that; I had always made up some excuse to get out of gym. It was always after lunch, so for the last few years, it had given me an opportunity to get out of school for lunch and have an extra hour to do...well, often, less than upstanding things.

"Not really," I said quietly.

"It's okay. Look, there's a few in the back." Riku pointed to the back of the room to a few empty spots. All I could think was that it was lucky that we got to be in the back. Riku led the way with me trailing behind, determinedly staring at the floor. Finally, after what felt like the longest twelve foot walk of my life, we reached the spots. Riku immediately started to strip, and once again, I glued my eyes elsewhere. This was just too awkward.

There were hooks on the other side of the shower heads, so I assumed that's where we were supposed to hang our stuff. I quickly stripped and hung my clothes up. I reached up and turned on the faucet, immediately getting a blast of hot water in my face.

"Well, at least the water's warm," I said to no one in particular, but Riku answered, "Yeah, hurry though, it'll be gone soon."

I tried to get through this as quickly as possible, the dreams of my leisurely shower now long in the past. There were two soap dispensers that held what I guessed was soap and shampoo, but the consistency was so alike, it was impossible to tell which was which, so I just mixed the two together in an attempt to get somewhat clean.

I was getting at least a little more comfortable with the idea when the door swung open to reveal a large male nurse with squinty eyes. "Shower checks!" he yelled as he proceeded to start down the center of the room.

"What?" I asked hurriedly to Riku, still attempting to not look at him.

"Yeah, they have to make sure we're not doing anything we're not supposed to. Believe me, a lot can go down in the showers." Riku's eyes held a knowing look, and once again, I had to wonder what on Earth had happened to him.

My reverie was cut off, however, by the presence of the male nurse almost directly behind me. I attempted to cover myself, and when he saw this, he leered.

"Don't worry, darling. Whatever you've got, I've seen a million of." With that little gem, he spun on his heels and hurried out, his job obviously done.

"Don't we get any privacy?" I asked Riku as soon as the doors swung shut.

"Nope," was Riku's answer. "Not even in the bathrooms; they'll check on you in there, too."

A feeling of dread settled in the pit of my stomach. I was a very modest person, and it had taken the fact that I smelled like a pig to get me into this communal shower. I never undressed in front of anyone, save Sora, and I had never really intended to. I felt like there was some things that were meant to be private, and going to the bathroom, undressing, and taking a shower were some of them.

I decided that, for the present, I could do nothing, so I continued with my shower. I was just about to rinse off when I heard the doors swing open and then shut and then someone slosh towards Riku and I. For a second, I was afraid it was the male nurse again, but there wasn't the sound of tennis shoes on linoleum; it was definitely the slap of bare feet. I sighed in an irritated manner. This was a classic example of a massive pet peeve of mine: when you sit in a row in class, and there's twenty empty seats around you, but a person just has to come and sit right next to you. In this case, a lot of the room had emptied out after the male nurse had left, leaving a lot of vacant shower heads, but this person had to come and pick the shower head directly next to me. As usual, I kept my gaze glued to either the floor of the shower or the wall, breaking it only when I heard the voice of said cause of my annoyance.

"Hey, sunshine, how are you doing this morning?"

I couldn't help it; I glanced up to see Axel next to me. I had to literally force my gaze from not sweeping up and down his body. I stared at his eyes, and tried to give him the best sneer I could.

"Just awesome. How about you?"

"A lot better now," Axel said coyly, and I was shocked when he didn't hide that his gaze definitely inspected me from head to toe. I couldn't help but blush, which by the smirk on Axel's face, he noticed. "So not one for communal showers?"

"No, no way. It's a weird premise." I was shocked to see that Axel had already washed and was subsequently done rinsing his long locks. He looked so different with his hair just plastered to his head.

"It's not so bad," he said after a moment of silence. "You'll get used to it. I know I will." Axel gave me a lecherous wink, and my blush just deepened.

"I don't think so." I shut off the water, and Axel did the same. "Did you even take a shower?"

"I've learned to take quick ones," Axel answered. He reached over for his towel, but not before shaking out his hair like a wet dog, almost completely soaking me. I, too, shook in annoyance, and I was glad to see he had put a towel around his waist, and I did the same.

I felt safe taking in a little more of Axel this time, and I let my gaze roam free for a moment. I almost instantly regretted it; I had always pictured that Axel would be one of those thin people who had no meat on their bones, but that wasn't Axel at all. He was thin, yes, but there was some definite muscle tone to his lithe body, and the way the water droplets were dripping off from his hair down his chest made me want to lick them off in ways I definitely shouldn't have been thinking about.

"Take a picture, sunshine, it lasts longer," Axel said dryly after a moment.

I yanked my gaze up. I definitely hadn't realized that I had been staring at him for as long as I had been. Of course, even just looking at his face was causing me problems: the way his hair was plastered to his head made it so that his hair wasn't something to notice really; you were forced to notice the delicate, high cheekbones of his face, his straight, aristocratic nose...those gorgeous green eyes...

"S-sorry," I mumbled, my face flushing instantly.

"It's okay, I don't mind be admired," Axel said with a large cheesy grin.

"I wasn't admiring you, you arrogant bastard," I said irritably as I began to get dressed with my towel still on. It was a difficult task, but one that was necessary with Axel standing right there. "I was just lost in thought."

"Lost in thought of me, sunshine? Geez, I'm flattered."

"Whatever." I pulled on the rest of my clothes with some mild difficulty. "Are you just going to stand there like that?"

"Mmm. Maybe. Does that bother you?" Axel cocked his head at the question as he kept that infuriating grin on his face.

"No, it doesn't," I answered as I grabbed my stuff. I turned around to find Riku standing there, patient as could be. I wondered how much he had witnessed of my staring and consequent verbal sparring with Axel

"Ready to go?" Riku asked as he gave me a small smile. "We've got Group this morning after breakfast."

"Group?" I repeated, hoping that didn't mean what I thought it meant.

"Like group therapy, sugar," Axel supplied. He was now busy combing through his hair with a comb, although it seemed to be doing no good. "You know, where we all sit in a circle and talk about our feelings."

I ignored him as I said, "Who do we have Group with?"

"If we're lucky, not with him." Riku gave Axel a glare before turning back to me. "Although, I think that's asking too much..."

"Well, if you ladies are done, let's not just sit in the shower room and discuss things." Axel put his arm around my shoulders, and I had the sudden urge to just lean in to him. Axel may not have looked physically strong, but I had a feeling that although he was in a psychiatric ward, he was more emotionally strong than people gave him credit for, and it seemed like a nice idea to just be able to lean on someone for once.

"Yeah, let's go," I agreed. I had almost forgotten we were in the shower room. We hurried out and passed the male nurse on the way out, making his rounds once again. I sighed in relief that we had managed to miss that.

Axel eventually left Riku and I as we made our way to breakfast. I was still blushing as we walked, and Riku must have noticed because he said, "Don't worry. Axel flirts like he breathes. He doesn't probably mean it."

I didn't say anything, but I was unsure exactly how I felt about that. One part of me was glad; obviously, he was crazy, and I couldn't get involved with a crazy person. But another part of me was a little disappointed; he was extremely attractive and obviously very...interesting, and I almost wanted to get a chance to really know him.

Like dinner the night before, breakfast was a quiet-if not disgusting-affair. It surprised me when a feeling of disappointment came over me when Axel went and sat with someone else. Even though he was annoying, he was someone interesting, and I had sort of looked forward to our breakfast conversation, even though the fact that he had caught me staring still made me blush on the spot.

One of the nurses came over after breakfast and handed me my schedule for my stay at McLean. It was pretty standard: Group therapy, Individual, Arts and Crafts, Music Therapy, a few seminars here and there, and free time. My individual appointment, as promised by Dr. Saix, was later in the day, but my first hurdle of the day was Group therapy.

The idea of Group therapy, like so many other things in this place, seemed extraordinarily stupid. I saw absolutely no benefit from sitting around with people I either barely knew or never met and discussing in detail my feelings. I really didn't care for people to know that I heard whispers in my head, or that I found certain colored cars borderline terrifying. Yes, everyone at the hospital was crazy, but it seemed to me that hearing voices was its own crazy brand of insanity.

I was lucky and managed to get Group with Riku. He led me to an enormous conference room that had seats in a circle, just like I had imagined. There was only about seven seats there, so I had to figure that they led several smaller groups during the day instead of just one large one. There was already a boy there, sitting in one of the chairs, a box on the ground beside him.

Riku smiled when he saw him and said, "Hey, Demyx!" The boy called Demyx looked up and his face broke out into a great big grin. I stared at him for a second, and I wondered why on Earth such a happy looking boy was in this place. He looked extraordinarily normal, with the exception of his hair, which was in a sort of weird mullet, but otherwise, he looked almost too normal.

"Hey, Riku. What's up?" Demyx asked, the grin still on his face.

Riku shrugged. "Oh, you know, this and that. But, Demyx, I want to introduce you to my new roommate. Roxas, this is Demyx. Demyx, this is Roxas."

"Nice to meet you," I said, trying to plaster a friendly smile on my face.

"You, too. Hey, want to see my bottlecap collection?" The enthusiasm in Demyx's eyes was evident.

"Sure," I said after a moment. He reached down and got the box from beside him, thrusting it into my hands. I tentatively opened the lid and peeked inside. Sure enough, there was a huge collection of bottlecaps, ranging from any color, with any number of designs on them. "Wow, these are pretty cool," I said, returning the box back to its owner.

"Yeah, aren't they? Here..." Demyx rifled around inside the box until he found what he was looking for and pulled out a bottlecap. "I like this one. It's from London, when I went there. I had to dive in front of a bus to get it, but..."

Demyx's story was interrupted by the sudden presence of a certain redhead. Riku rolled his eyes, but a little fluttering occurred in my stomach. At least this little therapy session would be interesting now.

"Got any new ones, Dem?" Axel asked as he swung into a chair next to him. His hair was back to its crazy spikes, so I had to figure his hair just dried like that naturally. "Because I got some to show you." Axel reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic baggie just full of them. Even though I could see right away, just from glancing into his box, that some were doubles, I could see the absolute excitement in Demyx's eyes.

"Thanks, Axel!" Demyx said enthusiastically. "These are awesome!"

"Well, what do you know? Axel's not all bad," I said sarcastically.

Axel looked up from Demyx's inspection and grinned. "Just don't spread it around. Wouldn't want to ruin my rep or anything."

"Okay, everyone take their seats!" a voice from the doorway ordered, saving me from thinking up a smart retort. It was a doctor I hadn't seen before, a woman, and she was shepherding in a few kids in front of her, who looked about as enthused as I felt. I hurriedly took a seat next to Axel, and Riku took the one next to me. I recognized both the kids that came in with the doctor-one of them was the Larxene girl and the one with the slate-gray hair was Zexion. Demyx glanced up, and when Zexion sat next to him, he blushed a deep crimson. I glanced at Riku and he shrugged.

"Good morning," the doctor said as she sat down with her clipboard. She had cat-eyed glasses she wore perched low on her nose, so that when she looked at someone, she had to tilt her head to look above the frames. It created a sort of odd effect.

I leaned over to Axel. "What's this doctor's name?" I whispered.

"Well, the difference between her real name and what we call her is quite large, and most of which I can't repeat in good company," Axel whispered back. I couldn't help but smile, and Axel smiled back.

"So we have a new patient here with us today," the doctor said, peering at me above her glasses. "So we'll all make introductions and say why we're all here. Roxas, why don't you start?"

My stomach dropped. I hated this sort of thing, and I, under no circumstances, wanted to say why I was here. Besides, I hadn't heard the voices in awhile...I had been doing a little better since being away from home.

"Well, I'm Roxas. And, um...well, I'm here because...I'm depressed," I finished lamely.

"No shit, sherlock. That's why we're all here," Axel said flippantly from his spot beside me. "Give us something juicy."

"Axel, language!" the doctor scolded lightly. She smiled kindly towards me. "It's okay, Roxas, that's good enough for now. Since you seem so keen to talk this morning, why don't you go next, Axel?"

"He already knows me," Axel said as he leaned back in his chair. He was obviously already bored with the whole affair.

"Axel, just do it," the doctor said tiredly, as though she said that phrase on a daily-if not hourly-basis.

"Fine," Axel said dramatically as he leaned up from his chair. "I'm Axel. I'm here because I murdered my parents and buried them in our backyard." Axel went back to leaning in his chair and I looked around the circle, trying to see if he was curious. No one else seemed shocked, so I leaned over to Riku and asked quietly, "Is he serious?"

Riku shrugged. "He tells a different story with each new kid," Riku whispered to me. "So no one's sure. But I think he'd be in prison if that was true."

"Oh, Axel," the doctor said, shaking her head. "Fine, moving on. Demyx, you can be next."

"I'm Demyx," he said vaguely, still staring at his bottlecap collection. "I'm a hoarder, apparently. And I have OCD, or something like that."

"Thank you, Demyx. And Demyx, please, put the bottlecap collection down for now," the doctor said gently. Demyx glanced up at her and sighed, but he very carefully put the lid back on his treasure trove of bottlecaps and sat it gingerly back on the ground.

"Zexion, please."

Zexion cleared his throat and said, "I'm Zexion. I'm bipolar and tried to hang myself." His voice was all raspy, and the story that Axel had told me seemed to be true: he had messed with his vocal chords. Zexion didn't seem to concerned, though; he just flipped his hair so that it hid more of his face and crossed his arms in front of him.

"Thank you, Zexion, now please, Larxene."

Larxene had the same stance as Zexion, except she seemed way less relaxed. She looked up to give me a piercing glare and said, "I'm Larxene. You don't need to know why I'm here, because I don't want you to know."

Before the doctor could saying anything, Axel chimed in, "She's here because she's got a case of chronic bitchiness."

"Axel!" the doctor scolded again, and Axel shrugged. No one, though, seemed to be jumping to Larxene's defense. The doctor turned back to Larxene and said, "We're all friends here, Larxene. Are you sure you won't tell us just a little?"

Larxene shook her head and kept her pursed lips closed. The doctor sighed, and moved her gaze to Riku. "Riku, he knows you, obviously, but could you say a little about why you're here?"

Riku shrugged before he threw me a grin. "I'm just depressed, too, Doctor."

The doctor sighed and looked like she wanted to argue, but then thought better of it. I almost felt sorry for her sitting there, her job to counsel obviously disturbed teenagers who would rather be doing just about anything else in the world rather than this. But she continued on like a trooper, and my respect for her grew a little.

The therapy went exactly as Axel said: we sat around and talked about how we felt. I didn't have to say a word: Larxene kept the conversation going pretty good. I couldn't see a thing wrong with her except exactly what Axel said: she was a bitch, and she didn't like it when she didn't get her way. Demyx would chime in on a subject every once in awhile, and even Riku said something once, but everyone else stayed silent Even Axel was pretty quiet, saying something only when he felt like a witty retort or sarcastic comment was necessary.

Thankfully, the Group therapy lasted an hour, and then the doctor let us go. I was thankful for that until I saw that almost immediately after was my individual appointment with Dr. Saix. I had been dreading that all day, especially since I knew he was going to probably bring up two major topics I hated to talk about: voices, and my family.

As we all exited the room, Axel caught up to me and Riku, as Riku was going to show me where I had to go.

"Hey, sunshine, where you headed off to?" Axel asked as he once again put his arm around my shoulders. I inadvertently shivered, and if Axel noticed, he didn't say anything.

"My appointment with Dr. Saix," I answered. Riku was now leading us down a long hallway I actually recognized, and I saw the doctor's door coming up. "I'm really not looking forward to it."

"Awww." We were now in front of the doctor's door. "Don't worry, sunshine. He doesn't bite too hard. Here, I'll give you a good luck kiss."

Before I could even process that thought, Axel leaned towards me, pressing his lips to mine. I stood there in shock for a moment, not really sure what to do. Sure, his lips felt amazing on mine, and as I expected, he was a better than average kisser, although I really probably didn't want to know how he had gained that particular talent. Before my brain could agonize over the decision any longer, my body decided for me, and I found that my lips were responding rather eagerly to his. His tongue ran along my lips, begging for entrance, and I allowed it. Our tongues were soon entangled in a battle for dominance that I was certain would never be decided.

The opening of the door interrupted the kiss. I was startled to find that my hands were all twisted in Axel's red locks, and that our kiss had definitely gone on for more than a second or two. I immediately untangled myself from Axel, shocked that I had just kissed someone I barely knew-not only kissed him, but played some serious tonsil hockey with him, for lack of a better term. I would be the first to admit that I wasn't exactly celibate, but I at least know someone's last name before indiscriminately kissing them.

"Axel, Roxas, Riku," Dr. Saix greeted us. "I see you've already made some...friends, Roxas."

"I was just giving him a good luck kiss, Dr. Saix," Axel said, a Cheshire Cat grin plastered on his face.

"Yeah, because that's how I give people a good luck kiss," Riku muttered, and Axel put his hand over Riku's mouth.

"Okay, well, we'll let you two get to it!" Axel said as he began to drag Riku away, who was protesting madly by flailing his arms. "Bye, sunshine, good luck!"

"Bye," I echoed weakly. I turned around to see the look of disapproval stamped all over Dr. Saix's face. I knew that it was wrong to kiss Axel. I knew it was wrong to even so much as like Axel, but I couldn't help it.

This redhead was most definitely going to be a problem.

Please, review if you could. It'd make my day. Seriously.

I'm a terrible person. Here I have finals in about two weeks and I'm writing fanfic instead. Oh, well.

So Demyx is partially based on Alex (tenspeed457) and me. She's definitely a hoarder, but a cool hoarder. She has this awesomely amazing bottlecap collection, identical to the one Demyx has. I'm the OCD part although you haven't seen that yet. These characters in here are based off of people I've met, both in the outside world, and a few from inside my stay in the psych ward. :)

All the Group Therapy stuff, it's all true, I swear. Whenever a new kid joined, you had to say why you were there. The first few made me sort of embarrassed to say, but after awhile, it was no big deal.

"Hi, my name is *insert name here*"

"Hi, *name here*"

"I'm here because I have OCD/bipolar disorder/schizophrenia/major depression/borderline personality/some other mental disorder. I'm here because I want help."

Or something like that.

I promise some actual time will progress in the next chapter. I just had to lay some groundwork before things got going. :) I may attempt to write a lemon in the future, although I only did one and it was definitely rough, at best. But hey, practice makes perfect, right?

*Many thanks to tenspeed457, who got me to write this chapter, since we were sort of simultaneously working on fics: me, on this one, and her on her awesome Gorillaz one.*