Unmade by xXxItsDarkOutsidexXx
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, the games would have sucked if I did.
Summary: Roxas is missing and he isn't coming back… What is it called when bonds run so deeply that you feel you cannot go on without the other? Sora might not know what it's called, but he sure as hell knows what it feels like. Maybe— if Roxas isn't coming back— maybe Sora can be both.
The author would like you to note: This story has nothing to do with my other story, Disappear. Though, now that I think of it, they fit nicely together.
4/13/13 EDIT: I made it a little easier to distinguish between sections (I hope) because the spaces got deleted and they kind of all ran together…
It wasn't unusual to wake up to an empty room. Actually, to be fair, it would be unusual to not wake up to an empty room. But the bed was always unmade. Roxas didn't have enough effort to make it; he said it was a waste of time, so our mom's done it every day for the last ten years.
On Monday at exactly six thirty in the morning my alarm clock went off. I remember moaning, turning and rolling the pillow over my head.
But not before I saw, just like always, that the opposite bed was undone.
Tuesday didn't start out any different than any day previously, as far as the essentials went. I had a routine. Hit the snooze until six forty-five. Crawl out of bed at six fifty (pull blankets up to "make the bed") and feel the way to the bathroom. Fill sink with ice-cold tap water, hold breath, stick head in until brain has woken up. Brush teeth. Finger-comb hair because combs are useless and take up space.
Clothes. Backpack. Stumble around the floor to find wherever I had thrown my cell the night before. Shoes.
Tuesday was a normal day, or at least it appeared that way from the outside.
I was too tired and blurry eyed to notice Roxas' bed.
I wouldn't ever be okay again. How could I be? The one person that was always there no matter what. The kid that held my hand when we crossed the street even if someone was going to laugh and who'd beat up anyone that had anything to say afterwards, the boy that taught me to ride a bike and to swim and how to dribble a ball, my brother, who had been there through it all; was gone.
All these things. His stuff. His cloths. Everything is just where he left it, and it's been two weeks. Look, his shirt is just getting out of the wash. It's too tight to be mine, and here's his favorite flannel—thought he left that one at Namine and Kairi's.
I sniff back the tears and ball up the shirts and throw them on the ground because I'm not crazy and I don't need to go to any mental hospital. I'm a teenager whose twin brother just disappeared. And the whole nation is watching the hunt and none of them know him and none of them care or have any connection to him at all yet they all sit there and droll over the TV screen and they're all just on lookers in this stupid fucking messed up world that took my brother and not theirs!
"And they can all go die in this hell hole but I am going to find my damn brother if it kills me!" I kicked the wadded shirts and tore a pair of Roxas' jeans from the basket and threw them across the room. I hadn't realized that I was shouting, it was a good thing no one was home.
Okay, maybe that was a little crazy. Maybe I should consider at least a therapist. But no. Crazy people don't know what they're doing is crazy, that's what makes them crazy… Right? Still, maybe just a little crazy is better that having to stand up and be strong when all you want to do is brake down and cry… because I was never the strong twin.
Boys don't cry, Sor.
That's what Rox always told me when I was sad. But don't they? When something terrible happens that shakes his world by its very roots and the sky starts to collapse and the stars explode and the oceans run dry how can you expect a man to not collapse into tears and weep and weep for all eternity… just because he's a man?
I don't know. So I just smooth the cloths out and toss the basket on my bed.
"Sora?" She's asking in her sweet voice what's wrong and do I want to talk about anything, but I don't say a word. I can't tell her what's really going on. Right now I'm just some poor, grieving boy but if I tell her the whole story she's going to think I'm actually crazy. And maybe I am, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't save Roxas if I'm locked up in the loony bin.
Part of me wants to spill it all out on the pavement and tell her everything, though, everything that's happened. The voices, Roxas' drug problem, him disappearing, the gang, the murder and how it might have been Axel, the voices and the dreams and the pain and visions and the voices and how Naminé won't stop crying and Kairi won't talk to me about anything because she doesn't want to stress me more and how Riku is going to boarding school and the voices and everything else I could think of; the unmade bed and his cloths still in the wash, his empty desk and the skateboard that I can't find and his voice echoing in my ears and the notes. The notes all over everything. How I never saw them or found them or went through half my life thinking everything was okay when it obviously wasn't and how could Roxas have been the only one to notice? And where the fuck was he if he wasn't… wasn't dead?
I swallowed hard. Part of me wanted to say all this, and probably more; to spill my guts out and cry. But the other part of me, the smart part, clamped my teeth tightly into the realest smile I could muster, "I just miss my brother. He's been there since forever."
I thought about waking mom again, to tell her this time it was real; this time it was really Roxas standing on the front lawn. But I know she won't believe me. Know no one would believe me that Roxas showed up at the house two nights in a row, didn't come in, and then disappeared again. Without a trace.
I can feel my pulse in my throat and can't help but get up and check the window over and over again. Because maybe he's there and if Roxas comes home and it's not unlocked, and he leaves again then it's all my fault. The window has to be unlocked. For Roxas.
Better yet, open. I crawl to the end of my bed to do just that. Let in all the cold wind and leaves carried on it.
A headlight trailed across the wall, starting in the corner above Roxas' bed and curving slowly before spinning away over the single dresser and then vanishing. The sound of the motor outside dissipated back into the slow and steady chirp of crickets and the swish and rustle of the loose leaves in the trees. I blinked in the darkness and clutched my pillow tighter, shifting and relaxing comfortably again into the blankets and, for the fifth time in the last half-hour, tried closing my eyes again.
I knew it was hard for Roxas' friends—his girlfriend— but it was harder for me, not just because he was my brother, but because now there is an extra bed in my room; that would never be unmade again.
When I finally, finally fell into a troubled sleep I dreamed of Roxas.
Kidnapping me. Torturing me. Murdering me.
The next morning I broke routine, I woke up an hour early to the sound of creaking trees outside the window. I lay there shivering in the fall breeze and stared across the room where, normally at this time, Roxas would still not be—already gone—but the bed, unmade.
I pushed the covers back and padded softly to the other end of the room. Tears welled up in my eyes and I violently beat them away with the back of my fist; then ripped the cold sheets off Roxas' bed. I would sleep here.
And in the morning when I woke up I could pretend I was the one missing. Because my bed would be the one that wasn't unmade.