Disclaimer: I don't own KH.
AN: Written for the theme of "Crows."


The sight was a strange one, were it to have been seen by any others. The hours were late, and time itself dark and jaded. They all slept at night, usually. They all did whatever they could to hold fast to the unnecessary traditions and meaningless habits they had followed Before. They pretended as much as possible, relaxing their minds as often as possible.

Usually, they all slept at night.

Axel had stood in the same place before. Had pretended something similar not long ago. And he had found, while rummaging through the often damp, shadowed, and locked corridors of his superior's mind, all the innocence that shouldn't ever have survived so long. He had discovered the all the mental complexities that melted down into childish simplicities, all the science that, at the core, was only a matter of yes-or-no questions. Axel had come to understand, through all their pretending, the very easy and the very vulnerable.

And in the same place as before, at the bedside of a boy-calculator, of the child-cynic, Axel looked down in silence. In silence and curiosity he wondered why he had come, why he had bothered to stand, to walk, to creep, before he realized it was for the sake of waiting.

Most of them sleep at night. But like a portent of intent, Axel had come to stand over the one that wouldn't suspect him, some rudimentary sketch of things to come forming with the meter of a sleeper's breathing.

It was all a matter of silence, and waiting.