I haven't had internet for an entire week so you can thank sheer boredom for me finishing this lmao

If you haven't read the other fics in this series, basically it's just the seasalt fam living together in Twilight Town. A bit of a break from the angst :)

Also spoilers for KH3, as always

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Leftovers


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The darkness was a tangible thing, thick and twitching. Overhead, tree branches bowed under its weight, and a few loose leaves were knocked free and tumbled gently to the grass below. Dozens of glowing yellow eyes peered out at them from all directions, watching them hungrily. They were getting bolder with every passing second, inching ever forward, drawn by both their Keyblades and their hearts.

Lea didn't even bother to sit up.

"Whose turn is it?"

"Mine," Xion said, already on her feet.

Lea watched her lazily as she stalked towards the biggest cluster of Heartless, Keyblade in hand. Predictably, they jumped out at her as soon as she stepped within range, but a single swing of her Kingdom Key was all it took to destroy them. Once she'd finished with the ones on the ground, she jumped up into the trees to deal with the rest.

Her strength was entirely her own now, but really that only made her more impressive. Axel had barely won when he'd fought her before he'd gotten his heart back. He very much doubted he'd manage it again if they were to have a rematch.

A Powerwild slammed into the dirt just to the left of where Lea was lying, knocked from its perch by Xion's relentless attacks. It was back on its feet in an instant, its eyes quickly finding the three left on the ground. Lea waved in its general direction and set it on fire.

"They're worse than ants," he complained.

Isa sneered at a particularly bold Shadow that was starting to get a little too close.

"Thunder!" Xion cried from out of sight, and Lea watched as it vaporised into a handful of HP balls.

"At least ants are only interested in your crumbs," Isa agreed.

Xion jumped down from the trees, brushing a few specks of dirt from her dress. "Is that all of them?" she asked, surveying the area.

"For now," Lea remarked. "Give 'em five minutes and more will come."

Xion shrugged, dismissing her Keyblade as she returned to her spot on the rug beside Roxas.

"You should have thought of that before you suggested this," Isa said, without an ounce of sympathy.

"Well, where would you have picked?" It wasn't like there were many places in Twilight Town that had actual grass. It was just the woods, and the area outside the mansion. And the mansion wasn't an option; today they were making new memories, not reliving old ones.

To his surprise, Isa actually contemplated the question. "The Kingdom of Corona."

Okay, that was a pretty decent suggestion, Lea had to admit, but there were bucket loads of Heartless there, too.

"Wonderland has some nice spots," Xion offered.

He thought of hedge mazes, card soldiers, and questionable snacks marked 'eat me'. "Pass."

"Hard pass," Roxas stressed. His face scrunched up like he was remembering something traumatic. Which was well within the realm of possibility when Wonderland was involved. Lea barely had a moment to appreciate that someone, at least, was on his side, before Roxas ruined the moment by suggesting, "Neverland."

Xion and Isa nodded in consideration.

"Twilight Town," Lea glared at the lot of them. Traitors. "This is our world. We should do things here." And if that meant they had to smack a few Heartless around every now and then, well, that wasn't exactly anything new, was it?

"Can we still go visit other worlds sometimes?" Xion asked, serving herself some more rice. She and Isa had taken it upon themselves to cook all the food for the day, while Lea and Roxas had been banished from the house under the pretence of buying the non-edible picnic supplies.

(It hadn't fooled either of them; they both knew the real reason was because they had a tendency to burn everything they tried to make. And also, Lea suspected, because Xion was eager to show off the skills she'd picked up from Isa.

…She'd gone more than a little overboard, though. They'd be eating leftovers for weeks.)

There were as many worlds out there as there were stars in the sky. Axel and Saïx had been to their fair share over the years, but Roxas and Xion had only ever visited a handful, and never just for the sake of going. Lea could think of several off the top of his head he knew they'd enjoy.

"Course we can," he said. "But today we're having a picnic in Twilight Town."

"I think it's more of an all-you-can-eat buffet," Roxas laughed. He'd nearly finished his second plateful, and they still had enough food to feed half the town.

Xion hunched a little, sheepish. "We got a little… carried away."

That really went without saying. Lea sat up and reached for a bread roll. "Did you make all this yourself?"

"Isa helped."

Isa shook his head. "I did very little beyond supervise." He was still on his first helping, ever the slow eater. For once that didn't put him at risk of missing out on seconds, though his appetite was usually small enough that it didn't matter anyway.

"At this rate, you could get a job at the Bistro," Lea told her. The food was good. Not that he would let either of the kids worry about jobs anytime soon. They'd more than earned, like, at least a decade to just be kids. And they'd have plenty of work to do once he managed to get them enrolled in school. "Tiny rat chef better watch himself."

Xion blushed, but there was a pleased smile on her face.

"Make sure to save room for dessert," Isa chastised when Roxas reached for the dish of potato salad.

Roxas gaped at him. It was hard to tell if he was shocked or excited. "There's dessert?!"

"I made a cake," Xion fidgeted, as if she was only just now realising how over the top she'd actually gone. This had well and truly transcended beyond 'picnic'.

Lea nearly laughed. Had she really expected them to finish it all? They were going to have a hard time just making the leftovers fit in the fridge. Maybe they'd stop by a few places on the way home and pawn it off on the kids' friends.

There was a rustle from somewhere behind them. Since the Heartless had moved in, pretty much all of the birds and assorted woodland creatures had moved out. And not many people had a reason to come this far out. Lea glanced over his shoulder. Yellow eyes stared back.

"Your turn," Xion nudged Roxas' leg with her foot.

Roxas set down his plate with a sigh, and stood. Oathkeeper flared to life in his hand. "I'll be back in a sec."

Lea watched him go until his line of sight was blocked by the trees. It probably would only take him a few seconds. Xion was a force to be reckoned with, but Roxas was practically a one-man army.

"We should do this more often," Xion hummed. It was a weird thing to say when they could hear Heartless being exterminated somewhere just out of view.

"Perhaps not in the middle of a Heartless nest," Isa raised a brow. But he actually sounded like he agreed. Maybe he was finally starting to warm up to the kids. He'd been more open with Xion, lately – the cooking lessons were more than evidence of that. Roxas… would take a little more time. But they were already getting along better than they had before. Lea counted that as a win.

"Hey, what's that one world?" Lea clicked his fingers, trying to remember. "The amusement park one?" He'd only been there once for recon, and after he'd learned that the Heartless were basically harmless, and only interested in the rides (which was weird, but he wasn't about to complain), he hadn't been sent back.

Isa turned to him. "Disney Town?"

"Yeah. We should go there." The kids would love it, and Lea would be lying if he said he wasn't just as eager. When was the last time he'd done something for no other reason than that he wanted to? Even stick-in-the-mud, allergic-to-fun Isa would probably enjoy himself.

"Where are we going?" Roxas emerged from between the trees. As expected, there wasn't a scratch on him.

"An amusement park," Xion replied, brow furrowed in confusion. Poor kids. Tell them to exterminate a giant Heartless and they were all over it, but the concept of an amusement park was a completely foreign concept.

Roxas, predictably, matched her expression. "What's–?" He cut himself off, his expression going slack, and eyes widening. He'd been about to sit down, but he aborted the movement, quickly spinning to face back towards the town.

Xion, much like him, practically flew to her feet. She had one hand over her heart, and the other pressed against her mouth.

Lea and Isa rose more slowly. It was clear from one look that neither of them knew what was going on. "Roxas? Xion?"

Heavy footfalls reached their ears, followed by cracking sticks. Whatever they'd sensed, it was coming their way fast. Lea had half a mind to summon his Keyblade, but despite Roxas and Xion's reaction, they hadn't moved to defend themselves. Not a Heartless, then?

"Found you!" a voice cried, and a figure skidded to a stop on the path.

A very familiar figure.

Xion was the first to recover from the shock. She cleared the picnic rug in a single bound, and threw her arms around a very startled Sora. "You're back!"

"I'm back!" Sora confirmed. He barely had time to return her overly enthusiastic embrace before she stepped back, smiling through teary eyes.

He looked exactly the way he had the last time Lea had seen him. Same clothes, same easy grin, like he hadn't been missing for over a month. Lea checked the path for any sign of other unexpected guests, but besides them, the woods were empty. That didn't make sense, though. Surely Riku and Kairi wouldn't let him run around by himself when they'd only just managed to get him back.

Sora turned from Xion to Roxas, who was still rooted to the spot. The two of them hadn't had a chance to talk before Sora had gone to find Kairi, and then it seemed like they might never be able to. In the time since, Roxas hadn't mentioned Sora beyond a few passing comments – mostly memories.

Lea still didn't know where they stood. When their hearts had connected briefly just after Axel had sacrificed himself, Roxas had acted like he'd come to terms with it, but he'd struggled with his identity for his entire life. It was hard to imagine something like that going away so easily.

Sora was as aware of that as Lea was. His smile was a little less excitable than the one he'd offered Xion, but the warmth was undeniable. "Hey."

Roxas didn't say anything. From where Lea was standing, he couldn't see his face, couldn't even guess at what he was feeling. The silence stretched on, and the atmosphere grew tenser, until finally Roxas lurched forward, arms wrapping around Sora in a hug that lasted barely seconds. Sora eagerly returned it.

"Don't disappear again," Roxas said, pulling away.

"I'm not going anywhere," Sora promised. His attention finally drifted over to where Lea and Isa were still watching, and his grin returned in full-force. "Axel! And… Saïx, right?"

"Isa," all four of them corrected.

Lea had long since given up on correcting the way Sora addressed him (and if he was honest it probably would have felt as weird as Kairi calling him Lea if he'd managed it anyway), but this was something he would not compromise. Saïx wasn't Isa. And he hated the way Isa's face twitched – the only outward indicator of his emotions – when someone called him that.

Thankfully, Sora only needed to be told once. "Isa," he repeated. "Got it." And then he spotted their 'picnic', the rug so covered in food dishes that it was barely even visible. "Whoa! Donald and Goofy would go nuts if they saw all this!"

Lea sank back down, and tossed Sora one of the spare plastic plates. "Help yourself."

"Are you sure? I don't want to impose."

"Please impose." The fewer leftovers they had to take home the better.

"We can't eat it all, anyway," Isa added, returning to his own place.

Roxas and Xion did the same, leaving a space between them, which Xion patted pointedly. It was all the invitation Sora needed. The three of them pressed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, in a way Lea had only ever seen them do with Naminé.

"When did you get back?" Xion asked, as Sora served himself a helping of fried noodles.

"Just now, actually," Sora replied. "I wanted to stop by here and say hi before we headed back to the Islands." He then went on to tell them about where he'd been for the past month. He only got about halfway through before Roxas and Xion's heads snapped up again.

"Naminé's here," Roxas announced.

"Kairi, too," Xion said.

"Riku's probably with them," Sora rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I, uh, kinda lost them when I came to find you."

And, sure enough, Kairi, Naminé, and Riku wandered down the path a moment later. Sometimes it was a little creepy how accurately they could sense each other.

"There you are!" Riku huffed, irritated, but Lea could see the relief in his eyes. "You can't just run off like that, Sora!"

"Sorry," Sora said. He didn't sound very sorry. "I could feel them nearby when we landed, and we haven't seen them in ages."

It hadn't really been that long, in hindsight, but Lea understood the sentiment. A month was a long time to worry about someone.

Riku shook his head, more exasperated than truly annoyed. "Hi," he greeted the rest of them. "Sorry for the intrusion. We would have called ahead, but it was kind of last minute."

"It's fine," Lea brushed off the apology. "We already told you, you guys are welcome here whenever."

Naminé caught the kids' eyes, and waved shyly. Roxas scooched closer to Sora so she could sit between him and Lea. She seemed a little mesmerised by the sheer quantity of food. Lea passed her a plate.

"Sit down, help yourselves, blah blah blah."

"That's… a lot of food," Kairi remarked, making herself comfortable on Lea's other side. Riku wasn't far behind her.

"Geez," he laughed. "Were you planning on feeding the entire town?"

Xion twirled her fork through her rice to avoid looking at them. "I know, I know. I just got excited. We've never had a picnic before. I'll think it through better next time."

Sora's attention whipped over to her. "Xion, you made all this?!"

"Just as well," Lea noted, as Kairi, Riku, and Naminé (somewhat reluctantly) began piling up their plates. Had she subconsciously known they would be here?

Nah, he decided. Because even with four extra mouths to feed, they were still going to have leftovers.