Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: It must've been hard for Roxas and Naminé, giving up all autonomy to their Others. But maybe they didn't give up as much as they thought after the game ended.

Looking Through Your Eyes

© Scribbler, September 2008.

And love just took me by surprise
Looking through your eyes.

From Looking Through Your Eyes written by David Foster

Roxas isn't sure how he keeps himself separate from Sora and yet a part of him as well. He slips between the fragile strips of his Other's personality, a mental wraith, poking into memories and poring over the emotions he missed so much he was willing to give up everything to achieve them.

Maybe that's what it comes down to – he was willing to give up his sense of self for a heart, or at least for the ability to accept the one he had, and his reward for this was to keep his consciousness once he had it.

He watches Sora grow up from the sidelines, and yet he lives it too. When Sora slips his hands into Kairi's, Roxas swears he feels the warmth of her skin, and yet he's standing next to them observing the age-old pattern of their tangled fingers. When Sora rough-houses with Riku, Roxas's breath is driven out of him by the foot to Sora's gut even though he's halfway down the beach watching the stars come out. Sora's shame over an F at school is Roxas's, and Sora's joy at seeing Donald and Goofy, his trepidation at meeting Goofy's son, his raw satisfaction when he calls up his keyblade – Roxas shares in all of it while also stepping back as an observer.

And when Sora turns eighteen and finally breaks the taboo, and takes Kairi down to the secret cove, and when Riku finds them there in each other's arms, Roxas is streaked through by Sora's remorse, so hot it freezes and so cold it burns. But it's Roxas who chases and catches up to his Other's friend, and Roxas who reaches out to him, to instinctively encircle his shoulders the way Sora usually does.

And it's Roxas who jolts when he realises he can feel Riku with his own two hands, even though Sora's not there with him to feel it vicariously through.

Fin.