Feeling weightless was strangely comforting.

Although it was far away, he could just make out a pained voice calling his name, a desperate plea, attempting to pull him back, echoing like it was behind a panel of glass. Too far away for him to reach. He couldn't move if he wanted to. Did he want to?

Words attempted to materialise but stuck harshly in his throat, lodged, each letter dying before it even reached his tongue. It was like his lungs were filling up with sand, each breath he tried to take filling them even more.

And that's when he realised he was drowning.

Or something of that nature. Vague memories of what was happening scattered across his mind, leaving him unable to pick out the pieces of what led him to where he was. His mind told him he should hurt. Yet he didn't feel a thing. He was floating in a dark abyss, unable to feel anything above or below him. It wasn't sand, it was water, and that information… almost made it seem okay.

Roxas was dying. Probably. Drowning did usually come with a chance of death, and he was sure this was as close as he would get. He couldn't see or move to confirm his thoughts, yet his lungs burned with such an intense fire, almost like they were eating themselves away, consuming each cell of life with each aching, agonizing second. He counted each twisted, painful beat as they began to burn further, twinges of pain travelling through his veins to his wrist and back up again, like clockwork, a steady passage to show that his pained heart hadn't given up.

Beat. Beat. Beat. When was it going to finally end?

Dying wasn't as terrifying as he remembered thinking. Roxas couldn't decipher why he was dying, though the reasoning wasn't important, not any more. Sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness, becoming nothing but an empty shell, mind soon to be lost, was not a sad thought. Nor a daunting feeling of void that was non-existence. Pain was the only thing that existed, but without his natural born fear, pain began to feel welcoming. Pain was real, pain was steady, pain was consistent. It was the one thing he had left.

Bubbles of words floated into the abyss like rust-coated weights, tingeing him with a copper taste in his mouth, a sour feeling that ran through his blood. Familiar, yet… 'Please be okay, please...'

A sensation of being dragged out of his void washed over his body, and the weightless, floating feeling crashed down on him, his lungs burning brighter, heavier, sharp weights crushing his bones, splitting his veins, pain making him soundlessly scream. The agony of a thousand bones being broken at once relentlessly pummeled his mind, fire licking his wounds like a taunting drug. The prospect of drowning seemed welcoming compared to... this. Whilst before the water clogged his ashen throat, leaving him unable to speak, scream or even breathe, air now strangled his neck in a tight embrace, invisible hands cutting off his life force and leaving him to motionlessly lie in intense pain. His surroundings were a poison, leaving him to waste away by the second. Roxas felt his temperature begin to plummet and he was sure that if he could breathe, steam would rush from his lips like smoke, billowing out in clouds. Why was he so damn cold?

He could feel a painful pressure on his wrist, another death grip that only escalated the one on his throat. 'You can't leave me...'

The words echoed around him, multiplying in the darkness, twisting in and out of his ears, coated in venom and death, causing him to slip away, the poison dragging him under, lungs pitifully giving out, mind slowing to an instantaneous halt.

When he came to again, the calloused hands changed to plastic tubes forced into his weakened throat, needles prodding into his poisoned flesh, his only indication of time the steady beat of the heart monitor at his side. One that never seemed to end.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Words began to seep through his expanse of an abyss again, slowly, one by one, breaking through the crushing darkness and relieving him piece by piece. Small words and sounds at first, like 'stable' and 'keep a close eye on him.'

'If he wakes up.'

Cries, too. Familiar ones. So… so familiar. And all he could do was lay still and immobile, his mind dipping in and out, most of the time unable to form a coherent thought about what he was feeling or hearing. Who was around him… who he was. How he got there. Murky images of a bath, and pills… blood, lots of it.

"He's slipped into a coma, Ms. Strife. We cannot decipher how long this will last. It was a serious attempt – he's lucky to be alive."

"Is he…?"

"We cannot say anything for sure. I'll… give you a few moments with your son."

The words passed by like a blur, syllables tugging on the edge of his mind, waiting to bring him to the surface, almost breaking free, only for silence to push him back down again like a crushing weight.

"I got Mom to admit she needed help. Finally. I think… she really means it. I know it doesn't excuse a thing. I just wish it didn't take… this… for her to realise. I-I'm staying at Riku's a lot of the time now. He helps. I told him everything – he's angry, but more so because I didn't tell him. I wish you'd wake up. You've always been the one that's kept me safe."

Beep. Beep. Beep. The most he could count before he slipped away was twenty-two. Twenty-two beats of his heart, twenty-two chimes of the only thing confirming to everyone else that he was still alive.

"I'm so sorry… Nothing I can possibly say will fix this… I just hope you wake up, my precious boy. Even if you go the rest of your life hating me, the one thing I want for you is to… live."

The pain began to recede as his hearing grew more clarity and definition. The loss of breathing apparatus was a welcome one, as was most of the uncomfortable, thick needles in his arms.

"R-Rox… Oh god, how do I even begin to explain this? Hayner… went off the rails. He disappeared for some time after he found out about your… attempt. He went crazy. He… shot Mom. She's dead. She's… gone. I couldn't get away to visit you until now. I… God, I need you to wake up… Everything's spun out of control. You, uh, remember Cloud and Tifa? Probably not; neither did I… apparently Cloud is Luna's brother, and Tifa his wife. They've taken guardianship of us. They're really nice. I hope you get to meet them. I'm sorry I haven't visited in a while."

Snippets of memory came back to him, slowly, like drops of hail, pummeling him with things he'd rather forget. The abyss taunted him like usual, a welcoming darkness of absolutely nothing.

"I haven't seen Hayner in months. The police have been searching nonstop. I… I do hope he's okay. I know you weren't seeing eye to eye, but he really did love you. We all do. He'll either have to run for the rest of his life or go to jail. All because of Mom..."

The only thing he didn't feel was regret. Frustration, maybe. Being unable to move or speak wasn't pleasant. He didn't regret taking those pills. The plain purpose was for it to end things, to null the pain. It didn't work, but he didn't regret it. Roxas knew he was being selfish, but… he couldn't find the motive to feel any differently. Not anymore. Would he still try again once he woke up? If he ever did?

"Hey, Roxas. You probably don't remember me much, as Luna took you away when you were so little… I just wish..."

"Tifa..."

"Cloud, just look. He might never wake up, and nobody even realised. Nobody helped. And we could have if we were just there. We had to find out everything that went on behind closed doors from Ms. Gainsborough instead."

"I know, believe me, I know. My own sister… I still can't believe it."

"So, they say you can hear everything in there, right?"

A voice wafted into his ears, one that sounded husky and deep, definitely unfamiliar. Confined to sit motionless and unable to say a word, all he could do was vaguely pay attention to what this guy had to say. Maybe he was a new nurse assigned to his area – which would probably be the worst prospect, as having a chatty nurse talk to him every hour of the day wasn't something he could find himself getting excited about. He just wanted to be left alone.

"Not that you can reply to me or anything… I thought you might like some company, y'know? Since I'm such a charitable person and all."

God, if he was a nurse, this was even worse. He was quite sure he'd go stir crazy.

Roxas was starting to regain sense, at least. Voices no longer swam in and out of consciousness and although to anyone else, nothing had actually changed, he could now form coherent thoughts without his head screaming in pain, memories failing to linger for long.

Though… it was starting to get lonely with only himself for company. Sora could only stay for so long, and one-sided conversations weren't really ideal.

Regret still hadn't surfaced. Most people, by now, would have realised their mistakes. They would begin to spout shit out of their mouths, preaching that they never wanted to die or that going through the worst made them realise how precious their life was.

Roxas wanted nothing more than to get out of the coma, that was for sure. In all honesty he knew once he did, he'd just mellow by himself, stuck in his head. He couldn't keep his mind from unhappy thoughts, nor did he feel compelled to. He had nothing to distract himself with other than sleep, a blessing he could only take advantage of so often.

"Hey," the male started before stopping, the vague sound of shuffling being heard. Maybe not a nurse then. He tried to picture the voice in his mind, a complete stranger attempting to converse with a comatose kid. Maybe the guy was bored? Or, less appealingly, he might have involuntarily gotten himself into an awkward situation with a creep. With his luck, the latter.

"...Roxas." He found himself mildly surprised at the raspy way the syllables practically rolled off his tongue, a brief tone of intrigue apparent in his voice.

"Bet you don't know why the sun sets red. You see, light is made up of lots of colours. And out of all of those colours, red is the one that travels the farthest. Got it memorized?"

'Like I asked… Know it all.'

...

"The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

Roxas found himself surprised at how much Axel lessened the loneliness. Despite the fact he couldn't talk back, Axel would fill in the silence with perfectly appreciated nonsense. He could never ask why he kept coming to visit him, but he was glad nevertheless. And Axel did visit him a lot.

It was a fresh pace from his brother and the odd visit from Cloud and Tifa. He never heard from anybody else, though his family members had been cut from four to three quite abruptly… the fourth wouldn't be likely to visit even if she wasn't dead.

He still didn't really know what to feel about Luna's death.

Sora had mentioned in one visit that their friends were too grief stricken to visit, though from his tone of voice, he came to his own conclusions. Riku would often accompany Sora, though that was the extent of it. Riku never spoke much, or he wasn't present for it.

Even though their conversations were one sided he found himself anxiously counting the painfully long ticks on the clock, waiting for Axel to come back with his insane theories and far-fetched stories. Regardless, he loved them anyway. Even if it was him reading the newspaper or spluttering a completely made up tall tale, he made everything interesting.

"They say you can tell a lot about a person by their hands..." Axel was running his fingertips lightly over the palm of Roxas' hand, tracing each groove and dent as he went along, his feather light touch comforting. It was the most contact he'd had since he'd been brought into the hospital and he found himself wanting nothing else but this, to be nowhere else.

"Though I have no clue how to tell." Axel chuckled, moving along to Roxas' inner arm, following the veins along his wrist.

He tried not to think about how desperately he looked forward to his visits or how he felt like he was in his own private world with Axel, even though he couldn't speak. Roxas tried not to let the thoughts that he may never get out of the coma surface – or would Axel even be interested when he woke up? He tried not to ponder if they really had a friendship, and if it would be broken before it even began if he did awaken. Maybe he would realise he was too much to bother with.

Roxas was contradicting himself as time ticked on. He didn't care if he had friendships, and definitely nothing more. Yet he couldn't help but have those thoughts fall away during every visit, desperately wondering who the face was behind the voice. All his reservations seemed to fall away at the sound of his voice.

"You have a lot of battle scars, kid… I hope one day I can help heal them all."

The sadness in Axel's voice took him by surprise, and for one brief moment he found himself liking the fact that he cared. He genuinely seemed to mean it, and for one slight second, Roxas felt his walls drop, his resolve faltering.

That was until wooziness took over once again and he felt himself falling asleep, the ghost of Axel's touch fading.

"I made a bet with myself that you have beautiful eyes." A deep sigh echoed around the room. "Wake up already so I can prove I'm right."

Voices began to drift away from him, hazy tones that he'd catch for a few seconds before they disappeared. He slept a lot more, most of the conversations from his visitors gone unheard in favour of vivid, bright dreams. Roxas began to revel in them, every second more immersive than the last, beginning to despise the times he was awake in the dark, silent void. When he dreamt, everything was alive and full of colour, full of life. Roxas dreamt of Axel often, though he was a blur, unable to put a real face to the voice, the only thing which was actually certain.

His dreams often consisted of soft, pale grass underneath his feet, his limbs not tied down to a hospital bed, free to roam his mind at his will. Cool wind brushed against his skin like a refreshing breath of fresh air, water enveloping his pores and leaving him utterly tranquil and at peace. Each ray of light, each particle of colour was impossibly bright and intense, a vast contrast to nothing but endless unilluminated darkness. Nobody could harm him in his own personal paradise. Nobody could touch him. Roxas could be completely alone and revel in the fact. It was just him and him alone.

He could drift in an endless sea of vast shades of blues, the surface glittering in the constant dawn, no worry of drowning present as he floated, the seconds washing away. The water flowed over him, enveloping every inch of his skin, healing him, pulling together broken pieces like glue. Nothing could bother him in the slightest.

Roxas began to forget things, though he knew he'd be better off forgetting them somehow. The memories washed away with the waves of the sea, each overlapping between specks of tranquility, leaving him to want for nothing other than the endless emptiness, the only sounds that of the crashing waves against the ground.

He was happy, memories or no memories. Completely content with his own company.

It was a sight. Him, happy.

Sadly, his personal paradise never lasted long. He always awoke, memories rushing back to the surface, back to the ticks of the clock, the endless beep, beep, beep.

Roxas began losing his will to get out of the coma, his resolve wavering, fight diminishing. He didn't want to be in it forever, that much was for sure, but he didn't want to awake from bursts of colour and peace to emptiness, silence, or a place he couldn't quite reach. Being trapped was becoming mentally exhausting, leaving him more tired with every passing day. Roxas felt like the world was steadily moving around him, living, breathing souls loving and doing everything that was expected of them, everything that was natural. He was stuck. Stuck forever being forced to listen to the lives of everyone around him, progressing while he lay still, hating himself more and more. Axel was right, he had his battle scars. They weren't poetic, or romanticised; most weren't visible, never healing, tugging at his mind and baring at his very psyche.

Axel wanted to fix him.

Everyone wanted to fix him.

Everyone apart from Luna, that was. She saw he wasn't worth the trouble.

"I don't know what to do."

Those few words pulled him out of his dreams and into the present, a hazy edge to his mind, unable to process his surroundings as much as he used to. Regardless, he could make out his brother's voice amongst the drowsiness, muffled cries echoing around the room.

"The d-doctor..." He spoke, hiccupping as he did so.

"What did he say?" Riku joined in, a concerned yet strained edge to his voice.

A pause. "His levels are dropping…. His brain activity is low. He's getting worse, Riku."

Then nothing. Roxas could hear the pain in his voice, the roughness of what could only mean countless sleepless nights.

"I really, really don't know what to do."

Roxas awoke to Axel tracing outlines on his arm again, and if he was able to speak, he knew a content hum would unknowingly slip out.

He took comfort in the routine they found themselves in. It grounded him, gave him a sense of being, that there wasn't just nothing.

"Once I really liked this guy back at school." He must've been in one of his 'ramble about anything' moods, though Roxas didn't mind too much. Rambling was better than silence.

"I had a dream about him – and no, before you magically come out of your stupid coma and give me 'that' look, it was a perfectly innocent dream – and in this dream, he liked me back. So, the next day I turn up and make a beeline straight for the bike sheds, since he'd always smoke joints there. Classy. Anyway, I kissed him. Without warning, might I add. Turns out he didn't like me. Although I can't see why not. I'm hot, charismatic and just overall amazing, great, sexy; what more could you wish for?!" Roxas mentally smirked, finding his natural narcissism to be oddly charming.

"You can probably guess what happened next – and don't play dumb, we all know you have a couple of brain cells left in there – he freaked out and we haven't spoken since."

At least that confirmed Axel's sexuality. A part of Roxas imagined him to be quite open with the fact, at least from what he gathered. Did his appearance show that, too? There was so much he wanted to know...

Axel didn't speak for the rest of his visit, though he kept on running his fingers over the boy's palm, eventually lulling him to sleep yet again, the last thing that Roxas could remember was his warm, comforting presence and a faint smell of smoke.

The weights lifted off his eyes, slowly but surely. Everything was dark, shadows scattered around the room that he couldn't distinguish, patches of light dotting his vision. He was clueless as to where he was, brain foggy, limbs protesting. He wanted to go back to sleep.

Roxas attempted to shift into a sitting position, trying to figure out what was going on, but in doing so he'd set off a multitude of loud noises, echoing around his brain and the room, wincing at the pain they created. A couple seconds passed before a door that was on the other side of the room opened – finally letting in a slight amount of light, letting him adjust to the fact he was in some kind of room, his arms connected to various tubes and sensors. Roxas let his gaze travel back up to the door again, noticing a familiar face standing at the entrance, frozen, his eyes fixed on himself. A doctor walked past him with a nurse who quickly assessed his condition, giving him wary smiles as their eyes met.

"R-Rox?" Sora managed to splutter out, still unmoving, rooted to the spot. Roxas attempted to reply though all that came out was a hoarse gasp, leaving him coughing and wheezing in a sound that was more reminiscent to choking. "Oh my god – you're awake? Really awake?"

Roxas didn't try and reply to Sora this time. His head felt so heavy, and he couldn't piece together where he was, or why he was there… The room filled with light from overhead, filling every inch of the room, blinding Roxas from the intensity. With a croaky groan he laid back down on the pillow, draping his arm across his face to block out the light. Anything to make it stop.

The sound of a chair being pulled up rang through his ears and he peeled his arm away, noticing the doctor and nurse had momentarily gone, beeping erased. Roxas could see, now that Sora was closer, how much of a wreck he looked. His once short, spiked hair was tied into a messy ponytail, limp spikes poking out in random directions. Large, dark circles hung under his eyes, covering red-rimmed sad blue orbs.

It pained him.

"Roxas… do you know where you are?" Sora asked cautiously, keeping his eyes trained on Roxas – out of worry, sorrow, pity, he didn't know. He shook his head as a clear no – everything felt so hazy. "You're in the hospital. You… You fell into a coma. Because of your attempt nineteen months ago. You've been in a coma... for the past year and a half."