Adronitis
Kingdom Hearts AU. Oneshot.
A/N: I stumbled upon this definition from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and it immediately became my muse. I may rewrite this later, but as it stands, here it is, in all its originally written glory. Also, if you have any alternate suggestions for the genres I selected, please vocalize. I had a hell of a time trying to decide.
Warning: General weirdness.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Characters by Kingdom Hearts. Quote from the lovely Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a compendium of invented words written by John Koenig.
"Adronitis: n.
frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you've built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they're from, and what they do for a living."
Roxas sat, tucked in his little niche in the corner of the coffee shop. A concentrated puff of air escaped his lips, materializing as it met the hot air hovering above his coffee cup. He took a small sip, letting the bitter liquid burn against the back of his throat. In the midst of this moment of respite, he suddenly felt the breath leave his chest all at once. His eyes shifted up, lost and unmasked of confusion. They caught on something moving in his peripherals. A wave of magnetism seemed to pull his eyes further, settling resolutely on a man he didn't recognize. His eyes ghosted over the figure—a man with stark red hair, a shade akin to Roxas's accidentally bitten lip, the metallic taste pervading his senses. The air stilled in Roxas's lungs for a second time.
Pictures. Still moments burned against the back of his eyelids. Words exchanged through gritted teeth. Fragments of thoughts. Midnight air and hushed whispers, lost on deaf ears as the world swallowed them up. Memory after memory slid before Roxas's eyes. He could feel them on his lips, taste them on his tongue, felt as though he could reach up and touch them. The way the phone felt in his hands as he brought it to his ear. The way the words seized, drying up in his throat, words failing to materialize. The numbness that spread through his body like a sedative, leaking into his weakened grip, letting the phone slip through his grasp like a cruel irony. How he couldn't hear it clatter to the floor.
Roxas's veins seemed to swell, as though he could feel the midnight musings, the drunken murmurs, the sobering contemplations, the crushing fears that he buried into small caverns of doubt, locked away tight, insecurities felt in quiet desperation, dreams that never left his pillow. They were coursing through him, all inevitably leading to the thing pumping tirelessly in his chest. Somewhere safe, to be stored and kept.
But the memories weren't his.
He stood none too gracefully, his limbs clattering to pull himself upright. He did not hear the coffee cup, either, as it clattered to the floor. The coffee shop took on a deadly calm, white noise overtaking Roxas's senses like an arching wave. And all he knew was tunnel vision, spindling red hair, and the sound of his own breathing radiating out of his chest.
His head against the dashboard. The feeling of the strings beneath his fingers. The way her eyes lit up and her cheeks crinkled when she smiled. The cool of the immaculately made bed sheets as he sat in her empty room and cried. The tears as they fell, salty on his lips. Hollowness.
He planted his feet in front of the man, their eyes locking. Cerulean on emerald. The gravitational pull between them felt stronger than ever. The words came out of his mouth in a heated rush.
"You've been in serious relationships, but you live your life in deathly fear that you've never known love. And that you never will."
Something in the back of Roxas's head was screaming at him but he couldn't hear it over the way that his heart was beating out of his chest, quickening as the man opened his mouth in response. The same staggered look was written all over his face.
"You spend every night with your eyes closed but wide-awake, praying that life doesn't end in an abyss."
"You stopped telling your mom that you loved her when you were 13."
"You sometimes wonder if your friends would even care if you disappeared...if they would even feel your absence or just carry on."
Roxas's hand was reaching out, cold, clammy hands meeting burning heat.
"She died when you were 15."
A small moment. A sharp, shallow intake of breath. Roxas's hand squeezed instinctually.
"Your biggest fear is oblivion."
"Your biggest fear is that she never forgave you."
And then they were embracing fervently. Limbs clutching desperately for something to hold onto. Roxas's hand was gripping Axel's back, anchoring himself as though he were in the middle of the ocean, as tide after tide tried to pull him into the current. He could feel the wetness as Axel buried his face into the crook of his neck, but he said nothing. They just stayed there, waiting out the tremors of the tide.
When they finally pulled back, cerulean back on emerald, the smile was a small ghost upon his lips.
"Roxas. I'm Roxas," he said quietly, extending his hand.
"Axel."
"So…what's your favorite type of coffee?"