Disclaimer: Psychotically not mine.
A/N: Written for Challenge #188 at KH Drabble, over on LiveJournal. The theme for this one was 'bindings', and I apologise shamefacedly for the abysmal title.
Bound by Fate
© Scribbler, May 2009.
The restraints were too tight. They cut into his wrists and ankles worst, but he could feel them across his legs, and resting against his torso like a corset. He hadn't fought the orderlies in weeks, but keeping him restrained was routine. There was always the risk he'd try to hurt someone again.
He could still lift his head, which he did when the door opened. He wasn't sure why he bothered. Few came to see him anymore. Those who'd withstood his early fury couldn't take the sight of him strapped to a bed like a Victorian sanatorium patient.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself." Play it cool. Keep it light.
He'd learned how to act. Getting keyed up had only bought a ticket to Straitjacket Central – especially when he'd tried with every atom of his being and the keyblade still hadn't come, forcing him to use a carving knife to prove this wasn't real instead. Somehow his ability to summon had been blocked. Stuck like this, he was in no position to figure out how, why, or how to fix it.
Well, if you couldn't beat 'em, join 'em – or at least make them think so. His early outbursts meant he wasn't trusted when he 'came back to himself', but no matter. Trust returned in increments. These people thought he was one of them, after all. They wanted 'him' back, so he'd give them what they wanted. He could wait for them to delude themselves into releasing him.
He never used to be good at forward planning. Neither of them was. Mom said they were two sides of the same coin, but if so, he was the dark side.
Dark Side of the Moon. Led Zeppelin. Did Dad used to play that album, or was that something else fabricated into his false memories?
No, never mind. Doesn't matter. All lies anyway.
He was the serious one, with weighty thoughts and a face that displayed no emotion. Well, at least that part was right. Or maybe what little emotion he showed just paled next to his… other? No, his Other. His not-twin. Because they hadn't been born here. They hadn't shared a womb. Putting them together was like holding a candle against the sun – both gave light, but no way could you mistake one for the other.
"You're… you look good. Today. You look good today."
"I feel good."
"Yeah?" A glimmer of the smile he'd known since forever.
Except that was a lie. He'd never even seen that face until he found him sleeping, keyblade waiting for the true Master.
Where had his gone? No-one was powerful enough to keep them all locked away. Even the Organisation couldn't…
One orderly had red spiky hair.
They said he was mapping people from 'real life' onto his fantasy, but it was the other way around. Someone had rewritten reality – for the second time! This time, however, he'd figured it out sooner. That was their major mistake, whoever 'they' were. When he was free, he was going to hunt them down and make them return everything to normal. Then he was going to rip their lungs out through their mouths.
He smiled. It hung off his cheekbones like a surgeon's mask. He met eyes so much like his own, made plain by unknown magic.
Magic. Not psychosis. Not schizophrenia, multiple personalities, or whatever else they wrote in his file.
"So can I come home yet?"
Sora's eyes flickered. It was brief, but enough. Roxas's head flopped back.
Increments. He was going to redress the state of the universe, after all. He could be patient for that.
Fin.