.:Floating:.
During the periods when he is rendered unconscious for lengthy bouts of time, Roxas dreams of so many things that both confuse and intrigue him.
Some of the dreams are like memories: warm, familiar, and vaguely related to the present. Roxas dreams of people with Keyblades, he dreams of friends that are not his own, and he dreams of fighting Heartless and bigger, different enemies.
When he wakes, he usually doesn't remember what it is he dreamt; only that he had had a headache and passed out for a while. Axel is usually the first one to inform him of how long he slept this time; the redhead even jokes that Roxas and Xion are becoming regular narcoleptics, but Roxas can tell by the look in the pyro's emerald eyes that he knows a whole lot more about the situation than he's letting Roxas to believe.
But there is one dream Roxas has when he sleeps normally each night that haunts him. It is a dream of his body immersed in too much light and in need of the darkness. In the dream, he is floating in midair, his body rigid and fearful of how much light there is. He keeps floating, drifting and flexing, loosening and tightening, and all the while unable to right himself and stand on solid ground.
In this dream, there is always a spot of darkness Roxas attempts to crawl and hide inside of, because the light is blinding, white, all-seeing and all-consuming. He craves the darkness, and once he finally reaches it, the dream usually ends.
But recently…
Recently, Roxas's dream continues from there. He is finally able to see what comes next in the sequence.
After Roxas scrunches his body up into a fetal position, he floats into the darkness like a drop of water being accepted into the comforting soil. It is surprisingly warm in the darkness and cold in the light, so once he's inside, he calms and relaxes fully. The darkness soothes him, and wraps its arms around him lovingly.
But then the arms of the darkness become actual human-looking arms cloaked in black, with black gloves on the hands; Organization XIII attire. Roxas knows this person, whoever they are.
They murmur into his ear, "I'll keep you safe from the light," with a protective tone to their voice. The voice itself has a deep, rich tenor, and Roxas definitely knows this voice from somewhere.
Roxas tries to turn in the arms to face the person, but the mysterious friend holds him tighter, rendering Roxas motionless.
"Don't leave," the voice says, the breath of the murmur tickling Roxas's ear. The person mistook Roxas's movement for those of escape. The blond tries to clarify, but for some reason his own voice doesn't work in this dream-world. The person behind him goes on to plead in a virtually expressionless tone, "Don't leave me, Roxas. If you leave, then I can't protect you. Stay here. Please, stay here with me."
The blond isn't sure what to do, because he feels like he needs to be somewhere else all of a sudden, and at the same time, all he wants to do is see who is standing behind him, holding him in such a way.
He half-turns his head, and out of the corner of his eye, the person's face and hair are constantly morphing, changing from Axel to Demyx to the brunet, Sora, from his other dreams, to his own face, To Xion's, and then, finally, to Zexion's.
Roxas is startled from his dream when the faceless person becomes Zexion. He doesn't know why, but the idea of Zexion being so close and protective towards him is a little evocative. The image lingers in Roxas's mind for over a day.
Then, two days after the bizarre dream, Roxas runs into Zexion; literally.
"You should be more in control of where you walk," Zexion lightly criticizes as he stands and picks up his book, which had been dropped in the process of bumping into one another.
"Sorry," the Keyblade wielder mutters softly. He looks up and catches Zexion staring at him. "What?"
Zexion adverts his eyes. "Nothing. I'll be seeing you, Thirteen." And he walks down the hall away from the blond at a slightly faster pace than usual. Roxas frowns in puzzlement after the Schemer.
The following day, it happens again.
He stumbles across Zexion in the library; again, literally.
The blond wobbles on a ladder while trying to reach a book on a high shelf, and Zexion is below, looking for a book on a lower shelf, and as they say, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Zexion lunges to catch him, but Roxas is not much lighter than Zexion himself, so they both ended up collapsing onto the ground in a heap of limbs.
"…This time, it seems, I cannot scold you on controlling yourself. The old, rickety ladder is to blame," Zexion grumbles irritably as he forces himself to sit up. Roxas is on his stomach, sprawled across Zexion's lap uncomfortably. "Would you kindly remove yourself from me?"
"Uh," the blond gasps, the wind having been knocked out of him. He hisses in pain and rolls onto his back, landing on the floor beside the person who had somewhat cushioned his fall. "Sorry. Again."
Zexion isn't looking at him. "There is no reason apologize this time. You cannot control whether or not you lose your balance on a ladder."
The bookworm stands and offers one of his hands. There is still no eye contact, so Roxas is left staring at eyes that refuse to look at him. Zexion, he realizes, has oddly-colored, amazing eyes.
Roxas takes Zexion's hand and is lifted to his feet, a few sore spots on his body protesting as he does so. "Thanks," he whispers, because Zexion didn't have to help him up like that, or even catch him in the first place. In fact, Roxas wonders: "Why did you save me, anyway?"
For a moment, Zexion actually connects and locks his gaze on Roxas's ocean blues. "Because," he says slowly, "I'm supposed to protect you."
And as Zexion leaves, his words still ring in Roxas's skull.
That night, Roxas is unable to get a wink of sleep. He turns and rolls and fidgets, trying to find a comfortable pose and peace of mind. What happened today felt too much like his reoccurring dream. He had been floating for a moment during his fall, and then Zexion's arms had been around him to catch him, and then, all too soon, Zexion had said something so extremely similar to what he had in Roxas's dream that now Roxas is unsure what to think. After all, Zexion's powers involve that of illusion; what if he somehow sent Roxas the dream on purpose? What if there is something greater going on that Roxas is left out of?
Baffled and wracked with insomnia, Roxas sighs and gets out of bed. He slips out of his room and ventures down the hall to some of the other rooms of The Castle That Never Was. He can see the beginnings of Kingdom Hearts from the windows, the large, moon-like heart hovering in the air, a halo of hope and the proof of accomplishment.
In the distance, Roxas can make out a few chords of Demyx's sitar; the hyperactive hydromaniac almost always has insomnia, and opts to play his instrument when he can't sleep. Roxas is about to join the other blond and perhaps chat for a while when movement catches the corner of Roxas's eye.
He turns and spots someone watching him from the dimly lit adjacent doorway in the hall. He squints, trying to make out the figure, but the figure vanishes behind the door as soon as it realizes that it's noticed. Curious, Roxas wanders towards the door and discovers that it's Zexion's bedroom. He knocks softly on the wood.
Zexion slowly opens the door, and something in his eyes looks like a raccoon when it's caught red-handed in the act of ransacking someone's garbage. For some reason, this analogy makes Roxas smile. "Hey, Zexion. You can't sleep either, huh?"
And that's all it takes. Zexion opens the door and permits Zexion inside, and soon the two of them are wrapped in a floating, practically tangible silence that neither can break. Their mouths are too busy acting on their own account, and completely ignoring the need for words or the commands from their brains.
Roxas isn't sure how they got to this point (who closed the distance between their lips? Who started liking who first? Why is this happening?), but he also isn't complaining. He hums in approval as his tongue is accepted into Zexion's mouth, and everything in there is lovely: slick-feeling, warm all over, and delicious-tasting.
The two fall backwards onto Zexion's bed, the blond of the two pinning the other down. There is a secret longing between them, an unknown, hidden lust that neither bothered to acknowledge until now. And Roxas is getting drunk off of that intoxicating longing, and he can tell by the free-flowing way Zexion is moving that the silvery-blue haired Organization member is also growing heady from the sensation.
The Keyblade wielder finally understands his dreams. The floating, the sense of loss, the safety, the promise. He understands it all, and he sucks it up like a sponge, absorbing all that he can. He then wrings himself out and uses it in this moment, a moment of triumph in understanding and possession. Because, finally, Roxas can possess what his dreams had been trying to give him all along: a reason to stick around, to fight, to be.