Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

Notes: Written for LJ's "30kisses" comm for Theme Twleve: In A Good Mood. Personally, I kinda like this one. I guess.

Sovereign

"Naa, Vexen, do you feel like things are changing? Life is… different."

The older man considered the question for a moment before answering.

"I don't see what you mean. Subtle things have shifted, yes, as they often do. I wouldn't say that life as a whole has been any different from yesterday or the day before… no, I couldn't agree."

Zexion had expected as much. Changes had been occurring, he could feel it, but it all seemed so slight to others as to escape their notice. Zexion seemed to be the only one to notice life altering of its own accord. He imagined the notion was too romantic to believe, but that he was possibly the only one to realize just how fast life was flying out the window, and was the only one to notice how it was passing him by.

"Bahh," Luxford spoke, stepping out to look directly at Zexion. "The air about you has changed, do leave the room. Your luck today has died, and such a death a stifling to one so sensitive as myself."

Zexion admitted that if Luxford though him unlucky, then unlucky he was, though nothing had proved it yet today. Still, Zexion had no objection to leaving-- the company wasn't at it's best anyway.

'I'm not wrong. They don't-- probably can't --see it as I do. There are differences that I am sensitive to that they simply cannot feel. It is obvious to me that the change lies in the people, but one would think that at least Vexen would by now have seen it. He passes his time by studying us, after all…' Zexion thought, his mind still lingering on the swiftly changing patterns of his life.

He wouldn't go to his room tonight; while silence and loneliness were very much romantic and beautiful, Zexion preferred to share someone else's beauty, not become his own. Others could be victorious in battle, and he may not lift a finger, but as long as he is with them, he is victorious as well. So went his take on beauty-- others could be beautiful, and as long as he was with them he wouldn't have to create his own beauty; that was how he liked it to work.

Thusly he went instead to Axel's room, because Axel was beauty without the romance and tragedy, which was twice as lovely. Axel was quite his own little star, standing out and shimmering even when alone, and Zexion, prince of aestheticism, couldn't help but stand next to him attracted and reflecting.

Axel was waiting for him at the door, kissing him just as soon as he had even one foot inside the threshold.

"Hallo, Zexy," Axel murmured huskily, his hands having slipped to Zexion's hips, holding him gently. "I was wondering when you would come to see me." Axel quickly stepped away, leaving Zexion to close the door as he rummaged through a drawer.

"You were expecting me?" Zexion asked as the door clicked shut.

"You could say that," Axel replied, having found what he was looking for and turning back to Zexion and the door. Reaching over to turn the lock, Axel finished what he was saying. "I expected you to come just as I expected myself to kiss you when you did. I don't have a reason why, but I did. " Zexion considered what he had said, while vaguely wondering when they had reached the point that they needed to lock the door while alone. His only reply, "Oh."

It hadn't been the first time Axel had kissed him, but it had been the first time Axel had kissed him so immediately. He had never right out and kissed him at the door before, and definitely never before the door was properly shut. While Zexion knew Axel was head-over-heels in love with his body, Zexion had decided that he was still in need of time to arrange and compose the correct emotions. With every day that passed Axel became more convinced that Zexion loved him, while it was all Zexion could do to continue on in default. He never accepted, but he never declined. Zexion was, after all, the 'take names first' type, insisting he had his facts and opinions before he took action. His thoughts on the matter very consistent; 'learn from Oedipus, and question first. It would be a shame to slay your father and only learn after the fact.'

Axel tilted his head to the side, looking curiously at his friend's face. Eyebrow quirked; "Get lost in there yet?"

"What?" Zexion asked, brought back by the other's voice, but thoroughly confused by his question.

"Your head. You're in there often. Get lost yet?"

Zexion looked confused, understanding what Axel meant but it still sounding strange. "No…" he answered unsurely.

Axel seemed to let the matter drop, straightening to show Zexion what he held. In his hand was a small wooden box. "Come're," he said with a grin. Zexion would have described it as more than a grin-- as something slightly more sinister, perhaps --had he seen it on anyone else. But Zexion knew that Axel's grins didn't get any less suspicious than that.

Zexion simply followed him over away from the doorway, both taking a seat on the bed. Zexion knew it was going to happen before it did, but did nothing to stop it-- finding himself with Axel's arm around his waist and Axel's breath on his ear.

"Wanna see something exciting, Zexy?" Axel whispered, knowing Zexion would go wherever he lead him.

"Show me something exciting," Zexion answered, taking a step in the right direction. Axel's arm suddenly felt tighter around his waist.

Axel grabbed his little box and opened it up, pulling out a handful of what he kept inside it. He knew that Zexion appreciated beauty, so why not offer what he could?

To Axel, pills were beautiful after all.

Just as there are wolves hiding in sheep' skin so is there magic hiding in material objects. Zexion had found proof. He had been looking for a well in a puddle and hadn't realized he'd found it until he had fallen in it. Axel stood beside him, not as the Prince Charming, but as the Fox in the Fable. As the mercurial Mercutio, his mad Mab in his palm.

Zexion was Alice, taking a stroll in the sky and counting the pebbles on the ground at night. Lost deep in thought. Where children would see childish stories of make-believe and pipe dream, he could see deep into the story, beyond its cover, its casing, and its costume. There was gruesome fact in the fairy tale, proof that not all make-believe was purely made of fancy.

He felt flung forward by the tide of time and the reality of magic, acting like running was jogging and leaping was hopping, all the while not admitting to the wear and the tear it put on him. Not admitting to others because of fear and not admitting to himself because of shame. And vice-versa.

Beside him he could see Axel, checking his watch and laughing that he was late. Somehow it was fitting, whether Zexion was in his right mind or not, that Axel was the White Rabbit. Always starting out late and on the wrong foot, but always making it on time, sometimes feigning a loss of breath. Zexion would make it just in time, having just cleared the last hurtle before the clock stopped, and there would be the Rabbit, breathing just as hard and playing along oh-so-kindly, but still able to play his trumpet ever so loudly. So empathetic, and yet at the same time feeling nothing that Zexion felt.

As the image of Axel disappeared, the Red Queen arrived. Zexion could tell she was there, but he couldn't tell who she was. He was looking at her without being able to see her, or maybe it was the other way around, he couldn't decide. His world was sliding forward with the slightest whisper of a wind; Zexion found himself running just to keep up with the ground on which he stood. What lay on the horizon, he would never know, he had not the speed to see it. The Queen ran with him, but neither were going anywhere; they were going simply to stay.

Would they have stopped they would have seen the world buzzing passed them, moving at a pace so rapid the blink of an eye would put all it's motion to waste-- the scenes of the scenic route would have all already passed by, leaving the smog and pollution of a shameful situation to be seen instead. But so hastily did it pass that they would be among the scenes again quickly anyway. Zexion knew that the Red Queen had control but she didn't use it at all. Why run against the world instead of slowing the world down?

(Why was she given control if she didn't put it to use?)

And in an instant the heavy hand on his shoulder vanished, though he hadn't felt a thing. She was in control of the motion of his world, the tilt and sway of his life, the very pace which was outrunning him, and she was gone. How now could he ever stop the mad road he was on, the vengeful path that carried him? Zexion's pride and ego struck bitterly at him for admitting that he was not the one doing the controlling. He was the ultimate manipulator, he was the walking shadow, he was the master of puppets. It wasn't possible for him to lose control, for him to be beaten, or for him to dance to someone else's tune. Zexion's practicality wanted to admit that there was no way to overcome the rushing road and that he would never get any farther along than the spot he was at, but his ego wouldn't allow it.

Memories of what he had done to himself for the power he possessed weren't far back in his mind; when the six of them had become fixated in exploring the darkness, when they had learned of what would become of them if they forfeited their hearts ("Elaeus, haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to be someone else?"), he hadn't started experiments to control the forces of nature as the other had, instead using science to command an element of human nature. Zexion refused to believe that all had gone to waste, if he tried he could control the situation.

As Zexion slowed, determined against instincts to stop running against the treadmilling road, the affect was immediate. Standing still in place, Zexion wasn't dragged backwards as he had expected to be-- he had control of the land below him and any forks he might come to. He was the Red Queen, the ruler and the sovereign.

"Ne Zexy… I'm sorry."

"What for?" Zexion's voice was a calm mumble, even though he wasn't sure who was talking to him.

"I thought it would be fun to get you high, love. But I wasn't expecting you to go to sleep on stimulants, I've never quite tried that. Have any dreams?"

Zexion sat up, paused to yawn, and looked very evenly at Axel, very calmly, and this time it was Zexion who kissed Axel, Zexion who was the first to move.

"Yes."