Title: Nightlife
Rating: K+
Characters: Axel, Roxas
Summary: The real world taunts him, so he taunts it right back.
Notes: For Obscurity.
In his opinion, the nightlife has always been the best part of crawling out of the Darkness to peer around at the world that taunts them from far away, in his opinion. When the sun fades, and darkness creeps over the land, he comes out, sneaks away from the castle, alone, cloaked in darkness and sulfur and night, and stands, high up, away from everything and everyone beneath him, and watches them all, scurrying here and there. He likes to pretend he knows where they're going, likes to make up the tragedies of the lovers that meet in the dark corners of the alleyways, likes to plan the nights of the businessmen who cling tight to those little black suitcases, hurrying so fast that they don't notice the world around them.
He knows that he was like that, too, before, but it's been so long since then that he doesn't remember exactly what it was like.
He lies to himself that he doesn't care about remembering.
Crouched up here like a stone statue, a gargoyle swept up in midnight-black leather, he can see the world as it pours out beneath him. He feels powerful up here, like some greater force dictating and observing and altering their lives as he sees fit, playing with them because he has nothing left in this nonexistence of his to play with any more.
So he comes up here, and watches, and pretends that remembering isn't all that important and that memories aren't worth the hassle, and lies to himself about fire and smoke and bullshit lives.
Today, however, unlike every other day, he doesn't come alone. A smaller hand is looped around his, and he grins and talks and goes on and on about life, about his observations, about truths and fire and smoke and those bullshit lives they live, while the boy behind him follows in his darkness, faintly smiling, nodding his head but never speaking.
He brings him to the top of the building, thrusting open the metal roof door with a flourish. He releases the boy's arm, walking out to the center of the stone-speckled rooftop, and spins around on his heel, arms outstretched, mad little smile on his face.
"What do you think? You can see everything from here. All of the people running down there, worrying about nothing – we can watch them all up here, and they don't even know it." He laughs, like a child, like he hasn't laughed in a long time, and walks to the edge of the building, the boy close behind him. He leans over the cold, stone side, daring the wind to grab hold of him and drag him off of the top, and he can sense the boy next to him stiffening when he does that daring little movement of his, but he doesn't pull back, not until a hand falls on his shoulder.
He turns, facing the boy, but the boy isn't looking at him; instead, he can see the glimmer of streetlight and starlight reflecting in his baby-blue eyes, lighting up the usually empty gaze with a false flicker of life, as he watches the ground below, transfixed on the hurrying businessmen and the hidden lovers and the homeless nobodies.
He smiles, and nods, and knows that the boy understands everything now, just how he understands everything, and he looks away, back out toward the streets and the buildings and people below them.
Watching those lives makes theirs just that little bit more bearable, a little less fake and a little more interesting, lit up with the flame of faint, faint memories and barely-even-there emotions.
