XXX.
We wait with baited breath on Xion's awakening. We wait and wait, but still, I know better than to get my hopes up.
I don't know what it is, it's not like I'm having premonitions or anything absurd like that, I just have this feeling, this unshakable gut feeling, that she will not be waking up soon. I don't quite know how to explain it other than that, and I still do not know if this was caused by Naminé or if she just brought on my strange, new dreams.
Not nightmares, at least.
I spend my dreams wandering through a strange, white corridor. It looks like Castle Oblivion, but there is nothing incredibly distinct about it to tell me whether or not it is Oblivion, or the Castle That Never Was. I tread cautiously, holding my breath as I open a door that calls out to me. I don't know why I'm not surprised when I see Destiny Islands behind the door. Selphie, Tidus and a boy with orange hair stand, silhouettes slowly being filled in, but suddenly, they stop. I stare at them, with a brow quirked before closing the door. I continue down the hall to a doorway with a room that Sora sits in. He's on the floor, quizzical glance on his face.
"Do I know you?" He asks.
"Yes…" My heart catches in my throat as I look at him, there's something so incredibly helpless about how he looks. I want to reach out to him and though I try, I cannot will my body to move.
"I keep trying to remember all of them, but then, it just stops." He shakes his head. "Can you do anything?"
"Sora…" I breathe.
"I wish I could remember you."
And that is how it goes every single night, but with different worlds. Sometimes it's Wonderland, sometimes it is Transmute City, sometimes it is a world I'm not even familiar with, but somehow, I always understand that the residents are works in progress in Sora's mind. Is this Naminé projecting Sora's progress into my mind, and if so, why does it seem to be coming to a halt? What is she not telling me?
I don't wake up shrieking anymore, but something seems quite off with Axel. In the early hours of the morning, when I expect the two of us to be fast asleep, he clutches me tight, his fingerprints searing into my skin. So hot, so desperate, I worry he will leave another mark on me. Instead, he spends the mornings whispering to me, promises, secrets, reassurances.
"You're gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay."
"As soon as I get my heart back, things will be different. You're never going to have another nightmare, I promise."
"I wondered about you for so many years after I lost my heart. If I saved you, from the Heartless. I tried so hard to forget you, because I thought I failed you. And then you showed up here, and I remembered and I thought I had succeed. I guess now I know I didn't." I want to tell him that he didn't fail me, not then and not now, that I'm alright, that I'm holding on, even if by a thread. His guilt makes me nauseous, but the second I open my mouth to question him, he closes up, sealing himself tighter than the chamber of my heart that my past lurks in.
"I don't have a heart in the first place, sweetheart. I can't feel guilt." He says, as though this is somehow assuring. When I don't let it die, he leaves me in bed alone, under the guise of needing to jump into the shower. I begin to worry that if both of us are broken, our pieces will scatter to the wayside, never to be picked up. So for him, I become stronger.
I can sleep. I sleep just fine. I learn mix a sleeping draught, though, not for the first time, I wish I knew basic magic. A sleeping spell takes a little more finesse but is infinitely more accurate. And more to the point, it eliminates dreams. A draught only knocks me out. So now, instead of waking, screaming, or crying, I trap myself. Unable to escape, unable to force myself awake, unable to even walk through my dreams. Instead, I stand beside Sora as he shows me videos of missing memories.
"What do you see?" He asks me.
"Snippets. Clips. Fragments. I can't piece them together." I confess.
"Neither can I." He shakes his head. "I feel like something important is missing though. The chain that binds everything together." And he's right, it's almost as though I'm staring at a bulletin board of random ideas, hoping for someone to take a roll of string and connect all of the points together.
"None of it makes sense." I agree.
"I never thought it would be like this." He says. "I've lost everything. I didn't know it would be this hard."
"What?" I ask.
"Being the hero." I cannot wake up. And I think this might be worse.
But when I roll over beside Axel, who looks careworn, like he hasn't been able to sleep through the night, and meet him with a lazy grin, this at least seems like a good cause.
"Morning, handsome." I flip over onto my side and wrap a leg around his waist, hoping this will right what is wrong in him.
It doesn't.
It doesn't matter which parts of him I kiss—his neck, his lips, his chest—it doesn't matter how stupid of a face I make, it doesn't matter which jokes I crack or how many times I try to get him to come for ice cream with me and Roxas. He just looks at me, hollow and sad and shaken.
"Would you just tell me what is going on with you?" I implore.
"Nothing." He assures me.
"You're worried, I can tell." I press.
"I don't have the heart for that, Rueki." He reminds me.
"You've got something. You haven't been yourself lately. I can't fix this unless you let me in, Axel." I crawl into his lap, my arms snaking around his neck as I look into his eyes. He doesn't meet my gaze.
"I miss my heart." He says, though I don't think that's the house of the problem. It's not even the welcome matt. "At least if I had one, I could blame everything on it."
"It's not all that great having one to blame it on." I mean to make him smile. I meet him with a sarcastic grin. Finally, he looks at me, though everything about him screams hard to read, and I cannot begin to make heads or tails of what is going on inside of the person I care for the most.
"You should go meet up with Roxas. Can't have the kid getting too lonely."
I do meet up with Roxas, but not for Axel and not for Roxas. For me. We sit at the edge of the clock tower, ice cream at hand, staring out at the setting sun.
"I'm worried about Xion." He tells me. I nod, because I am too. Almost two weeks and she hasn't woke. I reach out and squeeze the kid's hand.
"I'm worried about Axel." I confess.
"Is this what you meant about love being a weakness? Because when they're not here with us, I feel like something is missing. I feel sad." He murmurs.
"It's hard." I agree. "But we're gonna get through it. Even if it means we have to stay by their sides every day until they're both okay."
"Do you think Axel's upset that Xion's asleep? Cuz if he is, you know, he shouldn't be avoiding us. We both get it, we all miss her." Roxas reminds me, as though I need it. And to be honest, I'm sure that's part of Axel's issue, but only a very small, insignificant part.
"I guess I don't know what he's thinking. You know, you'd think after all this time, that I'd know him better than anybody else. But this is a side I've never seen, and he's not letting me in any further." I sigh.
"Will he be alright?" Roxas asks.
"Yeah." I hope so. "Xion too." Maybe."
"What about your nightmares?" He asks. I shrug.
"They're not so bad. We've got bigger things to worry about." And no matter what damage Naminé might be doing to me, one thing is for certain, for the time being, she has stopped the darkness from seeping out of the sealed door of my heart. If my friend could wake up and my boyfriend could snap out of it, these might be some of the best times of my life. Instead, I sit on the clock tower, holding hands with a teenager, wishing for something magical to happen.
We're out on a mission one day. Him, me and Axel, chasing down Heartless in a strange, medieval world. A wizard casts some sort of protective spell over something, but the castle at the edge of town is still in danger of crumbling.
"Launch me!" I order and Axel lifts his chakrams in the air, allowing me to leap off of them. I flip into the heap of Heartless, tearing my claw straight through the heard. As I weed them down from the inside, I can hear Axel and Roxas tear them apart from the outside. I hear every slash, every grunt, but when a gap breaks in the grouping, and through the light, I see Roxas, Keyblade at the ready, charging in, I see Sora in Oblivion, charging at me.
Naminé left no room in his heart for forgiveness.
I cry out, gasping and I land on my ass with a thud. Maybe it's the pinprick pupils. Maybe it's the fact that I'm trying and failing to catch my breath. But Roxas seems to understand what is happening just as fast as I process it.
"Hey, come on." He's at my side, his hand on the side of my face, blue eyes baring into mine. He slashes Heartless away with one hand as his other slides down my neck, my shoulder, into my hand and he tries to pull me up. "It's gonna be okay Rueki. You're with me and Axel. You're safe." He promises, lifting me to my feet. He's strong, for being so small. But standing beside him, I realize, he isn't so small anymore. I swear he only used to come up to the bridge of my nose, but now, he is at least an inch taller than me. We stand like that, my hand in his as I try to focus on the world around me again. He isn't Sora, Sora is safe with Naminé. Roxas isn't Sora, he's my friend, and he's here to help me. By time I am centered, Axel has completely eliminated the cluster of Heartless, to reveal Roxas and I standing, hand in hand, staring at one another. "She had a panic attack." Roxas explains. I feel Axel's eyes travel down to where my hand meets the Keybearer's. Once upon a time, I might have accused him of being jealous, and he might've said he didn't have the heart to be. But now, watching his brow knit together as he looks at Roxas and I, I worry that I have pushed him too far. There was nothing sexual about the gesture, nothing romantic, nothing to be jealous of in the first place. And yet, somehow, I still feel guilty.
"Let's just go back home." Axel says. Roxas insists we all go get ice cream, Axel tells the two of us to go ahead, that there's something he needs to take care of. Unsurprisingly, I follow after Axel, reaching out for his hand, which he tears away from me. "Just stop." He sighs, once we are safely in the confines of our room.
"You're mad at me. I get it, I'm sorry, but there wasn't anything to be jealous of. Roxas had to do a lot of stepping up and comforting me when you were gone for a month. I needed a little bit of physical comfort to keep me sane, so he held my hand or hugged me, it's all innocent, Axel." I insist.
"Oh I have no doubt about that." He says, though his tone is clipped. I remember this as the way he talked to Marluxia, to Larxene, to two whom he was pretending, so hard, to tolerate.
"Then what is the deal?" I throw my hands up, watching him retreat to the bathroom. I dart forward, cutting in front of him, standing in his path. "Tell me!"
"I'm not in the mood for this right now, Rueki." He says with the wave of his hand.
"You haven't been in the mood for anything in weeks!" I remind him. "I just want us to be okay, I want you to be happy, don't you realize that's everything to me?"
"Don't bet all your cards on me, sweetheart." He kisses my forehead, but brushes past me. "That's a surefire way to lose."
We're in Wonderland, him and I, on recon, inside of a very strange garden. There's a table set up, with a mismatched tea set, a cold kettle and half eaten crumpets. I turn to tell him that I think we went the wrong way, when suddenly, he has me bent completely over the table. With the swipe of his arm, he knocks the table clear in front of us. I hear the shifting of fabric, feel the friction of his hips against my ass. He yanks down my shorts and panties in one fluid movement and plunges into me. All at once, I feel every muscle in my body uncurl.
"Oh, thank fuck." I breathe. He grasps my hips, hands hot as he pounds into me. He's all desperate breaths and choked moans, and I could get off on the sound of him alone. But he presses his chest into my back, and one his hands swing around to tease my clit.
"Is this good?" He asks, and I can hear anxiety creeping at the edge of his voice.
"Yes, Axel, don't stop." It's not hard for me to throw my head back in lust, to beg him for more. Because this is what I want, all of him, all he has to offer and then some. He takes off his gloves, his fingernails sink into my skin. "Yes, baby, please." I whimper. He slams into me, hips snapping back with so much force that it takes my breath away. My face goes red, I sweat, trying to steady myself against the table. But his thrusts are unrelenting, needy.
"Do you love me, Rueki?" He chokes and my eyes go wide. We had resolved that there wasn't a need to say that word, not until he could mean it, but I hear the absolute agony in his voice. He needs this. For as much as I thought I needed this, the closeness, the heat, the friction, he needs this on an entirely different level.
"Yes!" If this helps bring my man back to reality, back to me, then how can I not oblige?
"Am I enough, is this enough?"
"Always." Is my easy answer, but I'm not sure if he is asking me anymore.
"I'm not enough. How can I not protect you and fucking Roxas can? How do you keep falling apart and I can't fucking save you?" His hands are balled into fists, nails scraping my flesh, and I let out a cry that is entirely pain, not pleasure.
"Axel, stop!" And to his credit, he does. He releases my hips, pulls out of me, and to my surprise, he is semi soft as he does. He didn't come so… "It didn't happen?" Part of me wonders if I've done something wrong, if maybe I am not enough, but his reaction quickly proves otherwise.
"Dammit!" I'm pulling my shorts back on and standing up as Axel knocks over the remnants of the table. His chakrams appear in his hands and he smashes them against the table. The wood splinters and cracks beneath his force. He flings a teacup across the garden, breaks a chair with an easy blow. Fire starts burning on his very being, flames creeping at the edges of his limbs. I stumble back, against the edge of the garden, eyes wide as the flames lick at the table, the chairs, the grass. They crawl into the woods. I draw in a shaky breath.
"Axel!" I scream. He doesn't look once at me. "Axel, dammit!" I draw a hand up to my mouth, trying to shield my face from some of the ash as I take a step forward. He burns, obscenely hot, but I reach out and grab him. It feels like I am touching a lit stove, but this pain is nothing. This, I can endure. "Axel!" He whips around, his eyes darting to mine, and I find that he looks a lot like a wild animal. Possessed, violent, untamable. And then, suddenly, very afraid.
"I have to get out of here." He breathes, his voice wavering.
"We have to get out of here." I correct. I synthesize a Flash Flood, casting into the woods. The second I do, we disappear into a portal. He tries to stalk straight past me.
"We're not fucking doing this shit!" I scream, my voice frayed. He freezes, his back to me. "You just lost your fucking mind in Wonderland, nearly burnt the whole world down, you've been acting like a fucking weirdo for weeks, and then you act like this is no big deal? No. You don't get to fucking do that. I'm your girlfriend, I'm your fucking partner. Talk to me, Axel! Talk to me right now, or this is fucking done." It's an empty threat, of course. By the end of he day, I'd have my legs wrapped around his waist, begging him to take me back.
"That's really all it takes, sweetheart?" His voice has a bite to it. I know that tone. He may have accused me of being a sarcastic bitch when I'm trying not to feel things, but he deflects just as hard and in the same way that I do. This time, I do not waver, I am ready for him. "If you can't take the heat—"
"Don't do that to me." I close the distance between the two of us, taking his hand from behind. Sometime between his freak out and now he put his gloves back on, but the leather barely shields me from the heat. "How much heat have I taken for you? And how much have I forgiven? You wanted to know how I felt about you, I told you. But I also told you a long ass time ago that you can't hide things from me!"
"I'm not hiding anything!" He snaps. "There's nothing to hide."
"You haven't been you, and I miss you, Axel. So fucking much." I plead.
"There's nothing to hide…" He insists, though his voice wavers this time. "Because I don't have a heart. I can't feel anything… But why the fuck do I feel so damn inadequate?" His voice roars inside of the portal, scorching me. My eyes go wide as I look over him, thankful that I am not facing him. I don't know what reaction I am supposed to have to this. Me, the one with the heart.
"Baby, you're not…" I start.
"Don't fucking do that, Rueki! I can't find anything to get my heart back, I can't figure out a way to stop you from having panic attacks, having nightmares, falling apart at the seams. I can't, but Roxas has no problem with it!" He insists.
"Don't make this a jealousy thing." I beg.
"It's not. It's an 'our friend can care for you, but I can't', thing. I've ruined you. I brought you into all of this, and I was a selfish asshole in Shibuya. I brought you into all of this, sent you down a road that's more than I should ask of anyone, and expected you to just shoulder it? You know what I think about that? I think that's a piece of shit thing to do to someone you care about. I should've been a fucking man and sent you away to keep you safe. Instead, I'm a greedy bastard. I just had to keep taking and taking, and now, you're having strange dreams about Sora. Naminé did something weird to you, and I have no idea what it is or how to help. One of our friends has been in a coma for the past two weeks, the other has to pick up my slack, because somehow, a teenage kid knows how to be a better partner for my girl than I do. And then, now, I can't even sneak in a quickie with you, without turning into a basket case? I don't have a fucking heart, I don't have feelings, so why the hell am I feeling like such shit?" His voice echoes in the emptiness. Even with my hand in his, everything about me, all the way to my insides feels cold. I was so worried that I was fucked up beyond recognition. That the sealed door in my heart was breaking down, that I was, like Naminé said, one push away from falling to pieces for good. I didn't think for a second that maybe…
Maybe the man with all the answers is only grasping in the dark.
I reach around him, wrapping my arms around him from behind, pressing my cheek to his back.
"Rueki, don't—"
"Shh." I silence him. "We're going to get through this. We're going to figure this out." I promise. I don't know how, but holding him close like this, I find a strength in me, in the depths of my heart, that I wasn't aware existed. An override, a selflessness that my being produces only in times of desperate need. Right now, my heart ache doesn't matter so much. I knew, of course, that it needed to be set aside for him. But I wasn't prepared to be the one trying to cast the healing light upon him. If that is what he needs though, if that will bring back the cocky smiles and the snarky comments, then I am more than pleased to offer it.
"You know, not having a heart means I can see past the bullshit comforting pretty easily." He sighs, shoulders slumping, body going limp beneath my touch.
"Don't be a dick." I scold. "You can't get through this right now, fine. You can't shoulder all this weight? That's okay. You feel broken? Well guess what, I've never lied to you. I'm not broken, Axel. I'm dented, sure, but I'm not beyond repair. And I'm not a complete mess. Right now, it's okay that you need me. Friends sometimes need to lean on each other, remember? And I'm your girlfriend, but I'm more than that. I'm your friend, I'm your very best friend. It's my job to be here for you when you need me to be, so let me do that for you, baby. Lean on me. Let me take on some of this. Let me protect you." He is still in my arms.
"I've already asked so much of you, I've already put so much on you." He says.
"You're not asking, though." I remind him. "I'm offering. You're not forcing me, you're not manipulating me. I'm being nice."
"Is that something you do by choice?" My eyes flick up, and at the edge of his face, I can see a smile starting to creep. It lights me up from the inside.
"This is a once in a lifetime thing, Dancing Flames. Don't shit on it." I warn, with a big ass grin on my lips. He turns around, cupping my face in his hands, though my arms still circle his waist.
"You're pretty perfect when you wanna be, Rueks." He smiles.
"I'm very aware." I nod. "You're pretty alright too." I wink.
"Such an attitude." He laughs.
"It's almost as big as my ass." I say. "Speaking of which, I definitely was down with that position. Why don't we do it doggy style more often?"
"Because you've got a reasonably cute face?" He raises an eyebrow.
"Hmm. Well, let's go try that out again. See how it works. Because…I know that part of you works." I offer him a smile, and for the first time in weeks, he meets me with one as well.
I turn nineteen while Xion is asleep. The event is hardly memorable, and were it not for a calendar in mine and Axel's room with dates scratched off, I never would've realized.
"It's my birthday." I announce one morning, as he towel dries his hair.
"No it's not." He corrects me. When I meet his gaze I notice something broken in his eyes. Fuck.
"I guess not." I shrug. "It's the anniversary of the day I woke up in Transmute City. It's how I've been keeping track of my age."
"It's the anniversary of the day our world fell into darkness." He offers me a bitter smile. "The anniversary of the day I became a Nobody." But I don't miss a beat. I wrap my arms around him, tucking my head into his chest.
"Guess it's both of our birthdays. We should celebrate, get ice cream on the clock tower with Roxas. He misses you."
Xion wakes. I feel it before I know it has happened. My eyes go wide, I turn to Axel, a smile creeping across my features, as we sit in the lounge type area.
"You look like a horror movie monster." He grins, sideways at me.
"It's Xion." I say. "She's up."
"How can you tell?" He asks, I shake my head.
"I dunno. Maybe it's what Naminé did to my heart. Maybe I can sense my friends and how they are." I offer. Sure enough, within minutes, Roxas and Xion make their way into the room. I waste no time dashing over to the girl and throwing my arms around her. "You're up!" I feel beyond cheery. She giggles, wrapping her arms back around me. There's something familiar about the laugh that I can't quite place.
"Yes! I'm sorry I worried you guys." She says.
"Oh man, don't rope all of us in with Rueki. Some of us didn't spend the last twenty days freaking out." Axel chuckles, though he comes over and ruffles her hair. I shoot him some serious side eye. He smirks and shrugs and that feels enough like the real Axel for me.
"I want to come with you guys on your mission today. May I?" She asks as Axel and I pull away. I look to Roxas, who just sighs, and I know that he has already had this debate with her, based on his expression. There will be no telling her no.
"We could always use another hand. Just be careful, alright? We don't need you passing out on us again, got it memorized?" Axel asks. Xion nods, obediently.
"Of course."
We get as far as the station plaza before Xion does collapse. My eyes go wide as a vision appears inside of my mind. A girl with red hair falls into Sora's arms, like a gust of wind. He glows with resonance as he looks to the Keyhole in some strange world. The same girl has her hands on her hips, in a different world, a sassy smile on her face as Sora holds some sort of star shaped trinket.
"It's my lucky charm, be sure to bring it back to me!" The girl orders, in a voice so much like Xion's that I blanche.
When my vision returns, Axel is holding onto Xion and a monster of a Heartless has appeared. Roxas' eyes go wide, his Keyblade materializes. What the fuck was that vision? I don't have time to wonder any more though. The Heartless shoots a laser beam straight out, toward where Axel and Xion are. Without hesitation, I dive in, Survivor ready. I hold my arm up, taking the brunt of the attack. I huff, with my guard up, it didn't hurt nearly as bad as it could've but this thing is a beast. It still takes my breath away. I'm panting as I look to Axel and Xion, my man, standing there, mouth agape.
"I already told you, let me be the strong one. I can do that." I can be the watcher, his guardian. This is what I was made for. "Take Xion back to the castle, baby. Neither Roxas nor I can carry her. We'll take this thing out and capture more hearts for Kingdom Hearts. We got this. Right kid?"
Roxas charges forward, smashing his Keyblade down into the Heartless.
"Right!" He grins back at Axel. I offer my man a sideways sort of smile.
"This, I can handle. Got it memorized?" I wink at him. I swear to Twilight, I watch him light up, flames burning bright.
"Of course." He nods at me, grinning. "Be careful."
"Can't make any promises, but that's what the kid is for." I nod over to Roxas before charging in. I watch Axel open up a portal and disappear into it. It doesn't take Roxas and I long to knock down the Heartless, both of us beating on it with a whole new ferocity. For Xion, for Axel, for everything we hold dear to us. Roxas opens up a portal to the castle and we sprint into a stairway, where Axel is taking Xion up to her room. Saix intercepts us. My blood boils the second I make eye contact with him.
"Well that didn't take long. Did it break again?" He rolls his eyes. I see red. How dare he? How fucking dare he? I look at my lover and I have seen the absolute agony in his eyes, how torn he has been, and over this Organization and the bullshit they tell him. A heart doesn't matter, I don't think. I look at my friends and I am certain of that. I look at Saix and I see how cruel somebody can be when they think they don't have a heart to break. This wicked, icy, uncaring fucking bastard.
"She's not an 'it'!" Roxas snaps. Axel passes VII with a nasty look on his face and mutters something that I cannot hear.
"You've changed." Saix accuses. And he's right, Axel has changed, and by far for the better, he's grown, matured, his entire being has warmed and like hell am I going to let this asshole try to make him feel bad for that. I rip my arm back and launch myself at him. Somehow, Axel sees that coming.
"Roxas!" Axel orders and before my fist can make contact with Saix's face, Roxas has his hand wrapped around it and is pulling me back. "Baby come on, I don't want you to hurt yourself." Axel tells me, still carrying Xion over his shoulder. I literally glow. He didn't waste a second, worrying about Saix or wanting to diffuse the fight for anything beyond not wanting me to get into trouble. I am his priority. Even when he was otherwise occupied, he had Roxas at the ready to make sure that his partner didn't land herself in too deep. What's more is he isn't letting those ice cold words bother him I bite my lip, my eyes flick up to Saix's.
There is not hate in them, there is nothing. They somehow seem emptier, utterly void of life as he regards me.
"What happened at Castle Oblivion? Does the past mean nothing to you?" He asks Axel. And while there is a comeback brewing, I don't poke the bear. I have won already. Instead, Roxas and I follow Axel to Xion's room, where he lays her out on her bed.
"Are you worried about her, Axel?" Roxas asks, taking a seat at the foot of her bed. His hand touches her ankle, delicately, as I stand beside Axel, my hand finding his with ease. But that doesn't satiate him, he pulls me in closer. I lean my head into his arm and I finally feel him start to ease a bit.
"Of course I am." Axel barely whispers. Even after our talk, he has been so beyond worried lately.
"It just doesn't seem like you." Roxas confesses, his eyes never leaving Xion.
"What do you mean?" Axel asks, and I get the feeling I should be quiet on this one.
"I mean, you don't like things to be complicated." Roxas shrugs.
"I think this one went and ruined that a long time ago." Axel says, but he looks at me with his eyebrows raised and his eyes so incredibly vulnerable. I squeeze his hand. Maybe this is complicated, but maybe this is better. Three people here that I would cross any distance for, three without hearts, that I love enough for all of us.
"You know, Roxas…" I start, trying to think of how to phrase this to him. Because I fear Axel may be broken, and now is the time that he needs me, that all three of them need me. The weight on my shoulders might be too much to bare, but they don't need to know that. "Each day the four of us meet up for ice cream. Now why do you think that is?"
"Huh?" He asks.
"You know, if you think about it, the lot of us don't need to go out of our way to meet up." I remind him. "Right?"
"I don't know." I guess I should've expected that answer.
"Really?" I sigh.
"It's because the four of us…are best friends." Axel says and the words seem to sink into his very bones. As though they are reanimating him, restoring life in him that he had forgotten completely that he had. Suddenly, his face doesn't seem so ashen anymore. He burns a little brighter, perhaps not snuffed out for good.
"Wait, really?" Roxas asks. I offer him a smile as warm as the sun.
"Yep." I say. And then, to tease Axel. "Get it memorized."
"Hey!" Axel laughs, bumping hips with mine. "That's my line."
"We're best friends." Roxas too, lights up, as he speaks. From the bed, a musical giggle sounds off.
"I didn't know the three of you could be so sweet." Xion peeks an eye open and offers a snarky grin. Axel scratches his head, his eyes hitting the floor, but I turn him quickly, grabbing his shoulders, twisting his skinny frame into mine. I don't care that this is in front of our friends, I press my body into his and lean on my toes, pushing my lips to his. For the first time in almost three weeks, there isn't fear or desperation in his touch, but trust. And love.
"Are you feeling better?" I hear Roxas ask her as Axel and I pull away, and it seems his attention is only for her. The way Axel's eyes feel on me, I think that maybe I know the feeling.
"I just got a little dizzy, that's all. Sorry to worry you guys." Xion chews her lip.
"Don't scare us like that anymore." Axel insists.
"What about not having a heart or being able to fear?" I ask, a smirk on my face. But Axel's face is as soft.
"What about a heart not being the end all, be all?" He asks. I glow.
"Yeah." Is all I can manage in response. "Just take it easy, today." I warn Xion. She nods.
"I will. Thank you. All of you."
And that should be the end of it.
But I settle in for more strange dreams that night. This time, Sora and I stand, staring over Naminé as she draws. Me, Roxas, Axel and Xion.
"Us." Sora says to me. I look to him with an eyebrow raised, before I remember he is Roxas and Roxas is him. None of that seems or feels right anymore. Sora is not the person I have ice cream on the clock tower with. He's not the person who tried to keep me safe from Saix, who held me and stayed the night, talking with me when Axel was not around to protect me from my nightmares. Sora is not my hero anymore, not like the golden boy in Naminé's portrait.
"Is he why you can't remember?" I ask Sora.
"No. Not him." Naminé shakes her head. "Her." I look up to Sora and see, that on the boy's neck, is now a familiar face. Naminé's. I am confused, until it shifts slowly in the light of the open window, to that of a girl with wide blue eyes and short, dark hair.
"Xion." But I don't understand.
"If it comes down to one of us, who would you choose?" Sora-Xion reaches out to touch my cheek.
"You can't ask me that. You're both my friend." I choke.
"Then you leave the choice to another you call friend. Is that really the weight a fourteen year old boy should have to bear? Are you really so selfish?" Sora-Xion asks.
"Roxas?" I breathe. Sora-Xion shrugs.
"There can only be one, Rueki. Would you really rather lose us all, just to wash your hands of guilt?" Sora-Xion asks. Their hand wanders up my cheek and to my forehead. They press against my third eye, and I feel myself fall far, far, far back. Through the inkiest blackness. But in my mind's eye, I see Sora's memories as he tries to reach out and grasp them.
"I just can't wait, once we set sail. It'll be great." Kairi sighs.
"There's no way you're taking Kairi's heart!" Sora roars at a boy with silver hair.
"Come on, Sora! Together we can do it!" That same boy with silver hair—it must be Riku, I think—calls out.
"All for one and one for all!" Sora, Donald and Goofy set their hands together.
He reaches out, falling in time with me, desperate to touch them.
"Help!" He begs me. And I want to, but as I see the memories fly by, they wipe away, like a watercolor scene, and slowly, they bleed into reds, oranges and yellows.
"Friends need to lean on each other every now and then." Axel smiles.
"You're not a mistake." Roxas insists.
"On our down time, you and I are gonna hunt down this imposter." I say, and suddenly, I realize whose memories they are. Not Roxas', but Xion's. And they just keep getting in the way. I see Kairi appear in front of me and my heart stops. She looks like Xion, completely identical but with red hair instead of black.
"Do you understand, Rueki?" Kairi asks me.
And suddenly, I do. Without a shadow of a doubt. I wake up, gasping for life. Axel sits at the foot of our bed, dressed and distraught. I wonder when he woke up, or if he even slept at all. My heart hammers, so loud, pulsing so that I can feel it radiating up to my temples.
"Rueki." Axel whispers.
"You're up…" I mutter, though my mind is not anywhere near on him.
"I was in the library, trying to piece some things together. Since you know, we haven't been to Oblivion in weeks. And I found something written by Vexen." He murmurs, his voice very careful, very soft.
"Can you please just get to it? I have something to tell you, I think I know what Naminé did to me." I look at him.
"Xion isn't real. She never has been, she's a replica." He tells me, flatly. That's the final piece. He connects everything together. I laugh, bitterly, throwing my head back,
"Fucking dammit." I whisper. "Of course."
"Rueki, it's going to be—"
"Please don't say alright." I stop him. "I think Naminé put an empathy link on me and Sora."
"A what?" He asks, and truly, I'm surprised that he doesn't already know what this is. Though I guess I had only read about it before, until now.
"She linked our hearts and our memories. Like linking two bracelets together. She can still separate them without breaking either of us, but I think she wanted me to realize that she was having a hard time restoring Sora's memories, and I think it's because of Xion." I confess.
"What, why?" He asks.
"She's a replica…Do you know who she was created based on?" I ask.
"No." Axel sighs, finally.
"Well, I think I do." I let the words settle in the air before I speak. "I think she's a replica created from Sora's memories. And I think the longer she is alive, the more memory she drains from him."