A/N: tumblr prompt "You need to wake up because I can't do this without you" LeaKu (from key_baes)
Angst ahoy. I was thinking about Nobodies as an allegory of depression, so, this was born.
Allegory of a Nobody
Lea stared up at the ceiling, green eyes unseeing as his mind raced.
Outwardly, he was calm. Perhaps a little too much so. He felt heavy, listless, lethargic—he could think of more words that described his physical state, but didn't feel like putting in the effort. Instead he turned to his jumbled thoughts. They fluctuated between a frantic panic and a dead calm, the latter admittedly a product of the former as he tried to distance himself from the panic, became numb to it.
To be fair, actually, it was more of a cyclical thing: he would think about how he was withdrawing from everything that had to do with Lea, and how that withdrawal, numbness, felt like being Axel again, the Nobody, the being without a heart.
The thoughts and feelings had crept up on him so gradually that he wasn't even sure when they'd started, only that they seemed to worsen, and he wasn't sure how to stop it. He knew he was on a slippery slope, that he was straining to hang on, clawing for purchase, and he didn't know how to proceed.
As Axel, he'd been able to share his thoughts with Roxas, but then, Roxas had abandoned him. He was in Sora, now, Lea could see it, but he couldn't reach him, not really. That, coupled with the things his Nobody had done…he couldn't confide in Kairi, it wouldn't be fair, and Riku, well, Axel had been quite a hindrance to the newly-minted Keyblade Master.
So he sucked in a breath and pushed on. And some days, that was fine.
But some days Lea questioned if he really was Lea, and not still Axel. The days when sleep was difficult to find, and his appetite was off, he had to press a hand to his chest to confirm that, yes, there was, in fact, a heart there, beating out a rhythm, erratic in his anxiety, or slow and steady in his false calm.
Some days, Lea felt so awful that he wanted to turn his keyblade—the fickle thing that sometimes didn't come when called—wanted to turn it on himself, unlock his heart and become a Nobody again, because even though he was numb, it was a distant kind of numb. He could feel, more than he'd felt as Axel, and he wanted to tear those feelings from his chest right there along with his heart.
It was those days that he had trouble summoning his keyblade, he knew, his own uncertainty hindering his inherent abilities.
Lea stretched a hand out, willing the keyblade in his hand.
Nothing happened.
It was one of those days. He sighed, draping his empty hand limp over his forehead.
"Lea?"
Lea let out a low groan and closed his eyes, hoping he could pretend he was asleep to avoid the morning's practice.
There was a rap of knuckles on his half-open door, before he heard Riku step through. If he kept his eyes slitted, he could see him standing over the bed, silver hair dulling to grey in the gloom of Lea's room. He pressed his eyes closed again.
"Lea, get up." When Lea failed to move, Riku released a sigh. The bed dipped as he dropped to sit next to Lea, a warm hand pressing against Lea's arm, gently shaking him. "Come on."
Lea breathed out his nose, long and drawn out, as he pulled his arm away. Opened his eyes, and didn't try to hide the emptiness he was feeling. "Are you sure I'm Lea?"
Riku dropped his hands in his lap and studied Lea, head cocked to one side. "I'm pretty sure."
Lea turned his eyes back to the ceiling, picking out patterns in the plaster. "I'm not so sure."
"Hey, look," Riku murmured, and now his hand was on Lea's face, touching the unmarked space on his cheeks. "You're not Axel. Axel's gone." He moved his hand to Axel's chest, above his heart. "This proves it, doesn't it?"
Lea felt himself breaking down, just a little, his mood wearing at him, as much as Riku's intimate touches. Couldn't help but let a little of it out. "It doesn't feel like it. Feels like I'm asleep or something."
Riku pulled his hand away. "Well. You need to wake up because I can't do this without you. This training thing." Riku shrugged, his eyes wandering off into space.
And Lea looked at him. Really looked at Riku, and felt something. Something like what he'd felt with Roxas, a kinship, and maybe even a hint of something else. Lea put his hand on Riku's arm, drawing his gaze back. "Yeah. Alright."
He still felt distant, but for once, Lea felt as if there was a little bit of earth under his feet.
