For tumblr writing prompt:
"Are you afraid of me?"
"Would that change anything?"
tumblr: creativepromptsforwriting/post/730897056596623360/dialogue-responses
"Are you afraid of me?"
Sora's eyes are big. The whites are a little too exposed around the unnervingly familiar blue, pupils blown just a little too wide. He's the one afraid, clearly, of Roxas's answer. Whether or not he's trying to hide it.
Roxas can feel it, anyway, like a silent pulse under his feet. Sora's fear reverberates up through the stained glass below them into Roxas like music that can't be heard, only felt. He'd felt it there even before Sora's smile had fallen away. He wonders if it's the same for Sora, if he can feel echoes of the dread that clings to the back of Roxas's consciousness.
"Would that change anything?" Roxas asks in return.
He can feel Sora's emotions, sense his heart and the feelings pumping through it, but there are no thoughts tied to them. No direction. Just raw emotion with no information attached. It's confusing. Is that how Sora feels Roxas within him? Just unfiltered feelings and no sense? Only guesses to what the emotions mean?
"Of course it would!" Sora exclaims, taking a step forward to close the distance between them. Instinctually, Roxas takes a step back and feels Sora's resulting hurt ghost through the space around them. Sora wilts, shifts back to where he was, leaving a space between them that's wider than before. Even his voice sounds deflated as he repeats, "...of course it would, Roxas. I don't want you to be afraid of me."
It's disorienting, this whole situation. Roxas can't remember the beginning of it, how they got here, when he even was last awake so definitely like this. But he feels. Oh, he feels and feels and feels. And that's more than enough to keep going despite the confusion.
"That would only change things for you," Roxas says. He shakes his head and answers his own question. "It would just make you feel better. Either way, everything would still be the same for me."
More pain flickers around them. Roxas wishes he could turn it off, wishes he didn't have to feel it. It's not his to feel, so why is he forced to?
Why can't Roxas's feelings be private, his own?
(Were they ever his own? He's not supposed to feel anything at all.)
"Why are you afraid of me?" Sora asks quietly. He's looking down at his feet, and it gives Roxas the faint impression of a memory: Sora, five years old, standing before a mirror, uncertain if he fits in his new school shoes.
"I never said I was."
"You jus-"
"I just asked if it would change anything."
Sora frowns at Roxas, and beneath the hurt, he can feel irritation at his petulance. The emotion is sharp, hot, and feels a lot like a lock on a door to something bigger. "I can feel that you're scared, Roxas."
He hates that. He hates that Sora can feel that. That Sora will always know.
"Fine," Roxas mutters, body half turned away, fingers itching to call on Oblivion and Oathkeeper. "I - I am afraid, but not - not of you."
"Then what is it that you're so afraid of?" Sora asks. This time when he takes a step forward, Roxas lets him, but he only comes as close as where they started.
Roxas glances at Sora a little helplessly, reluctant to show how lost he feels, knowing he doesn't have a choice either way. Sora will feel it, too. Already feels it, too, just doesn't know why. And 'why' is all Roxas has ever wanted. It terrifies him to think about it - the idea of offering up any part of his 'why.'
(Warm sunsets with Axel, the sweet taste of salt on his tongue. Axel's hand ruffling his hair, such a pleasant sensation in contrast to his burning muscles from another long mission. Laughter that should be impossible bouncing from rooftops and something warm and big swelling in his chest. Seashells at his bedside, but he doesn't know how they got there and it floods him with a sense of loss that he can't identify, can't place. A sense of something missing. That's why.)
"I'm afraid of completely fading into you," he whispers. "I'm scared that everything I had will be completely gone."
Even the memories of it.
Sora's face twists and Roxas flinches at the unexpected flash of heat, of anger, that shoots around them. Sora's hands dart out to grab Roxas's arms, and the world warps, inverting and flipping him inside out and then he's gasping around the taste of sea-spray, trying to catch his footing on loose sand.
"That won't happen!" Sora says as Roxas blinks and teeters to get his bearings in the abrupt shift. Destiny Islands. Everything is crisper here, closer to feeling real. Makes Roxas suspect they're deeper inside, further from reality than before. "That will never happen, Roxas!" Sora insists, voice confident and eyes so earnest it hurts to look. "I promise!"
"How can you promise that?" Roxas asks. "You don't know how any of this works any better than I do. …Do you?"
"Well, no," Sora admits, mouth stretching into something that's half smile, half chagrined grimace. "But I do know the heart, and I know that what's inside you won't just go away!"
"I don't have a heart, Sora." There's no inflection in Roxas's voice as he says it. Sora twitches, denial and doubt pulsing sourly from him. It sits on the back of Roxas's tongue.
Sora opens his mouth to protest, but no words come out. Again, a hot bubbling feeling surrounds them as Sora shakes his head, reaches out to take hold of Roxas's wrist, and takes a step across the beach.
In that one step, the world blurs again and suddenly everything is darker, cooler. Damp, but in a comfortable way, free from the heavy sun. When Roxas's eyes adjust, he recognizes the inside of the cave. Sora's childhood Secret Place. The carvings on the rocks seem to swim for a moment, playing out their stories, before solidifying. Like a dream.
Are they dreaming right now?
"I don't know about that, how exactly all that Nobody stuff works," Sora says stubbornly, gesturing for Roxas to follow him deeper into the cave before placing a hand on his chest. "But I do know you have feelings, Roxas. I've felt them. I can feel them right now. And that's proof there's something inside you."
By the way Sora frowns, Roxas can tell he feels his doubt. But Roxas doesn't protest and lets it go unchallenged as they make their way through the cave, so Sora doesn't say anything either.
When they get to the back pocket of the alcove, Roxas pauses to stare at the door there. It looms impressively and completely out of place and he wonders how no one thought to be suspicious of it. Maybe kids simply don't question something they've always seen, always taken for granted. It simply becomes part of the scenery.
Point in case, Sora ignores it entirely in favor of sitting down with crossed legs before one of the cave drawings. But the door is impossible for Roxas to look past, fills him with an unexplainable sense of dread. He only looks away when another feeling of fear pulses through him, makes him look down at Sora, surprised.
It's the exact same flavor of fear Roxas had felt from Sora before, when he asked if Roxas was afraid of him. It's not stark and cold like pure terror. Instead something thick and heavy swims below the surface of the fear, something Roxas can't identify.
Curiously, he settles himself down beside Sora and joins in staring at the drawing, searching for meaning in it. For the reason Sora is showing him this. For the reason for Sora's fear.
It's the carving Sora and Kairi had made together. Roxas can still remember the weight of the stone in his hand and the butterflies in his stomach. Except, at the time, he wasn't Roxas. Just Sora. Roxas didn't exist, yet.
Did he? Did his existence start when Sora buried that key in his chest, or did it start united with Sora and then diverge? Who does that make him in either case?
Sora's head swivels towards him, eyes widening as he reaches out to grab Roxas's hand in both his own. Before Roxas can pull his hand back, Sora's asking urgently, "What's wrong? Why are you upset?"
Roxas frowns, shakes his head. But he lets Sora keep hold of his hand as he hunches his shoulders and dips his chin to duck behind his bangs. A pointless gesture. There's no hiding from Sora here.
Part of him wants to yell at Sora, tell him to stop looking and let him have these feelings in private. He feels lost beneath the surface of the ocean, the undertow tugging him in all sorts of directions until he has no idea which way is up. He doesn't want Sora knowing that, feeling that. But that's an impossible demand. Sora can't help it anymore than Roxas can help but feel the thrum of anxiety buzzing from Sora in waves, fizzling around in his heartful eyes.
So instead, Roxas angles his head towards the drawing and asks, "Why are you scared?"
Sora's eyes remain fixed on Roxas, reluctance and concern thick and pungent around them, before Sora sighs and turns his head back to the etching. He lifts a hand to it, runs his fingers gently over the star that Kairi had carved, eyes squinting. The acrid feeling in the air shifts into something sharper but cleaner. Pain.
"I'm afraid of hurting her," Sora says. His voice is quiet in a way that it usually isn't around other people. Maybe because Roxas isn't truly another person at all. But it's sad. Sora's voice is just… openly sad. Remorseful.
Oh. That's what that other emotion is, swimming just below the fear.
Roxas hums noncommittally, unsure how that makes him feel or what sort of thing he should say in response. "Do you think you'll hurt her?"
"I already have," Sora says, eyes squeezing in pain and Roxas's chest feels tight with it. "When I left her behind."
The words send a sharper pain through Roxas and in the back of his mind, he catches a flash of red as Axel implores, no, begs him not to leave. Sora's fingers twitch and then tighten comfortingly around Roxas's hand.
"Do you think you'll hurt her again?" Roxas whispers.
Sora nods. "Yeah."
Roxas feels heavy, and he honestly can't tell anymore who the feeling is coming from. A sense of loss, that odd sense of something missing, ghosts through him. It's followed by a vague impression of having done something wrong, something terrible.
"What about Riku?" Roxas asks. The name is bittersweet in his mouth, tangled with memories of clashing with him and memories of adoring him. They're not all his own memories, and he has no idea what to do with the conflicting feelings that come from that.
Sharper fear laces through them like an eel, lighting up sparks as it goes. Roxas's eyebrows shoot up and this time it's his turn to stare at Sora. Face crumbling under a shadow, his hands squeeze so tight around Roxas's that it makes his knuckles grind.
This fear is different from the fear Sora feels about Roxas and Kairi. This fear is specific to Riku.
"I'm afraid of getting hurt," Sora whispers voicelessly. Roxas doesn't think he'd be able to hear the words or understand them if they weren't here in this unreal place of just the two of them.
"Why?"
This time, Sora's the one who doesn't answer. But it doesn't really matter. Even without an explanation, Roxas thinks he understands.
"And I'm afraid of hurting you, Roxas," Sora says after a moment of thick silence. He does nothing to acknowledge the change in subject. "I'm afraid that - I'm afraid of being the source of your hurt."
"…You don't really get to decide that, though."
Sora withers completely at those words, shoulders and head drooping low. His grip around Roxas's hand goes limp, but he doesn't let go. Roxas doesn't pull away.
"I know," Sora says, voice small. "But if there's anything I can do to make it better, or even just a little easier - anything I can do to help, then I'd like to."
"There's nothing you can do," Roxas says, shaking his head. Maybe that's why he's not angry at Sora. Maybe that's why he accepted this. He had to. There was no other option.
He does feel anger, though. Boiling and rolling like magma beneath them. But it's Sora's. Roxas cocks his head, but Sora doesn't say anything.
"I guess… I'm just scared that I was never even me at all," Roxas elaborates when Sora doesn't respond. "That none of it even mattered."
Sora jerks his head up sharply to lock eyes. The grip around Roxas's hand returns to crushing as Sora shakes his head vigorously.
"Of course it mattered!" Sora bursts. "Nothing can ever take away how much it mattered!"
Roxas opens his mouth to ask, What makes you so sure, if I was never supposed to be here in the first place? But his teeth click together, disarmed by a sudden surge in molten heat. So what he asks instead is:
"Why are you so angry?"
"Because it's not fair!" Sora erupts. For a moment, the cold heat of the anger is blinding and Roxas's hands curl reflexively into fists, fingernails digging into Sora's hands where they clamp around his own. "You're not any less important than me, Roxas! Your life and your experiences mattered! It's not fair that you don't get a choice in this and I - I don't want this! I want you to have all of that. I want you to not have to be afraid of losing it all to me, because you aren't me!"
Pain cuts like ice through the lava. It echoes and doubles and reaches back around and oh, it's coming from both of them, isn't it? Roxas instinctively tries to recoil, like flinching from a flame, but Sora's grip on his hand keeps him trapped in place.
There's resentment under the fire and the ice and it occurs to him that Sora doesn't just find it unfair to Roxas, but unfair to himself, too. Sora would never say so. Would never complain for his own sake when he believes Roxas has it worse. But it's also not fair to have been put in the unjust position of being the 'right' one.
Because, of the two of them, Sora is the right one. The selfless one. And so he suffers for it.
"No, it isn't fair," Roxas agrees. He droops, hesitates, then laces their fingers together and takes his turn to offer a small, comforting squeeze. "But there's nothing you can do, Sora. If there was, I wouldn't be here."
And maybe in time, I won't be anywhere at all, he tries and fails not to think.
The heat of anger continues to roll thick around them, but it's tempered now by another feeling. Something bitter and dull and beyond Roxas's ability to name. But it makes Sora's head hang low with hunched shoulders like a vulture and pout.
"You don't know that," Sora grumbles, but curls his fingers with Roxas's, gratitude like rain over fire as he gives a returning squeeze. "I bet I can find something."
Roxas doesn't protest further, just shrugs and lets Sora have the last word and wonders when this will be over. When the dream ends, will he sleep again? If so, when will he wake? The next time Sora dives to the depths of his heart to dream? Never?
An icy prickle of fear skitters down his spine, and Sora must feel it, too, because he jerks up straight and his pout turns into a little frown of worry as his eyes run over Roxas.
"You know how I know we're not the same, Roxas?" Sora asks, frown morphing into that one smile of his. That one he always does when trying to make someone else feel better even though he's feeling sad. Roxas always hates when Sora makes that smile but… he has to admit, it does make him feel a bit better on the receiving end of it. It's impossible not to feel the sunshine behind that grin.
"You're not blond?" Roxas guesses dryly, his own lips tugging up at the edges.
"No! Well, yes, but no that's not what I was gunna say!" Sora shoots him a look, but a feeling that's glittery and ticklish passes from his eyes and blooms in Roxas's stomach. With a tingle that unbraids space, the world shifts and they're sitting together on the crooked paopu tree at sunset. But, Roxas notices distantly, the sunset reminds him more of the ones in Twilight Town than the one that should be here on Destiny Islands. Sora shoves a finger towards Roxas's nose. "You are pessimistic and don't believe I can change anything, but I know I can."
"What if I'm just the part of you that isn't so sure?"
Sora gapes like a fish before puffing out his cheeks like one. "I'm not contrary for the sake of it like you are!"
"You're being contrary right now," Roxas points out.
Sora splutters. "Well, I don't like ice cream that much."
"You've always liked the taste of sea-salt because it reminds you of home."
"Okay, but I don't leave everything behind to run away from my problems," Sora says through gritted teeth.
Roxas's eyebrows go up beneath his bangs, but he's honestly more impressed than offended that Sora went there. It might not be totally fair to call leaving the Organization running away when he was running to something. To find answers. To find Sora. But… there is truth in the accusation. Roxas lowers his brows and tilts his head, squinting with pinched cheeks as he contemplates Sora, feels a little of that heat and anger in him, rolling just below the waves of frustration.
"Isn't that what you're doing right now?" Roxas says, more statement than question. "Running away?"
"What? No!" Sora denies, shaking his head, lips pulled back in a snarling grimace. "I'm trying to find a way to help you and fix this! That's the opposite of running away!"
"But you won't admit the possibility that you can't."
Sora freezes. Cold emotion turns the sunset to night. Resisting the urge to look at the sudden stars, Roxas observes his other's shifting expressions, studying the subtle shifts in emotion around them.
Shoulders drooping, Sora laughs weakly. "Why are you arguing? I thought you wanted to be different from me."
"I do," Roxas says. "I guess I… I guess I was hoping you'd be able to convince me, if you were able to come up with answers for the questions that I couldn't. If you could make a convincing argument."
"Oh," says Sora. "I guess I sucked at that, then."
Roxas smiles gently, stares down at where their hands are still joined and brushes his thumb over Sora's knuckles. "Yeah, kinda."
Neither of them says anything after that. Night shifts briefly to day and back, then settles to twilight before Sora breaks the silences.
"You know, that could be a good thing, if we are the same."
Roxas stills, unsure of the feeling that passes over him. He thinks it's his own, but he's not positive. "How so?"
The lighting around them changes again, but this time instead of the time of day shifting, they're illuminated softly from the stained glass below. Back to where they started, hands still linked.
"Well, I don't know," Sora says, dipping his head in an apologetic grin. He really does suck at this. "I mean, I never would've tried sea-salt ice cream or seen Twilight Town from the clocktower without you."
Roxas frowns, still unconvinced. "You could say that about anyone you meet. Anyone could've shown you those things."
Sora shakes his head, smile growing more confident. "Nuh-uh. Wouldn't have been the same. Because I only know how nice those things are in a way they can only be after they're built on a bunch of memories! Sunsets are nice, but they only feel that special when the feeling is attached to something more, right?"
"Sure, I guess."
"So I wouldn't have felt that nostalgia without you! And you got to experience being introduced to it as something brand new, and build up your own feelings about it. They're different kinds of feelings to the same thing, but, you can feel it too, right? Both of them together?"
Roxas can. Humming across the colorful glass and through his chest, he feels his own attachment and longing and homesickness for the clocktower. And at the same time, he feels Sora's wonderment and confusion and awe at feeling something so powerful for something that should just be part of the backdrop to him.
"I mean, yeah," Roxas says. "But I don't see your point. I don't get how this makes things better if we're the same."
"Because we get a bigger picture!" Sora leans forward, grinning as he bounces their hands. "The clocktower is gunna be different for every single person, but none of the ways people see it are wrong, right? But it's limited! We might only see two different versions of it, but that's twice as many as anyone else. Our world gets to be bigger with both of us to see it!"
Roxas considers this and says, "You think too much."
Sora's eyes sparkle as he conspiratorially replies, "Don't you?"
Roxas answers with a wry smile. The smile on Sora's face softens into something tender.
"I know you don't want to stay this way," Sora says. "I don't want you to, either. But maybe that's at least the bright side? Just for now? Just until I get it figured out. Until then, we just gotta stay positive!"
It's ironic, if Roxas really stops to think about it. Roxas may be Sora, but Sora isn't him. He might remember Sora's life and have Sora's keyblade, but he's still… an offshoot, he supposes. A branching path. He's Sora and he's Roxas.
But it's funny. Because that means, even though there is more than one Sora, there is only one Roxas. And even if that one single Roxas has to sit on the backburner for now (or maybe forever), he can take comfort in that much at least.
"Yeah," Roxas agrees. Something warm thumps through him, makes the glass under his feet vibrate. It's a pleasant feeling, reminds him of clocktower sunsets and ice cream after a long day. It mixes with his lingering fear, and for the first time, he's glad Sora can feel it, too. "I guess that's good enough for now."