nysalogs | who i am from the start

Roxas doesn't watch Sora leave. A short glance over his shoulder as he goes, that's all. He'll be around if Roxas needs him, he knows that for sure. But right now it needs to be just him and his best friend, and the fact that he can have that at all still leaves him a little overwhelmed even after the shock has faded.

He'd understood that Natha could reach out to save people from different times, but that was a far cry from reaching someone who'd already placed themselves beyond safety by going out in a blaze of stupid, self-sacrificing glory. What's left when a Nobody dies? Nothing. So there would be nothing left to save, or so he'd thought.

He looks at Axel for a moment, and he doesn't know where to start. The last time they'd seen each other, deep in Sora's heart but somehow in Twilight Town at the same time, there hadn't been the need to pick out all the right words. The ones they'd shared hadn't been wrong, but Sora had been waiting for him and there was never, ever going to be enough time for them to say everything they might want to say to each other. Not then. So it had been more important to sit together and share one last sunset before Roxas began to go to sleep in Sora's heart.

Roxas thinks to himself that the next life has come a lot sooner than he expected.

"Hey," he says, quieter now, only a little self-conscious about the drying tear tracks on his face. "Axel."

Axel is having a lot of similar thoughts in the moment. It's like the Natha had somehow known that Roxas would be here soon, and so they'd given him more of the background he needed in order to prepare for that. Certainly he'd have been elated to find Roxas before his little update-nap, but now he feels--yeah, feels. Wanna fight about it?--like he can properly understand things, and Roxas himself, a lot better. Between the soul-searching he'd done here, sitting in front of Roxas' pod and wondering if he'd ever get the chance to say the things he should have said the first time around, and living vividly through the last moments of his life only a few days ago, Axel thinks maybe he's more prepared now to be the friend Roxas deserves.

Only one way to find out.

"Hey," he says in a deliberately mimicked tone, casually swiping wetness off his own cheek, "Roxas. Long time no see." He hesitates. "I think. Time shenanigans are apparently a thing," he adds with a slightly puzzled look.

Edited 2018-07-17 20:22 (UTC)

Maybe it's dumb to feel better that he's not the only one moved to tears, but so what. He'll be dumb, then. It's a connection, something that steadies the ground underneath Roxas' feet, even if they're well into uncharted territory. He can't remember ever seeing Axel ever shed a tear before.

(You have to have a heart to cry, Sora said. And Our hearts are our friends and how we feel about them. It's one more thing for them to talk about, but one step at a time.)

"Y-yeah," he says, and laughs a shaky laugh. "I guess so. I don't know how long I was asleep, either time, but I think it was a long time."

In Sora's heart and in his pod. He's ready to be awake for a while.

Axel's still not sure he buys that he gets a Keyblade at some point in the future, but a heart? Yeah, he could buy that one. Roxas had always made him feel like maybe he still had one, anyway, and that hasn't changed. Before that moment on the clock tower, Axel legitimately couldn't recall the last time he'd felt anything so keenly as to drive him to tears, and while crying certainly isn't necessarily the desired reaction at any given moment, it's kind of refreshing to feel like he can.

He reaches out impulsively and ruffles Roxas' hair.

"You're almost a better napper than I am, I think," he says, and then buffs his nails on the front of his shirt. "Almost."

He blows out a sigh and then pauses a moment. Here he'd thought about a moment like this for so long, thought about all the things he would say, all the ways he would make things right... and now that it's here in front of him, he's at a loss for words. He slowly sinks to sit down on the small bunk, then scoots to one side and tilts his head in a silent invitation for Roxas to sit next to him. It's not a clock tower, but... well, they are in orbit, so maybe it still counts.

"So," he says, and clears his throat. Then he decides that if nothing else gets said, he knows one thing that he can't in good conscience go any longer without saying. "Roxas, I..." He looks at him and then rests his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and shaking his head. "I am so... so sorry," he says, a little surprised at how easily the words roll off his tongue. It's only recently that that word has really reentered his vocabulary at all. "I know it doesn't matter that I thought what I was doing would be better for you, but I hope you can understand that I never meant for it to come between us the way it did."

Even without the time he was sleeping, it's been a long time since Axel messed with his hair like that. Roxas' smile slides into something crooked and kind of nostalgic, and he nods in acknowledgment before taking a seat.

It's different from how things were before. Their feet touch the ground instead of hanging hundreds of feet above it, and the light is bright and kind of sterile instead of warm and welcoming. But it's close enough. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine that they're back there, in a place and time when things were simpler and they could just be best friends again. It's what he's wanted for a long time, even when it was way past the point that was possible.

He'd wanted to hear Axel say those worse, too. Now that he has, Roxas isn't sure what to say in return. For a moment, he's quiet.

"I heard you that night, you know," he says, looking down at the floor. "When you said you'd miss me. I just pretended I didn't."

It was easier that way. Because if Axel was just as heartless as the rest of them, if no Nobody could muster up anything like a true emotion, then Roxas didn't have to feel bad about leaving, because that made his feelings just as hollow.

"All I ever wanted to know was who I am. I was always going to leave, eventually."

No matter what Axel did, no matter what the Organization or Riku or anyone did, the questions and the memories were going to catch up sooner or later. Part of him wishes it had been just a little later. Then he could have had three hundred and sixty-five days, one year to call his own.

He's missed that crooked smile. Even long before Roxas actually left the Organization, Axel had missed him. He had missed the easygoing carefree early days of their friendship. He had missed the way Roxas had looked at him with confidence and trust, and the way the kid's face always lit up when they had talked about what to do with free time. Maybe things will never be that carefree again, for either of them, but he wants to hope that they can regain the trust that had been there once. He knows this isn't irreparable--if it was, Roxas wouldn't be sitting here with him right now--but he also knows that trust, once broken, is a very difficult thing to mend. He's been on Roxas' side of this line in the sand, himself, and part of him wonders if he'll ever truly be able to trust Saïx, or Isa, again after everything that has come between them. He wants to, but wanting only goes so far.

This is going to take work. And for all the tiring missions and icky orders of his past, this is one assignment Axel is more than happy to throw himself into.

When Roxas confesses that he'd heard his words that night, though, Axel looks a little startled. It isn't that he hadn't wanted Roxas to hear him, but it had felt almost too selfish to speak the words any louder than he had. He had known that everything leading up to that moment, and everything that came after, honestly, had been largely his own fault. Roxas had asked him for the truth, and he had simply denied him that, and if he could go back in time and do things over, he would take a very different route.

But he can't, and he knows this. All he can do now is move forward with a new perspective, and hope that's good enough.

"I meant it," he says after a long pause, but doesn't elaborate. Something tells him he doesn't have to. He looks at Roxas then and rubs his forehead, like maybe he's trying to wipe away the beginnings of a headache. "I think I always knew you'd leave one day," he says, shaking his head. "You never bought Xemnas' BS the way the rest of us did. I mean... even I knew it was mostly BS, but I still swallowed it, for years." He smiles a little, looking almost proud. "Not you, though. You asked all the questions the rest of us were too blind to let ourselves wonder about." Another sigh, and he leans back on his hands, staring up at the ceiling. "I just wish I'd had the courage to be more honest with you," he says. "I guess... I was scared that if I told you the truth, you'd leave... and then you left anyway." He lets his head loll onto his shoulder to look at him tiredly. "I wish I'd been brave enough to leave with you."

It's strange to think that Axel was too afraid or too unsure to walk out on the Organization. Roxas can remember a time when he thought Axel was the bravest person in the world who knew everything and could do anything. It can't have been that long ago—what, two years at most? But for him, it was almost a lifetime ago, and it feels like it. He wonders if this is what it's like for normal people to look back on their childhoods.

"I wish you had," he says. Hadn't he asked Axel to go, once? He can't quite remember. "Maybe some things were going to happen anyway, but it would've been better than staying with the Organization."

Maybe he would have had to return to Sora's heart anyway, but maybe it wouldn't have hurt so much with Axel by his side. Maybe it would have been on his terms. Maybe not a thing about his last days would be different except for having had a while longer with his best friend. That would have been enough.

"I heard you another time, too," he says after a moment. "Later on, after me and Sora...you know." He flattens his hand against his chest for a moment. "I think they expected me to disappear completely, but I didn't. It was more like I was dreaming. And when you and Sora fought the Dusks on the way to the castle, I woke up again."

Even knowing Axel is alive and well right here beside him, Roxas can't keep the faint traces of misery from his face. He'd woken abruptly but been unable to do anything but watch from behind someone else's eyes until the grief and the fury had risen up within him and he'd willed himself to act.

"You did it for me, didn't you?" he asks, looking over at him. "It wasn't just to save Sora. It was to save me."

Axel rakes a hand back through his hair.

"Yeah, well... hindsight, and all that," he says noncommittally. It's not an excuse, he just really doesn't know what else to say. If he had known then what he knows now, he absolutely would have gone with Roxas that night. Actually, he probably would have taken Roxas and run for his life the day the kid had showed up. But... well, hindsight.

When Roxas says that he heard something else, though, Axel stiffens. Oh, Light, he can't possibly mean...

He groans a little and then gives a helpless laugh as he buries his face in his hands.

"You weren't supposed to hear that," he moans, still laughing softly, sure that his ears are as red as his hair. It isn't that what he said was untrue--not at all, he meant every word of it--but for Roxas to have actually heard that? Light, how embarrassing.

He lifts his head at Roxas' question then, but doesn't look at him right away, instead staring at the other bunk across the room and collecting his thoughts. He knows what he wants to say, he just needs a moment to figure out how to say it.

"I made a lot of mistakes," he says, and while it's a little hard to say, it's less because he can't admit and own those mistakes and more because he's honestly ashamed to think back on his actions. "I know it doesn't change things, but I really did think that what I was doing was better for you. I thought if I kept the truth from you, it'd keep you safe, like somehow not knowing the inevitable would make it... well..." He glances at him and ventures a helpless hint of a smile. "Evitable?" He slumps a little where he sits. "I won't lie, it was... mostly for you," he says, staring down at his hands. "I wish I could say I did it because it was the right thing to do, or because I wanted to make things up to Sora for screwing with him for so long, or any other number of more compelling reasons to throw your life away, but..."

He sits up and rests his hands on his knees, then looks at Roxas with something like contrition and shakes his head.

"Maybe it was the right thing to do, in the end," he says, "but really, at that point, I would have done just about anything, right or not, to make sure you didn't pay for any more of my stupid mistakes."

Roxas can't hide a faint smile at his friend's embarrassment. It's not because he enjoys teasing him, although he does. But there's nothing about those last moments to tease about. Axel's last words were sappy, maybe, but they were his last words. Nothing about that had been funny.

He's quiet for a moment, listening. Back then, if he could glean any comprehensible explanation for Axel's choices, he'd put it down to selfishness, a dislike of complications, a sheer lack of ability to understand how hard it was not to know who you are, to miss other vital pieces besides the heart. And those were all part of it, he's pretty sure. But if there's one thing he has now that he didn't before, it's perspective. If he'd had an inkling of what awaited him, he'd still have moved forward. But Axel hadn't been wrong when he'd said that finding out the truth doesn't always work out for the best, even if it's necessary, and even if it's worth the pain, because sometimes there is no best—there's just the least worst.

Roxas had deserved the truth from the person he'd trusted the most. Axel shouldn't have lied. But the part of him that wants to be selfish, too, to turn his back on the worlds and just be happy with his best friend again understands why he did. And the part of him part of him that had awakened in Sora's heart knowing that the only friend he'd ever had given up everything for him has already forgiven him.

He lifts a hand and rests it on Axel's shoulder. "Being here is another chance for everything, right? You, me. Us being best friends." There's a lump in his throat, and he wonders if Axel can hear it. "I really missed you."

It's true that Axel had always had a penchant for selfishness, for taking the path of least resistance, and yes, there had certainly been a blind spot there, as to Roxas' frustration with not knowing his own lack of past. Axel had always known where he had come from, who he had been, and he had simply suppressed that. He hadn't wanted to think about the time he'd been Lea, because he had known (or so he had thought) that he would never get that time back, so he hadn't quite been able to understand why Roxas and...

And...?

There was an and? That was weird.

Anyway, why Roxas had been so preoccupied with knowing about his past. The past was done and gone, and Axel had never understood just how much of his present had been built on the foundation of his past until Sora had brought up that he did--or... does?--get his heart back at some point, thus coming full circle. He gets it now, and he knows he shouldn't have lied, but he's glad that Roxas at least seems to maybe understand where he was coming from now.

He looks at Roxas' hand on his shoulder, then gives him a thin smile.

"Guess we both got that Next Life after all, huh?" he asks, and then twists a little where he sits. "Let's say we... well, not start over, 'cuz I'm not keen on you going full zombie again, but. Let's try a... soft reset, okay?" He sticks his hand out with a grin. "Hi, I'm Axel, and I'm a recovering compulsive liar, and I think we're best friends."

That gets another laugh, and how long has it been since they've been able to do that? Too long. But if they can still laugh together after everything that's happened, he doesn't doubt that they're going to be okay.

A soft reset. Yeah, he likes the sound of that.

"I'm Roxas," he says, and gives Axel's hand a good shake. "And I'm pretty sure we're best friends, unless you found another one while I was asleep." As if. It's always been the two of them, having each other's backs. Maybe that got lost for a while, but it didn't change what really matters.

He's grateful when Roxas laughs. Laughter used to come so easily to them, but toward the end of things, even simple conversation was strained, and laughter? Was nowhere to be found.

He shakes Roxas' hand crisply then sits back and rubs his chin in thought.

"Well, I mean, I did take a few for a test drive," he says, trying very hard to keep a straight face. "I mean, I got a roommate, Ryoko, and she's pretty fun. She can fly, which is kind of awesome. I mean, you needed pixie dust to do that." He lifts a finger as he lists a few names. "And then there's Ren, you know he's got an R name, too, I was trying to cover my bases, going with that one, thought maybe there was something in the name... Ah.. Oh, there's Urbosa, she already kicked my ass once, so you'd better get on that or you'll lose your place at the top of the Kicked Axel's Ass List..."

He laughs brightly and waits for Roxas to just shove him like he knows he's going to, and then ruffles his hair again.

"Like anybody--Somebody, Nobody, or Anybody--could replace you, you moron."

He listens carefully, trying to commit each name to memory even if there are no faces to match them to yet. If they're important to Axel, even a little, he wants to know them. Maybe he could be jealous of the friends Axel's made in his absence, but he's not. Roxas had made his own set of other friends, even if none of them had been real outside his heart. If that's fine, then so is this.

Besides, he does know that no one could replace him. Just like no one could replace Axel.

So he gives the expected shove and grins, the smile going softer after a couple of seconds. "I haven't talked to anyone yet," he says. "The only people I saw were still asleep in their pods. And then I was just afraid that I could only be here if Sora was a Heartless again."

It's a little funny to talk about Sora like it's no big deal, even after he'd just been here. The last time his name had come up, Roxas had no idea of the significance. Now, he knows everything.

Axel doesn't expect him to remember everyone's names without even meeting them yet. And he will absolutely be meeting them. There's a teeny childlike bit of him that is actually really eager to show Roxas off to all of his friends. After all, it's not every day you get so luck as to have your best friend show up, right? Axel usually thinks he's got pretty mediocre luck at best, but if this is the only time he ever lucks out again, he'll take it.

"I think you'll like Ren," he says then. "He's kinda quiet and thoughtful, like you. Ah, and I bet you'll like Allura, too," he says then, wagging a finger. "She's a princess. But... like an actual princess, of a kingdom, I honestly dunno about how much Darkness she may or may not have in her heart." He taps a fingertip against his cheekbone. "She's got cool face markings, too," he says with a grin. "Obviously we're in the Cool Face Tattoos Club. Sorry, kid, you can't come to meetings unless you get yourself some ink."

His mirth fades a little at Roxas' remark, and he gives a slightly nervous laugh. Sure, his thought to use Kairi to turn Sora into a Heartless again had been fleeting, but he'd had the thought, and now he's pretty ashamed of that. He shakes his head firmly.

"Don't you worry too much about that, okay?" he says. "Me and Sora are pals now, so... if anybody wants to mess with him, they're gonna have to go through me first." And also Riku. But he'll leave that part out, for now. "So... did Sora just happen to be by your pod when you woke up or something?" he asks, looking a little puzzled. "Riku was there when I woke up again just recently--I wonder if spying on people while they're sleeping is a Destiny Islands thing, whaddaya think?"

It'd be nice if he had something to write the names and descriptions down with instead of having to get them all memorized, but he's sure he'll do better once he actually meets them. Roxas hopes they're as good of friends as they sound like. He hopes Axel hasn't been lonely while he's been here.

"No, he was sleeping too," he says. "By Kairi's pod. It took my a few minutes to find him—I thought I'd be able to sense him, or something, but it didn't work that way."

They're connected, right? Especially now, after having been kinda-sorta one person again? Apparently that doesn't extend to being able to find each other. Maybe he shouldn't have expected otherwise, but it's not like he knows how any of this is supposed to work."

Something sticks out to him then, though—something Axel said. "Wait, you were sleeping again recently? Why?"

Axel snorts a laugh.

"Seriously, between you and Sora, you guys sleep enough to make up for all the sleep I never got, working at the castle," he says, shaking his head. "I really dunno how that might work, to be honest, so I can't really make any suggestions," he admits. "You and Sora are definitely pretty unique." He laughs softly. "Maybe if you train together you'll be able to do special combo attacks like in video games."

He pulls at the back of his neck then, shrugging one shoulder.

"Well, it wasn't really my idea," he says. "Apparently sometimes folks just go back to sleep for a few days, to get some info from home. I dunno how it works, exactly, but it seems I was out for about three days, even though a bunch of time passed back home." He scratches his head. "Which also doesn't make a ton of sense, since I thought I was brought here when the world ended, yadda yadda yadda, but... Sora's from way far in the future anyway, so..." He makes a frustrated noise and waves both hands. "Time shenanigans, I dunno, it gives me a headache," he says. "The point is that I'm here and awake now, and so are you, and that's really all I care about."

Roxas makes a small noise of concern as he listens. That's a little alarming, to think he or Axel or anyone could fall asleep without warning and their new chance here would be over. But could it happen to him? If he weren't here anymore, he'd be part of Sora again, right? How many times can someone be put together and taken apart again?

He'll try not to think about it unless he has to, he decides. And if he did end up back with Sora again, at least it wouldn't be so awful this time. Falling asleep is easy.

"I'm glad you did," he says. "Even if it doesn't make sense. Not much about this does, right? Even with me and Sora—they split us in two again like it was no big deal."

Apparently. If Sora hadn't fallen to darkness, Roxas didn't know how else they could both be here.

"It's strange. I mean, I feel strange," he adds after a moment, in a quieter tone. It almost feels like he's confessing something. "Not bad strange. But I feel...stiff? Like back in the castle, after I slept all that time."

Like he'd been lying in one place for weeks. But that couldn't be it, because he hadn't even had a body anymore. That had been Sora's.

He doesn't think it would necessarily mean their chances were shot--he woke up again, after only a few days, after all. He's not sure what the prerequisites might be, but... he'd rather not think about this getting screwed up by an untimely nap, even a temporary one.

Axel leans back on his hands again and gazes up at the ceiling.

"Honestly, there's not a whole lot in recent history that does make sense," he says. "Whether it's here, or back home, everything has just been kind of insane." He nods his head toward the window. "Have you looked outside?" he asks, wondering if Sora dragged Roxas straight here without even showing him anything else. He probably did. What a good kid. Axel will have to find a good way to thank him later. Either way, whether Roxas has seen Ysverai's horrific frame frozen over the unmoving planet or not, none of this makes a lot of sense. "But I'm glad, too," he says, meeting Roxas' eye again. "I never bothered to hope you might actually wake up here," he says. "Felt too much like wishful thinking, you know? Like maybe I was setting myself up for disappointment. I'm not usually that lucky."

He furrows his brow then and shakes his head.

"You did, though," he says, sitting forward again. "I mean, you've had a body the whole time--you were in a pod, just like the others. I used to visit you there, actually." He chuckles. "I kind of wished I'd had a grease pencil," he says, "so I could have drawn on the front of your pod, like how the Dusks used to draw on your face."

What is it like to live a life that makes sense? If Roxas ever meets someone who's experienced that, he'll have to ask. It's probably not going to happen any time soon, though.

He nods at Axel's question—Sora hadn't left him any time to notice what's happened outside the station, although he's gotten the sense that something unusual's happened—and smiles faintly at his admission. No, he wouldn't have dared to hope either. When have they ever been that lucky, except today?

"No thanks," he says, chuckling a little. "Even if I wouldn't have noticed, they drew enough dumb faces for a lifetime." Or so Axel had told him later.

(That was Axel, right? Of course it was. Who else would it have been?)

"I don't think it's from being in the pod, though. Because it doesn't really feel that way when I move." He holds his arms forward, lacing his fingers together and flexing. "I think it's more in my head. It's been a while since I was...just me."

A life that makes sense? What is that. Can I eat it? Axel doesn't mind some excitement, certainly, but once in a while it'd be nice if things were less... bizarre.

He gives a soft laugh then, getting to his feet and gesturing for Roxas to follow. He rests his hands on the lip of the thick glass window separating them from space, and his eyes move to where the frozen form of the great rotting dragon can be seen poised over the stock-still planet. His room would have a great view, if the view wasn't so gruesome.

"That right there is the wrong kind of zombie to aspire to be," he says, tapping his knuckle against the glass. "That's a dragon god, resurrected by heretics, but they screwed something up, so instead of being a gracious omnipotent deity, he's an insane bloodthirsty undead monster. So that's how my last week went." He smiles ruefully. "Found out I can deflect dragonfire, though, so that's kinda cool. Wasn't easy, but I did it. Not sure I wanna fine-tune that skill, though, all things considered--here's hoping we don't have to fight any more undead dragon gods anytime soon."

He'll leave off the part where Ysverai wasn't just a rampaging monster hell-bent on destruction and actually seemed to be in excruciating pain most of the time. Roxas is a sensitive kid, and while he's certainly learned his lesson about lies of omission, knowing that the monster is suffering is a sadness he'd rather Roxas not have to think about if it comes to having to fight Ysverai again.

"The whole planet's frozen in time right now," he says, folding his arms and leaning with his back against the glass now, "until the Natha can figure out some way to subdue or destroy the dragon, I guess. So we're stuck up here for the time being."

He furrows his brow a little then, something twinging behind his ribs, and he offers Roxas a thin smile.

"You've always been you," he says, "even if sometimes you were... also connected with several other people."

Wait, several? Wasn't it just Sora?

Anyway.

"So now that you're just you," he says, reaching over and clapping Roxas on the shoulder, "what are ya gonna do first?" A grin. "I mean, now that you've got your old partner in crime back, the sky's... Well, actually, not even the sky is the limit, since we're in orbit," he snorts.

Roxas follows, looking out the window curiously, only to recoil when he actually sees the dragon. That's...incredible, awesome in the most literal sense of the word, but also horrible and monstrous and wrong. Something turns in his stomach, and he's glad to turn away himself when Axel does.

This is the kind of thing that can happen here? What kind of world have they ended up in?

He'll think about it later. Something that big is important, but it's not important the same way other things are.

"I don't know," he says, leaning back against the glass with a quiet thump. "All I wanted for a long time was answers. I didn't think much about what would happen after I got them." He pauses for a moment. "Do they have ice cream here?"

Axel meant what he said when he had told Roxas that knowing the truth doesn't always solve anything, but he's not about to pull an I Told You So. He wishes he had something consoling to say, though. He knows this has got to be jarring for the kid; his life has never quite been his own, and now suddenly it's like he's got more freedom than he has any capacity to understand. He doesn't have to follow orders here. He doesn't have to do anything someone tells him to. Roxas had barely known what to do with a single day off, when they'd worked for the Organization, and now he could conceivably have... well, the rest of his life off, really. He's sure Roxas will want to find a job or something to fill his time, but the fact is that Axel would have been just as willing to support him anyway, whether he had a job or not. Maybe it wouldn't be correct to say that Axel had ruined Roxas' life before, but he'd certainly had a hand in it going awry; the least he can do is take care of him until he figures out what he wants to do with his Next Life, no matter how long it takes.

He laughs gently.

"Please," he says, waving a hand. "You think I'd have stayed if they didn't? I'd have gone back into cryosleep before I stuck around someplace with no ice cream." He quirks his mouth to one side. "They don't seem to have seasalt," he says, "but maybe it's time we expand your dessert horizons a bit, anyway."

Friendship isn't limited to ice cream. Back when he was new, Roxas' entire understanding of the concept revolved around those times they bought the sea-salt popsicles and ate them up on the tower, but now he knows that there could be no more ice cream in this or any world and they'd still have what really matters.

But still, it's comforting to know it's here, even if it doesn't taste the same. He hasn't lost everything that was ever his.

"I can handle that," he says with a laugh. Maybe...maybe Sora can join them, sometime. Not right away. Knowing his other half like he does now isn't the same as being friends with him, and Roxas wants that to happen for real now that they have the chance. And oh yeah, Sora.

"I need to find Sora later, too," he adds. "I'm glad he brought me here right away, but we only got to talk for a little while by the pods. And there's a lot to talk about."

Axel wouldn't mind Sora joining them one day. Or even Riku, really--Light knows he could stand to have a little fun in his life, maybe smile sometimes? But not now. Right now, he just wants to keep his best friend to himself for a bit, and he's not even going to apologize for that. It isn't selfish to want that, after all they've been through, right?

"I bet there is," Axel says with a chuckle. "I mean, I guess being in someone's heart and actually having a conversation with them are pretty different. Haven't tried the former, myself." He leans back on his hands again and gives Roxas a smile. "I feel like I should do somethin' for him," he says, "for surprising us like this. That was pretty cool of him."

It's a little unsettling to reference Roxas being in Sora's heart, more so now than when he'd been there. Maybe it's because from the inside, circumstances were what they were and there was no going back. And now, he doesn't want to go back.

"Yeah, it was," he says. "Think how long we might have gone without knowing we were both awake."

Unless Axel had made a point of displaying his presence. Despite all the recon, his best friend's not exactly subtle. But Roxas has never been big on attracting attention himself, so who knows? It's better this way.

who i am from the start

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