All of my trust was given to you

[binarysky]

Who: Axel (?) and Roxas (?)
Where: Twilight Town
When: The indeterminate future
What: Old friends. New faces.

Twilight Town didn't look any different through someone else's eyes.

That's because they're not someone else's eyes, he imagined Sora would say. They're yours, too. But Sora was away now, somewhere near and yet far, sleeping while Roxas had some privacy and a chance to visit what had once been his home.

Sora was probably right, not that he'd admit it. But sharing a body and a heart was still taking some getting used to, and Roxas couldn't help but feel like a guest sometimes, even though this was his life and always had been.

Either way, he wasn't going to waste this chance. He shoved his hands in his back pockets and began walking, no particular destination in mind but angling upward.

Comments

[binarysky]

He wouldn't have even known how to answer that last question if he tried. A former member of the Organization, like me. My best friend. Alive. All true, but still not what Axel really wanted to know. Something was different now, and Roxas didn't know what.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Are you hungry? There's some quiet cafes around here—or we could just find a back street—" But not the usual spot, never the usual spot. "—or there's always the clock tower." Something inside him twisted at the possibility. It had always been his favorite place, but too many emotions were flying around too fast already. Roxas wasn't sure what he'd do if they got more intense.

SORRY 8(

[incensing]

He was glad Sora ignored the question. Glad, that was strange, that seemed...different. Its existence in him felt too simple, too undeniably present. Rather than think about it, he shrugged at Sora's suggestions, saying, "Any place is good." The thought of the clock tower lingered in his mind. Memory told him he had been there before, not just once, either. But not with Sora. Someone else had been there with him, sitting on the edge, looking into the sunset. 

"Lead the way." He'd let him pick. He didn't care to ask that they go to the clock tower but if that was what Sora wanted, he wouldn't object. Maybe he'd figure something out once he was up there. It was worth looking into, right now when he had nothing else to go on but a confused tangle of memories. 

[binarysky]

"Sure...uh...this way." There had to be a service elevator, right? There had been in the fake Twilight Town, so it must exist in the real world, too. It was just that Roxas and Axel had always traveled to the top of the clock tower through dark corridors.

And that wasn't an option now.

The silence was pressing, awkward as they made their way up, or maybe it was just him. Very rarely had he and Axel not had much to say to one another. When they reached the top and stepped out into the air, the sound of the breeze filled up some of the quiet.

"So...here we are."

[incensing]

"Here we are," he agreed.

Twilight, it seemed, went on forever. Orange and red, purple and gold, long clouds streaked with dark velvet underbellies, it stretched on and on towards the horizon like an untread path. Up here on the clocktower (he was rediscovering) the world was very vast, and the town only a small piece of it. Things felt bigger, wider than they ever had. He looked out at the great gulf opening up in front of him.

"I used to come here a lot, didn't I?" He wasn't sure why he asked it that way, as though Sora ought to know the answer. "Before I died."

[binarysky]

"Yeah, you did," Roxas confirmed, staring out at the town. He took a step closer to the edge. He'd never feared falling. "Every day, with ice cream."

That had been the best time of his day—the best days of his life. And some of the worst. But he wouldn't change a single one of them.

"It was special." He shrugged. "There's no better place in Twilight Town."

[incensing]

No better place, huh? He looked out at the town and the rooftops below them and the sky above them, stretching out to the distance. Up here, things seemed a little clearer somehow, as though the fresh air was good for him. Nothing was settled about who or what he was now, but up here it wasn't hard to think that maybe he'd manage to figure it out.

"It seems like a good place," he agreed almost grudgingly. It was hard to put it in words, these things that he just...felt, innately, as though it didn't matter whether or not he remembered it being a good place because he already knew. He glanced at the boy beside him. "When were you up here?"

It didn't seem right. There had been someone. He had been up here, and there had been someone with him, but it hadn't been Sora.

[binarysky]

Once again, Roxas was reminded of the fact that he for sure had a heart now, because it seemed to stop at Axel's question.

It was funny, sometimes. He could never forget about Sora, or about the special and strange connection they had, the life they lived now—but there were other things he did forget. Like the fact that he no longer looked like himself, for all that their faces were the same.

And Axel didn't recognize him.

He swallowed hard. "I came here with..." You. Every day, it was you and me. "My best friend. To have ice cream."