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Vanitas
There’s a thrumming in his veins and he doesn’t know where he is, just knows time has passed and it almost pains him that he hasn’t felt the ache of it all...except it doesn’t - pain him, that is.
And when the boy - Ventus - says his name—
Ventus was the only one who could ever say his name and make him feel something, but here’s this boy with brown hair and a more confident posture. Vanitas doesn’t get it. But, then he does, when those same blue-flame eyes turn to him, burn into him.
“Vanitas,” the boy says, and he looks surprised, but no, the boy can’t fool him. He’s found him.
I got you, his veins sing. I caught you. I played your hide-and-seek, I counted to ten - ten long years - and I found you. Ventus, his veins sing. His heart hasn’t beat, hasn’t pumped blood since the day he was born, what a curious thing because he still bleeds, still thinks he should bleed, but here he is. Here they are.
Vanitas comes alive, feels like he’s born again - not from darkness, but really, truly born again. He hasn’t heard that voice say that name, and suddenly the nothing in him isn’t so empty anymore.
He takes a step toward the boy.
He didn’t know it til now, but he’s wanted this for a lifetime.
Demyx
It’s kind of like falling asleep in the summer - dying. If it could even be called that. He was in a cold castle. Now, he isn’t. He’s floating, and it’s warm, and suddenly he isn’t - floating, that is.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he wakes up, but it’s bright, just like the castle but also not. It’s warm, though. He feels it on his skin.
He knows his name. He’s himself again, and he can feel the others. He doesn’t know how, but maybe— maybe that’s what comes of a heart, settling heavy in one’s chest.
He knows his name, but he doesn’t know what they will call him. He doesn’t know which one he’ll prefer.
He gets up from the dirt, brushes the leaves and grass from his clothes. Shakes them out of his hair. He hasn’t felt the happiness well up in him like a spring, not like this, in so long. Too long.
When he holds out his hand, the familiar weight and curve of his sitar materializes from the water in the air. It looks— different . From before . At least it isn’t that preposterously phallic shape anymore. It’s firm and it’s solid, just like the beating in his heart and the thrumming in his veins.
He can hear Marluxia calling for them. He isn’t sure what to call him, either, or the others when he greets them. But, he guesses, it will be nice to reintroduce themselves to each other. There will be something familiar yet refreshing about it.
He steps out from the trees, fingers lingering on the flowers and vines as he gently pushes them out of his way. And, he grins. His chest is sore, but, he thinks, everything is just right.
Riku, But Not
He didn’t know he could dream. He didn’t know he could even fall asleep. But, he did. And he wonders where Naminé is - that’s his first thought. And his second, and his third. His fourth, though, is why the castle feels so empty, and his fifth, is why he knows that it is.
Riku - but not, his replica memory reminds him - walks the halls of the empty castle, climbs the stairs to the topmost room.
All he finds are three empty pods, like the one he’d woken up in, and a table with scattered pencils and unfinished drawings. She would have been a fool to stay, but he’d hoped she would’ve been a fool to wait for him.
He picks one of the pictures up, and his fingers caress the edges of it. He feels aged all of a sudden. But, when he looks into a mirror, he looks the same as the day he was born. Created, maybe, is a better word.
Does it count, not-Riku wonders, when you’ve been in places where time doesn’t move but your heart does? His heart aches and ages with every memory, even the ones he’s forgotten, even the bad ones, the made-up ones. The good ones, too, but he doesn’t even have the laugh lines to show for it.
Does it count, not-Riku wonders, if neither of them have hearts?
Dreams are a sign that time is moving forward. And he dreamt. He knows he did. Not-Riku - he really has to come up with a new name for himself, he thinks. It will be the first thing he will give himself - folds the drawing up and carefully tucks it into his shirt, right by where his heart should be. This can be his new heart. She’s all the everything he ever dreamed of.
Just like that, he runs out of the castle at full-speed, runs through all the white rooms and down the endless staircases. Like a bat out of hell. Fitting, he thinks. This was hell.
If there had been windows, he would have jumped right out of them instead.
Axel— I mean, Lea
It’s only training, but Lea’s addicted to this feeling. Fighting. He’s addicted to all of his feelings, now.
He’d thought he was already fire incarnate, flames licking up his skin, his bones, and warming him to the core. Anger turned to wrath, sadness turned to regret, love turned to bitter passion.
But, compared to this— Axel doesn’t know how he ever thought any of that was fire. That was cold, that was nothing. He was nothing. Not anymore, though.
He’d always felt something whenever he looked into Roxas’s eyes (Roxas’s, not Sora’s, because Sora’s blues don’t have the same kind of hardness, same kind of sharpness, that broke right through Axel’s armor of arrogant taunts. Sora’s eyes are sky blue, but Roxas’s, oh, they were the bottom of the ocean and the top of Lea's heart). That feeling, though, that something left the same time Roxas abandoned the Organization.
But, with his heart back, Lea feels that same warmth every goddamn living, breathing, heart-beating day of his life. He feels it when he sleeps, muted, in his dreams, and it comes crashing down on him like a wave when he wakes and he drowns in it, douses his flames in it. And, like gasoline, it ignites everything in him.
He doesn’t know how he ever confused before to these true, burning, blazing flames.
Sweat trickles down his temple, and he wipes it off with the back of his hand. He smirks, then, and makes a beckoning motion with his free hand, his other hand stretched out behind him, keyblade pointing forward.
How did he ever live, Lea wonders, in that kingdom full of thieves?
Maybe, he realizes, maybe it’s because Roxas had never been one of those people.
Sora
Sometimes, Sora lies awake at night, wondering, if he would’ve grabbed Riku’s hand, would they all be the same? Sometimes, Sora blames himself, thinking he could’ve reached Riku in time, but he didn’t because he’d hesitated. Pretended he couldn’t, because he was terrified. Because he’d been selfish.
And, maybe, Riku had known. Maybe, that’s the reason he’d turned to dragons and shadows, dark corners and lonely whispers.
But, then, Sora thinks, no, he wouldn’t have broken Riku’s heart, not if he could have helped it. But, he was young and vulnerable, and he had - broken Riku’s heart, that is - several times over.
It’s ironic that Sora was the one who’d lost his heart in everything. It’s ironic that Sora was the one who’d hold the pieces and pieces of everyone else’s hearts. The small boy from the beach, whose play island was big enough already.
If Riku had been okay with staying, then Sora would never have looked to horizon, never would have wanted to follow his best friend beyond it.
He’s filled to the brim with all these other hearts, all these other feelings, and sometimes, he’s too much of himself or he isn’t enough. Sometimes, he has to remind himself— I’m Sora.
There are other people here, but I’m. Sora. S-O-R-A, Sora.
Sometimes, no amount of wishing can remind him. Sometimes, he wakes up, and he doesn’t have any of the letters that make up his name resting on the tip of his tongue. There’s just one name he knows, one name he always—
Riku, he gasps, some mornings.
And, Riku will call for him, in the stillness of the golden light, dust motes floating lazily in the air. One arm thrown over his face, the other thrown over Sora’s chest.
Riku will call him, will say Sora, just like he’d done on their little island. Just as he’d called over his shoulder when they’d race to the light-up tree for the paopu, when he’d taunt him and they still fought with wooden swords that they could toss to the sand when they were finished playing pretend.
“Sora,” Riku says, voice laced with sleep. It’s practically a grumble, and Sora feels it vibrating from his best friend’s chest. “Go back to sleep.”
Sora laughs then, and he knows Riku’s smiling now, too, knows it like he knows the constellations of pale freckles on Riku’s shoulders.
He pushes himself deeper against Riku’s chest, and Riku opens his arms to let him in. He’ll always let Sora in, at the end of the world and at the beginning of it, too.
I want you for a lifetime.