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“Hey.”
Isa doesn't look up, now familiar enough with the sound of Lea’s voice to know it was him. Though it wasn't as if anyone else in government run home had reach out to him, save for the same staff member, a social worker, whatever that meant, who had been spending the past few days trying to get him to open up.
Isa rolls his eyes when Lea continues to stand in his space.
“What?”
“I wanna show you something.”
Lea was the more obnoxious of the two in trying to engage him, a smile so wide Isa thought his jaw would snap off, speaking a mile a minute, and nearly always having to get dragged away by an adult in order for Isa to be left alone.
“Just real quick, I know you don't like talking but I thought you might wanna check it out-“
Lea said this all in one breath, and was still going.
“Will you leave me alone,” Isa says loudly, finally silencing Lea, “if I let you show me whatever it is.”
Lea’s face falls, actually hesitating, something Isa had assumed he wasn’t capable of in the few days of knowing him.
“Well, I mean I was hoping that if I-“
“I don't want to talk to you.”
“Okay, okay!” Lea raises his voice, upset. “It’ll just take a sec I promise. I’ll even leave you alone if you really want after.”
“Fine.”
Isa also shouldn’t have assumed Lea would stay calm after being mostly shut down. Lea grabs him by the wrist before Isa can even process it, tugging him off his bed and jerking him toward the door.
“Watch it! I said you could show me not pull me.”
Lea seems undeterred, his excitement already coming back to him as he continues pulling Isa along the hallway. His hand was tight, it actually hurt to be pulled, and Isa has a feeling it was going to be sore after. How could someone his own age be so strong?
“It’s pretty close to here actually, just uh, this one!”
Isa finally was able to free himself.
“Don’t do that!”
“Sorry, I just really wanted you to see-“ Lea, pauses, a first, and looks up and down the hallway. Seeming satisfied, he opens the door that he had forcefully led Isa to.
“Ta-da!”
It was a storage closet.
“This is what you wanted to show me?” Isa sneers.
“Yeah just come in okay?”
Isa enters, hoping that if he made some effort it would get Lea off his back. Lea closes the door, surprising Isa with how quietly he does so. He turns back to face Isa, grinning as if he has just showed him a room with all the toys a kid could ever want. When Isa doesn’t say anything, he starts up again.
“It’s always really quiet and no one really uses this room anymore. Like ever. Well I come here sometimes but its good for when you want to be left alone, and I know you don't really like anyone.”
Isa can’t tell if Lea is making fun of him. He frowns.
“And, well, you can just be left alone! Here I mean. I thought you’d like it.” He repeats. Lea’s eyebrows pinch together, suddenly serious.
“And, uh, I wanted to apologize,” he says, looking at the floor. “For bothering you and uh, for calling you a girl.”
Isa feels his stomach twist. He really doesn’t want to talk about that again. Lea continues before he can respond.
“I never met any guy Isa’s! It’s a girls name so I thought- well anyway if you say you aren’t I guess it’s a boys name too. So, sorry.”
“….Thanks.”
“So, yeah!” Lea seems thrilled by the one word response. “You can use this space too whenever you want! Just don't tell any of the other kids or the adults okay? They get really annoying about what we can and can’t do.”
“Sure.” Isa doesn’t care enough to tell other people about the spot anyway.
“Alright great, so. I guess I leave you alone now?” he asks.
Isa doesn’t have to do much else than look at him.
“Right, okay.” Lea nods, as if agreeing to the silent demand for him to leave. “Well, I’ll see you around!”
Isa is left in the closet, and choses to wait a moment before leaving, to make sure he wouldn’t have to deal with Lea anymore in case he has something else he wants to say.
Stepping out, he rubs at his wrist, already feeling loose from being pulled so hard. Something sticky, food, probably, has wiped off on him when Lea was dragging him.
“Gross.”
It’s a cough, just a cough, but Isa startles as its echo in the dark, its hollow ring speaking for how large the room must be. Lea swears, and his hand quickly finds Isa’s arm, shackling him in place. They stay silent, waiting for word from whichever guard had caught them this time.
“What do you want?”
The voice doesn't sound like any guard they know. Too young.
Lea’s hand clings harder. Isa takes a breath, and calls back.
“Are you a guard?”
“A guard… no.”
His fingers are icy from feeling along the basement wall.
“What’s your name?”
-
Lea sniffles the whole way back home, and this time, Isa does not call him a crybaby for it. He breaks down completely once Isa locks the door to his room.
It’s not until Isa excuses himself to the bathroom that he notices the bruises along his arm, where Lea had clung to him like a lifeline.
They have been nobodies for some three weeks when Xemnas grabs them one by one, making a big ceremony of changing their names. He says it is a way to show their unity, some solidarity in their loss of being.
So far from the people they once were, Lea – Axel now – assumes that a month ago, he would have protested, but now only questions the point of the gesture.
Once dismissed, it occurs to him that this is something he might have sought comfort for. Out of habit, he and Isa leave together, and once alone, Lea – should he call himself that still? – reaches his fingers around Isa’s –Saix’s – hand.
They both stop walking, Saix turning to Axel, eyes empty and searching.
“Why did you do that?” He asks when they fail to connect with each other.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m even dragging you home!”
Typical that Lea would become so caring after regaining his heart.
Isa opens his portal to leave and Lea fumbles, barely giving himself the space to be frightened as he nearly stumbles off the tower.
“Wait, don't- Isa!”
He got a hold of Isa’s arm, eyes prickling with tears, that he tries desperately to keep in check. Isa can’t bring himself to meet them more than a moment.
“You don’t have to do this. You can leave them, right now. Zexion has and he’s helping all the others out. Xaldin and Lex left too. And, this could all stop now. All this stuff with Xemnas- Xehanort I mean? Whatever! If you leave they say, they say he needs thirteen vessels and he won’t have that if you come wi-“
Isa stops him, removing Leas hand from him, and meeting his eyes once more.
“Don’t distract yourself.”
He leaves, hearing Lea cursing him as the portal closes behind him. Isa hopes that Lea will listen, will focus on staying safe and not doing anything rash when they clash tomorrow.
He touches where Lea had grabbed him, upper arm still warm from the brief contact. He holds himself there for a while.
Lea’s hands are sticky with sweat and ocean salt, grains of sand stuck under his nails and in between the lines of his palm.
He pulls Isa up wooden planks; the others still in view at the shoreline, but secluded enough to give them a moment of privacy.
Neither of them say anything at first.
“How are you doing?”
Isa blinks. “What?”
“With uh, you know.” He rubs his neck, that sheepish gesture he never gave up. “All this?”
A simple but loaded question. Isa has been trying for the past week to adjust to it all. The absence of a loaming presence, being constantly surrounded by social, eager to connect kids. Lea’s world away from the organization is so much bigger than Isa had thought. Since reforming and finding Lea, they had barely had a moment to themselves without someone else wanting to join in.
“Isa?”
“Sorry,” he replies, realizing himself. He sighs. “It’s all,” he pauses, still hesitating.
“Overwhelming?”
Isa nods, not comfortable saying it himself.
“Hey well I’m impressed. Like, really surprised you even made it this far, socializing and meeting Ventus again and all the others.”
He squeezes Isa’s hand.
“Maybe we can leave early?”
Isa shakes his head. “No, I’ll be fine. I just need a break.”
Lea smiles. “That’s why I brought us up here.”
Isa meets his smile with one of his own, and Lea’s grows wider. He lights up every time he sees Isa being able to feel.
They stand quietly with each other, looking out to the sunset, hearing the soft waves running up and down the sand, the chatter and shouting continuing below them. Lea doesn’t let go of his hand.
Then Isa realizes, they’re alone.
He turns to Lea, who turns back, opening his mouth to respond. Isa grabs his other hand, pulls him close, and kisses him before he can start.
Lea’s knees buckle, he catches himself against Isa, strengthening his hold to stop the fall, to stay exactly where Isa wants him.
Neither break away, focused on refinding their dynamic, torn between wanting to be soft and wanting to taste a decade of each other.
They slow down eventually, Isa is the one to pull back. A voice in the back of his mind reminds him someone could very likely follow up to check on them. He pushes the thought away.
“I’ve missed you.” they both say, breaking into smiles as they speak in unison.
They stay together until there’s more moonlight than daylight. Lea guides them back down to meet the others, and Isa sees small marks appearing where Lea was still holding onto him so tightly.
Lea’s grip is hot iron, a ball and chain. The bruises are the best he’s ever seen.