Chapter Text
The world was real and Roxas wasn’t.
<You feel nothing.>
Or maybe Roxas was real and the whole world was fake, designed by a cruel being with ulterior motives.
<Nothing is real.>
Even as he stood in the round room, the memories Roxas was making were strangers in a crowd brushing elbows with him. Everything felt far away, even when nestled up against him. Perhaps something needed to get so close it got under his skin, crawl around inside of him.
<...lange for rank. Do you wish to partake in such a task?> Xemnas’ voice was the void that came before the few hours when Roxas had met him and whatever was to come after; a vast, endless, indescribable nothingness. His voice, the nothingness, echoed in the room before collapsing in on itself.
Wish were desires. Wants. He wanted what he was missing and those before him didn’t have it. Therefore, they were undesirables. Lackluster. —Lust. Desire. Want. They didn’t have it. Wants. Wishes? Certainly none for them. He just knew the way the body knew it was in pain when it starved.
His fingers twitched.
<...Dude, even dusks have more life in ‘em than the little guy.> This voice was gruff, barely containing a differentiation between speech and Nobody whispers. Xigbar was blunt joints and shoulders, all recoil and blowback, the rest of him lithe avoidance and half a spine.
<Maybe he just doesn’t know what’s on the line with rank. No response can mean he just doesn’t understand, not necessarily that he’s not interested. Should we explain it to him?> Axel, who stood by his side, was was too much; too many ribs, too many joints, too many words. Perhaps it was to compensate for his lack of a waist and consideration.
<Higher rank means more hearts, bud.> Demyx plucked strings, using them to muffle his voice but hiss implications of well played heartstrings and manipulation. His body responded independently to eons of unheard echoes of rhythm, not even a single knuckle in tandem with another part of himself. Only his hips, which were jagged and tilted with unease, were still.
By the time the third Nobody spoke, the memory of the first was already being swallowed by the hazy fog of time, gagging the whole way down as Roxas struggled to pull the memory back. By now, he’d forgotten the question and didn’t understand what his motivation was supposed to be.
Xemnas was the only one among them who mocked the concept of breathing. He looked the most human, yet he radiated the most unease from his strong aura. Even the light of the round room didn’t hide the yellow, reflective animal glow of his eyes.
<...As you wish. Then we welcome you amongst our ranks—Roxas, number XIII.> They had nothing to give him. No pleasantries, no welcoming arms. He was. He lacked, just like them. They left, abandoning their expectations.
That was the only thing Roxas remembered from his first week with the Organization.
Everyone wrote their mission reports differently. Roxas had a hard time telling each incident apart if he hadn’t made a particular memory for each one or brought something back. A chunk of brick, a dead insect with a glimmering body, a piece of jewelry, a scab he wasn’t sure was his, the empty head of a dandelion, a copper wire.
He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped putting these things in with his mission reports and started putting them in his room. He wasn’t sure when he’d been able to glance over and just know which object related to which mission without counting anymore. His missions would be limited to the world where he’d come to exist until he was stronger. Other Nobodies always smelled like bitter summer heat or the last breath of nightshades. Not one of them smelled like ozone and amber like his birthplace did.
Roxas knew what to call it when they came back with their otherworldly smells; he understood the concept of jealousy. When he collected hearts, be it from gouging the oozing Heartless from the world or when he happened upon a lone human in a precarious place, he knew he wanted. He knew a heart was what he was missing. But he found out no matter how tightly he held onto a heart, he could never get it to stay. Jealousy was a desire for something he couldn’t have.
He wanted more than mementos. He wanted more than hearts. He wanted something that he could keep just because it wouldn’t vanish. He wanted something that was his. Roxas found for Nobodies, desire was powerful. Desire meant a will to obtain, a will to take, a place to put yourself so no one else would consider taking from him.
He let out a sharp exhale that hung low to the ground, dense and thick like fog. He understood Xemnas’ question now, but his answer came too late. Something inside of him coiled and tightened inside of his ribs as the feeling grew.
Roxas raised a claw to his chest, pushing it against his sternum. Pressure alleviated pain; pressure to do well or be turned into a dusk, pressure to collect hearts to feel the sensation of being alive. Marluxia was like him and had told Roxas to be careful of his overgrowth, which collected in his chest, but ran throughout his whole body.
<...It hurts.>
Humans were unusual. When they were hurt, they oozed. When they spoke, everyone could hear them. When they were present, it was never subtle. When they moved, it was always the same way and from their joints.
Larxene had shown him once that humans were predictable, which made them easy to corner. Humans didn’t like to ooze, so they’d run from something that could hurt them. They could be so overtaken by their emotions that they didn’t bother to think. They lived in the same town their whole lives and yet, they ran into secluded places, into alleyways, and then into a dead end. She had told him if he can learn to control his aura, he can make humans so scared it would be like running them into that dead end. They would have nowhere to go, even in an open space.
Humans were nonsensical. This one said he had a family who needed him. Roxas didn’t know what that was or why he would want it, so he didn’t care to stop her. Maybe he should have asked him.
Larxene snapped her arm back, her radius settling itself back next to her ulna, her wrist and elbow welcoming them back into their comfortable resting places. Humans weren’t supposed to know what they really looked like, but that one had just lost his heart, so it didn’t matter since dead things couldn’t get them in trouble.
<We’re different. Humans are either scared of different or try to destroy it—destroy them first, got it?> Her lesson didn’t quite make sense, but he understood even humans could hurt him if given the opportunity. Everything had a desire to exist, even if they needed to hurt something else to continue to do so.
Desire. Want. Did Roxas want to exist the way this human had? Would it have mattered if he did? Would he have tried anything to continue to exist if he was cornered like he had been? He quietly watched the human's heart float away, wondering if he would understand if he held that heart close, just for a second.
He picked up the cloth the human had left behind for his collection.
The questions hadn’t stopped swelling in his head. Why did they want to exist? What was their reason? Humans were all so similar, yet reacted so differently for some reason. The members of the Organization were all so vastly different, but he felt they would all fade the same from the world if it came down to it.
Was it their hearts that made them all different, even though they were all so alike? Was it a lack of hearts that made the organization members all feel the same to him? Was his uninterest in his own desire to continue existing what proved he didn’t have a heart? If he could just hold one more, just for another second, maybe he’d understand. If he could just—one more. One heart that meant something. Were big hearts more important than smaller ones? If he could just hold one more. One more heart. A precious heart.
Yes, a precious heart. What made a heart precious? Was it one full of light? The ones consumed by darkness were heavy, tar and oil. What did hearts of light taste like, feel like? He swallowed by accident. One more. Maybe this Heartless would have it. Just one more heart for today, then he’d call his mission over. He swallowed. Just one more. Just one more. Just one more. Just one more.
He swallowed.
He was duly congratulated on a job well done by Saix once he returned to the castle. Axel eyes had lingered on the Heartless ink he was covered in, eyes catching on Roxas’ right claw lightly closed in front of himself. His eyes followed up as if trailing the overgrowth that spanned his body, stopping at his mouth. <Another memento?>
Roxas nodded, slipping past him to quickly get to his room. He could feel the sensation of Axel’s eyes on him long after he turned down another corridor. It wasn’t an obvious thing to hide, but it was his for now. For now.
He had been careful not to swallow this time. It was a painfully precarious place to keep something so delectable with its soft, peeling layers like carved flesh. He’d accidentally swallowed several already, wasting precious resources for Xemnas’ kingdom hearts project.
But Roxas had his own project. He unzipped his coat, shrugging his arms out of it and letting it collect at his waist. He pressed his fingers where he tended to feel the overgrowth the most, claws sinking into the space next to his sternum. He pulled, a wet snap as he opened himself up, exposed his heartspace.
This was where humans held their hearts. This was where he was told to press his claws into and pull. His heartspace was empty save for his overgrowth and aura, which was pink like wounded human flesh just before it bruised. His own aura overwhelmed him with dread, insisting he close his hollow heartspace at once. He ignored it, knowing Nobodies didn’t really feel anything. Xemnas said as much. It was just his body trying to protect an already desecrated tomb.
It was almost painful to convince himself to open his mouth, to tell himself to let go. He had to force his claw into his mouth, jaw straining while he fought his urge to consume the heart hidden there. Drool, thick and proof of his desire to swallow, dripped out of his mouth and made several puddles on the floor.
He was gentle, but only exacerbating himself. A desire to understand; a desire to consume.
He pressed the heart into his heartspace, his overgrowth, thin like roots, twined around it, a poor mock of heartstrings. Drool dripped from his chin onto his coat. He didn’t feel different. He still felt like he was missing something. Why wouldn’t this one work? The overgrowth tightened in his chest, rolling and squirming in its cavernous desire for something else. Why? Why did he feel the same? Why? The overgrowth squeezed.
Maybe he needed something else. Humans and their hearts were precious. Maybe he needed something precious. His mementos were precious. He grabbed for his collection, his aura coiling like tendrils but not leaking like a human’s would, searching for something the way he was.
He shoved memento after memento into his chest, memory after memory, the overgrowth suffering and strangling the heart among his objects. Precious. He just needed it to be precious, didn’t he? Important and precious were the same, weren’t they?
He could perform as many vivisections on himself as he wanted, stuff it with as many things as he could accumulate in his room, and yet why did he still feel so empty? What was he missing? His overgrowth tightened, tightened.
<…It hurts…> He felt the slivers of the heart slip through his overgrowth, reaching for kingdom hea—Roxas snatched it from the air and swallowed. One more. Maybe he just needed one more. One more memento, one more heart, one more precious thing he was missing. Just one more—maybe one more would make it hurt less.
There was one more human than last time. He’d seen all three of them before, but he didn’t remember if he’d seen them all together like this. Humans were very codependent, always traveling in groups like that. That one he’d seen leaving the same restaurant right before dusk came around. The other he’d seen waiting for the train at particular times. The other he would usually see with smaller, more delicate humans clinging to his sides.
He would sometimes see the one from the restaurant running to the one waiting for the train, always out of breath. But now, the one he’d seen at the town square was with them. He never would have guessed just by looking at them which human happened to know another. Their interactions were interesting.
Why did those three pick each other? Why not that one or another one? Why, when they could choose whoever they wanted, did they decided to be with those particular humans out of everyone there? Did that have to do with having a heart or was it a desire? Was it a desire of the heart? Did hearts have desire?
Maybe the desire to exist came from the heart.
Maybe, if he understood those who already had hearts sewn properly inside of themselves, he would be able to keep a heart. Maybe, if he could steal heartstrings without them breaking like gossamer strands, he could tie a heart inside of himself. Maybe he could hold several at once, swap them out like humans did clothing.
Would they feel different, throbbing properly underneath the overgrowth in his chest? Which of them would he wear around the most? Would he construct a preference? Would their desire overwhelm him the way a Nobody's aura could paralyze a human? Would their desires linger even after he removed their hearts or would they simply become his own? What did they desire?
One of them glanced over his shoulder, the train running late. Roxas locked eyes with him. The human’s eyes were liked glazed honey in the sunset.
“Can we help you or something? I’ve been feeling someone staring holes into the back of my head for at least five minutes, man.” the human called out. One of the humans next to him whispered, but humans were so noisy.
Hayner, you think it’s the same guy as before? He’d whispered, the third one pressed behind them both.
No idea, not risking it, especially not with the rumors that people have been going missing. The one called Hayner hissed back. Roxas could feel the fear rolling off of the third one and he wasn’t sure if it was from the human’s words or the fact he’d been addressed.
Roxas hadn’t ever had to speak to humans. He’d been told he might need to on occasion for a mission, but he had to do it their way or they’d never tell him what he wanted. But Roxas didn’t know how to put what he wanted into words.
He wanted to vanish into the dark, but he couldn’t expose himself—he tugged at the strings of his hood, the second best thing he could get to hiding. Humans on guard made his job harder. He also wasn’t quite sure how to hide all of his Nobody features yet. He could shrink his claws which looked fine under gloves, but his face was more tedious. It had so many small details he could accidentally yet very easily overlook.
“That’s what I thought!” the human Hayner called out, Roxas unsure why he’d been hostile. He hadn’t done anything, hadn’t approached them, hadn’t let his aura breach that far. Was he being territorial of the other two humans? Were they precious to him? Precious hearts? Maybe he could take thei—
The train pulled up. The human Hayner ushered the two of them into the train by their shoulders, shooting another glare back to Roxas. He was reminded of Larxene’s warning that humans could hurt them if they had to. In groups it was more dangerous, but even a single one could cause great harm if he wasn’t cautious. He wondered if the human Hayner was the kind he should be cautious around.
Or maybe he only needed to be cautious around humans when they were near something precious, something they wanted to protect. That made sense. He also desired something precious and would have fought to keep it. He was grateful he’d watched them because now, he’d learned something.
The train pulled out of the station, Roxas feeling his overgrowth coil around. He wanted to watch them more—a shame, but another time, he’d make sure of it. He had a lot he wanted to learn from those three.