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It's an afternoon like any other when Lea is confronted with something he's never considered before. Namely, feelings.
Not his own. God knows Lea has thought enough about Isa and the space they take up in each other's lives. It's been going a hell of a lot smoother since Lea finally cried himself hoarse, raw and wounded with everything he'd perpetuated for years, and everything he'd held back for even longer.
No, instead Roxas, slumbering peacefully like a curled-up kitten, has his full attention. Whenever Lea pauses in his bored rambling, Roxas sighs a sleepy mumble.
"Good to know, buddy, I'll keep that in mind when I need to introduce you to a nice girl one day. Roxas: special guy."
Lea hums over that for a second. "Actually, you know I never found out what you like, huh? Maybe you're after a nice boy."
Lea glances down at Roxas just as he lets out a quiet snore. Lea smiles before turning his attention back to the ever-setting sun, watching over the both of them at the top of the clock tower.
"You gotta give me a heads up, don't wanna embarrass myself. Lemme know if you like both. Or neither for that matter. Gimme some options, I got a good eye for friends too, y'know."
Just as he decides to finally fall quiet, a voice cuts in teasingly, “You say that, but I don’t know if you can be trusted in the friends department.”
Xion’s head pops around the corner, a smile on her face.
A while ago, she decided to stop wearing hoods all together. Something about progress. Or maybe about never moving backwards, Lea forgets. But she's always visible now, her sweet smiles ready to be seen by anyone for what they really are. At some point a couple of months ago, the lack of hoods started coming with an abundance of frills. Her bangs are clipped to one side with a small, ruffled bow, matching the decoration on her skirt, and looking exactly nothing like the sleek, severe lines of their old coats.
She gives Roxas a fond glance before making her way over to the ledge.
“How long has he been out?”
“I dunno, I haven’t been keeping track.”
Xion settles down comfortably next to him, acknowledging the way he taps her foot with his in a gentle hello with one of her own.
“Just running your mouth then?” Xion laughs at the look Lea gives her. “It’s not an insult, promise. You’re very good at it.”
Lea snorts. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I’m a real king of talent.”
"I can draw you a crown if you like."
Xion's latest thing is art. Well, it's more like her latest thing is being attached to Naminé's hip. She's been cycling through little hobbies ever since everything settled. Fishing, surprisingly, had caught on for a while, before making regular trips to the local beach became more and more scarce. Baking had also been one of the longer lasting ventures. Lea has eaten a lot of pastries in his new-new life.
It's nice; to see that glint of excitement in her eyes whenever someone suggests something new.
Regardless, Lea wrinkles his nose. "Nah, I think Sora can keep the whole crown thing to himself."
"Boring," Xion says. "I'll come up with something just for you then."
"Oh yeah? Go ahead, make me something pretty."
"The prettiest," she agrees, swinging her legs.
She could too – the kid is damn well talented.
"You're home early," he says.
"Kairi wanted to go do something with the boys," Xion explains. "So they brought me and Naminé back.”
“Oh yeah? How’re they doin' anyway?” Lea asks. “Feels like I haven’t seen them in ages.”
Lately, Xion and Roxas had gone to them more often than not.
“They’re good!” Xion says with a smile. “Riku has finally mellowed out a little, and Sora is still just… Well, Sora.”
Lea snorts.
“But Ven joined us this time.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah! Turns out Riku has been to see Master Aqua a few times recently, so he and Ventus have been hanging out more,” Xion says.
“Good for Riku,” Lea says cheekily. “Maybe some of Ven’s easygoing attitude will rub off on him.”
Xion laughs. “I don’t know about that. Ven spent most of the day with Sora anyway, and he doesn’t need any more of that.”
Lea snorts again. “True enough.”
But instead of continuing her joke, Xion falls into a peculiar silence. Her brow furrowed, Xion looks out over Twilight Town like she’s trying to puzzle something out.
“Hey,” Lea says, poking her gently in the arm. “You okay over there?”
Xion just hums to herself.
“What happened?” He just manages to ask, before Xion turns to him suddenly.
“Hey, Lea?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“You and Isa hold hands, right?”
Lea startles. Xion has a particular steely, determined glint in her eye that he doesn’t see that often anymore.
“What?” He sputters. “Where did that come from?”
Somehow, she only seems to grow more determined. “You do, I’ve seen you two.”
Lea fumbles for an answer because while it's true, it's not exactly a common occurrence.
Isa doesn't hold hands. Not often. It's not that Isa has anything against it, but it's not really in his nature. Isa likes sitting close instead, his foot hooked around the curve of Lea's ankle, close enough to feel the real, living heat of him.
Similarly, sometime during her musings, Xion had casually worked her foot under Lea’s calf, tapping a gentle rhythm against the side of his foot. She’s been picking up more of Isa than she realises.
Still confused, Lea blinks. “Well yeah, sometimes, and it’s not like we hide it or anything.”
“But,” Xion starts, and then seemingly has to gather herself. “But it’s different than when we do it, I mean.”
“Yeah kiddo,” Lea says, smiling quizzically. “It’s really different.”
“But you don’t…”
“Don’t?” He prompts.
“You don’t blush.”
Lea laughs. One short, loud ha!
Oh, he definitely blushes, but that’s neither here nor there.
“Okay, you really need to fill me in here,” He says. “Be kind, rewind for a second.”
The glint in Xion’s eyes turns sheepish.
“I’m sorry,” she says, brushing away his attempts at letting her know it's okay. “It’s just… something kind of weird happened with the boys today and I’m trying to figure it out, I guess.”
Huh, Lea thinks to himself. Evidently it’s been longer than he thought since he last saw Sora and Riku if someone is blushing now. Still doesn’t explain the hand-holding interrogation though, those kids are on top of each other in puppy piles every hour of the day.
“Ven,” Xion says.
“Ven?”
“He blushed.”
“Ven blushed?”
“Yes.”
Lea waits, but Xion just stares at him expectantly.
“Okay, I’m gonna need a little more.”
Xion huffs, and then finally explains in a rush, “Sora was tired, and went to nap on Ventus’ shoulder, which he does all the time on Kairi and Riku so it was like whatever, but he held Ven’s hand as he did and Ven blushed all of a sudden and it was – it was weird.”
It takes Lea a couple of seconds to process all that.
“So Sora held Ven’s hand, and Ven – what?” He asks. “Freaked out?”
Xion shakes her head. “No he looked–” She stops and looks down at Roxas’ familiar profile. “He looked happy.”
Ah.
Lea laughs a little to himself.
Someone save these kids from the endless charm of Sora and his blatant love for others.
“Lea?”
“Sorry,” he says, lighter now that he follows. “I get the picture. But I don’t really get why it’s clearly sitting a little weird with you, you’ve cuddled with basically everyone by now.”
True it had taken Xion and Roxas a little longer than the others to become so open with their affection, but, Lea reasons, upbringings and all that. They’re both doing a lot better with it now.
Xion considers this.
"I know you and Isa are different, I'm not stupid."
"Of course you're not stupid."
"But when you were our age, was it different then?" Xion asks. "From how you're different now, I mean."
"No, I guess not," Lea says. "But, back then, it was like…"
He pauses, chewing the words in his mouth. Xion lets him mull it over, eyes back on the still slumbering Roxas. His cheeks have gotten a little flushed; sleep-warm from having napped for so long in what passes locally for the sun's glow. It's cute, and it's real in a way that Lea – that Axel – had never liked to pause too long to consider, once upon a time in a different part of hell. Lea watches Xion watch Roxas and his heart beats low and content in his chest. This is his family.
"Back then it wasn't really something we thought about, y'know," Lea finally mumbles, not wanting to break the calm. Xion doesn't look at him but shrugs a little to indicate that she doesn't, in fact, know. "It's like, when something, or someone, is there all the time, and you do something all the time, and you always have, then it's never something to really think about."
Lea chuckles to himself, "We were clingy, so sometimes we held hands, but we never talked about it. Didn't need to, it just was. Sora and Ven, they aren't like me and Isa, and I can almost guarantee they never will be, but sometimes it's nice to look at someone that way, and think this is nice, I want this to happen more, y'know?"
The silence stretches a little thin this time.
"I don't know," Xion says shyly – sadly, Lea realises.
"Aw, kid, I didn't mean to make you sad."
"You didn't, not really."
Xion turns back towards the everglow of the horizon. "Sometimes," she says, like a secret just for Lea and the sun. "It still feels like I'm not whole."
"Xion–"
"I don't mean that in a bad way," she cuts in, fingers twisting in her lap. "I don't."
She takes a deep breath. “I just mean… that I’m still growing,” she says.
“‘Course you are, you’re a kid.”
“No, I mean, as a person.”
Lea smiles patiently. “Yeah, Xion. That’s what I meant too."
Xion looks at him with her wide, curious eyes, and for a second Lea mourns the fact that while he watched her learn, watched her understand more and more, he didn’t get to watch her grow. Xion is a kid. She’s always been a kid. She’s only been alive for a couple of years. And he was there for nearly all of it, of course, but he never got to watch her stumble about on chubby little legs, or catch bugs, or tell those stupid lies kids tell but fully believe. She appeared, fragile and whole, into a world that made no sense to her, and she gave the only people she knew all the trust she had. In the end, Roxas, just as fresh and shiny as Xion was, was the only one who even knew what to do with it.
It makes Lea ache.
“You wanna know something?”
Xion nods.
“You know how people say you never really start feeling like an adult?”
Xion smiles. “I don’t know about people, but yeah I’ve heard you say that.”
“Well, it’s true!” Lea says, indignant. He softens. “Feeling whole, well it’s kinda like that. It’s not just you who’s still growing, everyone on every world is. Things change, and how you feel about them changes. Hell, you’ve been collecting hobbies like they’re going out of style, did any of them make you feel more – or less – whole?”
“Some of them did, a little,” Xion says. “More. The ones I really loved.”
“The way I see it, no one is really whole. We gotta leave a little room to grow,” Lea says. “It’s not about who has a heart, or where they got it. You’re your own person now, Xion, and sure, maybe being whole feels like it should be what you’re aiming for, but I’m trying to be honest with you here, I don’t know if that’ll ever really happen. Because I don’t think anyone ever feels like that.”
Xion stays quiet, absorbing whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Lea grimaces, and turns back to Roxas, giving Xion her privacy.
Ever since Riku – with some strong-arming from Kairi – managed to get Sora back, all the kids had taken to hanging out with each other as much as possible. The sweetness of it never really wore off. When you spend so much time searching your heart, your memories, your dreams, Lea supposes it's natural to all get a little attached. But the year Sora had been missing was a dark one, in its own way. Xion and Roxas, separate though they are now from Sora, had felt his loss deeply. When he had appeared again, Riku and Kairi at his side, and looking worn around the eyes, Xion and Roxas had taken off to get the full story as fast as possible. Lea never really got all the details in the end, but they'd come back looking a little wounded.
That's when all the trips to the Islands started. For a while, Lea was worried about his kids, assuming that it was compulsory; that, despite having their own little gang in Twilight Town, they felt like they needed to know Sora, having come from him initially. But, turns out, his kids just really like making friends. Xion and Naminé are obsessed with one another. Roxas and Sora are just different enough, and just similar enough, to never get bored of each other. Ventus, when he elects to escape training, likes to pile onto whoever is closest, and appears to have a soft spot a mile wide for his shyer doppelganger. And, Lea thinks wryly, Sora too, apparently.
Honestly, Lea couldn't be happier about it. Roxas and Xion deserve to be able to build lives for themselves, with all the friendships, fights, and difficulties that come with that. But it's helped by the fact that every other kid they seem to know is almost sickeningly kind. He is surprised, however, that it's taken this long for something to shake loose in one of them. Lea had assumed it would have been Roxas. Roxas had taken more bitterly to his… upbringing. But, whatever the hell Roxas managed to sleep on, deep down in Sora's heart, had softened over time. He is crushingly fond of Sora, and therefore Xion is as well.
Oh… wait.
Lea glances back to Xion, wrapped in her contemplative silence, matching it with one of his own. For all his prior joking, he's never really thought about either of them getting crushes. That kind of thing had never popped up on either of their radars as far as he could tell. Although he's been spiralling in the never-ending cycle of trying to figure out Isa, so crushes – particularly their sweeter and more intense teenage counterparts – had left his mind a long time ago.
To Roxas and Xion, Lea and Isa are just different. Fair enough, he probably should have broached the topic a little more elegantly by now, but different — different from Roxas and Xion and their relationships with their friends — always seemed to be the most concise explanation. There's complexities that Lea and Isa themselves are still working out, never mind trying to define their relationship to the kids. As smart as they are, and they are so brilliant, there's still a lot about being alive, and real, and feeling that they don't necessarily get.
One step at a time, and all that.
And, Lea concludes, today is just another step.
“So, what got you thinking about this anyway?” Lea asks gently. “Did you want to hold Sora's hand or something?"
Xion looks down at her own hand, curling and uncurling her fingers a few times.
"Honestly, I've never thought about it," Xion says. "Like, as a thing to set out to do. I've held hands before, with you, and Roxas, and Naminé, but I've never looked at someone and thought: I want to hold their hand."
She holds her hand up to the warmth of the sky, palm first like she wanted to bring forth her keyblade.
"I didn't even then, but Ventus looked so happy, and then I realised that there are still parts I'm missing."
A mile away on the crush front then, huh.
Lea smiles, and leans forward to catch her eye. "You haven't got a single part missing there, kiddo," he says. "Ven's a sweetheart, and Sora's a loving guy, and that's just how they are. They're different from you, maybe, but they haven't got anything more than you. They go out of their way to hold someone's hand? Then good for them. But if you haven't got that urge, then that's nothing less than what they got."
Xion's face is still twisted doubtfully, and suddenly Lea understands what she needs.
"Okay," he says resolutely, sitting up straight and shaking himself out until he's comfortable. Then, he holds his hand out to Xion.
Xion looks at it like she's never seen it before.
Lea wiggles his fingers a little, but otherwise holds his hand still, watching as she glances between it and his face.
"Come on," he prompts lightly. "It's just a hand."
It teases a smile onto Xion's face and that little crack in the worry seems to make her mind up for her.
Xion takes his hand.
Lea and Xion hold hands a lot, in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes it happens naturally when he's leading her through a crowd, and sometimes she fiddles with his fingers to keep herself occupied when she's a little bored. But it hits him then how small her hand is. Lea is tall, he's lanky and pointy where Xion is small and rounded, but it's been a long time since he thought about how small she is. Xion is fierce, and when she's comfortable her personality is so big and new, it fills up every room she's in, but her hand barely fills Lea's palm. When he curls his fingers over her, she nearly disappears.
Blinking away the burn in his eyes, Lea pulls Xion gently to his side, and tucks her into the crook of his arm. She takes a steadying breath before molding herself into the curve she finds.
With Roxas dozing behind them, they could just be at home, relaxing after a tiring day. But the silence is loaded with Xion's searching thoughts.
"So?" Lea asks, quieter than he's probably ever been. "How does that feel?"
Xion hums. "Feels like a Lea hand."
His love for her is truly crushing in that moment. It's insurmountable. It's life-defining.
"And this," Lea manages, squeezing her hand. "Feels like a Xion hand."
Lea lets her absorb whatever she's feeling, trying to keep a hold on his own rush of emotion. His kids mean everything to him, and if he has to hold a damn hand, or a foot, or their whole tiny bodies, he will, gladly – lovingly – until they figure the world out for themselves. Until they figure out what love means to them, how special it is, and how much they want to explore and understand it.
Isa is always calling him too soft-hearted for his own good, but Lea wouldn't want it to be any different. That Xion could come to him with a problem so new but so connected to her own feelings of loss, of confusion regarding her new place in the world; that's beyond special. That's everything.
"Still feel like you're missing something?"
"No," she mumbles, but it's not shy anymore, just content. "I just feel warm."
Eyes stinging again, Lea takes a breath to pull himself together.
"Listen to me for a second, okay?" He pauses, waiting for her acknowledgment, and goes on after she nods. "Whatever you're worrying about, if you ever feel like something is missing, it's okay to be a little scared. But if you ever think there's something wrong with you because you see someone want something you don't, then remember that there's nothing about you that ever deserves your worry or fear. You got that?"
"Yeah," Xion mumbles. "Yeah, I got that."
"Good," he says, nudging her up until she looks at him again. "Stuff like that, it doesn't need to be as weird as you think it does. You're just you."
Her huge eyes glimmer with tears, and for a second he's convinced she'll finally set him off. Instead, she just curls back into him.
"Lea," Xion says. "Thanks."
"Don't thank me, I didn't do nuthin'."
She smiles. “Liar.”