Chapter Text
Roxas wanted to put it on record that his coworkers may be weird as fuck, but he didn’t think they were bad people, per se. None have treated him particularly badly so far (even Larxene, who Demyx assured him was a mean old witch, but Roxas thought Demyx was much scarier than Larxene so he didn’t really know what to believe), and they’ve all been patient enough with him, even when they didn’t seem to really want to.
Sure, Vexen had been snippy during his training day, but he still took the time to carefully explain how Roxas was actually supposed to notice details, and Larxene had been a bit mean about his magic training, but hadn’t actually let anything happen to him, and looked happy when he cast Thundara completely on accident. Lexaeus had been patient, and Axel took him out to ice cream all the time, and Zexion even showed him where the library was when he’d complained after their training day about not knowing so many things! Roxas didn’t know how he knew how to read, but he did and it was great. He spent a lot of his free time in the library.
Luxord taught him card games, and Demyx let him listen to him play his sitar (though he sometimes looked like he was hurting when Roxas did that, so he didn’t do it too often), and Saïx had once even complimented him on his report writing after showing him what he looked for in the paperwork.
And then there was Xion. She never said much at first, but Roxas had been the same so he didn’t judge. They’d had a mission together again today, and she even had a keyblade like him! He thought that they might actually be proper friends now! He’d have to ask Axel when he got back to the castle, or maybe Saïx if he wasn’t feeling bad.
That was the funny thing about all his coworkers. They all told him that they were all Nobodies, with a capital N (which somehow made it not an insult? Roxas still thought that it wasn’t very nice to call someone that, regardless), which meant they didn't have hearts and that meant that they felt no emotions.
And Roxas was really young (25 whole days old!) and he didn’t know a lot of stuff, but that seemed kind of fake. Even Xemnas had some moments where he looked like he felt something, in the few meetings Roxas had been to since joining, and Xemnas was, like, the textbook definition of emotionless. He just thought that if you were truly emotionless, you wouldn’t bother to even pretend to have them. Or something.
But it wasn’t his business, and if everyone wanted to pretend all day, then that was their call.
Xion and he were coming back from Twilight Town, jittery from ice cream, when he showed her the WINNER stick he got the other day.
“Axel said that this was a special stick, but I don’t even know what I won. I wanted to ask him, but he’d already left.”
Xion looked pensive. “Oh… maybe we can ask Saïx? He’s a little scary, but he’s friends with Axel I think, so he might know.”
“Are they?” Roxas thought about it for a second, and there was a weird energy between them. He didn’t know how to describe it (Xion knew more words than he did, which he thought was super cool), but he could see where Xion got the idea from. “I think you’re right. We can ask when we turn in our reports for the day.”
“Okay!”
He felt warm and tingly, and he could feel the big smile on his face. It had just been such a good day, despite Axel and the others being gone, and he couldn’t help it. They walked into the Round Room, and Xigbar waved at them from one of the couches.
“Hey Kiddo, Poppet! Heard something interesting happened today! Care to share?” His smile was a little goofy, but Roxas thought his eyes were cold. Roxas’s opinion on Xigbar was a bit mixed. He called everyone by nicknames and had a very laid back personality, but something about him made Roxas ache. It bothered him, but Xigbar had been friendly to him, so Roxas tried not to let it show. And besides! Now was the perfect excuse to show off how cool Xion was!
“Yeah! Xion summoned a Keyblade just like mine!” He turned to her, “Show him!” She smiled nervously at him, but summoned her Keylade, and Xigbar made ooo-ing and ahh-ing noises, clapping lightly.
“Very impressive, Poppet. How’s about we take a picture?”
Xion tilted her head curiously. “A picture?”
Xigbar nodded easily, pulling out a camera from… somewhere and waving it around. “Yeah! Accomplishments like this should be saved.” Roxas and Xion looked at each other, and he shrugged. Xigbar liked his camera a lot, and took a lot of pictures all the time of tons of different things, and it was kind of fun to pose and then look at the image later.
“Sure, why not? Hey, we should both pose with them!” He quickly summoned his own Keyblade, and he and Xion stood near each other, blades out. That was about as far as they got before Roxas realized that he uhhh didn’t know what pose looked cool. He looked at Xigbar, and he didn’t know what his face looked like, but Xigbar laughed at it.
“Try holding them out and crossing them like so…”
They spent a good ten minutes just posing for pictures, and Roxas couldn’t stop smiling and giggling the whole time. Xion wasn’t much better, becoming more animated by the second. In the end, they had a sizable handful of the pictures, and they crowded around Xigbar to look at them.
“We look so cool!”
“We sure do.”
“And these cool little kids should be going to bed.”
A pout immediately formed on Roxas’s face, and the urge to stomp his foot was hard to resist. “I’m not little!”
Xigbar’s chuckle was mocking to Roxas’s ears, and his pout grew bigger. “Kiddo, when you get to my age, everyone is little.” Roxas didn’t think that was how it worked, but now he was curious.
“Why, how old are you?” The eyebrow raise he got made his stomach squirm a bit, which wasn’t helped my Xion elbowing him in the ribs. Ow. Xigbar laughed again, but this time it sounded like he wasn’t laughing at all, and from the corner of his eye he could see Xion frown.
Xigbar leaned down. “Let me tell ya a secret, kiddies. I’m over a thousand years old.” Now Roxas frowned at him, a little dubious. Was he making fun of them again…?
Xion cautiously piped up with, “You don’t look a thousand years old.” The bark of laughter Xigbar let out was loud enough to attract the attention of the others around the room, though they didn’t get up to see what they were doing.
The Sharpshooter wiped tears from his eyes. “Man, I sure hope I don’t. You kids are a riot. But seriously, I’m forty-six and older than the next oldest person here by eight years. Like I said, everyone is little to me.” His face was weird as he said it, eyes distant and shoulders just slightly slouched. Roxas traded another look with Xion.
Yeah, she thought something was weird too. But Xigbar suddenly seemed so sad, so Roxas decided to be nice and let it go. “Well, fine, if the old grandpa says it’s bedtime, I guess we should go to sleep. Bye! Enjoy being old!” With that last shout, he grabbed Xion’s hand, and they bolted away from Xigbar’s offended squawk.
“That was mean, Roxas!” Xion giggled as they ran.
“At least it distracted him!”
They ran all the way down to the Hall of Empty Melodies before Roxas eventually lost his way and had to Corridor to the residential halls instead. Xion waved good night and Roxas started getting ready to sleep. If only to himself, he did have to admit that he was tired. But he wouldn’t say that out loud. He didn’t want to give Xigbar the satisfaction.
It did bother him, though, what Xigbar said. He’d said it as a joke, but Roxas got the funniest feeling that he hadn't been lying at all.
He laid down in bed and looked out his window at the perpetual night sky. His eyes dropped more and more, and as he fell asleep, he hoped Axel came back tomorrow.
Roxas blearily blinked his eyes open, trying to shake away the dream he was rapidly forgetting, and closed his eyes again, promptly rolling over and right into something sharp, and yelped, rolling quickly to the other side and off the bed entirely.
“Wha-?” He scrambled up and saw at his pillow a small handful of colorful seashells, the kind he’s only seen in books in the library, since he hadn’t been to a world with an ocean yet. How…?
He scratched his head. He guessed he’d just have to ask…? Maybe he just forgot he’d been to the beach? That would be a major bummer! He wanted to remember going to the beach! Though that didn’t explain how they got onto his bed…
He grumbled as he got ready, and he was just adjusting his boots when his door opened and Xion walked through. She froze when she saw him and dropped something onto the floor. He looked closer. A seashell?
“Roxas…?” Her voice shook, and Roxas wasn’t afraid to admit that he felt pinpricks on his arms when he saw the water in her eyes. Why was she crying?! “Roxas!” No more time for thinking, because Xion threw herself at him, and all he could do was stand there and hug her, confused out of his mind.
Turned out that he’d been asleep for over a week, and that everyone in Castle Oblivion other than Axel was dead.