2.4; audio

[binarysky]

[ The first sound is an explosion, a large one; in reality, it's the ignition of a Firaga spell, but for the two boys reliving this memory, it's a self-immolating attack, one that should come from the heart.]

You're...fading away...

[It's Roxas' voice saying the words, but at this moment, he sounds very much like Sora.]Well, that's what happens

Comments

[faroffdream]

[ Sora blinks, his brow creasing because one second he'd finally found Roxas again after they'd separated earlier in the day, and the next there was some sort of explosion - one he'd witnessed before but for a moment he'd felt he was the cause of it, felt like he was fading. He's strangely not scared, but it's a little like he's been stunned, thrown into a bizarre displacement - not himself, but coming back to it. Peering at Roxas, Roxas who seconds before looked like Sora himself when Sora didn't feel himself at all, he realizes he's still on the ground.

He rubs a hand down his face, shaking his head as he props himself up on his other elbow. ] What...again?

[ When he eyes Roxas it's through splayed fingers but the look is not confused as much as it is taken by surprise still. ]

[binarysky]

[For his part, Roxas simply feels empty inside. No, that's not it-he has a lot of feelings about what they've just relived, but they're buried under the surface, swirling within him but not making themselves known just yet.

Stunned. The word is stunned. He's known about this moment, seen it before in the hazy, just-out-of-reach way he saw all of Sora's memories while tucked inside their heart, and experienced it very much for himself when it awoke him from an almost-dream.

Seeing it in person is entirely different and ten times as visceral, even if Sora is not Axel and Roxas is not exactly Sora.]

I guess so.

[Drymouthed, the words come out quietly. After a moment, he offers Sora a hand up, moving jerkily, like he's just going through the motions.]

[faroffdream]

[ Taking Roxas' hand is automatic and Sora doesn't let it go even when he's standing, shaking his head to clear it again. He can't explain how it felt, only what he knew - that things were ending and that by knowing that he had a queer sense of clarity he knew wasn't his own even though it seemed to be, lying on the ground and apologizing for actions that didn't belong to him either. But the result of it, in a way, was, he thinks, and it's now, gripping firmly onto the other boy's hand that he feels his regret more sharply, a heavier twist. He's sorry Axel faded, that essentially Axel died, but he had been just as sorry that he'd had the impression Roxas never had the chance to know exactly what he meant to his friend

[binarysky]

[Roxas lets Sora hold his hand, but it's out of absentmindedness more than any sense of closeness or affection. He's still overwhelmed; experiencing one memory from the wrong perspective was disorienting enough. Now this?

Axel. All that time, and he'd never said it.]

He shouldn't have had to do it.

[Join the Organization to retrieve something that should have been his all along. Use someone else's friend to bring back the only one he had. Give up absolutely everything he had left without hesitation.]

Any of it.