rainbow veins [xion and roxas]
Find Xion. That had been his first course of action as soon as he'd had strength enough to stand. If Roxas had made it back, she had to have done the same. And Axel had agreed, good-naturedly.
“Just like old times, huh? But could we make make this the last time we gotta play search party?”
It took approximately 18 days to find her. Roxas and Axel scoured world by world; Castle Oblivion had crumbled soon after that Ventus kid had woken up, so that spared them from having to look there. Roxas himself had supposedly been found in Radiant Garden, but they hadn't found her there either. The World That Never Was gave them no help; her unconscious body would have probably been devoured by Heartless which was something he didn't want to think about. Roxas leaves Samurai scouts in each world he crosses off his list, to look in his stead just in case she decided to turn up.
Only a million more places to search. But Roxas didn't think of it that way—he focused on counting each day she was missing, and the fact that his mind didn't again drift off into frightening territory--”Is any of this for real?”--made it easier to keep charging ahead. Sometimes he and Axel split up to cover more ground, but he suspected Axel stuck with him to make sure he allowed himself rest.
They receive a message from Headquarters in Radiant Garden while turning stones over in some world called New York. A break from the noise was good, but Roxas was reluctant to leave until Yuffie informed him that Xion's body had been recovered.
“She just sort of showed up one day, like she'd been there her whole life. Everything left her alone.” Ventus explained this with animated hand gestures, obviously pleased that he'd been able to help. Roxas pushes past him, a boulder of anxiety dropping into the pit of his stomach when he saw her asleep.
“She's fine, don't worry—though seeing me seemed to make her feel safe enough to rest again. I feel like she thought I was you.” Roxas thought he could hear a guarded resentment in Ventus' tone, as if his counterpart still wasn't sure how he felt about that. But he couldn't focus on the other's feelings, not when she was here. Not when she was safe. It's almost impossible to believe.
He kneels at her bedside, forces everyone but Axel out.
“I'm staying here until she wakes up. No one needs me for anything.” it was a statement that no one argued against, not even the three fairies who'd been badgering him to train. Roxas sits next to the bed, back against it with his knees to his chest. He wants to shake her awake, but is pinned by the terrifying notion that she was just an illusion, that any attempts to touch her would cause her to disappear again. Axel eventually snores in his own corner in a rocking chair, worry lines he didn't outwardly express fading with sleep.
His thoughts wanders into territories he'd been avoiding up until now.
They were here. He was here. How was that possible? His mind whirs with paranoia, like ice slowly edging around his heart. When he looked at his hands, he would momentarily envision them fading in and out of focus. His skin would darken into something more like Sora's, before he blinked them pale again. The moment he clenched his fist, his world would crash and he discovered he'd only dozed off without realizing it. He'd been...doing that a lot since he'd woken up. Axel had picked fun at him for it, but he imagined that was just to try and play down the situation. When it could no longer be ignored even his friend had taken the episodes seriously, but Roxas had told him to keep it to himself.
It was becoming torture. The closer he got to finally accepting that he really was here, the deeper his fears dug into him. He was constantly being tugged back and forth by a need to be happy and a cold reminder of what had happened when he'd been happy before.
'When you become too focused on yourself, start thinking about someone else. It's a good practice.'
Aerith had told him that, and now he took it to heart. Roxas wondered if Xion had or would feel this way. Maybe they could help eachother when she woke up. He hated the thought of needing help, so he promises himself that this is more about her than him—of making up for the way things were before when she'd been left alone to deal with her problems. They'd all been alone then, and they shouldn't have been. But he could no longer blame them exclusively for that; he'd purposely stayed in denial, too scared of his world crumbling with the truth.
Mulling on those thoughts, his dozes off again.
