@paranormalite : there's no need to pretend. / 4 the real rokushi lovers out there / accepting!
"I know that —" she says, but she doesn't sound like it, adjusting her legs where they're thrown over his and her arms where they're wrapped around his middle, clinging ( connotation — negative, but the word itself is actually neutral, pence has been teaching her things like that lately ) to his side on Lea's couch, half - wrapped around him. Hard day, too much time with the others she loves but who drain, who demand - without - realizing. That felt bad but this doesn't, because Roxas never resents when she needs too much contact and he often does, too. It just doesn't feel close enough. Xion's head dips to rest against his shoulder, and his tilts to knock against hers, a little teasing. "I know. It's just ———"
Theirs isn't a relationship with room for lies these days / not intentional ones, at least. Sometimes they both pretend like they're less bruised than they are, but the tricking is more for their own sake than for the other. Xion still feels guilty about — everything — hurting him and leeching off his strength, and making him dream about killing her, and letting him love her when she's not even sure she's allowed to exist, on the bad days, and for existing, period, on the worse ones. But she doesn't lie to him on purpose. It's just hard to explain. She lets out a slow, controlled breath. He holds her a little tighter. Comfort, not a cage.
"I don't have to pretend here, now, with you," she affirms, for both their sake. I'M SAFE / SHE TRUSTS ME. She wants ——— she isn't sure. To be understood? But then she'd have to look at the hurt herself. Or is it worse, that he sees more than she does, that he realizes she's hiding before she does? It's better. It's gotta be. She loves Roxas so much. The girl's words are searching. "But with the others, it's like...I don't know...how to stop."
She can spend days with Lea and Roxas without feeling tired. But just a few hours with Naminé or Hayner is exhausting, feels like being wrung out. There's just so much pretending she has to do without even meaning to, so much hiding, so much fear to manage. It takes so much energy. It leaves so little of her left. But she loves all of them. She doesn't want to stop being with them.
"It's hard," she mutters, almost - whiny. A teenager, despite it all. There's so much terror in Xion that she's trying to untangle. It's taking so long to for her body to learn she isn't in danger, and even longer for her heart to do the same. Roxas helps. Roxas loves her, she knows, and she doesn't have to hide. She feels safe like this, clinging and unsure and allowed to be. "I'm trying, but I don't even...know where to start."
