Title: A Drift in a World.
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts 2
Warnings: None.
Characters/couples: Roxas, Axel, mentions of Demyx.
Summary: If you have to pretend, make it so that even you believe it to be true.
Rating: PG.
Notes: Written for
springkink: Kingdom Hearts 2, Axel/Roxas: Admitting Jealousy - All about Demyx -- ”I can’t help but envy him.”
A Drift in a World.
Oh yes, I'm the great pretender
A drift in a world of my own
I play the game; but to my real shame
You've let me to dream all alone.
Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can't conceal.
"The Great Pretender", The Platters.
He feels Axel stare at him, as if waiting for something else. Roxas doesn't turn to look at him, though, eyes still on the way the Dancers move and turn. There's something off with Demyx' music but he's not sure what. Still, it doesn't seem to bother the Dancers and they sync their moves to the beat.
“You're serious,” Axel says after a while. He sounds surprised.
“When do I ever say something I don't mean?” Roxas cocks his head to a side, frowning a little. He's quite certain he hasn't heard the song before; Demyx rarely plays the exact same song two times, as if something was wrong with the way he plays them and he can't quite figure it out. Still, Roxas is almost certain he has heard it before. Before he can ponder about that, Axel talks again.
“Why?” Incredulity.
Roxas shrugs. “He's happy.”
“No, no, Roxas. He pretends he's happy.” Axel shakes his head and stretches, moves a hand in front of him to gesture. “Trust me; after the way he fought when he first arrived here, I can swear he's not.”
Roxas shrugs again, keeps his eyes for another moment on where Demyx plays for his Dancers and the song that is almost familiar before he turns to look towards Axel.
“So?”
“... so it's not real.” He looks at Axel from the corner of his eye and Axel looks at him as if he was crazy. “Sheeze, did you hit your head or something?”
“We're not real either,” Roxas deadpans. Axel's been sticking around him enough that there's no apparent change on his expression or hands, almost as if he expected that already. It makes him frown a little before he continues. “You're always saying things like having fun or feeling. Isn't that pretending?”
Axel grins in a way that almost makes Roxas call for his keyblades. It's the way Axel grins when he's in a fight, when they practice, when he asks him to come with him to defeat Heartless. He doesn't get it.
“It's different with me, Roxas because I'm special like that.” He shrugs, moving his hands again. Then he looks at him, raising an eyebrow. “Besides. You get annoyed when I say that kind of stuff.”
“That's because you're obnoxious about it,” Roxas mutters. He adds; “And I don't think you believe what you say, more like you say it just to cause a reaction.”
“Ouch! Straight to the heart!”
He looks at Axel, eyebrows raised, knowing that what he said has been confirmed. Axel still has the same dangerous grin on his face, though, the look in his eyes strange. It's as unfamiliar as the song Demyx keeps on playing, and it has the same strength behind it. He doesn't get many of these moments, but when he does they're always annoying, something that he can't just manage to grasp.
He stops looking at Demyx and looks directly at Axel, shrugging again.
“I think he makes himself believe he's happy.”
“So you want that? A lie that seems honest? If you have to pretend, make it so that even you believe it to be true?”
Roxas rolls his eyes before walking back inside. Axel falls unto step with him easy enough, Demyx' song trailing behind them.
“It has to be better than 'nothing'.”