(no subject)
Vampxas and Nottwilight again. Possibly but probably not future canon based fic.
Namine had heard he was back. She hadn’t seen him yet, but she’d heard from other people who knew him.
She was a little curious about why he hadn’t tried to find her yet. Didn’t he want his necklace back?
That was why she was fighting her fear today and going looking for him. She figured that the best place to look would be his room.
When she finally reached her destination, she hesitated at knocking on the door. She was still scared of him, and after what had happened the last time she’d seen him she had good reason to be. But, he’d felt guilty about it. Enough so that he willingly let his younger self kill him. Asked him to do it even. That had bothered her. More than she cared to admit. There was a part of her that wanted to confront him about it.
She took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.
A few moments passed before the door opened.
“…What do you want?
He was just wearing his pajama pants. She hadn’t had the nerve to look for him at night, so she must have woken him up.
“I want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
He moved to close the door in her face but she hurried to put her weight against it.
“Roxas! Just let me in!”
She grabbed the edge of the door and tried push it open but he was stronger than her.
“I’ll slam your fingers in the door, Namine.”
She glared, and quickly ducked under the arm holding the door and into his room.
The door slammed shut behind her. She turned back to look at him only to find him inches from her, his face angry.
“What do you want?!”
She flinched, but held her nerve, and reached up to take the necklace off before holding it out to him.
“I thought, you’d want your sister’s necklace back.”
This took him by surprise, and he backed off, before turning away.
“…Keep it. I don’t need it anymore.”
Namine blinked, frowning.
“…What do you mean? I thought this was special to you?”
He didn’t answer at first, just turned to glance at her, his eyes cold.
“…That necklace represents the last of my humanity. The part of me that still clung to my old life. I don’t need to do that anymore. So keep it.”
This surprised her even more, and she also felt a tiny stab of pain and regret.
“…So, that’s why, you gave it to me.”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Why did you think I gave it to you?”
She looked down, staring at the floor.
“…Well, you’re younger self said, that his sister, your sister, was the most important person in your world. And, he said that you wouldn’t give it to me unless I was important too…”
Roxas sighed and turned to face her again.
“Yeah. That’s why I gave it to you to look after. My human side doesn’t want to leave you. That necklace is basically all that remains of that part of me. So you keep it.”
He looked away again.
Namine bit her lip and looked up at him again.
“…You don’t need to give up on yourself, Roxas. You just…Lost control. You were doing really well before that. If you just-“
She didn’t finish. She couldn’t finish, considering Roxas’ fingers were wrapping around her throat. He wasn’t applying enough pressure to cut off her air, but it was definitely enough to scare her, especially when she saw the look on his face. He had gone from calm and cooperative to positively hateful in a second. She couldn’t even shake off the shock long enough to try to get him to let go of her throat.
“If I just what, Namine? What is it you want from me? You want me to play nice? Want to be friends with the vampire? Well too bad. I’m not that guy. I’m not human, Namine. I haven’t been for hundreds of years. And you go and keep asking me to defy my very nature. I can’t do it. I can’t play nice and I can’t be your friend. So quit asking.”
He didn’t loosen his grip on her throat. He just held her, almost unwilling to let go. He looked like he was waiting for an answer.
She bit her lip and took in a shaky breath, reaching up and taking hold of his wrist.
“…You’re wrong. You can be that guy. I’ve seen it. You’ve protected me, you stopped drinking my blood when I was scared of you, and you lived off of blood that tasted horrible to you. And before…When you nearly, turned me…You felt bad about it, didn’t you? You wanted to be punished for it. Why did you want to die for that?”
Her speech turned into a question. The real reason she had gone looking for him, though she hadn’t realized it at the time.
Roxas just watched her for a moment, before his expression calmed again and his hand loosened its grip and slid down to rest against her chest, where he could feel her heartbeat.
“Because I deserved it. I told myself that I would never turn anyone. I couldn’t control myself, but I remember what I was thinking. Even then, when I was little more than an animal, I didn’t want to let you go. I couldn’t let you die. Turning you would have stopped it.
It’s because of that human part of me, latching onto whatever makes me feel human again. The more time I spend with you, the stronger that part of me gets.”
He let his hand drop back to his side, and tilted his head back a bit, letting out a dry laugh.
“But no matter what happens, I’m not human, and I can’t ever be human. That part of me is dead. My mind just hasn’t completely caught up to that fact. My instincts will end up taking over again; I’ll drink your blood, or someone else’s. I’ll kill, I could rape someone, turn someone…Those are my primal instincts. Hunger, anger, arousal, and whatever twisted need I have to not be completely alone. It will happen, no matter how much I try to stop it.”
Namine just stared, shocked. She didn’t want to listen to this. That part of her that had grown to care about him was hurting just from what he’d already said, and he wasn’t stopping.
“It’s you, Namine. I feel human when I’m with you. I try to change, for you. You start to trust me, and then my true nature breaks free again and I hurt you again. It’s never going to end. If I keep trying to change who I am, I’ll just keep hurting you, and hurting me.”
He turned away from her at that last part. He hadn’t meant to say that, it had just slipped out. But it was the truth. She wasn’t the only one getting hurt in this relationship.
Namine didn’t move. She was frozen on the spot. She had never thought that he could be getting hurt from all this and she hated that she felt guilty for not realizing it earlier.
And worse, he had said that it was her. This all happened because of her trying to change him. Because he cared enough to try to change for her. The pain that pierced her then made her eyes sting with threatening tears.
…She swallowed the lump in her throat before trying to speak.
“..W-why didn’t you just get rid of me then? If I’m causing you so much trouble, why didn’t you just kill me in the first place?!”
Her pain turned to anger as she spoke, and she ended up yelling at him.
He turned on her so fast she almost didn’t see it. He grabbed her again, this time by the shoulders.
“Because I don’t want you dead! How many times do I have to say it before it gets through your thick skull?! I already killed the person I loved more than anything once before! I can’t do it again!”
He was shaking with anger, and didn’t even realize what he’d said until a few moments after he’d said it. And then he looked about as shocked as Namine did.
Namine was speechless. She tried to form words, but it took her several tries before she could get her mind working long enough to form a complete, and still shocked, sentence.
“…Y-you…You l-love…M-me?
He growled and let go of her shoulders before turning and stalking across the room. He ran his fingers through his hair, looking very much like he was about to pull his hair out by the roots, before he snapped and grabbed his desk chair and threw it at the wall. Namine gasped and jumped a little, backing away a bit in fear as Roxas slammed his fists down on his desk. The wood creaked under the force of the blow. Namine had never seen him actually lose his temper like this. And after everything he had said, she was a little surprised that he was managing to control himself enough not to turn his rage on her.
He gripped the edges of the desk, as if afraid if he let go that he really would attack her.
“Yes, Namine. I love you. I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for you. And do you have any idea how hard that is for me? You hate me! You’re scared of me! And with good reason! I’m a fucking monster! I deserve to be wiped off the face of the planet after everything I’ve done! I killed my own sister! And thousands more innocent people after that! And besides, a relationship would never work because despite your constant idiotic insistence that I’m capable of changing, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going to age and die. You will. And then I’m alone again!”
He let go of the desk, shoving it against the wall as he turned to face her.
“And on top of all that…You’d rather be with him...”
That last sentence wasn’t yelled like his previous rant, but it held more emotion. He sounded like just acknowledging the fact caused him physical pain. She could see it in his eyes. Everything he’d said, all those feelings, it was all true.
The tears that Namine had fought earlier finally spilled over. But he wasn’t finished yet. He walked past her to the door and opened it before turning back to her.
“You’d be doing both of us a favor if you just stayed out of my life. Now get out.”
She was shaking. It hurt to realize she had done just as much damage to his life as he had done to hers. Tears fell freely down her cheeks and she cringed when she heard herself sob. And yet, she didn’t move. She couldn’t. She was frozen again, from shock and horror and pain.
Roxas watched her shaking form, heard her sobs, and once again, he felt that human part of him ache.
He sighed and closed the door quietly before walking over and gently wrapping his arms around her from behind in a hug.
“…I’m sorry.”
She felt another stab of pain. He was sorry. After everything he’d just thrown at her, all the pain he’d told her she’d caused him, a few tears from her and he was apologizing. There were no words for how low she felt.
She turned in his arms and hugged him back, burying her face in his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Roxas. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He chuckled, resting his head lightly on top of hers.
“Isn’t that my line?”
She waited until the tears had slowed before she looked up at him.
“…I can’t fix this, Roxas. I can’t return your feelings..”
“I know.”
She swallowed. He sounded so accepting. After all that, he just accepted it so calmly. The sadness was still there though, but it was resigned, for now.
He reached up to wipe her remaining tears away with his thumb before resting his forehead against hers.
“But, it looks like I’ll still be here for you. Whether I want to be or not. Maybe this is my punishment.”
Her eyes prickled again.
“You don’t have to. You can let me go now. I won’t bother you again.”
He gave another dry laugh.
“No. I won’t be able to let you go. Not until the day you die. Perhaps, not even then.”
She closed her eyes, biting her lip. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to cause him this pain. She didn’t want to be his punishment.
She felt his hand under her chin, tilting her face up slightly. She felt his forehead leave hers as his face shifted its position to match hers. She knew what he was doing, and while she didn’t feel what he felt for her, she felt she should still give him this much at least.
He just brushed his lips against hers at first, but then he couldn’t hold it back and he kissed her deeply, and just for this moment, she kissed him back.