[OnePassingNight] AU Application
He doesn’t mind them, not really. And after all, in this place, this dreamscape belonging solely to him and his other, it can't be that bad, right?
Sora pushes open the doors of his half-formed city memories, stepping out into the perpetual sun. Just beyond the railing, the rest of the city sprawls out before him, a mishmash of an sleepy island town by the sea caught in perpetual sunset. This was physical space where they could both walk, both remember, both dream.
Which is why he's not surprised the mindscape is a mess after Xehanort's finished with it.
Most of the buildings are empty to begin with. But he knows if he strayed from the main road now, he’d find skeletons of buildings, beams and boards standing upright or twisted sideways, downwards, every which way, as if trying to close the vast gaps in its construction.
Roxas was somewhere down below in the sprawl of the city that belonged to him.
Waiting.
And so Sora wanders along empty streets, stepping over cracked cobblestones and avoiding black spots in on the path, knowing that any careless step might break something or leave cracks in the fabric of their memory. He ignores obnoxiously large gaps in the city blocks, and pieces of the trolley’s missing track. He ignores collapsed walls and piles of rubble and even the faceless shopkeepers in the stalls. Even the sun's position seems precarious, hanging in the sky on fragile strings of color that might snap any small tremor in their world.
Something stirs out of the corner of his vision, somewhere behind him, somewhere he's already passed. It stands like a phantom over the city: The skeleton of a clocktower.
There's movement there, at the highest platform, figures entirely out of place and faceless, muddy blurs of color so sad and decrepit looking that he wonders if it would be him or Roxas that would have to put them back together again.They sway urgently, trying to draw his eyes back, pulling his attention skyward with three youthful.. but still hollow voices. Sora resists.
He'd have to keep Roxas busy working on the city below so he could try and fix those particular ghosts, himself.
By the time he begins to see signs of repair, he's reached the Usual Spot. Roxas’s gentle touch has been left in places around the chained link fences and brickwork. The couch is clean. The ladder is upright. Posters hang in their spots. Inside, he can see that everything is... perfect. The way it should be.
But Roxas isn't here. So he moves on.
By the time he finds Roxas, he's passed the nameless forest outside the abandoned mansion. Roxas is there, resting at the foot of the gates of the mansion, looking like he's missed a week's worth of sleep. But when he hears the shuffle of Sora moving through the grass at the entrance of the woods, he turns with a soft smile. Sora hops over some holes in the earth and comes to Roxas's side. Soft words are coming from his mouth and Sora is puzzled: Who is he talking to?
Sora sees him turn his eyes back towards the gap between the towering walls that line the perimeter of the property. Suddenly, Roxas is holding up the massive front gate, featherlight and seemingly made of paper, trying to connect it into the fabric of their world to stand on its own. Sora understands and raises his hands too, fingers closing around cool metal. When Roxas lower his, Sora takes up the burden and holds it up, himself.
“Why this place first?” Sora wonders out loud. When the gate solidifies, Sora steps away from it, dusting off his hands. “Kinda thought maybe you’d start somewhere more…”
“Important?” Roxas wonders, sounding just as tired as he looks. “Every place is important.”
Sora peers at him thoughtfully, mulling over the words.
“This place is special, though.” Roxas said, and after some time.
Not as special as some others, Sora couldn’t help but think. The image of the swaying colors atop the clocktower hovered in the back of Sora’s thoughts.
“Is it?”
Roxas nods slowly, and replies simply, “Yeah. It’s where I met you.” And they're both quiet again, surveying their work.
“Saw the Usual Spot,” Sora replies conversationally. There's no outward reaction, but Sora can feel it. Roxas glowers inwardly at the thought, resurfacing memories laced with nostalgia and distant bitterness. Outwardly, he can hear a shuffling in the woods nearby. When he looks, he knows it was a shadow. Another one of those things he can’t quite remember, isn’t quite there, but keeps reminding him it is. The memory has already slipped away, out of sight. The only thing left are some falling leaves and a muffled twig snap further into the woods.
“You know, this place… Our connection… it’s not looking too good,” Roxas told him, placing a hand on the brick and watching as the vines creep up to their positions, the same place that Sora remembered seeing them when he first saw the mansion. “I never knew how bad things got until I saw this place."
Concern. Roxas could probably feel it radiating off Sora in waves, “It'll be okay. We just have to go back to where we've been before. We can fill in the blanks again,” Sora offers. Roxas watches him for a moment. Then he smiles.
“Don’t worry about too much, Sora. It's just me thinking,” he says, and he reaches forward to ruffle his hair. Roxas kneels on the ground, tending to a patch of flowers sickly and weakened by a patch of black earth nearby.And the memory that was here before creeps up, a tall, lanky shadow that stands behind them both.
A black blur of a hand falls on Sora's shoulder. He knows this is another shadow, but these hands have weight and they sit on his shoulders like they're trying to convince him they're real.
Roxas’s smile is a strange mix of nostalgic and chiding. “Don’t mess around with him.”
Then Sora realizes that Roxas isn’t talking to him but the shadow. The memory is still a blur, still as formless, but the colors were so deep and vivid that he swears it's conscious, thinking. it's as aware as him and Roxas. He and his other owned the world, but this one revels in it, moving like it owns the place. It was unashamed and guiltless and alive.
It takes Roxas walking past the two of them to remember that it's only a memory. When Sora turns around to look the memory in the eye, it's gone again. He stares down the empty woods, face drawn into a defiant glare, as if this shadow were the one fostering their doubts- even if in all reality, that same shadow was probably only there for company,
“If we work together, I'm sure we can fix it. No matter how broken it looks.”
Sora realizes that Roxas is waiting at the edge of the clearing, and he forgets the moment he catches up with Roxas.
“Yeah. I know." Roxas says, and they move into town to mend the voids, supposedly irreparable damage."Come on. Let’s finish this.”
The part of Twilight Town that was sleeping began to stir. Three shadows on the skeleton clocktower flicker, clearer than they've been in a long time.
Voice sample:
THREAD - musebox "13 meters" with lockandkeyblade and vacationisalie - an example of their relationship at Twilight Town.
THREAD - musebox "13 meters" with lockandkeyblade , turntodarkness and vacationisalie - In which Sora and Roxas deal with Xehanort's heartless.
Sora pushes open the doors of his half-formed city memories, stepping out into the perpetual sun. Just beyond the railing, the rest of the city sprawls out before him, a mishmash of an sleepy island town by the sea caught in perpetual sunset. This was physical space where they could both walk, both remember, both dream.
Which is why he's not surprised the mindscape is a mess after Xehanort's finished with it.
Most of the buildings are empty to begin with. But he knows if he strayed from the main road now, he’d find skeletons of buildings, beams and boards standing upright or twisted sideways, downwards, every which way, as if trying to close the vast gaps in its construction.
Roxas was somewhere down below in the sprawl of the city that belonged to him.
Waiting.
And so Sora wanders along empty streets, stepping over cracked cobblestones and avoiding black spots in on the path, knowing that any careless step might break something or leave cracks in the fabric of their memory. He ignores obnoxiously large gaps in the city blocks, and pieces of the trolley’s missing track. He ignores collapsed walls and piles of rubble and even the faceless shopkeepers in the stalls. Even the sun's position seems precarious, hanging in the sky on fragile strings of color that might snap any small tremor in their world.
Something stirs out of the corner of his vision, somewhere behind him, somewhere he's already passed. It stands like a phantom over the city: The skeleton of a clocktower.
There's movement there, at the highest platform, figures entirely out of place and faceless, muddy blurs of color so sad and decrepit looking that he wonders if it would be him or Roxas that would have to put them back together again.They sway urgently, trying to draw his eyes back, pulling his attention skyward with three youthful.. but still hollow voices. Sora resists.
He'd have to keep Roxas busy working on the city below so he could try and fix those particular ghosts, himself.
By the time he begins to see signs of repair, he's reached the Usual Spot. Roxas’s gentle touch has been left in places around the chained link fences and brickwork. The couch is clean. The ladder is upright. Posters hang in their spots. Inside, he can see that everything is... perfect. The way it should be.
But Roxas isn't here. So he moves on.
By the time he finds Roxas, he's passed the nameless forest outside the abandoned mansion. Roxas is there, resting at the foot of the gates of the mansion, looking like he's missed a week's worth of sleep. But when he hears the shuffle of Sora moving through the grass at the entrance of the woods, he turns with a soft smile. Sora hops over some holes in the earth and comes to Roxas's side. Soft words are coming from his mouth and Sora is puzzled: Who is he talking to?
Sora sees him turn his eyes back towards the gap between the towering walls that line the perimeter of the property. Suddenly, Roxas is holding up the massive front gate, featherlight and seemingly made of paper, trying to connect it into the fabric of their world to stand on its own. Sora understands and raises his hands too, fingers closing around cool metal. When Roxas lower his, Sora takes up the burden and holds it up, himself.
“Why this place first?” Sora wonders out loud. When the gate solidifies, Sora steps away from it, dusting off his hands. “Kinda thought maybe you’d start somewhere more…”
“Important?” Roxas wonders, sounding just as tired as he looks. “Every place is important.”
Sora peers at him thoughtfully, mulling over the words.
“This place is special, though.” Roxas said, and after some time.
Not as special as some others, Sora couldn’t help but think. The image of the swaying colors atop the clocktower hovered in the back of Sora’s thoughts.
“Is it?”
Roxas nods slowly, and replies simply, “Yeah. It’s where I met you.” And they're both quiet again, surveying their work.
“Saw the Usual Spot,” Sora replies conversationally. There's no outward reaction, but Sora can feel it. Roxas glowers inwardly at the thought, resurfacing memories laced with nostalgia and distant bitterness. Outwardly, he can hear a shuffling in the woods nearby. When he looks, he knows it was a shadow. Another one of those things he can’t quite remember, isn’t quite there, but keeps reminding him it is. The memory has already slipped away, out of sight. The only thing left are some falling leaves and a muffled twig snap further into the woods.
“You know, this place… Our connection… it’s not looking too good,” Roxas told him, placing a hand on the brick and watching as the vines creep up to their positions, the same place that Sora remembered seeing them when he first saw the mansion. “I never knew how bad things got until I saw this place."
Concern. Roxas could probably feel it radiating off Sora in waves, “It'll be okay. We just have to go back to where we've been before. We can fill in the blanks again,” Sora offers. Roxas watches him for a moment. Then he smiles.
“Don’t worry about too much, Sora. It's just me thinking,” he says, and he reaches forward to ruffle his hair. Roxas kneels on the ground, tending to a patch of flowers sickly and weakened by a patch of black earth nearby.And the memory that was here before creeps up, a tall, lanky shadow that stands behind them both.
A black blur of a hand falls on Sora's shoulder. He knows this is another shadow, but these hands have weight and they sit on his shoulders like they're trying to convince him they're real.
Roxas’s smile is a strange mix of nostalgic and chiding. “Don’t mess around with him.”
Then Sora realizes that Roxas isn’t talking to him but the shadow. The memory is still a blur, still as formless, but the colors were so deep and vivid that he swears it's conscious, thinking. it's as aware as him and Roxas. He and his other owned the world, but this one revels in it, moving like it owns the place. It was unashamed and guiltless and alive.
It takes Roxas walking past the two of them to remember that it's only a memory. When Sora turns around to look the memory in the eye, it's gone again. He stares down the empty woods, face drawn into a defiant glare, as if this shadow were the one fostering their doubts- even if in all reality, that same shadow was probably only there for company,
“If we work together, I'm sure we can fix it. No matter how broken it looks.”
Sora realizes that Roxas is waiting at the edge of the clearing, and he forgets the moment he catches up with Roxas.
“Yeah. I know." Roxas says, and they move into town to mend the voids, supposedly irreparable damage."Come on. Let’s finish this.”
The part of Twilight Town that was sleeping began to stir. Three shadows on the skeleton clocktower flicker, clearer than they've been in a long time.
Voice sample:
THREAD - musebox "13 meters" with lockandkeyblade and vacationisalie - an example of their relationship at Twilight Town.
THREAD - musebox "13 meters" with lockandkeyblade , turntodarkness and vacationisalie - In which Sora and Roxas deal with Xehanort's heartless.