oo5.

[twilightfell]

[Roxas has been running for three days now. He's shown up on the network now and then, but not for very long -- just a burst of light and a new surrounding before another plunge into darkness, flashes of him running all over the ship before his Sphere flicks off again

Comments

[redpaperfan]

[ Sasuke briefly looks up from his sudoku puzzle book. ]

Your ears will thank you, later.

[twilightfell]

.. that would be the point.

[he's just lounging around in the total dark. light is for sissies.]

So what's the catch to all this? It can't be as easy as sitting in the dark for a few days, or however long we're stuck here.

[redpaperfan]

Meals twice daily and a voice attacking every insecurity you possibly could have in the wee hours of the morning. Primitive, but effective, means of creating unease. Nothing much more than that.

[ Flips the page; next puzzle, please. ]

[twilightfell]

[there's silence for a moment, then a ragged laugh rings out in the dark.] Psychological torture. They're trying .. they're torturing us. This can't be happening.

[redpaperfan]

[ A look that is almost of empathy, for a brief moment, but really, you can't expect everyone to be a ninja. Though it would be nice. ] Save the denial for when the voice starts talking.

[ Sasuke pauses, then shrugs. Sharing a little advice, or opinion, won't get him killed. He's in a cell, for goodness sakes. ]

You might want someone to bring you a source of light. It helps.

[twilightfell]

... I'm not worried about me. I don't have a heart. I can't care. It's ... [trails off, his voice tight]

I don't need light. I don't care. I was born in darkness. I'm made of darkness. I just -- damnit. How many people is this going to happen to?

[redpaperfan]

[ Sasuke thinks your whole reality is a crock of fairy-tale shit. ]

You say you can't care, and then sound like an tightly-strung bow when you ask how many more people might end up like you. Even I find that hard to swallow.

[twilightfell]

... that's the irony of a Nobody, you know. We don't feel emotions. But we can feel pain. And pain goes with fear. It goes with guilt. The more I would feel those, if I had a heart .. there's just the pain.

And if I could be, I would be terrified. Not for my own sake. But I can't. I can't even feel that! [his laugh is strange and painful] It just hurts.

[redpaperfan]

[ He looks at Roxas like he's crazy. It's not hard, really. It's the sort of look Sasuke usually wears, only with a bit more disdain thrown in. ]

As logical as that all is to you, all I'm hearing is that you're afraid, because you understand what being afraid means, and that it hurts. As the poet says, "I ache for you." If pain, physical or otherwise, weren't it's own emotion, it wouldn't define so many of them so well. Like the irony of your kind. Nobodies, hn? A whole class of somebodies who call themselves nobodies, who only feel pain. Who don't have hearts, unless they take one. Whose motivation should be limited to what doesn't cause pain. Of course you've all got minds, too, but in your poetic worlds that only means you've enough presence of thought to reflect back on what you don't have. It's brilliant, really. You're born, and you feel pain. You're humanity, simplified. The worst kind of soldier, because you should have been the best kind.

[ Sasuke's glad his headache from yesterday is gone. This would have

[twilightfell]

... there is a hole in my chest, Sasuke. Just a big, empty hole where my heart should be. I could even show you, sometime. If you cut me, I don't bleed. I have no blood. All that comes out of me is darkness.

I can't explain it. No one ever has. Nobodies are things that were never meant to exist in the first place.

[he's silent, for a time, mulling Sasuke's reaction over in the dark.]

You wanna know why I'm so high-strung? They imprisoned Sora. He's my Other, my Somebody. The reason I exist. And I don't know what I'll do if they break him.

[redpaperfan]

[ Sasuke is not impressed, but he's... feeling his own asshattery. It's not Roxas - it's himself. ]

I can believe that no one can explain it.

[ He's politely holding commentary on everything else, before that comment. He takes his own time mulling over Roxas's end statement. His eyes soften briefly, then look a bit distant. ]

You'll pick him up, and help him put himself back together. If he's the reason you exist, you will do whatever you have to do to bring him back to you.

[twilightfell]

... [just .. stares. he knows, of course. his real fear is that he'll break and take Sora down with him. but he tightens his jaw and nods -- then, realizing he has no idea if Sasuke can even see him, bites out a single word] Yeah.

[redpaperfan]

[ He could, if not well, and so he appreciates the vocalization. his comment is unrelated to Roxas's fears; he doesn't suspect Roxas to have the fear about breaking down. He does, however, know a little of what happened when Sasuke had, apparently, broken first. He hopes he never has to meet that other self. ]

Just try not to break before he does.

[twilightfell]

Ha.

[the wretched, sharp sound escapes him before he can stop it, and he stays silent for a second after it rings out.]

I'll make sure of that.