fic: How Everyone Started Sleeping Together (1/3ish)
How Everyone Started Sleeping Together
Summary: Sora didn't mean for things to get so complicated so fast. Mostly, he blames Roxas. Post-KH2, ignores KH3D because I haven't finished 3D yet.
Pairings: Sora/Riku/Kairi + Sora/Riku/Roxas + Roxas/Axel + and all subsets thereof.
Warnings: Weird consent issues arising from people sharing bodies (no actual dubcon or noncon in my opinion, but read at your own risk).
Chapter 1: A Start
Sora had almost forgotten what it was like to be really warm. Not that he'd been cold, most of the time, on his journeys- but there was a difference between not-cold and warm. It was the difference between the sunshine on worlds like Hollow Bastion and on his own world. The sunshine was weaker in other worlds. At night, they got chilly. Even Agrabah had gotten cold at night, for all that it had been blazingly hot during the day. But Destiny Islands was soaked in sunshine, every grain of sand absolutely saturated with it, and now that he was home again, it was hard to see how darkness had ever managed to take it.
He spent the first week back on the islands- after the horrible first day when he'd had to explain to his parents where he'd been for the past two or three years- just sitting in the sunshine and napping like a cat. Sometimes he woke up in the same place, and sometimes he drifted back to consciousness to find himself sitting on the edge of the dock, staring off at the sunset, or inside the Secret Place, looking at the door to the heart of the world and leaning on the cool stone walls.
Sorry, Roxas always muttered, when Sora caught him doing something- anything. And then he vanished to somewhere in Sora's mind, like a ghost or something.
"It's okay," Sora always said, "I don't mind. You don't have to go." But if Roxas could even hear him, he never responded.
It was a little weird, to realize Roxas could do things while Sora was sleeping, but not too weird. After all, Roxas was part of Sora. He deserved a share of Sora's life, didn't he? But
Roxas didn't seem to share that opinion, because he kept disappearing when Sora needed to talk to him.
After that first week of sunshine and napping, Sora got restless. He'd never been bored at home before, and he wouldn't exactly say he was bored now, either- but he couldn't quite stay still.
He was supposed to be catching up on classes, studying from Kairi's notes and books. School was going to start up again in a few weeks, and he'd missed over two years of it, fighting evil. He had to work hard if he didn't want to be left behind a year without Kairi- Riku was a year ahead of them, so there was no hope there, but Sora wasn't going to be the last one to graduate. But he'd never been very good at concentrating on books unless they were about pirates or adventures, and when he tried to read about algebra instead, he ended up tapping his foot and doodling in the margins of his book instead.
"Stop that," Roxas said, using Sora's own mouth, after Sora had been foot-tapping and margin-doodling for a good thirty minutes. "You're really irritating sometimes."
It was disconcerting to have his mouth talking without his go-ahead, especially when it was insulting him.
Sora stopped tapping his foot. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't realize it was bothering you."
Roxas sighed.
Ten minutes later, when Sora had grown bored of math yet again, his foot abruptly stopped tapping of its own accord and refused to tap any more.
"Sorry," Sora said again.
"You know," Roxas said. "You'd probably have more luck if you tried to do some practice problems. Reading math books is really dull."
"I don't know how to do them, though," Sora said. "Not until I read the book."
"I'll show you," Roxas said.
And he did, walking Sora through each problem until Sora could do them on his own. He was good at explaining things so that Sora could understand them. Which made sense,
Sora supposed, since Roxas was part of him.
"How do you know all of this?" Sora asked after they'd powered their way through three chapters in one go. "You didn't study when you were... you know. With the Organization. Did you?"
"Fake memories are good for something," Roxas said.
That was all the talking that Sora could get him to do for the rest of the day.
When Sora wasn't studying with Roxas, he went to the beach with Riku and Kairi. They shared a paopu fruit with each other, all three of them, because if their destinies were entwined, maybe they would never lose each other again. At the very least, maybe they would always find each other again.
One night, they climbed on to Riku's roof and watched the stars. There were a lot more of them now than there had been before they left. A lot of worlds had been restored.
Now he understood what it meant, when people said that there were so many stars that they couldn't be counted.
It's pretty, isn't it?
Yeah, Roxas said. It is.
And Sora thought that maybe one day he'd like to go see them all again. He had a lot of friends out there, after all.
He took Kairi's hand, and Riku's, and held them, and neither of them protested.
This time, they'd all go together. They'd have time to look around. The worlds were safe now. They'd have lots of time. All the time in the worlds.
About a week before school started, Sora's mom made Sora go out and buy new clothes. There were uniforms to get for school, of course, but she also made him get clothes for wearing around every day.
This, Sora supposed, was fair. He only had the one outfit, and it was getting pretty gross without Donald's magic to keep it clean, even if it had been made by magical fairies on another world.
His mom didn't seem to have grasped that he was a lot taller now than when he'd last been at home. She kept grabbing the wrong sizes for him to try. And then when he'd finally found something that fit right, and looked okay, Roxas would interrupt with a you're going to wear that?
If Sora had known clothes shopping was the way to get Roxas to speak up more, he might have gone sooner. Of course, if he'd known Roxas was going to be this annoying about it, he might have put it off even longer.
In the end, Sora ended up with a pile of clothes for him, and a pile for Roxas. The Roxas pile looked okay, though it tended towards monochrome 'Okay' was about as far as Sora was willing to go. But Sora still wanted to make sure Roxas had a share in his life, and it meant that Sora had enough clothes to last a while, so whatever.
The next day, Sora had to take a placement test to make sure he was actually ready for school, after missing the past few years. Sora was a little worried about it, but he figured that Roxas had helped him enough that he couldn't fail it even if he messed up a couple of questions on the math- which was definitely his weakest subject.
Sora's mom smiled when she saw Sora in his school uniform, and Sora smiled back. In that moment, he couldn't see how anything could possibly go wrong. He was home, surrounded by family and friends.
And then he went to school and sat in a stuffy un-air-conditioned room with a teacher old enough to be his grandmother, and started the test.
With all the fear he'd faced over the past few years, he would have thought he'd be used to it by now. But the second the test was put in front of him, he froze up.
How was he supposed to solve a quadratic equation? Ten minutes ago, he'd known. But now, staring at the sheet with the variables lined up in front of him, he was as clueless as he had been before he'd started studying.
Honestly, Roxas said, in the back of his head. He sounded irritated
His pencil started moving, and solutions bloomed across the page.
Thank you, Sora said, and tried not to look surprised.
He got a passing grade on the test. The teacher grading it gave him a suspicious look, but said nothing about the fact that Sora's handwriting was slightly different on the math portion than on the rest of the test. After all, she'd been sitting right there as Sora took it. It wasn't like anyone could tell that he had sort of been cheating.
Do you want to do math class? Sora asked, mostly joking.
Roxas was silent. Sora took that to mean he didn't think Sora was very funny.
Sorry, Sora started to say, but Roxas interrupted him.
I'd like that, he finally said.
So Roxas was clearly insane, but since Sora was the one with another person living in his head, he felt that it was better not to point fingers. Plus, Roxas' particular brand of insanity meant that Sora didn't have to do math. Which was sort of cheating, Sora supposed, but then again, Roxas was part of him, so it was almost like doing the work himself.
Riku had been forced to take a placement exam, too, but Sora assumed that he'd pass with flying colors. Riku had always been smart, after all. Smarter than Sora. He'd never even had to work hard at school the way Sora did. He'd just flipped through the book an hour before the exam and gotten A's without trying, no matter what class it was. There was no way he was going to fail.
Riku seemed in a good mood when he came out of his exam, a few minutes after Sora had come out of his.
"It went well?" Sora asked.
"Great," Riku said, with a strange smile.
They all went out for ice cream to celebrate. There was still a week left of summer, and it was time to make the most of it.
He's hiding something, Roxas said, as they ate. Can't you tell?
You just don't like him, Sora said.
He did force me into a virtual reality and make Namine erase all my memories, Roxas pointed out.
Oh. Right.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
I don't blame him, Roxas said, after a moment. I would have done the same thing. If it were Axel who needed to wake up.
The mention of Axel hurt. Sora wasn't sure if that was his own pain- the guilt of someone dying for him- or if it was Roxas' pain, spilling over. Either way, it was pretty bad.
"Are you okay, Sora?" Kairi asked. "You look kind of sad."
"Huh? Oh, I'm fine. Just thinking."
Riku smirked a little. "That's a first."
Sora made a face at him, and Kairi giggled, and Sora forgot all about whatever Riku might or might not have been hiding.
On the first day of school, Sora walked into math class fully prepared to zone out and let Roxas do all the work. And then he caught sight of Riku.
"What," Sora asked, "are you doing in my math class?"
Riku leaned back in his chair. "It's my math class, too. Apparently I didn't do well on the placement test after all. They're holding me back a grade. Guess I'm stuck with you and Kairi." He gave Sora that smile again, the one that meant he was hiding something.
"You flunked it on purpose," Roxas said. "I knew it."
Sora tried not to look too surprised that Roxas was talking. Roxas hadn't talked to Riku before. Or to anyone, for that matter, other than Sora.
Riku shrugged. "So?"
"So," Sora said, "what about your future? And... college, and things? Aren't you worried about all of that?"
"I don't plan on going to college," Riku said, voice low. "I mean, missing two years of school probably means I can't get in anywhere anyway. What am I going to say when they ask what I was doing? 'Sorry, I was busy being seduced by the powers of darkness?' Besides, you know none of us are going to have time for that. I'm surprised we've had this much time without the worlds being in some kind of danger."
"What kind of danger is left?" Sora asked, trying to be quiet so that the other students didn't hear him. "We beat Xehanort's Heartless and Nobody. I think the worlds are safe."
Riku shrugged. "I just have a bad feeling, that's all."
"A bad feeling?" Kairi said, from behind Sora. Sora turned. "A bad feeling about what? And what are you doing in this class, anyway?"
"Everyone, take your seats," the teacher said, from the front of the class.
"We can talk about it later," Riku said.
Kairi nodded. "I'll hold you to that."
Sora sat down and let Roxas take over.
Do you want to go to college? Sora asked Roxas.
He got a sort of feeling back from Roxas that was like the mental equivalent of a shrug. It's your life, he said, while jotting down notes.
You're sharing it, Sora pointed out. You have as much right to decide as I do.
Maybe that was going a little too fast for Roxas, who had, after all, refused to do so much as talk until a few weeks ago. Roxas didn't respond for a while. Then again, maybe he was just busy taking notes. It seemed this math teacher was determined not to waste any time while teaching them pre-calculus, even if it meant lecturing for the entire first class.
College might be nice, Roxas said, finally. I'd never really thought about it before. Except- you know. When I wasn't really myself.
When he'd been living a fake life, in a fake world, he meant. When he'd never heard of a Heartless or a Nobody, and all his worries were about his normal life that was slowly unraveling. They never talked about those times, but Sora had dreamed about them enough to know what Roxas was thinking about.
Sora wasn't very good yet at figuring out which questions would make Roxas hurt. Someday maybe he'd get better at it.
The rest of math passed uneventfully. Between classes, Riku had to explain to Kairi that he had failed the placement test. She frowned at that, and said, "Honestly, Riku, it's not like we won't all get to spend time together after school and between classes."
Riku shrugged. "It's not like it matters. School is just a way to pass the time. It doesn't affect our futures at all."
And that was all that he would talk about the subject.
Sora wasn't sure whether he agreed with Riku or not. It didn't seem like there was any logical reason to think the worlds would be in danger again. The thing about saving the world was, it was supposed to stay saved. But Sora had a bad feeling when he thought about it. Like he'd forgotten something important, but couldn't even remember what it was. Like maybe the worlds were still in danger, and he just didn't know why.
Well. King Mickey would tell them, if he figured that they needed to go out and fight evil again. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but keep practicing against each other with their keyblades, and to do as well as possible in school, even if math and history and things did seem a little bit irrelevant to someone who could pull weapons out of midair.
Over the next week or two, Sora and Roxas quickly fell into a pattern. First was math class. Roxas actually liked math, which was utterly strange but also really convenient, so Sora sort of retreated to the back of his mind at the beginning of class, and Roxas took over. Sora half-paid attention, but math was so dull that he could barely do that.
After that came the literature class that both of them were more or less indifferent towards. Sora did that class, because at least sometimes they did dramatic readings of things, and that was fun. After that was history- also Sora's. History was interesting enough that he didn't nod off in it, though he had trouble remembering the dates.
(Roxas remembered them despite not paying attention, which was lucky for Sora- he could just ask Roxas whenever he needed one.)
He had a chemistry class too, and he'd expected that he wouldn't like it. It was a lot of numbers, after all. But it made sense in a way that math didn't on its own, and as a bonus he got to blow things up sometimes. He and Roxas both liked it, so they both paid attention, and fought for control of their mouth.
Lunchtime was for hanging out with Kairi and Riku. That was always Sora. He'd offered to let Roxas hang out, too, but Roxas didn't seem to want to.
They all had the latest lunch period, and there were only two classes after that. PE was a challenge, because no one else could glide through the air or jump twice their height, and after two years fighting with magically enhanced abilities, Sora had trouble remembering not to do things that were obviously not physically possible. Roxas ended up taking over just because he was marginally better at pretending to be normal.
After that was a home ec. class. Sora had wanted to take a computer class, because after hanging out with Tron, computers seemed really cool. But unfortunately that class had been full, and this was the only other one that had fit his schedule.
He'd offered it to Roxas, hopefully, and Roxas had just laughed at him. But then it turned out that they made cupcakes in home ec, and Sora had decided that he liked it after all, even if Selphie had laughed at him when he first walked into class.
Between the two of them, they got good grades, which was awesome because Sora had always been a sort of mediocre student before. His mom seemed a little less worried about him now, and his dad had given him a nod of approval when his first test scores started to come in.
Things were pretty nice.
After school, he walked around the island with Riku and Kairi. Usually they practiced with the keyblades for a while, until they were sore and tired and grinning. Sometimes Roxas took a turn, but Sora had to hold him back- Roxas sometimes lost himself, a little, fighting. Not when he was sparring with Kairi- he was always gentle enough with her- but when he faced Riku he was too aggressive. Sora wasn't sure what it was- if he forgot that it was just a practice, or if he wasn't as sure about Riku's boundaries, or if he just felt like beating something up and Riku was the only one available- but he seemed half-determined to beat Riku to a pulp, pulling out both keyblades and attacking without much concern for Riku's or his own safety.
Sora always took over again before Riku could notice, forcing Roxas abruptly to the back of his mind to cool off.
What's the matter with you? Sora asked, the first time it happened.
Roxas responded with nothing but sullen silence, which Sora soon learned was Roxas' way of saying he didn't want to talk about it.
Other than that, though, things were fine.
Afternoons, Riku and Sora went to the play island. Kairi usually met up with them, but she was late more often than not, since she was actually involved in clubs after school. Sora was never sure whether he should be trying to join more clubs or not. It would make his mom happier if he were more involved in life on the islands. But then again, Sora didn't want to have any commitments if he had to leave again suddenly. He didn't want to leave anyone in the lurch.
And any clubs he joined would mean less time to spend with Kairi and Riku.
Maybe it was unhealthy, to spend every free moment with them. But Sora didn't care. He'd spent too long separated from them. In a while- a year or two- he could worry about whether they were spending too much time together. Now was still the time for catching up, for being together every moment.
Today, they were sitting together on the bent-up old paopu tree on the play island. Riku was a little too quiet, so Sora filled the silence with chatter.
"Sometimes I really don't like school," he told Riku, after moaning about his less-than-stellar score on his literature essay. "It was hard fighting Heartless and rescuing people, but at least I wasn't graded on it."
Sora usually complained to Roxas, not Riku, but since Roxas tended to snap at him after five minutes, that wasn't a lot of fun.
"Join the club," Riku said. "There was a reason I wanted to leave this place. What use is school to us? We're Keyblade Masters. Someday the worlds will be threatened again and we'll have to save them. We're wasting our time here."
"Then why do you stay?" Sora asked. "We could go travel the worlds. Fight some Heartless. It would be fun."
Sora was having fun here, too. He didn't mind school when he and Roxas could split the work. Maybe that was Riku's problem- he didn't have a Roxas to do the parts that any sane person thought were boring.
"You and Kairi are happy here," Riku said, hopping off his side of the branch. "That's what matters."
Sora didn't like the way Riku said that, as if it were the end of the conversation.
"You matter, too," he pointed out. But Riku was already walking away.
Over the next few days, Sora tried very hard to think of all the things that made him want to stay on Destiny Islands.
There were all of his friends, of course. Not just Riku and Kairi, but Tidus and Selphie and Wakka, too. And there were his parents, who loved him and wanted what was best for him even if they did sometimes still look at him like the past two years had made him into a stranger.
But then he thought about all his other friends, on other worlds, and how at-home he'd felt just about everywhere he'd gone. And when he thought that maybe there was nothing special about his world- that maybe he'd be just as happy somewhere else- he felt like gravity had momentarily slipped away, and he might go flying off the surface of the world into the sky.
If that was how Riku felt all the time, it was no wonder he wanted to the end of all the thinking, Sora still wasn't sure what made him want to stay here, other than the warmth of the sunlight, which wasn't quite the same as that on any other world. And how was he supposed to make Riku feel that?
No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't. There was just no way. So Sora was just going to have to hope that he and Kairi were enough to make Riku stay. And to remember that they could always chase Riku down again if he left.
Sora's hair started growing out the wrong color.
"Your roots are blond," Riku pointed out one lunch. "It looks really weird, like you're going bald or something."
"Huh?" Sora said, and Kairi pulled a little mirror out of her bag to show him.
"Huh," he'd said again, pulling at one spike of hair and examining the roots. "That's weird."
It's probably something to do with me, Roxas said. It's the same color as mine.
That color was natural? Sora asked. I thought you must have bleached it.
No, Roxas said, voice annoyed. Why would I do that?The roots started looking kind of weird after another week or two, when they were more visible. So Sora bought a bottle of hair bleach and did the rest of it to match (with Roxas' help, since Roxas actually read instructions, unlike Sora). His mom almost had a heart attack when she saw.
"You had such nice hair," she said with a moan.
Sora considered trying to explain about his hair growing out that color anyway, and decided that it would probably take a stupid amount of convincing. So he just shrugged and grinned, until she rolled her eyes at him and left him alone, murmuring something about teenagers and rebellion.
He looked kind of dumb with the huge hair and the blondness- he looked like he was trying to be Cloud, only he couldn't pull it off- so he got a haircut, too. He went to school the next day, and Riku gave him the weirdest look.
"You look like Roxas," he said, and Sora took another good look in a mirror.
We sort of do, Roxas said. There was an edge to his voice, as though he wasn't quite sure if Sora would be okay with it.It's just hair, Sora told him, unperturbed. He kind of liked the hair. It looked cool. He'd liked his old hair, too, but he had to admit it had been sort of a mess. And if he looked like Roxas, that didn't matter. Part of him was Roxas, after all.
Roxas spent entirely too long every morning styling it. Sora mostly just faded to the back of their mind and slept in while Roxas messed with hair gel and a comb, and didn't wake up until after they were at school and done with math.
Sora had always walked to school with Riku, because they lived near each other. Presumably Roxas was doing the same. Since Sora slept, he wasn't sure what they talked about.
Lunch times were still Sora's, though. Riku kept giving him weird looks, but Roxas didn't say why. Probably it wasn't a big deal.
Roxas seemed, if not happier, then calmer, these days. Before, Sora had kept getting little flashes of pain from that side of his heart, and he'd had no idea how to comfort Roxas.
But now, the pain had subsided, and instead there were flashes of guilt.
Sora was pretty sure he knew what that was about- Roxas was alive, and Axel and the rest of the Organization weren't. Sora wasn't exactly a genius at psychology or anything, but he knew about survivor's guilt. And it had to be ten times worse because it was pretty much Sora's fault that all of them were gone, and Roxas was part of Sora. Sora wasn't sure how to make Roxas feel better. Mostly he just kept quiet and tried to let Roxas sort through things. But there were times he couldn't stay quiet.
For example, Roxas doodled while he took notes, just like Sora did. Sora tended to doodle little keyblades and Heartless. He wasn't good at it. His doodles were just that- doodles. But Roxas was actually really good at drawing- Sora wondered if that was something to do with being a Nobody, or if it was unique to Roxas and Namine. Roxas drew Axel's face, for one thing, in startlingly realistic detail.
You miss him, Sora said, when he saw that, doodled on the side of the lab notes they were taking.
He was my best friend, Roxas said. But there was something else he wasn't saying. Not a lie, not exactly- Sora was pretty sure they couldn't lie to each other- but an omission.
I'm sorry, Sora said. I would have saved him if I could. I never wanted anyone to get hurt. Not for me.
Call it what it was, Roxas said. He didn't 'get hurt.' He died.
There was rage there, and a that weird guilt again. And then Roxas' too-tight grip snapped the beaker he was holding, a splinter of glass jabbing into Sora's hand. Everyone stared at him.
"Sorry," Sora muttered, and grabbed a broom, hiding the fact that his hand was bleeding. A spell would fix that a lot faster than a bandage, and it would be better to just take care of it on his own later, when no one was watching.
Sora didn't ask any more questions about Axel that day. He'd gotten used to Roxas being pretty mellow over the past week. It was sad to see him so upset again.
Kairi fussed over Sora in between classes- "You're still bleeding, Sora-" and then Sora snuck off to the bathroom and used a quick little cure spell to fix his hand. If anyone noticed the weird flash of green light from the stall he ducked into, they didn't mention it to Sora.
"Is anything the matter?" Riku asked, when he sat down at their table for lunch. "What was up with the thing in chemistry this morning?"
Sora shrugged. "I don't know. I held it too tightly. That's all."
Riku gave him a weird look. "You seemed really angry. It takes a lot to get you that way."
It did. But it didn't really take all that much to piss off Roxas, as far as Sora could tell. Which was weird, because weren't they supposed to be basically the same person?
"I was just thinking about Axel," Sora said. "How he died. It's not a happy memory."
Riku knew all about how Axel had saved Sora, of course. So he just frowned. "That's still bothering you?"
"Yeah," Sora said, with a shrug. He wasn't sure what else to say, without revealing that Roxas existed. He was strangely reluctant to do that, mostly because Roxas didn't seemto be very comfortable letting people know.
Riku gave him a little shove. Sora looked up at him. "What?"
"I think he'd be pissed off if he knew you were all sad," Riku said. "He sacrificed himself so that you could live a nice, happy, life. Right?"
Sora brightened. "I guess so." Right, Roxas?
I guess.
There was still that strong undercurrent of guilt woven through Roxas' side of their heart. But it subsided, a little bit, with Riku's words.
It was a start.
Chapter 2: Glad