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 Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 7:02 pm
(( mostly an RP for Xigbar, Axel, and Demyx. Though if someone else wants to join in, just ask and we probably wouldn't object. ^^ )) Xigbar had silently aknowledged Demyx and Axel when they approaced him and with an almost unperceived gestured asked them to follow him. He wanted to finish reading that report, and then he would share it with Axel. But here was not the place. They'd have to find someplace away from the others, especially by Saix or Xemnas....that little weasle would just love to turn them in for this.
He walked down the hall, boots clicking on the floor with each step, his hand closed tightly around the paper in his pocket, yellow eye scanning the corridor for someplace quiet. When he was sure he was out of earshot of the others, he spoke over his shoulder to Axel.
"If anyone else finds out about this..." ..we're dead...
Although he didn't say those last words, it probably wasn't hard to realize he was thinking them. It was true afterall, although Xemnas probably wouldn't kill them for it, he'd make them wish he had. Xigbar flinched as he remembered the last time he'd gotten on Xemnas' bad side, he didn't care to ever be there again.
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 7:29 pm
Axel nodded towards Xigbar, glancing around to see that no one was following the trio, and proceeded to follow him out of the room.
Gods, he felt like he was going to be sick. too much tension in that scene, and now that they were safely away, he kept hearing footsteps and echoes, expecting someone to appear and find them out. Like that b*****d Saix. "Yeah..it.. wouldn't be good." Axellet his thought strail off. What were they thinking? They should have just given the report to Xemnas! But....damnit. He really wanted to read it! He was only ranked 8th, why would Xemnas, once he had his hands on the report, have any reason to let him see it?
It was better this way. Yeah...
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 7:36 pm
Demyx however, didn't seem to pick up on the tension of the situation. Then again he didn't realize Xigbar had one of the reports, and therefore didn't realize there was anything to hide.
He did notice however, that the others were remaining unusually quiet, and so, as he followed them, he tried to keep as quiet as possible.
It's what they would have wanted, right?
As they finally seemed to be in a safe place to talk, Demyx decided to speak up.
"The boss scares me...."
Oooookay, not the most helpful thing he's ever said, but it was what was weighing on his mind the most at the moment.
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 7:57 pm
If they were paying attention, they'd have noticed that they were heading up, making their way over several inclines and a few sets of stairs as Xigbar led them toward the higher levels of the castle. Why? He had no idea, that's just where his feet carried him, and it was also taking him away from the superior.
"Try not to look so suspicious..."
Xigbar's gaze darted along the hallways, his words as much to himself as it was to Axel. Certain that no one was watching and his mind unwilling to wait any longer for the answers that may have been written on that paper, Xigbar snuck the report from his pocket and began looking over the words on the page.
"He should Demyx...he should..."
His eyes scanned the page, looking up every few moments to make sure he wasn't going to run into anything, ears flicking at every sound. The fur on the back of his neck stood on end, this was wrong, it was stupid, a mixture of fear and guilt made him cringe.
Heartless....heart of the world...kingdom hearts...keyblade...empty shell...nobdy...apprentices...Braig...door to darkness...
He suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, his body shaking as he stared at the words on the page. Braig? That was him...
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 8:18 pm
Axel ruffled Demyx's hair, drawing him closer again. Poor kid, he didn't really have a cue, did he? "Yeah, he scares me too, Dem. But it'll be allright," he said, not really believing that last part himself.
Axel felt a certain sense of foreboding as they climbed higher. They wer egetting closer....but to what? something that he did and didn't want to find. As Xigbar pulled the report out of his poket, Axel walked a little past him, then turned around, standing so he could see down the hall they had just come, which appeared to be the only way to where they now stood. If anybody came up the hallway, he would see them.
Axel's attention snapped back to Xigbar as he started to trmble. What was up with him today? "Xigbar? Hey, what's wrong?" He hesitated a moment before snatching the report out of Xig's hands and skimming over it quickly. He mutered to himself as he read. Heartless... what were those? They had no hearts, but he didn't think it meant them. Nobodies...sounded more familiar. It made him feel sick and empty again. Keyblade, Kingdom Hearts...Xemnas had been talking about those. The keyblade was the key...Roxas had the keyblade.
Axel felt despair, for a moment, and a memory flicked behind his eyes, like some old wornout movie reel, the voices and figures distorted by time and false recollection. And just as quickly it was gone.
Then he saw what must have made Xigbar go all weird. There was a name, Braig and for a moment Axel just stared at it, his mind trying to make it fit. Braig..."Xigbar?" He looked up. "This.. this report is talking about you!" He frowned, a worried crease between his eyebrows. "But..."
Axel looked at the report again. If this one was about Xigbar..then maybe..there was one about him. "Our true names.." he whispered softly, leaning back against the wall. Wouldn't it be something, to know who they really were?
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 8:33 pm
"Shouldn't a boss be someone you feel safe with though? Sure he leads us and stuff...but he terrifies me..."
Demyx let out a squeak, playfully batting at Axel's paws as his hair was ruffled and the red head drew him closer.
"He scares you too Axel? I didn't think you were scared of anything..."
Demyx snickered a bit. Well, at least he wasn't the only one...
The blonde blinked as Axel snatched up the report. Tilting his head in confusion a moment, he proceeded to stand on tip toes in an attempt to look over Axel's shoulder and read the report.
"Heeeeey...what's that?"
He caught a few words in the report, but couldn't really understand what it meant.
"Nobodies? That makes me think of the...feeling...inside."
He couldn't bring himself to mention how empty and just plain wrong that feeling was. It sickened him to think of it too much.
"Kingdom Hearts? Heartless? What is all that stuff?"
Questions stopped however as Axel seemed to come to the same word that caused the odd reaction in Xigbar.
"Our...true names? But my name is Demyx....right?"
He fidgeted, watching the other two react to the words in the report.
"Guys....you okay?..."
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 9:09 pm
Normally Xigbar would have snarled and snatched the paper back, maybe even knocked Axel on his a**. But he just let it go, his hand falling from the paper to hang at his side.
For several moments he just stood there, shaking his hand held to his chest as if he'd just been run through. It was all coming back to him, filling his mind like a raging flood, all those memories that he had tried desperately to block from his mind, memories that no matter how hard he tried he couldn't escape. He wanted to scream, to give voice to the anguish that filled every fiber of his being, to fall to his knees and pleade for it to stop.
What have I done...
Xigbar had never forgotten, he'd always had those memories. But he'd kept them in pieces, scattered images in his mind that he only let out in his nitemares, images that he never allowed to form into the solid memory that he had tried so long to escape. But now he was forced to face that memory, to see it for what it truly was, to feel that pain and sorrow all over again.
A lesser would have broken down, perhaps he should have long ago. But somewhere inside him there was a strength that kept him going, that held him together despite how much he felt he would break. Where that strength came from even he didn't know, he wondered if he ever would.
"Yes, that's me, I was the first. I went to Ansem because of his research about the heart. I thought that maybe...it would help me escape the pain in my own heart, and when it was offered I willingly surrendered my heart to escape that pain. Tch, in the end it was just the coward's way out, he'd probably be pretty unhappy with me if he knew what I'd done."
The scarred canine looked at his hand, the floor, the wall, anywhere but at the eyes of the other two who must have been watching him. Why was he telling them this? It would have been better to just keep it to himself. But maybe he just couldn't keep it in any longer...maybe he needed to tell someone besides his own reflection.
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 10:31 pm
Axel swallowed the emptyness rising in him, and smiled softly at Demyx. "I'm scared..of lots of stuff kid." I'm scared of losing you, I'm scared of finding out who I really am. Scared of seeing what i know I'm capable off, what I know I've done in the past. I'm scared of dying. But he didn't say those last things. He kept those inside, where they could only hurt him, and put on a smile and a braver face, hiding the worry he felt, hiding that he was shaken to the core by the revelation that they were truly somebodies before all this.
Axel stared at Xigbar, who was avoiding their eyes. No wonder. Axel would have hidden his eyes too if he'd just...told someone something like that. Something so personal, so distant, something that could be used to hurt him. Did Xemnas remember this? Is that what the Boss had on them all, that he knew their true names, that he could cause them so much pain by making them remember...Axel shuddered, choking back an unexpected sob.
"Demyx...don't you see?" Axel had a hard time keeping the sorrow he felt somewhere out of his voice. If they didn't have hearts, then why did this hurt so much? "These..aren't our real names...we.." He faltered. How do you explain something like this? "You know, how Xemnas said we have no hearts..We're incomplete." He looked Demyx in the eye, willing him to understand. "We aren't...really people. The names we use, aren't our names. We're...half people."
He wanted to be somebody. For a while, in the main room, with Demyx and Roxas by his side, he had felt that might be possible. But right now, standing here with Xigbar so unlike himself, and Demyx's questioning eyes, and the report that seemed to spell out their doom in his hands, the darkness hit him like a wall. He'd never Be Somebody. He was never Anybody to begin with. That's part of why he had wound up here, in the Organization.
Axel took a deep breath. "Xigbar..." How could he tell him...he didn't think any less ofhim for telling them? That he was still Xigbar to them, he wasn't some coward who had run away from life. He was just..Xigbar. "You're not a coward. you're not..." His voice caught. "You're not the only one who ran away, you know." Axel made a sweeping gesture with one arm. "I mean, look around. You're obviously not the only one in the castle..."
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 10:49 pm
"You....huh?"
Demyx stared at Xigbar as he told the thing that was hurting him so much inside. The scarred one had given up his heart? Personally Demyx was still wondering how one could live without their heart, but if everyone was saying they didn't have hearts....it had to be true....
"You aren't a coward Xigbar! You're really brave...one of the bravest people I know!"
Demyx was pulled from his speech at Axel's words, the blonde staring into the others eyes.
"We aren't...people?"
Eyes moist, ears flattened back, Demyx struggled to understand....
In reality, he already did. He knew something was wrong, ever since he first heard they didn't have hearts. But, as a defense mechanism, he simply denied it. It kept him feeling happy...
And of course that made it hurt all the more when the truth was revealed.
He danced back and forth a bit on his feet, the movement coming from his nervousness and the sorrow welling up inside.
"But we are people! We exist! We're right here, talking to each other! And I don't care what anyone says...I'm here, my name is Demyx and I have a heart!"
A pause...
"......I think......"
Another pause...
Demyx staggered forward, latching onto Axel and burying his face into the red head's robes with a sob. He, who had seemed perfectly happy mere moments before, was reduced to a shaking, sobbing, mess of an Audio.
"I just want to be whole again....I want the emptyness gone..."
The words would let the other two know, no matter how he acted at times...this was one thing Demyx did understand.
He just wished he didn't...
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 11:19 pm
Xigbar shook his head, stepping back to lean against the wall grateful for the support it provided. It was all he could do to stay on his feet, to not just give in to despair and let it consume him.
"The trouble is that even without hearts...we still remember. The memories remain to haunt our dreams and reminds us that the cold we feel is far worse than any pain we ever felt before."
He sighed, chest shaking with the silent tears that he tried to hide, that he had always kept inside. He had always been strong, stoic, a proud warrior; but here he stood, vissibly broken, everything he had kept in tearing throug his barriers. It was heart-rending...
In reality all he had ever done was run. Even when he was till human he had run, throwing himself into battles without thinking to escape the pain. Even after giving up his heart he did the same, desperate to forget the emptiness inside even for a moment.
Finally after some time he looked up, meeting the eyes of the other two audios. He tried to force a smile, but it didn't really work.
"If only it were that easy..."
Surely if it were they would have already succeeded in reclaiming their hearts. But here they were, still empty and having to start all over again.
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 11:42 pm
Axel was surprised for a moment, unable to move, but then his arms seemed to take a mind of their own and he wrapped them around Demyx, holding him tightly as the yound audio sobbed words into the front of Axel's robe. "Shhh..." he rested his chin on the top of Demyx's head. The closeness felt...nice. Like he finally had a reason to exist, like he was maybe closer to being whole again. Although, he didn't reccomend trying it with Xigbar. While the older audio was definitely shaken, Axel didn't want to lose a limb by patting him on the shoulder or anything.
"It'll work out this time..." He looked at Xigbar, pleading with his eyes for him to say something, anything, to reassure Demyx. Axel could take not being whole, he'd known it all along, just like he knew that he had allready died once. Just like he knew that they had all of them allready died once, for a cause that they were starting to doubt. He knew that if it came down to it, Xemnas would sacrifice them again to save himself.
"I swear it." Axel turned his head away, and rested his chin on the top of Demyx's head, his silent tears hidden from Xigbar, falling into the blonde's hair.
Why was it so hard to protect the ones you cared about?
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Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 12:01 am
"Why does it have to hurt so bad?"
Demyx, head still buried in Axel's robes, tried to speak to the other two. His words were audible, but somewhat muffled by the fabric. If one wasn't listening it'd be easy to miss what he was saying.
"I mean...what did we ever do to deserve this? It isn't fair!"
Despite Axel trying his best to calm him, Demyx felt more shaken than ever. He was grateful, or course, for the arms wrapped around him and the 'shh' whispered in an attempt to ease his troubles. He clung tightly, body shaking as he sobbed. The other two were so quiet...while Demyx wore his emotions on his sleeve.
Like Axel though, the closeness felt nice. Axel was a true friend, someone Demyx felt he could always turn to. As was Xigbar. He just hoped things would always stay that way.
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Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 12:47 am
"Yeah...maybe."
He sighed and shook his head. This wasn't doing either of them any good. It hurt, a lot, more than anything else, like having 12 feet of steel shoved through your heart and your body left there to slowly fade away, like having...your heart cut out...
But even though they didn't have hearts, they still had souls, they were still here, they still had...each other. They could just sit here and just let their sorrow and despair consume them, let it eat away at what they had left. But that wouldn't get them anywhere and they'd just be left there even more empty than before.
Maybe kingdom hearts would lead them to what they sought and maybe it wouldn't...but maybe...just maybe...
He looked up again and this time the faintest hint of a smile cross his maw, one that almost seemed sincere. Pushing off the walk he took the few steps to close the distance between them, his hands falling to the shoulders of the other two in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture.
"So long as we stick together. Until then...just be who you are, that's all any of us can do."
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Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 7:44 pm
Axel looked up at Xigbar and tried a half-hearted smile. "Yeah. Just be ourselves." Like that had done them any good before. Although, he did like the idea of sticking together. He didn't want ot be alone anymore. He'd been alone for afr too long.
The hand on his shoulder was almost..paternal, and for a moment Axel felt a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time, like he belonged somewhere that wanted him because of who he was, not because they could use him.
Axel sighed and pulled Demyx away from himself alittle, putting a hand under his chin so the kid was looking up. "You gonna be ok?" He asked. Like everyone, he always figured Demyx for kindof a spazx and a clutz, but looks can be decieving, and if this moment hadn't tought him that much then he was a damned fool. The kid was hurting bad, and there was no way Axel was gonna let him hurt alone if there was anything he could do to help him.
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Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 8:06 pm
"Be ourselves?...."
Demyx pulled his head away enough to have one eye free of the fabric, so he could at least glance at the scarred Audio.
"I don't even know what that means anymore..."
Demyx ached inside. Everything he thought he knew had been slowly breaking apart the past few days, but this report shattered what little confidence he had left. Try as he might, he simply couldn't put the pieces back in a picture that didn't cause more pain. Xigbar said to be themselves, but the blonde just didn't know what he was anymore.
How could you be yourself, if technically...you shouldn't exist?
The paw though...Xigbar's paw on his shoulder felt comforting. Demyx saw the older scarred one as a sort of teacher...he had been the one trying to teach him to use the dark portals afterall. And, in a way, Demyx could see number two as a sort of...father.
"But....I guess I can try..."
Demyx whimpered as Axel pulled him away, not happy to lose the closeness. As his gaze was gently forced upwards, the blonde looked up at Axel through his teary eyes.
"I...don't know....."
He whined, his tail wrapping around his own legs like it would somehow protect him from more of the overwhelming pain.
"I feel like I'm lost at sea...."
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