Nobody Sleeping
Flicker of harsh neon on bare skin and unkempt sheets. Smell of sweat lingering; air gone cold again.
Roxas' skin raised in goosebumps, but he didn't feel it. He was too lost in his thoughts, staring at the ceiling. Beside him, the other shifted, an arm draping over his narrow chest, and Roxas absently curled his fingers into the silky red hair, eyes drawn to his companion. Small purple marks, like tracks of tears down his face, a fringe of dark eyelashes, shutting those green eyes away.
It wasn't—
Something was missing. It didn't feel right, and it sent his mind racing again.
When he was asleep like this, it didn't feel like Axel. The brash young man he worried over, possibly even cared for—well, could he care? Nobodies didn't have feelings, it was what he was told, again and again. There was the tactile, but beyond that, it was just the mind. Right? But why was he so afraid when Axel's eyes slipped shut in sleep? Like Axel didn't even exist anymore?
It was like holding an empty shell.
He shouldn't have found it so alarming. They were already nothing. Nobodies.
Ghosts.
Where did ghosts go, when they closed their eyes? Roxas had never dreamed. It was mission, mission, blackness, morning, more missions. Axel had once told him that he dreamt of his past self, fragments of memories, when he slept. Is that where they went? Why was Roxas different?
Why did Axel leave him alone?
My ghost.
Where'd you go?
I can't find you in the body sleeping next to me.