[There isn't even an answering machine message here, only some horrible recreation of the theme from that one SBaHJ video he did made completely of clips of different bird calls.]
[He listens without saying anything, without looking at her, so that the only indication he's paying attention--the only indication he's hanging on every word like her voice is a lifeline over a pit--is the way his breathing changes. The way he swallows when she mentions her friend trying to stop her. The way he clings to her hand as if to reassure himself that she's there. Or that he is.
The breath he takes shudders in the quiet pause after she says what hurts him most: Everyone who ever knew her forgot her, completely. What felt shaky in him before now feels completely broken loose, adrift, cold and alone, and he doesn't return her gaze when she looks up at him.
He just leans into her, weightless and warm, and rests his face in her hair. He holds her arm to him still; holds her hand tighter. His voice hovers on the edge of breaking, gummed up and strained in the back of his throat.]
[ God. Whatever she's got that passes for a heart is breaking in her chest. She can feel it, something tight and splintery and awful, and breathing around it is a slow and laborious process. She breathes in sighs. Careful, sad sighs.
It was my choice ... to go away now.
What does she say to that?
Did she ... ever want to go? She knew she had to. But ... did she want to, really?
Contemplating that question is like standing on the very end of a dark chasm of which she cannot see the bottom, and she wants nothing more than to pull back from the edge. But with Davesprite holding onto her, breathing his fear into her hair, she can't. She can't do anything but stare into that terrible abyss. ]
... I don't want you to go either, [ is what she finally says, tiny and plaintive. It probably isn't helpful. ]
Dave... when I went away, I ... I made that choice. I knew what I was doing... and what would happen to me. How do you know for sure that ... you're not different? That ... you won't have a choice in it after all? Maybe ... I just don't want to give up hope. Not yet.
[ And then she simply gathers him into her arms. She twists her body, reaching across so she can pull him close to her properly and hold him there, right there, where they are both warm and alive and real. ]
[That close, that heartbreakingly close, there's no hiding the way his breath wavers, unsteady. He holds each breath as long as he can, as if, should he let them go, all his control might dissolve.
He clenches his hands in the hem of her shirt. He still doesn't know how to reach out, how to ask for comfort. He doesn't know how to let himself need her, even when he does.]
I made that choice, when I went back. Maybe I didn't--understand, exactly, what it would mean for me, but I...I wouldn't take it back. Even now. I wouldn't.
[He shivers in her arms. It feels like right now she's the only thing keeping him there, the only solid weight holding him to the world.]
[ Her eyes sting. It feels like the tempo of her body has been shifted, bound in lockstep to his so that when his rhythms falter, hers do too. She is certain that if she had a heart it would beat in perfect time with his. His breath is her breath; and his pain is hers also. They are each other's, even in this, and she feels it with a keenness that would shame the razor edge of a new blade.
She doesn't understand it. Where her internal monologue should be is a buzzing silence instead. He is going to break her, and she will dissolve into pieces and flow right into him, where she feels so much she belongs.
Xion tilts her head and nuzzles him, gently, pressing her cheek to his and breathing soft against his ear. ]
... I never thought so. If I were really brave... I would have stood up to the Organization a lot sooner, or left for good a long time before I really did. I was just ... I was doing what I had to do. There wasn't any other way. Sora... so many people needed him. And I ... I just couldn't keep him away from them.
[ Briefly she buries her face into his neck, her lips brushing over the skin just above his ruff, before lifting her chin again. ]
I know you made that choice. But... but I have to believe that it wasn't the last choice you'll get to make. There has to be-- there has to be just one more option. I chose to disappear, so, Dave... maybe you'll get to choose to stay. [ Her voice drops to a whisper. ] Maybe you'll get to take the alternative that I couldn't. I refuse to believe you won't get a chance. I couldn't take it if you didn't.
[ Her arms tighten around him. Davesprite isn't the only person in the room who is afraid of being left. ]
[Every time Dirk or Bro made him cry before, it felt like breaking, like someone put too much pressure on his edge and he snapped like a cheap blade, and the emotion flooded out of him until he was empty.
This is slow, like the snowfall on Jade's silent planet. Slow like falling apart in Xion's arms, like diffusing into the air like a breath of light.]
But I won't. [There's a kind of despair that sounds almost like something funny, like he's spent so long staring his end in the face it's like an old friend whose humorless jokes have become familiar. He accepts it despondently, but desperately. But tenderly. But sadly, stubbornly proud.] It always comes down to the same thing. Even if I had the choice again, I know what I'd pick.
[He lets go of her shirt to slide his arms gently around her, to bend his neck and rest his head on her shoulder--to let Xion hold him safe.
It always comes down to this: him, or someone he loves.
He will go even if it rips him apart, because the alternative is worse. The alternative isn't even a choice, unless breathing, unless muscle memory is a choice. The alternative is unthinkable.
His voice is so small when he speaks again.]
I'm sorry.
[His breath skips like a bad record, shudders on the way out. Something warm and slow and wet traces down his cheek. His lungs jerk when he sniffs. That stubborn resignation is gone--he can only plea, now, helplessly. Please understand. Please don't take this away from him.]
All at once she bursts into tears, finally giving way under the anguish and the horror of the idea of losing him. It's the wretched grief of his death all over again, hitting her in tsunamic waves. At the time of his death she was in the middle of a war and had no choice but to carry on, broken though she was, held together only by the frayed strings of insane desperation, rage, guilt, and myopic determination. But now the war is over. Now he is here. And even though he's back, he's telling her he can't stay, and she can't take it.
She sobs into his shirt, all the tears she's held inside her since the moment he disappeared from her arms bursting from her. What she's doing now is not holding him, or hugging him; she is desperately clinging like he is the last life raft on a frigid ocean whose dark depths she is terrified of sinking into. ]
I'm not like Dirk. [ Her voice is thick and a little nasal. ] I'm not strong enough to tell you it's okay to go. I don't want you to leave. [ She clings all the harder, still crying brokenly, unable to stop, and her voice is small like his. ] Please don't leave me again.
[And even as she yanks a round of his own ragged tears out of him, he's gathering her up, lifting her against his chest to carry all her weight because he is hers entirely. He wraps his wings around them because even embedded in the heat of his own misery, he is hers, he is her knight, and he can't stand her unhappiness. It cuts right through him, white-hot and electric.]
Xion, I c--I can't--
[His sobs are silent, but he has to breathe in great, big gulps of air, like a man drowning, like a child left alone in the dark. He tightens his hands in her shirt, curled so close around her he could be a second skin.]
But I swear, if it's here--if you're here, in the city, it doesn't matter what happens. I'll come back. As long as you're here, I'll come back to you.
[His promise is fierce and pure. No sadness, despite the tears on his face. No pride, because this is all he is--this is all for her.]
[ He is warm and bright and his quiet strength is everything she has ever wanted or needed. She shudders in his arms when he gathers her up, a ripple of anxiety pushing through her limbs before she settles into him. Her face is hot and she has a headache and he's crying too, how could she not notice, how could she not feel his sobs, the silent counterpoint to hers--
All he gets at first is a small, strained, cut off noise. It is the sound sadness makes. Then she just breathes through her tears, trying to calm herself down again, feeling ridiculous and awful for dragging him down with her when she'd been the one to cause a problem in the first place. ]
That's all I wanted. [ She tilts her head up so she can breathe the words against him, so he can still hear them despite how tired and tiny they are. ] That's all I want.
[ Carefully, very carefully, she curls up in his arms, in the hollow and sacred space carved out just for her by the dome of his wings, and cries herself out. It does not take much longer; perhaps a minute or two. It's cathartic in ways she had not expected, to be able to simply grieve for him, even though he's right here. Slowly, notch by notch, she begins to quiet, until her sobs have dialed down into quiet, shuddery breaths. ]
[When she stops, he's the one left still crying, endless, softly hiccuping breaths between his wet snuffling, all unvoiced, just like his laughter. It lacks the violence of her grief. He is sorry, he is so sorry and unhappy, and he doesn't deserve to hold this girl in his arms because he did this to her, he'll keep doing this to her until she stops caring so much, and he needs it. He needs her to think he's something special in this world. He needs her to love him.
He needs her.
He doesn't do anything to move her, doesn't let her go, just holds her to him while she rides out her storm to the end and keeps his own sorrow to himself, quiet, without hope of repair.]
[ If his eyes are closed - if his mind is elsewhere - he might not notice what she's doing with her hands until they're cupping his face. With unbelievable tenderness she smoothes her thumbs over his cheeks, brushing away his tears. ]
Don't cry.
[ One of her hands slips behind his head so she can gently tug him down and press his forehead to hers. ]
I'm right here. And I -- I'm never going to leave you alone, either. I ... as long as I'm here, in this city... I'm always going to be with you. So don't cry.
[ She sees his sorrow. She feels it like it is her own. And she won't let him be alone in it. ]
[He breathes in softly and opens his blurred eyes when her hands touch his face, and then he makes just a small noise as his expression crumples, as he bites his lip and lets her pull his forehead against hers and tries to stop crying. She's so careful with him, it breaks his heart.
One more sob shudders its way out of him, one more hitching inhalation. He nods against her forehead.]
Okay.
[What can he do, presented with everything he needs, knowing she needs him to accept her, but give in?
Whatever resistance he has drains out of him, and he just holds onto her, onto what she's asked of him. It's not so hard to stop crying, when it's already so quiet and weak. Harder, a little, to fix that promise in his mind: He will tell her when he has to make a choice. He will let her try to stop him, as long as she lets him try.
They'll be all right.
Hardest still to believe that, but she didn't ask him to.
He adjusts one arm around her and brings the other up to wipe at his face, under the shades.]
It's okay. [ Perhaps miraculously, she really is smiling, though it's small and still a little sad. ] ... I'm sorry for getting so mad. The war... it really took its toll on everyone. Us, too. I know what you were trying to do. I guess ... I just missed you.
[ After a beat, she lowers her hands to tuck her arms into her lap instead and simply lean into him, shutting her eyes. ]
[He sniffs and settles both arms around her again, then pulls her gently against his shoulder so he can sit against the wall and she can rest against him, still folded in his wings.]
Uh-huh.
[He rests his cheek against her hair, stroking her back gently with one thumb.]
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no subject
The breath he takes shudders in the quiet pause after she says what hurts him most: Everyone who ever knew her forgot her, completely. What felt shaky in him before now feels completely broken loose, adrift, cold and alone, and he doesn't return her gaze when she looks up at him.
He just leans into her, weightless and warm, and rests his face in her hair. He holds her arm to him still; holds her hand tighter. His voice hovers on the edge of breaking, gummed up and strained in the back of his throat.]
I don't want to go.
[His breath barely stirs her hair.]
I don't want to go away.
no subject
It was my choice ... to go away now.
What does she say to that?
Did she ... ever want to go? She knew she had to. But ... did she want to, really?
Contemplating that question is like standing on the very end of a dark chasm of which she cannot see the bottom, and she wants nothing more than to pull back from the edge. But with Davesprite holding onto her, breathing his fear into her hair, she can't. She can't do anything but stare into that terrible abyss. ]
... I don't want you to go either, [ is what she finally says, tiny and plaintive. It probably isn't helpful. ]
Dave... when I went away, I ... I made that choice. I knew what I was doing... and what would happen to me. How do you know for sure that ... you're not different? That ... you won't have a choice in it after all? Maybe ... I just don't want to give up hope. Not yet.
[ And then she simply gathers him into her arms. She twists her body, reaching across so she can pull him close to her properly and hold him there, right there, where they are both warm and alive and real. ]
no subject
He clenches his hands in the hem of her shirt. He still doesn't know how to reach out, how to ask for comfort. He doesn't know how to let himself need her, even when he does.]
I made that choice, when I went back. Maybe I didn't--understand, exactly, what it would mean for me, but I...I wouldn't take it back. Even now. I wouldn't.
[He shivers in her arms. It feels like right now she's the only thing keeping him there, the only solid weight holding him to the world.]
I'm just waiting.
[If this keeps going, he's going to cry.]
You're so fuckin' brave.
no subject
She doesn't understand it. Where her internal monologue should be is a buzzing silence instead. He is going to break her, and she will dissolve into pieces and flow right into him, where she feels so much she belongs.
Xion tilts her head and nuzzles him, gently, pressing her cheek to his and breathing soft against his ear. ]
... I never thought so. If I were really brave... I would have stood up to the Organization a lot sooner, or left for good a long time before I really did. I was just ... I was doing what I had to do. There wasn't any other way. Sora... so many people needed him. And I ... I just couldn't keep him away from them.
[ Briefly she buries her face into his neck, her lips brushing over the skin just above his ruff, before lifting her chin again. ]
I know you made that choice. But... but I have to believe that it wasn't the last choice you'll get to make. There has to be-- there has to be just one more option. I chose to disappear, so, Dave... maybe you'll get to choose to stay. [ Her voice drops to a whisper. ] Maybe you'll get to take the alternative that I couldn't. I refuse to believe you won't get a chance. I couldn't take it if you didn't.
[ Her arms tighten around him. Davesprite isn't the only person in the room who is afraid of being left. ]
no subject
This is slow, like the snowfall on Jade's silent planet. Slow like falling apart in Xion's arms, like diffusing into the air like a breath of light.]
But I won't. [There's a kind of despair that sounds almost like something funny, like he's spent so long staring his end in the face it's like an old friend whose humorless jokes have become familiar. He accepts it despondently, but desperately. But tenderly. But sadly, stubbornly proud.] It always comes down to the same thing. Even if I had the choice again, I know what I'd pick.
[He lets go of her shirt to slide his arms gently around her, to bend his neck and rest his head on her shoulder--to let Xion hold him safe.
It always comes down to this: him, or someone he loves.
He will go even if it rips him apart, because the alternative is worse. The alternative isn't even a choice, unless breathing, unless muscle memory is a choice. The alternative is unthinkable.
His voice is so small when he speaks again.]
I'm sorry.
[His breath skips like a bad record, shudders on the way out. Something warm and slow and wet traces down his cheek. His lungs jerk when he sniffs. That stubborn resignation is gone--he can only plea, now, helplessly. Please understand. Please don't take this away from him.]
I can't--I can't do anything else.
no subject
All at once she bursts into tears, finally giving way under the anguish and the horror of the idea of losing him. It's the wretched grief of his death all over again, hitting her in tsunamic waves. At the time of his death she was in the middle of a war and had no choice but to carry on, broken though she was, held together only by the frayed strings of insane desperation, rage, guilt, and myopic determination. But now the war is over. Now he is here. And even though he's back, he's telling her he can't stay, and she can't take it.
She sobs into his shirt, all the tears she's held inside her since the moment he disappeared from her arms bursting from her. What she's doing now is not holding him, or hugging him; she is desperately clinging like he is the last life raft on a frigid ocean whose dark depths she is terrified of sinking into. ]
I'm not like Dirk. [ Her voice is thick and a little nasal. ] I'm not strong enough to tell you it's okay to go. I don't want you to leave. [ She clings all the harder, still crying brokenly, unable to stop, and her voice is small like his. ] Please don't leave me again.
no subject
Xion, I c--I can't--
[His sobs are silent, but he has to breathe in great, big gulps of air, like a man drowning, like a child left alone in the dark. He tightens his hands in her shirt, curled so close around her he could be a second skin.]
But I swear, if it's here--if you're here, in the city, it doesn't matter what happens. I'll come back. As long as you're here, I'll come back to you.
[His promise is fierce and pure. No sadness, despite the tears on his face. No pride, because this is all he is--this is all for her.]
I will never leave you alone.
no subject
All he gets at first is a small, strained, cut off noise. It is the sound sadness makes. Then she just breathes through her tears, trying to calm herself down again, feeling ridiculous and awful for dragging him down with her when she'd been the one to cause a problem in the first place. ]
That's all I wanted. [ She tilts her head up so she can breathe the words against him, so he can still hear them despite how tired and tiny they are. ] That's all I want.
[ Carefully, very carefully, she curls up in his arms, in the hollow and sacred space carved out just for her by the dome of his wings, and cries herself out. It does not take much longer; perhaps a minute or two. It's cathartic in ways she had not expected, to be able to simply grieve for him, even though he's right here. Slowly, notch by notch, she begins to quiet, until her sobs have dialed down into quiet, shuddery breaths. ]
no subject
He needs her.
He doesn't do anything to move her, doesn't let her go, just holds her to him while she rides out her storm to the end and keeps his own sorrow to himself, quiet, without hope of repair.]
no subject
Don't cry.
[ One of her hands slips behind his head so she can gently tug him down and press his forehead to hers. ]
I'm right here. And I -- I'm never going to leave you alone, either. I ... as long as I'm here, in this city... I'm always going to be with you. So don't cry.
[ She sees his sorrow. She feels it like it is her own. And she won't let him be alone in it. ]
no subject
One more sob shudders its way out of him, one more hitching inhalation. He nods against her forehead.]
Okay.
[What can he do, presented with everything he needs, knowing she needs him to accept her, but give in?
Whatever resistance he has drains out of him, and he just holds onto her, onto what she's asked of him. It's not so hard to stop crying, when it's already so quiet and weak. Harder, a little, to fix that promise in his mind: He will tell her when he has to make a choice. He will let her try to stop him, as long as she lets him try.
They'll be all right.
Hardest still to believe that, but she didn't ask him to.
He adjusts one arm around her and brings the other up to wipe at his face, under the shades.]
Okay.
[It bears repeating.]
I'm sorry for--for making you cry.
no subject
[ After a beat, she lowers her hands to tuck her arms into her lap instead and simply lean into him, shutting her eyes. ]
... can we stay like this for a while?
no subject
Uh-huh.
[He rests his cheek against her hair, stroking her back gently with one thumb.]
I'm not going anywhere.
no subject
Okay.
[ And she'll stay like that, just like that, for as long as she can. ]