I know I finished this, but I had massive writers block on my other story (infinity:infinity) until this tumbled out. Enjoy having an update on both of these today! I don't know if I'll come back to this one, but I like this AU enough I might add snippets here and there if I ever get inspired.

"You wanna try taking it off?" Lea asked, gently lifting the edge of Axel's hood. "Seems loose enough to me."

Axel blinked the bright light out of his eyes from the direct exposure, wrinkling his new nose.

"How bad do I look?"

"I don't know. You were the one awake the day Xion took off hers. Want a mirror?"

"I've been dreading this," Axel admitted. "But I'm not going to form right if I don't believe I'll be what I am, right? I wonder if that's why Xion looked different to different people the first time around."

Lea just shrugged.

Axel slowly hobbled over to the dresser mirror, took a deep breath, and peeled the hood off his head.

"Gross," the two said in unison, before Axel demanded. "Come here."

Lea stepped a little closer, getting a good look at Axel's grey, clay-like face. One eyelid was wilting and the features looked a bit melted. Without thinking, Lea reached over and pushed his hands to the sides of Axel's drooping chin, straightening it out.

The flesh turned from almost squishy to a more recognizable human texture under his fingers, and Lea blanched a little. Gross was right, but when he pulled away, Axel's chin had straightened out, and a little pinkish color sprouted at the spot. Axel sighed, half annoyed and half appreciative, and closed his eyes, while Lea snuck looks at the mirror, pressing and pushing the last of Axel's features in place like he was sculpting them from clay.

"Your skin's almost solidified, Ax, think fast on wether you want your markings," Lea admonished. For a second, the two blue triangles appeared on Axel's face, before fading off.

"I can always paint them on, it'd be harder to hide them…" Axel sheepishly admitted, as Lea pulled his hands away to look at the doppelgänger in front of him.

"You can stop squeezing your eyes shut."

Axel winced, and opened them. "And you didn't need to make us look exactly the same, you know."

"It's your face too, come on, let's brush you so you start growing hair. Your scalp's so shiny I think I'm gonna go blind."

Axel reached up and gingerly touched his new hair, his Dusk skin flopping around his fingers. It was thick and wild, and stuck up at all kinds of odd angles. Just like Lea's. Just like his.

"You want this all off?" Lea asked, holding up one of the drooping oversized fingers, limp except for where Axel's more human hands were inside them.

Axel just nodded, and Lea carefully tugged the hood opening sagging around his neck. "If there's any resistance, you tell me," he admonished.

Slowly, he peeled, revealing grayish skin, mostly human proportioned like himself.

"Lay on the bed," Lea demanded. "You have a hunchback and I'm going to straighten it out now before that becomes a problem for life."

Axel panicked and flopped on the bed, and Lea pulled the rest of the Dusk skin clean off, cracked his knuckles, and yanked on Axel's back, stretching it out and correcting his spine. It moved easily, making loud popping noises as the bones and muscle stretched and solidified.

"Yeowch!"

"A little pain now will save you a lot later," Lea muttered, noting the skin turn more humanlike as he adjusted his Nobody.

"I know but- goddamnit- you're enjoying this- fuck!- aren't you?"

"Karma's a bitch," Lea grunted, shifting a hip, hearing a cracking sound as Axel bit the pillow to keep himself from screaming. It wasn't actually that painful, surprisingly, but it was… wrong. Human bodies shouldn't do that.

"Xion was bow legged for a day," Axel whined once the shock subsided and he rotated a hip to make sure it worked. "Can't I just let this sort itself out?"

"I'd say yes, but you're done."

"…oh."

Axel pulled himself off the bed, flexing his fingers before running them through his tangle of hair again. When he finally looked up, Lea shoved a box in his hands.

"Ienzo got you some clothes, figured you wanted your own stuff."

Someone rapped lightly on their door. "Everything okay? It's Ven," the voice hastily added, now that Roxas was speaking normally, his own transformation not far behind Axel's.

"Yeah, Lea was just ripping off my skin," Axel laughed out, pulling on a black tank top from the box and hunting for an outfit within it.

"Lunch is ready, but if you're… um, I guess not-human-ing yourself I can tell everyone to wait."

"Yeah, give me like ten."

The footsteps pattered away as Axel pulled a button down shirt over his head, not bothering with the buttons at all, rolling up the sleeves for the "casual but not too casual like I'm trying" look. Lea just snorted, watching his Nobody fumble with everything.

"Fine motor skills not all there yet?" Lea asked.

Axel just glowered.

"You can ask for help, you know."

"Fine," Axel muttered. "Zip my boots and paint on my markings."

Lea squatted at Axel's feet, helping him put on his socks and shoes, then sat next to his… brother? Friend? Other self? on the bed.

"I'm me…" Axel breathed out, looking down at himself in awe. "I'm me…"

"You're you," Lea agreed, grinning, before being tackled by his Nobody harder than he expected into a bear trap of a hug.

"Thank you," Axel said hoarsely. "You fed me, gave me shelter. You didn't make me die."

Lea felt his eyes water at that, just a bit, and reached out to accept and reciprocate the gesture.

"I thought you hated being huggy," Lea merely replied.

"I'm making an exception, don't you dare get used to it," Axel grunted.

Lea straightened both of them up. "Come on, let me get your markings on you," he said, swallowing a ball of mucus.

For a second, he could have sword he felt a heart beat under his hand, there, in Axel's chest.

Roxas nearly tripped on his Dusk feet at the sight of Axel, whole and humanoid, in the dining room, running to him as best he could without bow-legging into a heap on the floor. Only when he'd actually made it into Axel's arms did Xion come and join their hug.

"Roxas, you're probably ready to shed your skin, too, you know," Axel said smiling, petting Roxas on the head and ruffling Xion's hair.

"How'd you go straight from Dusk skin to full blown human?" Xion asked, almost accusatory.

"Lea straightened me out and fixed everything that wasn't even," Axel admitted. "Seems like once you feel like you should, you solidify for good."

"Could you help me, too?" Roxas asked, looking between Lea and Axel.

Lea squatted a little to look Roxas in the eyes. "How am I going to say no to that face?"

"I peeked with a flashlight earlier," Roxas admitted, "and trust me, I wouldn't say yes to it ever."

"Okay, camera is on, Ventus and Roxas are both in frame. Lea, just try to not block the viewfinder as you adjust him please," Ienzo demanded.

Roxas inhaled deeply. Being the last of the three meant that they didn't know when something like this would ever occur again. And so, he begrudgingly agreed to have the last of his transformation filmed. For science. Ventus gave Roxas's shoulder a gentle squeeze to ground him. He looked like Ventus, not Sora, after all, and Roxas wanted to keep his old face.

"Ready, Roxas?" Lea asked gently. "Axel did this hurt?"

Axel stood just out of frame, arms crossed. "You trying to scare him?"

"No, I was going to give him an anesthetic if it did."

"And not me?" Axel asked, eyebrow raised.

"I mean, I thought you wanted to help. I ended up doing it for you."

"Ahem." Ienzo tapped a foot. "You do know we're rolling. Did you want this on record?"

Axel blushed. "It didn't hurt. But it felt like it should. Roxas should be awake, because once you're set, you can't change anything. I tried willing my markings on after lunch but no dice."

"But you have-" Sora started, pointing to his own cheeks, before catching himself, sitting on a chair out of view. "Kairi's eyeshadow?"

"Nah, we got actual face paints, looks a lot more like the real thing. Plus, her makeup cost way more to keep replacing," he added with a smirk.

"Anyway." Roxas was gripping his legs tightly, a towel draped over his Dusk form for when his skin shed and he'd be a buck-naked honest to goodness human… in front of a camera recording for posterity. With his friends all there. Watching.

Ventus squeezed his shoulder again. "Let's get your face first, right?"

"R-right," Roxas agreed, reaching up to peel off his hood. Ienzo actually gasped a little.

"Well, you look a hell of a lot better than Axel did," Lea said, beaming at the clay-like form. Axel huffed. "I'm right though," he added, glaring at his double.

"Yeah, whatever," Axel muttered, as Lea quickly pressed and pushed a slightly crooked nose and a cheekbone into place. Roxas looked at himself in a mirror placed out of view of the camera that he could see.

"Is this how I'll look when I'm an old fart?" Roxas asked, touching his scalp.

Lea just laughed, and motioned for Sora to switch places. He'd done Xion's hair, he could take care of Roxas's too.

"Who's Aurora now?" Ventus said, laughing, looking at a sleeping Roxas, wrapped in a thick blanket and nothing else, blonde spikes and identical face to his own peeking out the top of the burrito.

"Didn't realize that would knock him out," Axel commented, reaching out to lift up the snoring Nobody. "Okay. He can't be sleeping like that by normal means. You put a spell on him."

"Guilty," Lea said with a shrug. "Though he was already nodding off when I started fixing his posture. You didn't sleep while you were a Dusk."

Axel nodded, shifting Roxas's weight on him. "I'm going to bring him home. You going to follow with Sora and Ven?"

Lea nodded. "I'm sure Xion will be excited to see him. We… should probably dress him first."

"I'll do it," Sora offered, grabbing the pile of clothes he had at the ready from their formerly shared wardrobe. "Not like I haven't before."

Roxas woke up in the grass, outside of Yen Sid's tower. He felt a blanket partially spread on him, and someone's hand gently squeezing his own. Slowly, he blinked the crust out of his eyes, and attempted to sit up, quickly realizing he was in a pile with everyone else.

"Would the person whose name contains A, L and E please remove their leg?"

Lea shifted, rousing. "Sorry Ven and-or Roxas," he muttered.

Roxas scrunched his face for a moment, considering the choice of words. "Lea?"

"Axel's snoring just out of reach of everyone, so yes."

Roxas slowly shifted up. Sora and Riku were awkwardly drooling on each other, while Ventus snoozed curling around Kairi like she was a stuffed animal to hold. Lea was crosswise against both groups, with Xion latched on an arm. Axel was in a sleeping bag, just next to Lea but out of grabbing reach, his own shock of red hair poking out the top.

"What… time is it?"

"Two in the morning."

"You knocked me out."

"You looked like you needed it."

"Sure, but ask next time, yeah?" Roxas demanded. "Axel was right. It didn't hurt. Just felt like it should have."

"Do you want to go inside?"

"Nah. Weather is good and… this is nice. I also don't know if I'm ready to look in a mirror again."

Lea just mussed his hair with a free hand.

"Try to get back on a regular sleeping schedule," Lea admonished. "Just wake me if you need something."

"Oh no, you need to get back on a regular schedule too," Roxas whined. "Half the problems you've had could have been solved by actually sleeping. And I'll put Sleep on you if you don't. Sleepza if I have to. A whole week of snoozing."

"I'm not going to call your bluff." Lea laughed. He knew the kid would do it, too.

"It isn't one." Roxas stared at him. "Cast it again. I'm too wired now to go to sleep on my own."

"Only if you'll do the same for me," Lea countered.

Roxas nodded, and the two of them counted to three, before shooting matching sleeping spells at each other.

Roxas blinked, shaking out a mouthful of pillow. Did someone move him to his…no.

When he fumbled in complete darkness, he found himself pressed up against a plaster wall, not a stone one. Even if he had been given his own room in the tower (and they were certainly running out of them, so probably not), it wouldn't have been this smooth. Or straight. Nervously, he shuffled to the end of the bed and dangled his feet before inhaling, putting a foot to the floor.

Wooden floorboards.

If he was back in Twilight Town, why was it so dark? At least one street lamp should have been visible from the window, but it wasn't just dark, it was black. Roxas fumbled for a lamp switch, surprised to discover it worked. His little bedroom washed aglow in the lamplight.

Xion's blouse still hung from a bedpost.

Roxas blushed, and quickly scooped it up, hanging it in his (their?) closet before willing clothing on himself instead of his pajamas. He was in a dream for sure if he could do that- he wasn't skilled enough in that kind of magic to do that in the rea world. That or…

Roxas opened his window to the gentle breeze. Sora'sgentle breeze.

He willed the sun to rise.

'Sora?' he asked upwards, before feeling an odd drop in the pit of Sora's stomach, by proxy at least.

"Roxas?" Sora said aloud, distressed. "I… how?"

'I fell asleep?' Roxas provided.

"I… Roxas I'm carrying you right now. Your body, I mean. You're snoring."

'Oh.'

"Can you see it?" Sora asked with a moment of hesitation.

'…no,' Roxas admitted, after trying to reach up and see from Sora's eyes like he could when he was just a heart inside of Sora.

"It's almost noon. Can I try and wake you?"

'Yeah, sure, go a-'

"head…" Roxas finished aloud, started, still in Sora's arms. "You can put me down," he added, sputtering.

"Oh, um, sorry."

Roxas carefully adjusted his footing, accepting a little support from Sora as he climbed the stairwell.

"I didn't mean to do that," Roxas apologized.

"What?" Sora tilted his head like a puppy, confused.

"Invade your heart."

"You think I mind?"

"Guess not," Roxas said. "Though I don't know how I did, given, well, this," he said, gesturing to his own body.

"Lea… when you got pulled out and my inner demons took over… when he calmed me down he said you guys would always be with me. Maybe I should have taken it a bit more literally."

Roxas laughed. "The one time you don't accidentally take it literally and it turns out to be true? Really Sora? Jeez."

Sora brought him to a landing and opened a door.

"The tower added an extra floor for you and Axel. You're directly below my and Riku's rooms, above Xion's and Lea's. Though it sounds like Axel just wants a cot in Lea's room for now."

Of coursethat's how they'd solve the lack of rooms problem. Just invent another floor. Of course. Completely normal behavior for Yen Sid.

Sora pushed open the door, to Roxas's incredibly spartan room- a bed, closet, and dresser with a mirror and a single chair.

"I moved your clothes in here, but you don't have much."

"I can take myself shopping. I'm sure Axel needs his own stuff too."

"Do you… want some time to yourself?" Sora asked quietly.

"I haven't had that in years," Roxas admitted. "It's going to be weird to start now."

"Xion is awake."

Roxas shook a little, and, without warning, latched on to Sora. Sora quietly put his own arms around his- his and Ventus's- Nobody, lowering them to the stone floor.

It was the first time he'd seen Roxas cry. He didn't try and shush him, like he would with Kairi (not to belittle her emotions, he discovered she just calmed to the noise), but he pulled his other in close, rubbing gentle circles on his back as he let Roxas just bawl it out.

It was probably only his overactive imagination, but he could have sworn he felt a heartbeat.

When Sora fell asleep that night, he dove back into his empty heart. Roxas's bed, which he knew for a fact he'd made when he'd snuffed out the sun was back to a messy heap, and the sun was a strong midday burn. His Twilight Town for sure, and not the real one in perpetual sunset.

Sora flicked a hand, refreshing the sheets, and jumped straight from Roxas's open window and floated over the residential district. Roxas really had gone back in his-

Sora blinked twice to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was.

Two people in Organization coats were sitting on the beach with fishing poles.

Sora rubbed the bridge of his nose and landed with a plunk next to them in the sand. Xion and Axel had a basket of snacks and sandwiches between then, and a cooler filled with ice and a few fish he recognized from the islands. Sora shut the cooler and sat on its lid.

'Not that I mind, but… um. Care to explain?' he asked. Two pairs of eyes flicked up to him.

'I was wondering when more crazy was gonna show.' Axel took another soda from their basket and disintegrated the cap without looking at it.

'Axel do you think you're dreaming?' Sora asked. Of all of them inside his heart, except for Riku and Kairi who really hadn't been whole inside him, Axel really hadn't had a chance to actually look around before he'd been unceremoniously jerked into a body for himself.

'Axel, you're in Sora's heart, you doofus,' Xion said giggling. 'I thought I was dreaming, too, but there's too much here that… well.'

'My mind is playing tricks on me,' Axel whined.

Sora got off the cooler and opened it, pulling out a fish. 'Okay, well, Axel. Ever seen this fish before?'

'No,' he admitted.

'It's called a deep sea chuuli,' Sora explained, watching it flop in his hands before he threw it back in the ice. 'They're good for grilling right over a fire pit. You eat the whole thing, eyeballs and all. Ask Riku when you wake up if you don't believe me.'

Axel looked at him startled, and promptly vanished.

'I think you scared him awake,' Xion said with a giggle.

'How did you get back in here anyway?' Sora asked.

'Dunno. Was dreaming about the beach, when it sort of just started warping. And then I dropped in Roxas's room. I thought I was still just regular dreaming, and then I ran into Axel, which solidified that theory. Until I saw the house on the far side of the train court. Axel and Lea's heart space merged with yours, didn't it?'

Sora nodded, and picked up the fishing pole Axel had dropped, deciding if he should cast out. 'I made the fish, it's not going to be fun fishing for me.'

'What if I helped stock the ocean?' Xion asked. 'Whatever I make won't be predictable to you.'

Sora shrugged, as Xion closed her eyes to concentrate.

Sora suddenly felt an earthquake, gripping the cooler in a panic.

'Sora?' Xion asked, worried.

'You don't... feel it?' Sora asked, wide eyed.

'Feel what?'

And then Sora was blinking stars out of his eyes with a very worried redhead right over him.

"Deep sea chuuli," the voice that was most likely Axel's said in a panic.

"What about them?" Sora asked, trying to calm his explosive heartbeat. "You mean the one I showed you in my heart space?"

Axel blinked. "I really just jumped in there? That wasn't a regular dream?" Slowly, he released his grip on Sora and slumped in his desk chair. "The fuck."

"Xion was still here."

'Is still here. Is Axel okay?'

"Is… still… here…" Sora repeated slowly. "Holy shit."

"I'm going to go wake Lea."

"Not at 3am you aren't," Sora countered. "He's got a bad enough sleep schedule as it is."

Axel breathed slowly, his own panic dying off. "Right. Yeah. Wait… hm."

"What?" Sora asked. "When either of you say 'hm' you have an idea."

"And usually a very stupid one at that," Axel said in agreement. "Go back to bed. If you can dive back in your heart, meet me on the beach."

'What's all this about?' Sora asked, arms crossed. Axel and Xion were grinning at each other.

"We're going exploring," they said in unison.

Sora shrugged, and Axel led the way up a winding path to his and Lea's heartspace.

'Bet you five hundred mummy my bastard human is sitting at his desk doing maaaaath.'

'I'm not taking that bet,' Xion replied, trudging behind him as he turned the knob with a flourish.

They heard muffled screams coming from upstairs.

'Shit!' Axel yelped, not bothering with the architecture and just rocketed straight upwards to the room above, jetting wood, stone and plaster in all directions.

'I just fixed this not even a week ago,' Sora whined, but followed through the hole.

Sora spotted his shadow, golden eyes and tentacle like wisps of blackness, hissing at Axel from a sofa… and Lea, in the open plan kitchen clutching his hand, with a strong smell of coffee. Sora peeked around the counter and found a pot shattered on the floor, and green light from Lea's free hand quickly repairing burning flesh.

'You dropped a pot of coffee,' Axel deadpanned.

'I heard the door open and freaked out,' Lea countered, looking sadly at the hole in the middle of their open plan second floor. Sora nudged it with his foot, guiltily, and the house began to rebuild itself. Again.

Lea put his hands over the shattered pot, and willed it back to a useable vessel.

'I thought I might have been dreaming, but I'm not, am I?' Lea finally said, after a few long moments of silence punctuated only by what Sora was almost positive was a purr coming from his Shadow. Xion sat on the couch to calm the beast down, and Sora realized almost with horror that when she went to scratch it under the chin he felt it too. And the beast grabbed on Xion and started nuzzling her, no less. There went any shred of decency he had.

'Warm,' croaked his Shadow. 'No heart.'

'You don't need to rub it in,' Xion said, giggling, as she got it to flop on the couch.

Lea set the pot down and walked over to Axel and Sora. 'You didn't realize you were in Sora's heart?' Axel asked him, incredulously.

'I've had dreams about Sora's shadow every night since we split,' Lea said, honestly, pulling up a chair. 'Maybe they weren't dreams either.'

'Axel nice,' Sora's shadow whined between purrs. 'Xion pretty.'

Sora and Xion both blushed. Axel coughed loudly. 'So you've just been in here hanging out with a Heartlessfor the past couple of nights and not even the slightest bit worried?'

Lea shrugged. 'He behaves himself. He's only tried to chew on the coffee table once. And remember, I thought I was just reliving helping Sora. Guess that's not totally wrong though, huh?' Lea added, addressing the shadow, who bounded over for scritches.

Sora was dumbstruck watching it. Him.

'Awwww, he's like a puppy,' Axel said, kneeling to let the shadow sniff him. Axel arched an eyebrow and looked past the shadow to its creator. 'You gonna say hi to him, Sora?'

Sora blushed and stepped forward. He'd never actually seen his shadow before like this- he sort of just became the thing when he was upset or severely injured. He didn't even consider the possibility the two of them were even separate.

'Hey.'

'Hey,' it repeated, not in its rasp but in a perfectly matching mock of Sora's normal speaking voice. If it wasn't creepy enough already.

'You okay?'

'You okay?'

'Stop copying me!' Sora replied, frustrated, throwing up his hands.

The shadow just jumped in his arms. 'You scared of me. Try be nice to you,' it answered in its own croak.

Sora reached out and smoothed down its dark tentacle wisps of hair. The shadow started purring and Sora himself felt like someone was ruffling his own hair.

In a way, that was what was happening.

'How's that?' Sora asked him.

'Good.'

'Thank you for not attacking anyone,' Sora said after a quiet few minutes, as Lea went back to the kitchen to conjure up drinks and snacks.

'Axel feed. Don't bite hand that feed.'

'You've been… feeding my Shadow?' Sora asked, looking up at Lea from his spot on the floor.

Lea knelt down and nodded, materializing a small, normal shadow Heartless in his hands, holding out the squealing, blinking creature. Sora's Heartless lunged, snapping the Heartless's neck in a quick motion and shredding it, inhaling chunks at a time.

Sora, Axel, and Xion winced.

'I know that shadow you generated is just something from your mind but…' Axel started, voicing how they all felt.

'Well, it works as well as the real thing,' Lea said with a shrug.

'Not real, still tasty,' Sora's shadow said with a sharp-toothed grin, wisps of dark smoke wafting out of his mouth and dripping in long loops onto the floor. 'Axel try ice cream first. Too cold.'

'Wipe up after you eat,' Lea demanded. The shadow swallowed the Heartless's remaining foot and wiped his mouth with a forearm.

'More?'

'You'll turn into a balloon, silly,' Lea said, kneeling, mussing its hair, before walking to his desk on the far side of the room. He generated a fresh whiteboard and started scribbling.

'Sora, how far apart are our bedrooms? And how far is Xion's?'

Sora frowned. 'How am I supposed to know?'

'If you've counted the stair steps I can make a rough estimate by multiplying-'

'Lea, just wake up and do it yourself,' Axel said, sighing. 'Why does it matter how far apart our rooms are, anyway?'

'Well, look at how clear the connection is. I wonder how far we could be from each other and it still works?'

'If I'm awake, I can still hear anyone who's asleep inside me,' Sora offered, scratching his shadow under his chin, smiling at it. That's what he was in purest form, he supposed. A puppy. 'I don't think they can take over anymore though. Roxas couldn't even see out of my eyes.'

'Don't you see though?' Lea asked, spinning in his desk chair to face them. 'We have a tool the other side doesn't have. We're in here having s conversation. Nobody outside can hear this. There's no way to eavesdrop. We can feed Sora information while he's awake!' Lea was excited now, scribbling like wild on a board bobbing in front of him. 'And maybe… since we've tamed your shadow a bit we can try and coax him-'

'Lea!' Axel barked, folding his arms across his chest. 'Chill. Jeez. Roxas and I haven't even existed as our own people for a week and you haven't even asked Sora his opinion on all this.'

Lea slumped, a bit guilty. 'Sorry…'

'Take your science a bit slow, fireball,' Axel demanded, putting a hand on Lea's shoulder.

'Lea is right,' Sora cut in. 'The other side can all jump through dark portals and do all kinds of magic we can't. I'm open to trying anything.' He paused a minute as his shadow made grabby hands at his chest. 'Almost anything.'

And that was how Sora found himself listening to the pair of red headed twins bickering over what kinds of experiments to try, until he, Xion, and his shadow curled up on their giant couch, for slumber within slumber.

Sora woke up with a start, ravenous. When was the last time he ever woke that hungry? Coming from that memory pod?

And then he saw his reflection in the mirror.

"Friend," he said aloud, gurgling out the sound in a pained, but not painful, rasp. "I know Lea said we should let you out sometime but I don't think this is what he meant."

Sora really needed a separate name for his shadow. Solid gold glowing eyes blinked back at him in the mirror, and wisps of darkness oozed off his form.

His body bounded towards the door before Sora realized he wasn't controlling it.

"Oh, come on," he whined.

"Hungry," his mouth said aloud for him.

"Fine, fine, I'll get us breakfast. But you need to calm down."

His shadow skidded to a halt on the stairwell, and Sora almost fell straight down the central column of air in the tower.

Roxas's door shot open; he stumbled out in a panic.

"Fuck!" he cried.

Sora got off his haunches and put up his hands defensively. "It's okay, Roxas, I'm in control."

Roxas blinked twice and considered. "Oh. Okay."

"That's it?"

"I mean, it doesn't even register on the weird scale. I've seen you before. Hell, you've given me a good sock or two. Didn't realize you could talk, though."

"No I mean… it's real, normal, Sora. Lea's been trying to tame my shadow the past couple of nights and-" Sora stopped, his stomach growling loud enough to reverberate against the stone walls. "Ugh. My brain hurts and I need food."

Roxas reached out and grabbed Sora's arm, pulling him down to the dining room. "Well, you're not getting my heart. Don't have one to give. Will eggs be okay?"

Sora was trying very very hard to keep his Heartless from fully taking over and just putting his whole face in the plate, as much as their collective hunger was whining otherwise.

"The fuck?" Riku asked, as he slipped into his seat at the table. Yen Sid offered up a glare that could burn a hole in the wall.

"Blame Lea."

"Blame Axel."

Sora recoiled. He'd said both things at once- both he and his Shadow having slightly different ideas about who was to blame.

"Aros, when we said you should come out, we meant with Sora's permission," Lea said sternly.

"My body," Sora's Shadow grunted as Sora spent all his energy just trying to use his arms to cut his bacon into smaller pieces before he knew he'd lose the fight.

"Aros?" Sora asked, shoving a fork full of egg and bacon in his mouth to pacify his other.

"Well, I wasn't going to just keep calling him 'Shadow' or 'Heartless'."

"It's Sora backwards," Sora groaned. "Can't you have at least a little imagin- Aros, cool it, I'm eating."

His shoulders sagged.

"As funny as this is to watch," Roxas said, "it can't be good for either of them."

"Aros, let Sora eat breakfast in peace. Ask permission before using his body."

"Is mine," Aros whined again.

Axel stood up and walked around the table, whispering something to Roxas, who in turn got up and yanked up Sora by the scruff of his neck.

"I'm also Sora," Roxas said, gruffly, as if he was trying to repeat back whatever Axel had suggested, rather than something he came up with on his own. "Did I ever take over without his permission?"

"…no, Nobody half waited."

"I waited," Roxas said, side eyeing at Axel, as if he were making sure he was doing it right. "Axel waited for Lea's permission too."

Sora felt the pangs of hunger recede, and realized he wasn't fighting for control anymore. He shifted from the squat on his haunches to actually sitting on his chair the right way. He looked down at his arms, and watched as the wisps of darkness fade off, leaving behind freckled skin.

With a yelp, he fled the table before he completely reverted; the last thing he needed was the rest of the table seeing him in just his boxers from the night before.

Lea's first task for Sora and Aros was getting the two to cooperate.

"Okay, Sora, give him permission to come out."

Sora sighed. For the rest of the people in his heart, he didn't need to give them explicit permission like this. They just tagged each other in and out as needed. But Lea was right. Aros could understand them, but he was much more a child and needed to be treated like one.

"Aros, you can come out. For an hour."

Before Sora had much time to process, he shifted to haunches and felt his mouth break into a grin.

Lea knelt down and began messing with his hair.

"I'm not… in my heart," Sora mused.

Lea pulled back his hand like it had been bit. "Er, sorry Sora."

"Don't stop," Aros whined.

Sora rolled his eyes. "He wants pets, I guess. You can indulge him." Sora relaxed a little, and tried to see if he could dive in his heart. No dice. Someone needed to be in control, and Aros wasn't enough of a person on his own, it seemed. So, Sora relegated himself to try and go boneless, let Aros move them. Lea sicced him on some training targets, but Aros just sat and stretched out like a disinterested cat. It made sense, the targets weren't alive.

"Sora, I'm going to bring you two somewhere where Aros can let loose. I want you to let him fight."

"Are you nuts?" Sora asked, as Lea hefted him up.

"Yes," Lea deadpanned, willing open a corridor of darkness. It opened to Radiant Garden, and as soon as they were through, Aros began squirming like crazy.

"Lea what in the infinite worlds are you-" Ienzo started, as Aros wrestled himself out of Lea's grip. Sora didn't have enough time to-

Aros bounded straight past Ienzo and skittered on all fours down the hall.

"You said you had a pest problem," Lea shouted behind him as he fled to follow Aros.

Sora forgot about the weird blue chasm under the castle, but Aros beelined for it so fast he didn't have much time to think. Immediately, his shadow lunged, biting a small Shadow in the neck and snapping it, whipping his own neck back and forth like a dog with a toy.

"Aroth!" Sora said, mouth full, spitting out the tiny Heartless. It tasted like ink and Sora almost heaved. The little heartless's heart floated up to the sky as the thing fizzled.

"Aros, that was a person!"

"Yes?" his own voice asked back. "So?"

"If you eat a Heartless that was a person… does that revive them?" Sora asked the air, as a small swarm of them began to circle. Lea finally jogged down to the ravine, coughing and out of breath.

"Let… -hack-," Lea started, before pausing to hack up a little blood. "Heartless that eat Heartless free them. It's like killing them with a Keyblade," he added once he got his voice back, casting Cure on his throat. "Next time I tell you before we go to a nest," he added, breathlessly, as he slumped on a rock.

"How hungry are you, Aros?" Sora asked himself quietly, though the growling from his stomach already gave him an answer.

"Always. Always hungry," Aros growled low, before Sora let himself tear the horde to shreds.

Sora awoke, as himself and himself alone back in his bed.

His mouth tasted like ink.

"Don't you want dinner, Sora?" Xion asked, worriedly, as he poked around his plate.

"I'm fine."

"You really should eat."

"I did."

"Junk food isn't dinner," Riku said with a small smile.

"Does 500 or so Heartless count as junk food?" Sora asked bitterly. "I have a stomachache. The next time I wake up with Donald and Goofy over me shaking me up after Aros takes over I'm asking for an antacid."

Lea looked extremely guilty. "I didn't think he'd try and eat them all! You'd think he'd stop after a while."

"See, normally he'd just be in control until I gained consciousness," Sora muttered, poking his plate with a fork. "You could have stepped in and torched them at any time, you know."

"Why didn't you just take control?" Riku asked. "How does it work with him?"

"Oh, I could. He's not like when Ven or Xion or Roxas used my body. But I can't fight off hundreds of Heartless alone! My mana doesn't last long enough for group magic and I'm not fast enough. And with someone sitting there with a bucket of popcorn not doing anything…" Sora added, glaring at Lea.

"You know I would have stepped in if there were a problem."

"Just because there wasn'tone doesn't mean I wasn't…" Sora replied quietly. "I'm going to my room."

Yen Sid frowned as Sora deposited his napkin on the table and got up.

When the dining room door closed, Axel slid his own chair out. "Well, one of us has a heart, and one of us is going to go apologize to Sora."

He slammed the door behind him, almost breaking the frame as he left.

"Sora, I'm coming in unless you tell me no." Axel crossed his arms staring at Sora's bedroom door.

Silence. Nervously, Axel gripped the handle and turned. The door let him in.

Aros's golden eyes glared back.

"Hey… heeey." Axel put his hands up non-threateningly, and slowly entered the room. "Can I talk to Sora, buddy? Aros?" Aros merely cocked his head. "God, I can't believe that name stuck," Axel added under his breath.

When Aros made no moves to attack or speak, Axel slowly waded forward, reached out, and began petting the top of his head. Aros made a retching noise, and threw up a pool of ink all over the floor. A tiny new Shadow congealed out of it, and Axel panicked.

"I can take care of the Shadows, but I need a goddamn Keyblade to get rid of that source… fucking hell Lea…"

"Tummy hurts." Axel looked at Aros, clutching his stomach.

"Ugh. Trust me, I've been there. Heartless taste just as bad going down as they do coming up."

Aros looked at him for a moment, before Axel caught a hint of blue in one eye.

"Ugh, what happened?" Sora asked, before throwing up another pool of Heartless.

"You're making a Heartless nest," Axel replied.

Aros stiffened.

"Get out of my room," Sora rasped.

"Whoa, hey, it's Axel. I'm just trying to help. If you still want me out, I'll go."

Aros blinked twice, wisps of blackness dripping from his mouth.

"He ask come in, I let him."

"I should have said no."

Axel threw up his hands. "Okay I'm out. But I am sending you Roxas, Xion, Kairi or Riku to take care of this," he added, sweeping a hand to the pool on the floor, "before we have a problem."

"No-not now- I meant I should have told Lea I didn't want to run any experiments. Not this soon. I should have met with Aros in my heart first. Get to know him. I may have had him here a while but dealing with him is… different."

"Can you turn back?"

"Not… like…" Sora started, in Aros's rasp, before throwing up yet another pool of darkness. "Not when I feel this sick. Did you… I think I heard you say you ate heartless before."

It wasn't phrased as a question but Axel took it anyway.

"Ansem… Xehanort-Ansem I mean, not the King of Radiant Garden… when Isa and I were ripped apart… he threw our Nobodies in that ravine. We woke up there, feral. We were down there a whole week, eating nothing but Heartless and slowly turning from monstrosities to… well to what you see. Ansem was testing us. Anything that crawled out, that was good enough for him. I was throwing up those pools for three days once I clawed my way back up.

Axel sighed, rubbing slow circles on Aros-Sora's back. "Lea sees himself in you. But where I stay the hell away from that place unless I don't have a choice… he's fascinated by it. In a way, it destroyed and saved his life. He absolutely would have stepped in if you were in danger, physically, yes. But I think he hates that place so much he needs to see someone conquer it. And that should be him, not you."

"I'll go back," Sora and Aros said in a creepy chorus, before Sora elaborated. "But not like this. And he's coming with me. Keyblade and- ugh."

Another pool formed on the floor.

"Sora, you need to let people help themselves sometimes. I'll give Lea a good talking to. Right now, we need a Keyblade wielder to keep this mess in check. And that ain't me."

"Anyone but Riku," Sora muttered. "Aros doesn't like him much."

"He try kill me too much," Aros added. "Why Sora trust… I don't know."

"That was in the past, bud. You need to let it go," Axel said, mussing up Aros's wisps of hair. "I'll see if I can whip up something that makes you puke it all out at once. A little light magic should probably do the trick but I don't want to hurt you in the process."

"You're the better mage," Sora grumbled, as another Shadow formed out of the floor. Axel stepped on it, twisting it under his boot until it dematerialized.

"I've heard of the floor is lava but this is stupid," Roxas muttered, as he cast light magic on the floor, erasing the pools and destroying the fresh Heartless. None of them released a heart upon blowing up, but these were Heartless born of the darkness itself, and not a person. It made Sora feel marginally better about the situation, but only just.

Axel came back in with Xion, hefted Aros-Sora on a shoulder, and opened a dark corridor out to the tower courtyard. Kairi and Riku had keyblades at the ready, and Xion carried a flask overflowing with golden yellow liquid.

"As much as you can," Axel admonished, once he'd set Sora down and took the flask from Xion. "Try to drink it all if possible."

Aros grinned and yanked the vessel from Axel, greedily gulping it down, before frowning, retching, and ejecting a pool the size of a Gummi Ship.

And then Sora passed out.

Two sets of green eyes peered nervously at him. Sora flexed his fingers, feeling how solid they were.

His stomach growled.

One of the pair of Lea-Axels nudged the other.

"A-po-lo-gize."

Sora rubbed the crust out of his eyes, before realizing that neither of them had face markings.

So, he reached up and put his hand to the one that spoke's neck.

"Look, haven't you done enough?" Sora whined. "I forgive you, just don't do it again," he muttered.

"But… what? I'm not Lea."

"Heart… beat… doesn't… lie" Sora grumbled into his pillow, before the other shoved his hand in his face.

"And check mine."

Sora reached out, expecting no pulse on the second doppelgänger… only to find him with a heartbeat, too.

"Axel grew a heart of his own," Lea said, smiling gently. "So that makes one of us, I guess."

"Maybe I should suffer for people more often," Sora groaned.

"Oh, no you don't," they said in unison, Axel glaring at Lea.

"Having a heart sucks anyway," Axel added.

"I think Roxas is trying to grow one too," Sora added quietly. "I felt it… was it yesterday? Today was insane…"

"Go back to bed, kid," Axel admonished.

Sora nodded. "If you… want to go back to your house in my heart, go ahead. Aros likes you."

"I should check on him and apologize anyway," Lea replied, embarrassed.

"What for? You didn't do anything to him. If anything, flinging him into a horde to eat was exactly what he wanted. He's calmed down a lot."

"Even when you fuck up, you end up doing the right thing, don't you?" Axel said, grinning at his other.

Lea looked down at Sora, already passed out, then back to Roxas standing in the doorway, just out of view.

"Do that again, Lea, and I'll clobber you," Roxas hissed low. "And I won't hold back. I care about Axel, not you."

"Good, kick my ass," Lea said, strolling out of Sora's room. "Lords above know I deserve it."

Lea clapped a hand around Roxas's neck as he passed. "Well whatdya know."

"What?" Roxas muttered, as Axel passed him too.

"Put two fingers on your wrist, Rox."

Roxas did so, staring back into the soft glow coming from Sora's night light.

"Huh." Roxas's mouth curled into a smile, feeling s slow and steady thump.

"I wonder if Ven and I can trick people like Axel and Lea can…"