moonstrualcycle | no running in the halls!

And what, you think you'll do that?

[ Well, she wasn't gonna chance with Isa right there, but when she starts stripping her jacket and stuff Lea turns away to chagnge her own clothes. Not like they haven't seen each other naked, before and after losing their hearts. The pants are the first to go, swapped out for the loose cotton pants she was wearing before. (They're green, with a hedgehog pattern.)

The shirt was the second to go, so since she was delayed it's not on yet, which means Isa gets an eye full of Lea's bare back, or what she can see under the mess of hair. Is it longer than it was last time she saw her? Probably.

The only other thing of note is the scar in the middle of her side, jagged and sharp and creeping upwards on her front and back. ]

[oh. at first she can't think what that scar could be from, and then she realizes, hazily. anything that happens while she's berserked is fuzzy, if it's there at all, but she remembers Kai in a cell, and Axel taking the bait, as if she could do anything else. they fought, and then it goes indistinct, until her brain helpfully provides a crystal-clear vision of slamming Lunatic's edge into Axel's side, hard enough to crack ribs and tear through muscle. it takes her own breath away, and she probably makes some little distressed noise. by the time she can find it in her to move to Lea's side, Lea will absolutely have her own tanktop on, so no worries there.

what do, Lea, when your friend seems to be trying to get that piece of clothing back off of you, or at least up a bit?]

[ Well if it were a hypothetical she'd say she doesn't know, but since it appears to be a reality she's trying not to fall over. The noise was a little concerning but very much not familiar, so she hadn't immediately whipped around while the shirt was caught in her hair over hear head, and once she's got it on Isa's already there, trying to take it back off, and Lea has to wobble and brace the backs of her legs against the bed to keep from pinwheeling down. ]

What? What? What is it? Isa?!

[jesus, chill, you ninny. it's not like some sort of assault is happening here; Isa just bunches the fabric up on one side, high enough to be able to see most of the scar. as she touches it gently, her memories supply the sound it made when Lunatic connected, and the sound Lea made, and she flinches back as if struck but doesn't remove her hand.]

I did that.

[ No. Wild arm movements and overreactions are her native language. Once she figures out that there's not a tarantula on her body or something she looks even more confused, and then it all hits at once and she freezes. Fuck. This is just one disaster after another. She covers Isa's hand with her own, trying to block more of the scar from view. ]

No. You didn't.

[why would there be a tarantula, Red isn't interested in normal people, just Riku. Isa doesn't fight the scar being covered, and in fact lets go of the bunched fabric of Lea's tanktop. she's not having another freakout, at least, she's just... sad. sad that it happened, sad that they were driven to fight each other, sad that she was ever at any point so enraged that she could wound Lea that badly. she doesn't do sad as well as Lea does, everything on her face is too subtle for that, but it's still obvious.]

I did, and I shouldn't have.

We shouldn't have been in a position where we fought to begin with. But I went rogue, and didn't leave you with any information. I betrayed the Organization. What were you going to do, follow me and get them after you too? Besides, you were berserk.

[ Sure, it hurt. It hurt worse than anything else she's been through, physically and emotionally, and it helped contribute to her death a little while later. But she's not going to say that. It's been years, for her, and after she came back in Radiant Garden and saw it... well, it was proof of everything that went wrong. It was proof Isa had changed past the point of coming back. But she's standing here now, living, undeniable proof that that was wrong. ]

[what the fuck is this, a Lea who's honestly stabler and more mature about some things than Isa? unheard of. Isa grumbles a little, because berserk is no excuse, and because technically it is still Roxas and (redacted)'s fault that Axel got distracted from their plans and then bailed for reasons. she wraps her arms around herself, chilled in this piece of clothing with no sleeves. this sucks. the whole thing sucks even though it's a lot better now.]

The whole thing was a bad idea and I don't know how either of us made it out.

[ Really, Lea has two modes: happy goofball who wants everyone to know who she is and remember her, and Axel. That part of her formed directly as a result of losing her heart, and adapting to everything that came with it. She was Axel when she was in Castle Oblivion, and for a long time before. Roxas is the one who brought her back, but it's still part of her. It's the part she's been trying to shake off ever since she came back with her Heart, and the part she tried to redeem herself from by helping Sora. That's not who she wants to be anymore, but it's also a coping mechanism, to deal with all the shitty things they had to deal with after a horrible cycle of manipulation and grooming into killers and vessels.

But it helps when she needs to focus on the bad shit, and tell herself that it wasn't her fault. In this case, she needs to tell Isa.

Does she mean going rogue, or fighting? Lea assumes it's one of the two, and rolls her shoulders, which have become stiff and defensive. ]

Not like either one of us ever knew any of it would go this far. I didn't have anything left for the Organization at that point. Did you think I didn't know it would be you coming after me?

[now Isa has her head tilted down aggressively, something she doesn't even realize she does, like a ram getting ready to charge. Lea accidentally tapped one of the remaining wells of bitterness in Isa, and Isa's gonna be really upset about it in a few minutes.]

Which time? It would've been easy enough to just come back and say you hadn't been able to find Roxas, and let Sora take it from there while we got back to our plan. But no, you had to keep trying to get her back, at the risk of my possibly killing you. It was all for nothing anyway, I needn't have bothered trying to keep you on the run so it wouldn't come down to that, since you went and died for Sora's sake. Do you have any idea what that was like, being the last one left standing besides Xemnas?

[sorry about these non-sequiteurs. and the real kicker was that Xemnas never even knew a single thing about Subject X's fate. it hasn't even occurred to Isa that one of the other apprentices might've known.]

Nah, obviously not, since I was always down at the bottom doing everyone's dirty work, including getting you there in the first place.

[ One of them was bound to explode like this, and Isa would know better than anyone why Axel turned out to be fire. Lea's temper has always been like that — build up and then a series of explosive bursts and then nothing. They've been working on the build up since she first showed up outside the door, but now it's really apparent. Part of it is justified, but part of it is also blind defensiveness. ]

And what did I get for that? You closed off, really fell into that higher up position. I didn't get anything out of that except helping you, and all I got from you was a hard time about missions and orders and backing off when I tried to make other friends!

[the real question is does this turn into fisticuffs or makeouts from here. Isa hisses like she's been physically attacked and moves a step closer. it's hard to hoist someone off their feet by the material of a tanktop, but she does it, one-handed, just enough to get Lea off-balance and remind her that she can and will suplex Lea into the floor, not that her thoughts are that deliberate.]

I seem to recall one of us saying that they were admittedly too much of a dumbass to be able to make it up that high without being found out, and it wasn't me. You helped me get there, and all I had to do was deal with a bunch of petty in-fighting morons and suck up to the person I hated the most. But of course your job was harder, being protected from all the really ugly parts.

[ One fear. But also we're not in fight or flight, we're in emotional past-hurts and things we would redo if we had the choice, and Lea immediately reaches to grip both of Isa's hands and then moves one of them to her shoulder. ]

Yeah because orchestrating murder to help you wasn't ugly, and neither was playing double agent or setting up the only friend I had after you got your cushy position, miss second-in-command. Bossing me around wasn't a perk for you, obviously.

[says you. Isa's about 80% into fight mode, for probably the third time since arriving, and it's disgruntling that Lea isn't reciprocating. at this rate the only thing that's going to get murdered is one of Lea's pillows, when Isa beats it to death out of frustration. Lea also makes some very good points, which doesn't help matters, and leaves her floundering for a response. looks like you've won this fight, Lea, although there's still some weird tension vibrating through your friend here, and she's not making eye contact again, as she says nothing because there's nothing to say.]

[ She still kind of wants to fight, or blow up and really yell at her, but she doesn't do any of that and instead she just deflates a little and then takes a seat on her bed, looking down at her hands. She feels hot and kind of like she wants to provoke Isa to provoke her more, but she knows that's not what they should do. ]

Sorry. But not because I didn't mean it.

[god, it feels like they're teenagers again, fighting over stupid shit. or like right after they became Nobodies, when they were fighting about real shit that never amounted to anything because they had jobs to do. how do you explain to your best friend that for a time you hated her for doing and being what the two of you should have been doing and being together? or that you ended up with the major hots for your boss who you also hated, partially out of stockholm syndrome and partially out of deliberate spite? it can't be done, not right now.

which is why Isa's letting her heart take over, since it's moved on to other emotions by now anyway. clearly the best plan here is to stop digging her nails into her palms, lean down and kiss Lea full on the mouth with Intent, and then flee for the bathroom. did she say almost three weeks of having a heart? more like almost two, closer to one and a half. time is weird when your head's all fucked up. at least the crying jags pretty much stopped on like, day four.]

.........huh?

[ Hold up, her brain is operating in slow motion and it's still stuck in a time thirty seconds ago. What just happened? Did Isa just kiss her? Like for real kiss? That was not a "I kiss my bff all the time!" kiss.

Is that what's going on back home???

Okay, she waits a few more seconds, then slowly stands up herself. She feels stunned, or half-awake. Clearly this has all been some weird DR dream. ]

Isa?

[if it was a dream there wouldn't be a woman locked in Lea's bathroom, trying really hard not to hyperventilate. i mean, presumably; idk what Lea gets up to in her free time, maybe she's into that now. if it makes her feel any better, in addition to that being some of what was going on back home, she probably also impulsively kissed Terra like that one afternoon when the light was all pacha dot jpg, and then wouldn't look at or talk to anyone for at least a day. idk i feel like there was a lot of tentative canoodling going on, people rediscovering human interaction and hearts and emotions.

either way, Isa's not responding, and the door is firmly locked with Isa sitting on the floor leaning against it, if Lea tries to come in.]

[ Probably. It's hard to get control of emotions and all that when you're used to having a heart. Tentative canoodling is a good term for it. It was probably going around.

They've been through this before, probably, some time before they lost their hearts, where there was a locked door and they were on either side of it. She's going to just stop there and then flop down and take a seat in front of it. She doesn't know Isa's right on the other side, and knocks under the doorknob. ]

[all she'll get is a slight shuffling noise that might've been Isa checking to make sure the door was still locked, because fuck knows that isn't a reliable defense these days. christ, out of that entire group (not counting hpo or the talking animals) Isa's the only one without a keyblade. she's probably considering Even as a friend now just for some time away from all those dumb keys. it's moot now of course, but.

she's there, and listening, and there's a small thump as she tips her head back to rest it against the door. there's a good chance she just fucked everything up, she thinks.]

[ She wants to crack some jokes about how it's clearly her fault, being this attractive and all, but it's... She's tired, and heartsore, in a way. She leans forward so that her forehead is pressed against the door in response to the thump. ]

Look, I get it. It's hard, and when things are hard I never make them any easier. Even this... weird cross-world situation. Having a Heart. That's all hard.

[ A sigh. ]

I could just open it, you know.

[i forgot about Nami in that group, whoops; someone she'd never spoken to or seen until everyone was completed again. honestly she wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Nami had a keyblade, look at the people he came from. Isa sighs too. she's exhausted now, and her heart hurts, and all she really wants to do is crawl in bed and use Lea as a pillow for at least ten hours, but she still has doubts about whether that's welcome or not.]

...thank you for not doing that.

[three hours ago there were one-sided tickle fights going on and Isa was being insufferably smug, what on earth happened here. it's like the gif of the guy showing up with pizza but everything's broken and on fire, except they were both here the whole time.]

...yeah.

[ You're welcome, or something. It would be a kind of crummy thing to do, to remove someone's ability to have any privacy at all. Also: Lea and Isa happened here. This is just how it is when they're not 100% good. Disaster. New Hearts and unresolved emotional issues and sexual tension. ]

Well, you can't stop me from talking. Is your Heart overloaded? Mine's beating really fast.

Mine's been overloaded since I woke up in Radiant Garden. A lot of-- hngh.

[where's the button to fastball special Lea into the current timeline so there aren't any more spoilers to worry about? Isa can't talk about much that's been going on, and that sucks a LOT.]

[ Isa's gonna say she wishes Lea was caught up and Lea's just going to disappear. It'll be great. She might hear Lea huff and drop her forehead on the door, again. ]

Is that how we were 'hanging out' back home?

[ Should she be more direct? Time to be more direct. ]

Is that the first time you've kissed me?

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