Seasalt (AkuSai)

Forgiveness

Some time passed.

For the next few days, Isa would stay awake an extra half hour to make sure that when Lea fell asleep, he didn't become subjected to anymore nightmares. Thankfully, it seemed like the problem of Lea's bad dreams was starting to get better. He'd only had one more nightmare in the span of the next three days, which Isa had decided was progress. It was certainly much less in comparison to the multiple nights in a row where he had witnessed Lea sneaking out of the room. He was grateful for the fact that it seemed to be getting better.

Isa wasn't a stranger to his own on occasion- shit, no one in the apartment was. What with the group's unfortunate set of circumstances? It was surprising that everyone handled their issues so well. Maybe, it was because all of their backgrounds were intertwined in some way, and it was easy to explain your troubles to someone who already knew, or at least has a good idea about what you had gone through. He was sure that was the case.

And even though Isa's nobody had been part of the overarching problem for a very long time, all three of the others had adopted him into their make-shift family immediately. Lea's acceptance hadn't been very surprising to him, considering their history together, but Roxas and Xion's acceptance had been something that surprised him, especially when taking into account everything Saïx had done. It almost felt too good to be true, like all of their kindness shouldn't be reserved for him. But as he began spending more time with box Roxas and Xion, he began to really piece together why they had accepted him so freely and so openly when he hadn't shown them a shred of kindness in his days as Saïx.

Lea had been the catalyst.

Lea loved those kids. He love them with all of his heart, and he loved them with his entire being when he hadn't had one. He had tried his damndest to take care of the box of them despite some bumps in the road, and goddamn if the road wasn't bumpy. Saïx had caused most of those bumps. So had Xemnas' overarching rule when it came to the organization itself and the replica program, sure, but Saïx had enacted most of the bastard's plans. Carried out his orders. He had to, of course, and at one point? Saïx had really begun to believe he was doing the right thing. He only saw Xion as a puppet, and Roxas as her battery to eventually drain and discard. Manipulation and gaslighting on Xemnas' side of things did nothing but to make Saïx's jealousy of the two worse. And thus, his treatment became crueler by the day. They hadn't deserved it.

Axel, though?

Axel, despite his lack of a heart, held sympathy for them. Back then, the redhead wouldn't have admitted it outright for most of their time in the organization, but he did. He felt terribly for these two kids, knowing that they were just being used for the greater purpose of their asshole boss who didn't give two shits about them. He wanted a heartless killing machine. What teenager deserved to be thrown into that kind of a situation, even if they were nobodies? It wasn't fair to them.

And so, Axel showed them kindness. He showed them more kindness than everyone else in the organization by a landslide. It wasn't hard for the both of them to latch onto him, the man being their only source of security in such an awful place they were forced to live and work in. And why wouldn't they? Axel was a friendly escape from the eleven other assholes they were required to live with, even if some of them weren't as bad as the others.

Once, when the group had just moved into their new apartment together, Lea had taken Roxas out to go pick up pizza for the group, (god, he wished there were healthier, cheaper options for food around town,) and left Isa and Xion to continue unboxing their small amount of belongings. The group had spent most of their munny on things like a pair of new beds for the kids and one for themselves, along with a new coffee table, fridge, and a ratty couch, so most of the boxes were filled with their clothes and keepsakes. A couple of boxes held a few warm, hefty blankets gifted to them by Kairi and Riku right before they had set off for Twilight Town as a group, too. The handwritten note Kairi wrote was still in the box, Isa found, as he began to open up one of the boxes.