Not Exactly Dusks
A Kingdom Hearts / Twilight fanfic by Raberba girl

Summary: Roxas, newly inducted into the Organization, attempts to travel to Twilight Town but ends up in a different "Twilight" instead. He meets a couple of strange white people who aren't Dusks after all, and who have some misleading ideas about love...

A/N: I really don't like how this fic turned out (see the note at the end for details), but figured I'd post it anyway since I *gasp* actually finished it.

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"Look, it's really easy. You just think about where you want to go, hold your hand out, sort of tug at the darkness, and a corridor will open up. Simple."

Roxas stared at his mentor a little blankly. "Just hold out my hand and think?" he mumbled. He was still pretty new on the job and had not quite lost his zombie expression.

"Yeah! It's easy! A baby could do it!" The fake enthusiasm practically screamed out of Axel's voice; he was losing patience. "Just, you know, try it!" Before I throttle you, he successfully did not add.

"...Okay." Roxas stood there uncertainly for a moment. Then, cautiously, he held up his hand. Nothing happened.

"That's okay! Try again!" Axel could feel his teeth grinding, and his hands were itching with the effort of trying to hold his flames in check.

Ten minutes later, the Organization's newest Nobody had finally managed to open a portal of darkness. He stared at it, then backed up uneasily until he ran into Axel.

"Buddy. You're supposed to walk towards the portal, not away from it."

"...It's dark."

Axel refrained from screaming with frustration. "It doesn't matter! You're a Nobody! It can't hurt you! And you can't be afraid of it anyway because fear is a feeling and you don't have feelings!" Whoops. A stench was rising from where the crackling flames dancing on Axel's fingertips were singeing the closest spikes of the kid's hair. Axel hurriedly curled his hands into fists, snuffing out the fire. "Now go bash some Heartless in Twilight Town for a while. I'll check up on you in an hour or so."

"Twilight Town," Roxas repeated.

"Yes, good boy, Twilight Town! Go bash Heartless! You can do it, Roxas!" Axel gave the boy a not-quite-gentle shove, then let out a yell of relief as the darkness closed over Number XIII's figure and faded from sight. "Finally! Good riddance! And if Saïx doesn't transfer the zombie to someone else soon, I'll - quit! ...Or something."

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Roxas looked around in confusion. This place did not look familiar at all. He knew that he had been to Twilight Town at least once before, but...that had been a place with quiet trees, a mansion, and sleepy, twinkling music. This place was...loud, and full of concrete, and had no discernable background music at all.

Lots of people were staring at him, which made him vaguely uncomfortable. All of them were kids, pretty much all of them with the same tight, unhappy, sarcastic looks on their faces. The word school floated into his mind - he did not think he had ever encountered a school before, but somehow he had vague impressions of it all the same, and it seemed like this might be one. A courtyard, where lots of people had food and scattered bits of trash littered the ground and there was a constant background hum of teenagers talking loudly and occasionally yelling, and too much information and too many people staring at him and his head hurt.

"Who's he?"

"Where'd he come from?"

"Dude, didja see him just appear out of freaking nowhere?"

"He's cute."

"Looks Asian."

"With blue eyes? Get real."

"Whatever, he's still cute."

"Looks kind of like a zombie."

"What's with that coat?"

Roxas heard a little whimper, and realized that it came from himself. "Axel...help...?"

Finally, a girl stepped out toward him, so nondescript that he didn't take in much except that she had brown hair. "Hi. Are you lost, little boy?"

"...I'm not little," Roxas managed.

"How did you appear out of nowhere?"

"I...didn't come from nowhere...I came from - uh, the castle?" Roxas got the impression that he was not really making sense.

The girl set her palm against his forehead. Startled by the unexpected warmth of her touch, he leaned eagerly into her hand and nearly fell over when she withdrew it. "You don't seem to have a fever. In fact, you're unusually cold. I know someone like that..." She shook her head. "Hey, why don't you come in out of the sun and sit down?"

"I, um, have to find a Heartless. And bash it." He thought a moment. "Actually, lots of Heartless. Xemnas told me to. And Axel." He missed Axel.

The girl was giving him a wary look. "I think you might be sick. My name's Bella, by the way."

It seemed like most of the kids had gone back to eating or playing around. Roxas felt a little better without them all staring at him. "Oh. I'm Roxas. Is this Twilight Town?"

"Twilight Town?"

"Twilight Town." They stared at each other. "Is this it?"

"This is Forks," she said cautiously. "You're not an alien, are you?" She had a strange look on her face as she said it.

"What's an alien?"

"You know. From outer space."

Roxas was not sure what she meant. "There's lots of empty space in the castle. It makes me dizzy when I look at it, so Axel told me not to look over the edges of the path when we're walking around."

"Uh huh. So, this Axel person, do you know his phone number? Could he pick you up if I called him?"

"Um...he's Number VIII."

Bella looked at him expectedly, but then her face changed. "Right. Um, you know, I know this doctor, I think I might have him take a look at you..."

Bella ended up "cutting class," as she called it, and led Roxas to a scary-looking red vehicle that startled him with the noise it made when she used her Keyblade to activate it. (She had several Keyblades, actually, but they were all really small. Roxas wondered how she could kill anything with them.)

Then she drove him down a long road, up to a big building surrounded by black fields of cars. Inside, she talked to some people until the two of them had been ushered into a room with a very white person. Roxas thought that the man was some kind of weird Dusk, until he started talking. Roxas did not know any Dusks that could talk.

"So, what have you brought us, Bella?" the white man asked with friendly curiosity. (Roxas was not entirely sure the man wasn't a Nobody. He did not think humans could have skin the same color as the castle walls.)

"Well, it's this kid, he says his name is Roxas...I think he's sick. He says a lot of weird stuff."

Roxas blinked up at the man. Maybe he could figure out what kind of Nobody he was by the element of his attacks. "Do you fight with ice, rocks, books, flower petals, or lightning?" Those were the only Nobodies whose shapes he didn't know yet.

The man gave a startled laugh. "Er...what makes you think I like to fight?"

Roxas was surprised. "All Nobodies fight. Xemnas says that I use light, but I haven't actually fought yet, so I don't know for sure."

The man looked at Bella. "I see what you mean." He smiled at Roxas again. "Well, young man, let's take a look at you and see if we can't get to the bottom of this."

A short time later, both Bella and the doctor, Carlisle, were staring at Roxas in shock. "He really doesn't have a heartbeat? Is he a- I mean, is he like you?" Bella asked in astonishment.

"I...I don't- Just look at him, he doesn't look like one of us." Carlisle eyed him appraisingly. "Roxas, does anything...unusual happen when you come outside with the sun shining?"

Roxas cocked his head in puzzlement. "I don't think so."

"I see. Hm...your flesh is too dark, and not very warm but definitely not cold enough. And yet...your heart..."

"I'm a Nobody," Roxas explained again patiently. "I don't have a heart. None of us do. That's why I'm supposed to kill Heartless, so that we can collect their hearts and build Kingdom Hearts and then get our own hearts back." At least, that's what he thought Xemnas meant during all those lectures. It was hard to understand Xemnas sometimes. "Do you have a heart?" That's what he was really curious about.

Carlisle was very still for a moment, thinking. Then he lifted Roxas's hand and placed it gently against his chest.

It felt like stone beneath his palm. Roxas blinked. There was no heartbeat. "So you are a Nobody. Are you in the Organization, too?"

"I'm afraid I still don't really understand what you mean, Roxas. Are you part of an Organization?"

"Yes. Organization XIII."

"And...are the others in the Organization like you?"

"Yeah." Roxas thought a minute. "Kind of. I mean, we're all Nobodies and we all wear black coats, but...we look different, you know. And we fight different."

"But does anyone else in your Organization have a beating heart?"

"No. I told you, we're trying to get our hearts back." Honestly, these people were making him feel almost smart.

"Does anyone in your Organization, well, have skin that changes when they're in direct sunlight? Or do they drink...red liquid?"

"We take turns cooking. Sometimes people forget, and then we get in trouble with Xemnas because when we go too long without eating, we can't fight very well. Axel says it'd be nice if we remembered to be hungry, too, but I don't really know what that means...I think it's something that used to happen with us before we became Nobodies."

They were both staring at him with blank looks. For the first time, Roxas wondered if that's what he looked like to other people. He started to get an inkling of why it bothered Axel.

"You know," Carlisle finally said, "I think I'll let Esme look after you until I get off work. Then we can figure out what's going on and what to do with you."

"I have to go find Heartless."

"Roxas, I don't think you should be wandering around on your own."

In the end, Roxas ended up walking around town looking for Heartless in the company of a nice lady who was just as white as her 'husband.' (It was a pleasant surprise to find out that women could be nice. Apparently, Larxene was neither the only nor the most appealing example of femininity.)

As they walked, Roxas tried to understand the concept of 'married,' because it fascinated him strangely and yet he could not quite seem to grasp it. "So you got 'married' because you loved each other?"

"Yes, very much."

"But what is love?" He had been really, really wanting to know, and Axel's explanations were a bit wanting.

The look on her face made him think she wanted to pick him up and snuggle him. (He had tried that with the Moogle once. It had bitten him. He did not intend to repeat the experience.) "It's when you care about someone else very deeply. It's when your fates are entwined. It's when you enjoy spending time in their company, when you're sad every time you're away from them, when you feel like you can't live without them. It's when you want to make babies with them, when you..."

She went on and on, and Roxas listened raptly, occasionally interrupting with a question or two, but otherwise too taken up with her free explanations to think of asking her more.

Eventually, he remembered that he was supposed to be looking for Heartless, and the thought of Xemnas's displeasure drove out thoughts of love for the moment. "I can't believe there aren't any Heartless anywhere. Xemnas said they'd attack me because of my Keyblade."

"Your Keyblade?"

"Yeah." Roxas showed her. She seemed properly impressed. It occurred to him that Heartless might show up now that his Keyblade was out and ready for action, but nothing happened. "Maybe nobody in this world has any darkness in their hearts..."

Esme looked sad. "I'm afraid there is a lot of darkness in people's hearts, Roxas."

"So then where are the Heartless?"

Finally he accepted the fact that he was going to have to give up. Esme said something about how it was about time to head home, and he thought that she was probably right. "Well, it was nice walking around with you and talking about love, Esme. I still have so many more questions...like what babies are, and if you can love more than one person at a time, and if you can stop loving someone...but I guess I'll have to wait 'til the next time I come to Twilight Town. Or wherever this is."

"Roxas-"

He did not hear the rest of what she said, because he had opened a corridor of darkness and was stepping through it.

The castle was quiet - everyone seemed to be in their rooms. Roxas slipped carefully past the Assassins who were standing guard and went over to where Axel was lounging on his bed, playing Coded.

"Hey, Axel?"

"Yeah?" the red-haired Nobody mumbled distractedly.

"I went to Twilight Town, I think."

"Uh huh."

"I didn't find any Heartless, but I learned a bunch of stuff."

"Mm...just a sec, let me finish this stupid floor."

Roxas obediently waited one second, then continued. "Esme told me a lot of stuff about love. Axel?"

"Shut up, dang it, I've got ten seconds left!"

Roxas waited again. Then, when Axel's irritated eyes finally lifted to his, he said, "I think I love you, Axel. Can we get married?"

The game system clattered to the floor. "What the heck?"

Roxas cocked his head, a little puzzled by the reaction. "Esme said that people who love each other get married. I don't think I'd die without you, and I still don't know what babies are, but I care about you and I think our fates our entwined like Xemnas says, and I like eating ice cream with you, and when we go on missions together..."

Axel groaned. "What nut job in Twilight Town was talking to you about all that?"

"I'm not sure if it was Twilight Town...there weren't any Heartless there, but there were these white people who drank red stuff and talked about love, and once when the sun came out Esme's skin went all sparkly, and she was really upset about it."

"Agh!" Axel swore under his breath, something about that idiot Zexion and his girly vampire books and that idiot Vexen and his stupid alternate universe experiments. "Dude, we have to talk..."

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Unhappy Author's Notes: I don't think I've ever had a story idea go so wrong... The original idea had come when I was playing 358/2 Days and reached the part where Roxas and Axel were talking about love, and I thought of the Twilight books and their ridiculous views on love (and, of course, there's the whole Twilight / Twilight Town thing, too). Originally, this was supposed to be a silly, Twilight-bashing humor fic, but it ended up being a random, pointless, unfunny comparison between Nobodies and Stephenie Meyer's vampires. *sigh*

Sorry if the timing is a little off; I've only played 358/2 Days once, and it's been a while since I read Twilight.

Also, I don't really think that Zexion would read Twilight, but I got the idea from JenxtheJinx's YouTube channel, I thought it was pretty funny and suited the story here, so I used it.