Archive of Our Own

        It's a routine, almost. Sora gets home at three in the morning, and shoves his touchpad - older than he is, and he should really replace it some day, but the hefty feel of it in his pocket is so familiar he never does - into its charger, and after a couple of seconds for the old, old batteries to come whirring back to life Roxas appears beside him and hits him.

        Roxas doesn't bother to say anything, times like these. He doesn't need to. They've had enough of these arguments over the course of Sora's life that they already know all the lines anyway. Though it hurts more than it did when Sora was a kid, since the new solid-hologram tech started getting affordable. (Even though he gets beat up a lot more these days Sora never regrets Roxas browbeating him into installing it.)

         Some days Sora just drags himself across to his bed and passes out, but other days, days like today, he goes in the other direction.

        Or at least tries to. Who put that wall there...?

        "You know," says Roxas, grabbing him so he doesn't fall down, "I did tell you you should stop drinking. Before my batteries ran out." Okay, so maybe the lack of actual arguing doesn't stop Roxas making some really pointed comments.

        "'m fine," says Sora, with all the slurred self-confidence of drunks everywhere.

        "Uh-huh," says Roxas, "I can see that. I have no idea why you keep putting yourself through this."

        "'s awesome," says Sora, "'s part of the tertiary 'sperience, everyone says so."

        "'Everyone' is morons," says Roxas, and pushes Sora down the tiny, tiny hall of his tiny, tiny apartment. He's a single tertiary student, it's what he's assigned, and he'll take it without arguing if he wants to be assigned an apartment at all, despite it really not being big enough for two people. Admins don't care about anything but forms, though, Sora learned when he came here, and on forms Roxas isn't really a person. Which is stupid, because can't they see him? Can't they talk to him? If they're somewhere wired for solid-holos, can't they be punched by him?

        "You're a real person," says Sora, leaning his head against Roxas' hip in-between bouts of spewing.

        "No I'm not," says Roxas, and pats his hair. "How'd you go with that girl?"

        Girl, girl... oh! That girl. "Nothin' happened," says Sora. Which sucked, 'cause she was really pretty, too. Her hair was even real, not extensions. Sora could tell 'cause it didn't look as pretty as most girls' hair, all frizzy at the ends and stuff. Sora likes that kind of thing. It's okay to be synthed up if you're an AI like Roxas, but flesh humans should be all fleshy, with frizzy hair and scars and embarrassing pimples, all that sort of thing, 'cause everyone has a beauty that no-one else has, right? And if all the flesh humans steal all the synth beauty, what happens to the AIs? They can only be synth beauty and - and - only flesh humans can be fleshy-beautiful and if they're not what happens to all that beauty and -

        "Shut up, Sora," says Roxas. ...oops. Forgot to not think out loud again. "What happened with the girl, then? She seemed to be pretty into you."

        "Um," says Sora. "Well, then you ran out of battery and m' pad made that out-of-battery noise, and she asked what it was, and." He throws up again, but he's pretty sure it's gonna be the last time. He stays in place for a bit longer, though, just in case.

        "And?" Roxas prompts, after a moment.

        "She laughed at me." It's not exactly new.

        Roxas pulls Sora up onto his feet, passes him a glass of water to rinse his mouth out with. "PocketFriends are just kid toys, what are you, five?" he guesses.

        Sora spits the water out. "Pretty much," he says, looking down at the sink. It gleams, in the night-lights, which is, of course, all that he ever remembers to turn on when he gets in late.

        "But you're real," he says, turning to Roxas, and hugging him. "I can't just throw you away. You're my best friend."

        Roxas smiles, and half-hugs back. Which is progress! He likes the solid-holos 'cause it means he can do things that aren't on the network, but he's always been kind of weird about touching people. Says it's way different to the way AIs touch, when they meet on the nets.

        "C'mon," is all he says, which is how Sora knows he approves, "let's get you to bed."