The Cat Unbreathing, Ch.1

[rabbitprint]

The Cat Unbreathing, Ch.1
Sequel to Cats in Boxes.
By: kytha, rabbitprint
Length: ~10k
Rating: M/M, nongraphic. Overall R, this chapter, PG.
Summary: Searching for answers to the dilemma of the Keyblade Master's approach, Saix finds himself falling back into old habits -- only to discover that some things can never be undone, while others can.
ch1 - ch2 - ch3


Vexen isn't there when Saix comes back.

It's near the start of -- what he calls later -- the Keyblade Massacre when Saix finally braves the stairs down to Vexen's quarters. No one is there. No one should be there, he chides himself, since the only presence that shared that space had undoubtedly been a hallucination. A particularly vivid one, true, but little more than that.

Demyx is gone. First among the fresh casualties; possibly second, if Sora's presence and Roxas's absence are any indication. It has been over a year since Castle Oblivion fell. Namine and DiZ and the Keyblade Master have vanished from the Organization's surveillance network as quickly as rocks sunk into a pond.

Axel has proven himself to be a traitor, which surprises no one, or at least none of the Organization members who had been paying attention to VIII's erratic behavior over the latter half of the year. The Princess of Heart, at least, was recovered before Axel could do too much damage by retaining her; having Kairi as a prisoner is about as comfortable as handling live vipers, and Saix can only imagine what Axel would have done with her in order to force Sora's hand.

But to have another member of the Organization fall to the Keyblade Master's hands is almost a surprise, and an unpleasant one.

Even worse are the reports of Sora's second keyblade -- a sign that can only imply a reunion with Roxas.

It would be impossible to claim that they had never expected a day like this to come: when Roxas has been possessed by his Other, when dissent between ranks has lead to certain members in conflict, when the security of Kingdom Hearts is no longer a guarantee. The future is never certain, but missing half of the Organization from the start of their dealings with Sora cannot bode well.

No answers exist in the upper halls of the Castle. Nothing is left in the lower. What remains is a morass of uncertainty, of empty gaps where authority once existed to keep business running smoothly. There's not enough time to knit everything back together; there's not enough time for anything anymore, and Saix's habits lure him back down to the place that's formed the center of all his riddles over the past year.

He goes to Vexen's quarters.

When Saix wrenches the hall door open, he expects anything to happen -- anything but the silence that greets him, the nothingness that yawns wide, threatening to pull him in. The air that circulates groggily around his face, stale and dusty. The room feels as empty as a tomb. He notes, distractedly, that the broken teapot is still stacked in a forlorn pile of china by the dustbin: a final chore he never got around to finishing before he stood up and left.

There is nothing of welcome, but there is nothing of rejection either. There is no trace of Vexen's whimsical passions and caprice crackling through the air, tangible even though their source was not. There is nothing of desperate ghosts or self-delusions; there is nothing that feels real, there is nothing.

In the end, what gives Saix the strange courage to step forward is the urge to resist becoming a part of that nothing as well. His steps are as heavy as a sleepwalker's, as a corpse brought back to life. He moves like a man in a dream.

He moves like a child: careful, wary, insatiable.

Alive.

He drops himself into a chair that remembers him despite his long absence. Its cushions allow his weight to settle in the right places, cradling his limbs while he thinks about the Organization's most recent loss.

The last time Saix ever saw Demyx had been before the musician's last mission to the Underworld. As in so many matters, passing orders down to the lower-ranked neophytes had become Saix's duty -- Zexion was no longer there to manage the task -- and he preferred to make sure that Demyx was aware of the import of his mission before IX actually departed. That was, if Demyx could actually get the necessary gear for the mission together first.

Typically enough, the cue cards had been Luxord's idea. On that basis alone, Saix suspected them to be nothing more than a great private joke at Demyx's expense, but IX had been adamant about finding them before he left. The berserker saw little enough harm in it, save for the fact that it was taking the musician a suspiciously long time to find them.

"They're by that sidetable," Saix had murmured at last, finally exasperated enough at watching Demyx turn himself in circles to comment. He was beginning to wonder if the Melodious Nocturne was secretly suffering from a case of short-sightedness or possibly myopia; the prospect was a dismal one.

"Ah, thanks!" Apparently capable of finding a larger object, but not the glaringly white rectangles upon it, Demyx had scrambled to snatch the cards up.

"Right, that's that, then -- I'm off!" Nobodies generally did not wave to one another before departing for a mission, but Demyx always did, and this occasion wasn't any different. The younger Nobody tossed Saix a jaunty salute before trotting towards a freshly-opened portal.

The berserker did not deign to respond, but inclined his head faintly regardless, turning to go.

He could still feel the empty portal yawning open behind him: IX remained on its threshold.

"...Yes?" he inquired presently, the question tart.

He could almost hear the wry grin. "Nah, just noticed you'd been -- I dunno -- kinda out of it, a while back. I mean, maybe it's just a moon thing or whatever." Before Saix could snap at Demyx for that remark, the musician had darted into the portal like an eel, voice echoing behind him.

"Stay safe!"

The injunction had made the berserker blink slow and languid, unable to fathom what possible reason IX might have for wishing him well. Saix was the one staying at Never Was -- relatively certain of his continued security -- while the musician would be haring off on a mission to another world and couldn't even find his own cue cards.

In the end, Saix hadn't been the one who'd needed good luck.

* * * * * *
Vexen's rooms feel as empty as any of the others whose owners have passed. Even Demyx's presence has vanished entirely from the comfortable nook of the castle he had claimed as his own. Saix doesn't know who or what the musician's Other was, but IX clearly fancied himself something of an interior decorator, though not perhaps a particularly adept one. The brilliant fabrics -- Agrabah, Land of Dragons, Port Royal his mind whispers, murmuring each source of origin automatically upon seeing them -- plastered across the walls of Demyx's rooms, meant to inspire optimism or at least a sense of life, only seem to underscore the distinct lack of it now.

The musician's rooms do not feel haunted. In fact, much like Vexen's do now, they don't feel like anything at all. The only peculiarity Saix notices is a triad of Dancers undulating in synchronized time, silently stationed in one of the side-rooms -- a music hall of some sort, the diviner quickly judges, based on the acoustics and the shape. He considers dismissing them, since their presence appears purposeless. In the end, he does nothing. This is not his domain; he is merely an observer. The fact that they are masterless does not concern Saix yet; without Demyx's will to imprint them, the Dancers will dissolve away back into the more common form of Dusk soon enough -- as Marluxia's had, as Vexen's did.

Beyond that, there is nothing of note. He makes his inventory of Demyx's extensive collection of musical interests, then tucks his pen back into his pockets and opens a portal to his room, prepared to make a report on the matter that will at least be thankfully brief.

He pauses a moment, wavering, and then with a wave of his hand, alters the portal's destination, and steps directly back into Vexen's rooms instead.

The transition is not something he's done before. Always -- unconsciously and otherwise -- he's entered the scientist's rooms by the front door, the physical gateway. He's not sure why; perhaps because with Vexen's ghost, there had been enough of a sense of presence that stepping in without permission seemed tantamount to walking in on someone in the middle of their morning ablutions. Just as invasive, just as degrading -- not that he could see Vexen's ghost even if he was there, and even then, why should he have cared for the modesty of a dead man?

Or perhaps it was merely ritual: part of the habits that Saix taught himself until they took on a strength of their own, independently urging him to follow rank and file and procedure like the first stages of an oracular trance.

The dead have no secrets. Saix has rifled through the rooms of more than half of the Organization, and he knows this fact well. But Vexen's have had a way of hiding, of lurking in corners unexpected, of being painstakingly discovered in cupboards, in books, in the depths of his crockery and the sheets of his bed.

Now Vexen's room holds nothing of mystery, or of personality. It's as if no one has lived here for years. When he opens a cabinet he discovers most of the coffee has gone stale in its wrapping; Luxord is too busy for him to even contemplate asking for more, and even then Saix isn't sure if it's appropriate to. There's a kind of unspoken strain on all of them now, and though they cannot feel fear or depression, their bodies can still become exhausted. Every mission seems to drain each of the Nobodies in one way or another -- small enough not to hamper their performance, but noticeable to Saix's watchful eyes. He would prefer not to compromise that balance any more than he has to, so he holds his tongue, and drops the ruined coffee into the trash bin.

Inevitably his wanderings lead him to the bed: the place that has served him as prison, as shelter, as home.

He hesitates upon being confronted by it. The sheets are still mussed at one corner, halfway tucked in from the last time he'd cleaned up. At first, he avoids sleeping in it; then, distasteful of avoidance, Saix pulls back the covers and sprawls on the mattress.

Sleep does not come for hours.

The bed accepts him easily as the rest of the furnishings; absently sniffing the sheets makes him wrinkle his nose and note that he'll have to change them for fresh ones if he plans to stay. To distract himself, Saix changes them anyway, pulling plain linen out of the scientist's closets and shaking the dust out of them as he peels the old sheets back and sets about busily remaking the bed. Task accomplished, he lies on top of the covers, feeling the bed shift and creak under his weight -- and between one blink and the next, he falls asleep, lulled by the calm stillness and the scent of mothballs.

Mercifully, his sleep is dreamless, but he wakes in fits and starts throughout the night, and when morning comes he is no closer to an answer than he was before.

The struggle for comfort reminds him of the first days of settling in Vexen's rooms, except now the uneasiness is not caused by anything as easily remedied as altering sleeping arrangements. There is nothing that should give him cause for fretting or concern, but he cannot shake either impression. It feels as if there is a critical point he has overlooked, an angle he has not considered, a variable he has missed --

You know what I really miss?

Without any conscious direction, the ghosts of dead conversations resurrect himself in Saix's mind. He finds himself mouthing his own questions back in reply, automatically giving voice to the past.

"How do you miss something?"

A chill that has nothing to do with room temperature crackles down his spine.

The difference is overwhelming. Saix once riddled over the impossible why of the scientist's chambers, how they managed to retain a sense of life despite the passing of their owner. Now Vexen's quarters are as bland as the rest. As welcoming as the furniture is, as easily as the rooms accommodate the berserker's presence, Saix feels restless and wary without knowing why. What he remembers of the rooms had been relatively peaceful. It had been awkward trying to negotiate with the ghost, but not impossible. There had been something else to the rooms that let him take his ease in it, a quality that kept him from feeling as oddly foolish and lost as he does now.

Saix is in the middle of dinner -- with so few of the Organization in the castle at any one time, the pretense of social interaction is ridiculous and the berserker has learnt to take his meals alone -- when his eye falls on the shattered teapot, and the awareness of what he's looking for suddenly hits him.

He's been searching for Vexen.

Saix's memory is surprisingly inclined to the tactile. Somewhat against his will, in the middle of their furtive encounters, he must have begun to create an image of Vexen through touch, dispassionately cataloguing the way that the feel of invisible skin underneath his fingertips as the nights went by. Without sight to guide him, the process had been a decidedly strange one. He'd felt like a blind man, groping for the edges of his world, orienting himself through sensation.

Whatever the case may be, incontrovertible fact remains: at some point, without realizing it, Saix had begun to keep a library of the scientist in his mind, a map of feel and touch that he came to know as closely as his own -- as intimately as the heft of his claymore in his hand.

Now that library is useless. Like a corpse, all those memories have nothing living to attach themselves to -- and if not living, then at least present. Mobile. Existing. As soon as he untangles that train of thought, Saix suddenly wonders if this is how all ghosts are: capable of speech and thought and expression, but dissipating for the want of someone to simply remember.

He thinks of the stories of his childhood, filled with stories of ghosts and empty cities, and realizes, at last, that he might understand why Vexen might not have wanted to be left alone.

"Are you staying away because you're angry?" he asks the air, and feels foolish twice over. Vexen is not there, and even if he was, how could a dead man have emotion at all?

He's not sure how one would go about resurrecting a ghost. He's still not even sure how he managed to summon Vexen's spirit in the first place. Left to their own devices, Saix's fingers brush along the stacks of journals he left on a sidetable, and he contemplates the possibility of picking one of them up to read aloud again, and perhaps pull the scientist back to his side -- but that seems entirely too needy and dependent, not at all to his liking, and so he refrains.

Instead, he spares a moment to blink in surprise: his fingers have come away with dust on their tips.

He cannot imagine it has been that long since he was last here, but he counts the days off in his mind, lips moving faintly, and realizes it's been weeks since he visited, weeks since he let himself think about Vexen at all.

* * * * * *
The last time IV had crossed his mind had been during one of the rare meetings he'd had with the Key of Destiny, sorting through folders of task requests and allocating which scouting missions were most important. Roxas was customarily obedient to the point of obsession; he'd have his orders in hand and would be out the door before they could be explained to him, gleaning everything from the instructions provided. Roxas's ability to predict which tasks required of him and fulfill them had been nothing less than miraculous; Saix had become accustomed to XIII's consistency, assuming that the boy's dedication stemmed from his amnesia.

"I'd like to take a leave of absence," Roxas had announced before the briefing was half-over.

Saix stared in blank incomprehension. He had just been in the middle of explaining the details of the Olympus Coliseum when the outburst came; why XIII had chosen to volunteer such a request, Saix had no idea, and even less idea about how to respond. "Members of the Organization," he answered instead, slow and patient, "do not get paid vacations."

XIII was too disciplined to frown, but his face had the barest suggestion of rebellion when he nodded and turned away.

That had been Saix's first warning.

Saix had gone to the Superior afterwards, instinctively seeking the advice and experience of someone who wielded greater authority than his own. The berserker had only recently finished filing his final reports of Vexen's rooms, and his elevated rank with Xemnas remained fresh and relatively new. Speaking with the Superior was a strange thing, not quite as unnerving as treading on geyser fields or glass-laced ground -- not obviously risky, not openly violent, but more like coal-fires burning deep below the surface of the earth, endlessly simmering in wait to engulf the ignorant.

Coal fires, leaking poison in the air along with smog and smoke. Xemnas was dormant to look at, but one misstep, one crack underfoot, and Saix could be consigned to fiery oblivion. He could fall and be engulfed before even realizing his danger, and as Saix stood there, waiting for Xemnas to respond, the berserker found himself struck by a pang of fresh understanding into Vexen's perpetual twitchiness.

He had explained what had transpired during the course of the briefing. Xemnas had listened sympathetically, nodding at points with a mildly concentrated expression on his face. For a moment, Saix thought he had communicated the potential risk of Roxas's rebellion.

And then he had asked Xemnas what to do and the Superior's face shuttered itself back into its usual distant, inscrutable mask. Xemnas had shrugged, turning away. Clearly, the matter was beneath his attention; beneath it, or not interesting enough, or some other reason that Saix was not privy to. Whatever the cause, Xemnas was as untouchable as ever.

Saix did not have a heart to sink in his chest, but at the time, he had found himself listening for the distant roar of incineration.

* * * * *
As it turned out, Roxas left anyway, and broke one of the Diviner's windows in the process.

Staring at the shards of colored glass scattered across the floor, Saix wondered if anything could have been changed by giving in.

* * * * *
Everything in Vexen's rooms is old and new at the same time. Without quite intending to, Saix finds himself prowling through them again, tracing familiar routes held in his memory even as he unwinds his steps over the past year of history. He traverses the distance from the door to the armchair and recalls the first time he stepped into these rooms, the sights that met his eyes when he first intruded. The teapot is no longer on the table to greet him, but then, neither is the first of Vexen's journals that he ever began to read.

That reminds him to look for where he’d last left the book; while going through Vexen's papers and records, Saix hadn’t bothered to file them in order, or even tidy the ones he'd already read into their own pile. He'd simply taken to the habit of memorizing them by look and feel, and if any two were too similar to tell apart, reading the first line was enough to orient himself. There was a point where he'd had the journals fanned around him and could pick out the specific one he needed with a touch alone, since the contents had become so familiar -- but now that intimacy is lost and Saix finds himself uncertain of everything.

He cannot seem to remember where he's placed that one journal, now that he wants to find it. Idle ponderings turn into an obsession. Saix turns over cushions and sheets, files and folders, searching under chairs and desks -- as if finding the very first book might somehow help him pick up the thread that had led him into the scientist's mind, the intricate labyrinth of Vexen’s soul.

Eventually, he finds the journal underneath one of the dressers in the bedroom, having been kicked there or otherwise slid underneath the furniture during the months he spent living with the ghost.

Picking lint off the cover, Saix spends most of the night reading and rereading, stitching words together in various attempts at recreating the initial experience of exploring the scientist‘s rooms. It's hard; his mind keeps jumping ahead to the ending of each section, automatically filling in the blanks. Memories of old fights get in the way.

When Vexen shows up the next day during morning coffee, his first words are not what Saix expects:

Stop filing the books upside-down.

The voice comes from behind him. Although he does not need to turn to face the ghost -- since there is nothing there to greet his eyes -- Saix does so anyway.

Instead of nothingness, the Diviner finds a pair of green eyes meeting his own.

For a moment, he nearly takes a step back at the sight; then he blinks, and the image is gone.

What's wrong? Vexen asks, testily. There seems to be nothing wrong with the scientist's voice, at least. You look like you've seen a ghost.

"I have," Saix answers softly, as if anything approaching a normal volume might puff away the vision like so much mist. This time, he speaks the words with more certainty than the first time he uttered them; the denial is not assertion, but ritual. He surrenders to the madness. "You're dead."

A snort. Lucky for me. If I were alive, the lack of wit in your conversation alone would be enough to end me.

After the ghost does not explode in a fit of temper, does not howl accusation or throw verbal venom at his face, Saix allows himself to carefully, warily relax. Only afterwards does he realize that he was ever tense to begin with, bracing for an attack that never came.

Engaging the scientist in conversation becomes a new habit for Saix. Whenever he perches in an armchair and settles in for the afternoon -- book spread over his lap, elbow propped on a stolen cushion -- he makes inquiries, the questions tumbling one after the other without conscious direction. Sometimes the subject is pertinent to current affairs, but when he starts to inquire about random concepts from Vexen's journals, it occurs to him that he's straying off the point. Instead of looking for actual answers, Saix is grasping instead at anything that will open discussion, anything that will verify Vexen's presence.

Even the ghost seems to notice when Saix's eyes fall to the pages for the umpteenth time, for no reason other than to find another matter he can badger the scientist about.

You're asking a lot of questions.

Saix waves it away with a flap of the hand, too uneasy himself to actually answer. "There's nothing else to do," he mutters, and as soon as the sentence passes his lips, he knows he's lying again. "You're hardly offering any conversation on your own."

When he is silent, considering this fact, Vexen speaks up again. At a loss for words already? the scientist snipes again, tone as curt as ever.

"No," Saix murmurs, "Just thinking."

Don't hurt yourself.

Not everything about the scientist's ghost seems back to normal. Certainly, the scientist is acting strangely casual -- as though they've never fought a day in their lives. It's a parody of how they once treated one another, this strange half-existence that feels more like Saix is going through the motions of talking to himself, wooing a memory back to life.

Saix doesn't know if it's want that still incites Vexen's actions, cramping and curling inside the ghost's chest, familiar as a lover, distant as the sun. In the past, Vexen had certainly acted as if something was gnawing at him like a dog at a bone, making him restless and forcing him to pace like a beast before a storm, anticipating danger and searching for relief. If not that, then at least the last, tumultuous argument between them might have sparked a reaction, might have left a lingering inclination for revenge.

Saix wonders if Vexen has forgotten what has happened between them, if his memory has been wiped clean of that critical junction from confrontation to abandonment. The situation is not unlike handling the Superior, but where Xemnas is acidic fire, Vexen is -- predictably -- more akin to the element of frost. Vexen is sheet ice lined across the placid surface of a lake. Dealing with him requires the same amount of dexterity in order to safely navigate the uncharted terrain. Xemnas, at least, has the dormant malice of a volcano, never giving the impression of complete stability, but the scientist's veneer is completely impenetrable to Saix's senses.

He cannot gauge how much IV knows or is pretending not to know, or if the scientist is doing any such thing at all; Saix does not know if he will find solid footing beneath him at the next word, or if whatever calm Vexen has drawn around him will shatter underfoot and consign him to a slow, choking oblivion.

Not that the scientist could kill him, even if he wanted to.

Saix waits, each time, for the snap and break of ice, but it never comes.

Lacking the intimacy they had fought for so carefully has more impact than he expected. It's as if Saix has reentered the other man's rooms at the wrong point in time, like two satellites on opposite ends of their orbits, so that everything he does is a step behind or ahead of Vexen's frame of reference. He's not sure if this should lend weight to his private belief that Vexen's ghost is a hallucination, a self-hypnosis that Saix must convince himself to believe -- or if his absence, his departure was enough of a blow to the scientist that it left Vexen, temporarily, unmoored in memory.

If there was a magical Reset Program button to hit, that would restore people to a previous state -- over and over again whenever an error was made, a Reload Data File option to try again, like one of Luxord's games -- then Saix wonders where they might have gone wrong with the whole business of Kingdom Hearts.

If they could undo Roxas's return to Sora, perhaps they could undo Castle Oblivion. Perhaps they could undo finding Marluxia at all, or Larxene, or Axel. Maybe they could reverse things and only choose happier endings; maybe they would never be content with the results, but would endlessly continue to search for a better state of heart.

The press of nostalgia is suffocating. Vexen's strange behavior adds a cloying layer to being trapped in the routine the Diviner has recovered. When he can remember the need to breathe, Saix struggles away from thinking about what kind of consequences might have come from his own decisions.

This is not what he wanted. Returning to seven months ago, or eight, or nine is an empty endeavor when the Diviner is not even certain he has a week left to live -- but it's better than no company at all, in light of the chaos between worlds. Sora has vanished once more on one of his inexplicable quests. Reports last traced him to the vicinity of Hollow Bastion before he vanished near an abode that had been mage-warded against spies. The Keyblade Master is not the most consistent of heroes; he engages in bouts of action followed by periods of mysterious absence, and the only saving grace about his irregularities is that it gives his adversaries more time to regroup.

Curiously, Saix finds himself disinclined to linger overmuch on thoughts of Sora when he is resting in Vexen‘s rooms. It's as if the location, the furniture, the presence of the ghost -- even if they are no longer as he knew them, their existence stabilizes him all the same.

Gradually, the chambers begin to accept his presence once again; or perhaps more simply, he's hypnotized himself back into old habits at last, tugging them on as he might a favorite coat. Saix may be deluding himself with an illusion of normalcy, but in a way, it's a practical enough pursuit. Beside offering his body a place where it can take its ease, the odd stillness of the chambers gives him a chance to think, to plan, to speculate. To consider each new direction in the Keyblade Master's progress through the worlds, and mentally weigh how best their forces are to be regrouped.

For a short while, at least, Saix can pretend they have time.

It's enough.

After a quick stop to one of the more verdant worlds, Saix returns to Vexen's rooms with a crudely-wrapped package tucked into the crook of his arm. He thinks about giving some of the goods from the world to the Superior, as a form of tribute, but eventually he simply pens out a detailed summary of events and leaves it on Xemnas's desk.

The rest of the pilfered spoils, he's not so sure about.

With a lingering sense of defiance, he fishes out one of the scientist's blue-patterned bowls, washes it clean of grime, and plants it firmly onto the countertop. From his canvas bag, he pulls citruses of every color -- loud tangerines and brilliant lemons, sap-green limes and bitter grapefruit. The bright rounded shapes tumble into the porcelain with the dull thump of flesh, and Saix has to reach out to steady the bowl before the impact of the fruit knocks it over.

I didn't know you liked oranges, Vexen states, appearing in front of Saix's nose without warning.

Saix doesn't, but rather than admit it, he only shrugs. "You can't know everything."

It's just interesting. Vexen reaches out with pale, translucent fingers, tracing along the curve of a lemon rind without actually touching it. I used to like oranges, but not many others here did.

Saix realizes, then, why he gave into impulse: the stack of teabags in Vexen's cabinet, unused, had all been flavored with citrus. He'd assumed that the reason they had never been brewed was because they were not coffee; somehow, Saix's mind had completely missed the concept that Vexen might have kept the things around simply because they were pleasant to his senses.

He's interrupted from this revelation by Vexen's sudden appearance directly before his face, the scientist having walked through the table without any indication that having a large chunk of wood in his stomach might be bothersome. What are you planning to do with them?

The sight of Vexen has already ceased to faze him, and so all Saix offers is a languid blink. "Making sure that I have proper nutrition. Lexaeus's research journals suggested excess vitamins to help supplant our diets."

The lie slips off smoothly.

Vexen snorts. And you care about staying alive why at this junction of time?

Saix does not have the interest to fight, but he does anyway, old reflexes rising as sweetly as any of his triggered rages. "We can't all be like you," he snipes back. "We can't all get out of work early."

* * * * * *

Organization meetings become more and more relaxed as their scattered days goes by. Formal discussions are less important to be held on a weekly schedule when no one is sure if another week will come at all. Now that there are only five of them left -- five out of thirteen, thirteen faces, thirteen names -- the meeting hall sits with more chairs empty than full.

It's as if, by mutual unspoken agreement, all of them find it easier to avoid the subject by simply not visiting there.

There are no younger members to impress or keep in line anymore; no need to put on a great show of hierarchy and law when Luxord is the most junior of them all, and after him, Saix. Instead, their discussions are sporadic, settled down wherever more than three of them are congregated at any given time. Often, this is on Luxord’s balcony. Saix has no excess furniture in his quarters, nowhere to put company that might visit, while the gambler's rooms are already tailored for group socialization.

They're talking about the disappearance of Roxas, and the victory at Hollow Bastion -- the thousand Heartless freed by the Keyblade has visibly strengthened Kingdom Hearts, to the point where the shape is cleanly defined between the clouds -- when it happens. Saix is tired enough that he's started to nod off despite himself, lulled by the aimless chatter; Xaldin is confident about his ability to capture the Beast through Darkness, and can't stop talking about it. Xigbar interjects the periodic complaint about how badly his Snipers are at risk the longer they watch over Kairi. Luxord is fiddling with a pocket hourglass, barely larger than an egg-timer from the kitchens, flipping it over and over and watching grain of sand slip through the pinched middle.

They talk, and even laugh a little, passing back and forth the observations of their work. Saix pointedly turns down any options of traveling to the Land of Dragons, citing a dislike of snow; Xaldin refuses on the basis that the local cuisine gave him indigestion.

They're in the middle of discussing the option of killing the Emperor outright to throw the countryside into disarray when, suddenly, Luxord straightens in his chair with a blink and turns the hourglass on its side.

"Time's up," he announces softly. "It's all borrowed from here on out."

The room falls silent, but the gambler provides no explanation as he gathers his things up, and leaves the table.

* * * * * *
It's after the Storm Rider dies on the Land of Dragons, and Xigbar returns home cursing that Saix starts to pay attention to Luxord's books.

Luxord's journals are the only materials Saix reads which still belong to living hands. X seemed amused when Saix inquired about other symbolism in cards and gambling supplies after being told of the Queen of Spades; he offered access to his personal library, and the Diviner accepted with polite respect.

Saix's preferred place of reading remains in Vexen's quarters, if only because the chairs there know the shape of his body and stay comfortable around it. With all the worlds crashing down around their ears each time Sora swings his Keyblade, the scientist provides Saix with something like relief, a much-appreciated respite from the troubles of the present. Certainly, Saix no longer has the luxury of lingering in Vexen's rooms for days, weeks on end -- not in the time they have allotted to them -- but whenever the berserker steals a few minutes to himself and curls up in a chair, book in hand and contemplating the wisdom of a nap, he can almost imagine things are as they once were.

"Do you know," Saix begins, not looking up, "Where the word 'checkmate' comes from?"

He thinks Vexen might be staring at him, either at the strangeness of the inquiry or the sight of Saix in the armchair with a book that doesn‘t belong to the scientist. It's a moment before IV answers.

No, he says at last. It's not a Bastion word. But I expect that you do.

"Shah mat," Saix quotes with a strange kind of satisfaction, letting the syllables click sharply off his palate. "'The king is defenseless. The king is dead.'"

Vexen is quiet. If he were alive, Saix imagines that the other man would be using the weight of his gaze to force anyone else into mute obedience. Of course, now there is no gaze. There are no eyes to do it with.

Finally, Vexen speaks. The king is dead, he acknowledges.

Long live the king.

"Long live the Queen of Spades," Saix quips back, turning another page in Luxord's chess manual.

There's a note scribbled in the margins of a diagram of a prisoner's dilemma, a hypothetical puzzle. Unlike Vexen, Luxord is not in the habit of providing helpful notes in his books, though Saix isn't sure whether this is because he accepts what is written at face value, or because he already has all the extraneous information written in his own mind. The latter certainly seems likely, given that Luxord seems to be a bottomless encyclopedia of information, at least regarding anything involving games or chance.

Maximize returns... rational self-interest... benefit of all. The overly technical language has, by now, sent a dull, gentle throb through Saix's skull, and his eyes are drawn to the scrawl like a desert wayfarer's to the sight of an oasis -- mirage or otherwise, it's some form of relief. The handwriting sums the theory up neatly and cleanly:

Do what's best for everyone, and we all gain. Do only what's best for yourself, and you can win it all -- or lose everything.

Underneath that, a single warning: Marluxia did not choose wisely.

He sets the book aside upon realizing that he's started to think of Luxord as already dead, as if the act of browsing the gambler's belongings is just preparation for another funeral. Forcing himself to think of matters in the present tense also keeps his attention focused in a different way. At some point, Saix realizes there's an advantage to having the ghost around that he hadn't realized before, as wrapped up in his own search as he'd been: Vexen has met Sora. Presumably, Vexen has fought him. The reports from the Dusks and the other Organization members are distressingly sparse, but perhaps the ghost knows of a weakness they have missed, or of a vulnerability that can be exploited.

So Saix asks.

Abstracts are less useful without a frame of reference, so Saix goes straight for the meat of the problem, seeking insight in one of the few quickest ways he can grasp it. Except -- the question that comes out isn't what he intended, and he doesn't have time to take it back before Vexen slowly, calmly answers.

The Keyblade Master is nothing like XIII.

"How so?"

Well for one thing, Sora is a heart --

"Don't be pedantic. You know what I mean."

High-strung today, aren't you? Vexen’s ghost swirls in place, a small eddy that blurs his form. It's the truth. There's not much Roxas holds in common with his Other. I don't know if it's the lack of memory, or if... The scientist trails off.

"Or if?" Saix prompts.

Vexen shakes his head. Even when Namine had taken away almost all of Sora's memories, he never lost his sense of purpose. It was like something... beyond his heart alone was urging him onwards, no matter how much he forgot. The scientist laughs, a little self-deprecatingly, as if he found it unpleasant to speak about the events that lead up to his death.

Saix doesn't want to know this. He wants to know how Sora react and how Sora thinks and how Sora fights. Vexen's knowledge may be a year out of date, but Saix trusts the scientist more than Axel's sparse folio of observations from Castle Oblivion. VIII would never reveal information without a price, but for the scientist, just being acknowledged might be payback enough.

For that, the berserker tells himself, he will tolerate this.

"Long live the king," he whispers later, watching Xemnas turn one of Luxord's tables into an impromptu map, poker chips and other paraphernalia marking off worlds and individuals as strategy is discussed. Saix himself is represented by a teapot filched off one of the tables; Xaldin is embodied by a fork, while Xigbar is a half-empty glass of water and Luxord is the ubiquitous salt shaker. Xemnas is incarnated as a saucer with a slice of cake in it-- cake that he keeps grabbing the Xaldin-fork off the table in order to eat with, talking around crumbs as the meeting continues.

Only Luxord overhears the soft words, and the gambler does no more than quirk a brow at Saix; for his part, the diviner pretends not to notice, feigning raptness as the lancer attempts to wrestle the cutlery out of Xemnas' hand.

The members of the Organization do not speak as often as they used to about what they will do when they win. Now when has become an if; now they wonder how many Nobodies the Keyblade Master will slaughter along with the Heartless, and what they can afford to lose. Saix notes, with some brief satisfaction, that he is still spoken of highly by the Superior. He is not expendable.

It seems unimaginable that Xemnas will perish. The rest of them is not so certain a matter.

But Saix has made his decision, he reminds himself -- and he has chosen to follow where Xemnas will take them, into a Nothingness where nothing is certain, rather than remain trapped in the stagnation of safe rooms and cold walls.

He's heard the whispers: the ones that say that the appearance of Kingdom Hearts in the sky has affected more than just Saix, that Xemnas has become even more ruthless ever since the events at Castle Oblivion.

He looks at the Superior these days, and realizes that even though he is as trusted as Xigbar -- as trusted as the second in command, nearer than anyone else -- it's Xemnas who has pulled away from them all, becoming more incomprehensible and more powerful with each passing day.

They work, and keep working, regardless of the odds that may be stacked against them. Kairi is being arranged in a different cell now, one which will hopefully be more secure against the influence of the Light, particularly since all of Xigbar's Dusks seem weaker the longer they stay around the girl. Saix pulls his task reports back, leaving an entire stack of folders on the side of his desk, closed and forever uncompleted.

* * * * * *
Saix is ill for a week after he returns from the Deep Jungle. Xigbar, mercifully, takes up the slack; he volunteers to go to Agrabah in the berserker's stead, and Saix rolls over in his bed and wonders if the Keyblade Master is the type to kill people while they sleep.

He dreams again of a rusted garden, but this time there is a different quality to the search, as if the need to find what he is looking for is more imperative than ever. Unspoken threat looms at his back, and he doesn't dare turn to face it, uncertain if he will be able to flee it any longer if he pauses for even a moment. Once more he pushes his way through tangles of vegetation and curiously scummy water; once more he demands that the water give up its secrets.

This time as he pulls back the green fronds, thick and waxy under his hands, there's a curious sense of surrender -- as if the depths have decided to finally cede him their hidden treasure. Sensing the opportunity, Saix redoubles his efforts, clawing the waterweeds apart in slimy, wet armfuls that try to cling to his skin and drag him down. He shakes them off; his fingers search for the secret beneath. His hands burn and sting on the stiff leaves. He wades through an underwater forest that leaves miniscule gashes on his skin, soothed by the icy liquid.

When he finds the body nestled beneath the lilies, pondweed twined in its blond hair, he cannot say he is surprised.

Not even when it opens its eyes and rises to meet him.

Vexen's lips are cold against Saix's, and even colder as he pulls him into the water to drown.

What does surprise Saix is this: even as his breath is stolen from him, he cannot find it in himself to care.

* * * * * *
On the morning his fever finally breaks, Saix opens his eyes and finds himself covered in a flood of paper birds. His hands ache. Tiny cranes caught in his hair crackle faintly when he sits up, falling away from his scalp; he wipes out a small population of excessively floral-looking sparrows when he rests a hand on the sheets to steady himself.

About time you woke up. I almost thought you were going to die.

It takes the berserker a moment to register the voice, and even longer to fully process the sight that greets his eyes: paper, folding upon itself, creasing into sharp, fine corners on apparently its own power.

Or perhaps not as independently as it seems.

Hello, Vexen's ghost says -- translucent like an image through fogged glass, but visible all the same. The scientist licks a fold thoughtfully before undoing it, spinning the paper about and bending the material the other way.

Saix stares, and realizes he doesn't know if he's asleep or not. Always before, the scientist's ghost was restricted to established rooms, rooms which are several floors away. "How are you in my room?"

The thought that follows, after he has decided that the papers feel solid enough, "How can you touch those things?"

It's a tradition, Vexen replies abruptly, by way of explanation. I don't remember which world it came from. Possibly the Land of Dragons -- maybe the Land of the Sun. People make birds when a... family member is ill. Afterwards, you burn the papers and scatter the ashes. The birds will take away the illness with them and you become well -- do you see how simple that is?

Superstition is a foolish direction for a scientist to take, and Saix thinks as much, very fervently.

"You haven't answered my question," he tells Vexen instead. "How," and he's not sure which word to emphasize, so he leaves long pauses between them all, functions of disbelief, "are you here?"

The look the researcher gives him lies somewhere between amused and sad.

I heard you calling me.

And then, Catch.

Saix's hand snaps out to capture the newborn paper bird when it flies across the room, distracting him for a bare moment-- long enough that, when he looks up, Vexen is gone.

* * * * * *
Regardless of what Vexen says, Saix does not burn the birds.

He tucks the one Vexen threw at him in one of the inner pockets of his jacket -- intimately close, as though keeping it near his chest could bring him an epiphany, or fill that empty space up. Paper is a poor substitute for a heart, but between the two of them, Vexen seems to be more caught up in the memory of what could have been than the berserker ever could.

What that could have involves, Saix isn't certain.

He wonders about the change that has come between them; if, during his illness, he had brushed the borders of death long enough to become familiar with its inhabitants. Or -- less mystical -- if his own powers had simply handled the irritation of Vexen's presence by encompassing it, by giving Saix the illusion of a familiar face, a familiar voice, like an oyster glistening a pearl.

What he knows of Vexen is this:

The scientist is sharp-edged, and his bones are the cause of that; on a smaller man, the flesh might have hung loose and paunchy, but on Vexen's frame, it is stretched taut and lean. Muscle mass is not something the scientist has in great proportion. It exists as hard sinew along the lines of his arms and shoulders. Even so, Vexen has strange soft spots along his body, slight indentations that Saix's fingers had once dipped into as reverentially as a pilgrim at a shrine. There are been strangely smooth patches as well, stretches of skin that alternate between warm and yielding and rippled and cold under his hands, and Saix recognized them for what they were: scars.

The Diviner scavenges some of the oranges from the fruit bowl while he works over the problem in his mind. His illness has not taken him too far out of the loop; apparently Sora had similarly dropped off the map for days, with no explanation given and no Heartless slaughtered. Reports had last pegged his ship as flying near Atlantica. Whatever the Keyblade Master might have found among the merfolk, Saix isn't certain that he wants to know.

You shouldn't eat those if you're not feeling well.

Saix pauses with a slice of orange halfway to his mouth; with a sense of defiance, he bites into it anyway. Tart liquid splashes over his teeth. "I thought fruit was good for you."

It normally is, Vexen agrees. But when your body's defenses are too caught up in trying to fight off illness as it is, the acid found in citruses only aggravates it.

Saix thinks about this as he chews, cool juices stinging his throat.

"I hadn't imagined you'd cared for biology," comes next, right before a second vengeful bite.

One can't grow up around... Lexaeus and not pick up some tidbits. The ghost's hesitation over the name plants a warning flag in Saix's mind as neatly as Roxas's frown. Besides, Zexion was sick all the time. Prone to it. Even after he lost his heart.

Saix smirks, though he doesn’t have much energy for it. "Going to reminisce about old memories growing up?"

But Vexen doesn't snap back an expected peevish retort. What better time than now? I'm dead, he points out, with calm certainty. What else should I do -- chat about the weather? There's a brief flash of something indefinable in his eyes, something that's gone before Saix can register what it is, and then IV is leaning in towards him, brows arched, the corner of one lip quirked.

"...What," the diviner offers sullenly, turning the question into a flatly defensive statement as he resists the urge to lean away or retreat.

Maybe, Vexen says, slowly, you just like being able to watch me talk.

The idea calls a scoff from Saix’s lips. “Don’t be foolish,” he chides, pushing away from the table, tearing off another chunk of orange with more force than he really needed. “What could the dead offer me?”

They stay out of alignment for what feels like weeks in a city with no sun -- but which Saix knows are merely days, days where the Keyblade Master is moving too fast and time is running out for them all. Vexen's newfound visibility is an intriguing thing for the berserker, and his attention is inevitably drawn to it in idle moments. It's not as though he can help it. It's very difficult to avoid noticing a tall, thin man pacing on the ceiling, although the scientist himself doesn't seem to be fully aware that Saix can properly see him now.

In fact, Saix isn't sure that he really can -- Vexen's ghost comes in and out of focus as his senses attempt to define his frequency, and he has watched IV appear and reappear more than once in the time it takes him to draw breath. The diviner could be stripped of all but one sense, with nothing but touch to guide him, and still he would be hunting for the edges of Vexen's soul, searching for the limits of the untouchable.

He knows the moment that Vexen's memory finally recovers because he finds himself suddenly pressed deep into the broken-in springs of his bed, limbs spread-eagled across the sheets. Vexen’s knee is jammed into his ribs. It’s hard to breathe.

He doesn't need to fake confusion: he knows why the scientist might bear a twice-impossible grudge, and the only question Saix would offer involves the timing. "I didn't lie," he voices calmly. "I came back."

Vexen's laugh is bitter, and not a little broken. No, he responds, turning his face away. But you certainly took your time about it.

"How did you forget?" Saix finds himself asking anyway, curiously detached. And then, feeling the question stir in his chest with all the weight of a grand revelation: "How did you remember?"

I don't know. Frustration in the answer. I remembered sight and smell and sound and taste and touch --

"And then," Vexen says suddenly, voice taking on a different tone entirely, a solid ring that causes the wood of the table to hum a little in delicate echo, "I remembered you."

* * * * * *
Something else has shifted again after the scientist‘s memory catches back up to speed; something about Vexen, who has stopped acting as if it's vital to finish off the chemical proofs he never had a chance to complete, and has started watching Saix. Now that he can see Vexen, the berserker can also realize how often the scientist paces in silence, jaw tight, teeth clenched. It's not until Vexen notices how Saix staring at him oddly that he stops tracing a circle that cuts through the bedroom and the study, regardless of the somewhat incontrovertible presence of a very solid wall between both rooms.

The sight could be discomfiting, but then, it's not as if Saix asked to watch it, either.

Vexen stops and glares until the diviner turns his gaze away, and Saix wonders why it feels like this has happened before.

It's disconcerting. The change in Vexen's manifestation can't help but make Saix wonder what it's like to live even deeper in the cusp between life and death -- as if his status as a Nobody between Light and Darkness has crumbled to yet another stage, slipping away from reality without a heart to moor it. Saix should not be able to see a dead soul; he should not be able to touch one, to hear its whisper and feel its cold skin.

So Saix tolerates the occasional contact that comes between them, the brushing of fingers against his forehead and his hair, and doesn't spare the time to wonder why he isn't pulling away.

Now that the scientist registers in his sight, he's a presence that Saix is finding increasingly difficult to dismiss. It would be easy to blame it on the idea that Vexen is an irritation to the Diviner's senses, a figment that shouldn't garner as much of his attention as it does -- but Saix knows that much of the fault, really, is the curiosity that comes from being able to finally see more than an afterimage at the corner of his vision.

Curiosity wonders if he was right. If the mental map of Vexen that Saix has built in his head is correct, from the drum-taut stretch of an underfed stomach, to the proud weals of marred flesh.

Despite himself, the desire to investigate starts to grow.

Perhaps it's an animal instinct in Saix. Perhaps it's Vexen's habit of wanting to quantify everything that has begun to insinuate itself into his own routine -- or perhaps, more simply, it's merely more of the irrationality the ghost seems to bring with it wherever it goes, obfuscating Saix's senses until he does not know left from right.

Regardless, Saix cannot deny the inquisitiveness rising in him. Part of him wants to know if -- should he slide his hands under that illusionary jacket, pull the leather away from the other man's skin, see what lies underneath -- what he'll find is what he expects. Part of him wants to know if he was right about Vexen. Part of him wants to know what would happen if he reached out.

Would the scars be there because Saix expected them, or because they really exist?

Fortunately -- since most of him is reasonably rational -- Saix keeps his hands to himself, clenched into tight fists that he rests firmly on his knees as the ghost brushes by, well within arm's reach. The scientist seems to remember nothing of the bizarre intimacies of their last weeks of contact, and the distance is not one that Saix is willing to close.

Not now.

Another thought comes to Saix after a few days of watching the restless ghost -- days that seem to pass slowly, stretching like warm honey, extending indefinitely until the hours feel like weeks. It comes gradually, in the form of questions worming its way into his subconscious and lodging itself in his gut.

If the scientist has become more tangible to three senses now, sight and sound and touch, has he gained others as well? If Saix buries his face against where the other man's neck joins his shoulders, will he smell the academic's almost-desperation, the tang of his not-fear? If he laps his tongue against pale skin, will he taste sweat?

If Saix can do all of those things, how would he be able to distinguish Vexen from the living?

That particular chain of logic is a dangerous one to take, and Saix shuts it down the moment it starts turning in an unwanted direction -- far too late for him to avoid seeing its inevitable destination, an idea that makes him grimace even as it sends a crackle of expectation up his spine.

He's wondered about touching the scientist before -- in the first round of their acquaintance, it fell to Vexen to extend a hand, to orient Saix. Now the berserker no longer needs to rely on IV to know where he is: all he has to do is turn around and see.

But he doesn't dare risk more.

Ultimately, he isn't given the choice.

It happens by chance, when he's slumped in a chair reading over another journal, when he looks up just a little too quickly at a flash of blonde in his peripheral vision. His head cracks sharply against the ghost's chin, and in the middle of the sudden burst of shooting agony that travels through his scalp, he can hear the academic yelping in pain.

Another seed of their inevitable destruction germinates when that contact comes, like a final piece falling into place between them, bridging a gap that cannot be undone. Only a few hours later, Saix looks up to find Vexen standing beside his chair. The ghost has been silently watching Saix turn aimless pages, flipping through chapters until finally reaching the glossary in back, and then searching through the table of contents once more.

They stare at one another in silence for a time, and then Vexen finally speaks.

"So did he listen?"

They both know who he is, just as much as they know the question and answer, about betrayals and warnings in advance. "No," Saix replies, keeping his eyes forward, choosing to let his gaze slide towards a corner of a bookshelf rather than meet the scientist's eyes. "He didn't."

Mercifully enough, Vexen does not say anything else on the subject of Axel and Xemnas; instead, he only gives a shake of his head.

The resignation of the gesture is a strange thing, something that reminds Saix of paper birds on plain sheets, color in an otherwise monochrome world -- and for all their brightness, the sentimentality to it all, the sense of defeat in their making. He gives into impulse, reaching out to catch Vexen by the chin, and tilts the man's head up.

"After all this time," he admits softly, "I can barely remember what you used to be like before you died."

His words break off there with a gasp Saix cannot stifle. As if his confession is the key that finally opened a door that should have stayed forever closed, Vexen’s ghost has started to spontaneously fade. The colors of his hair and skin run into one another like spilt paint on a palette, getting blurrier by the second. Vexen seems hardly perturbed by the sight of his own fingers becoming pale and translucent, though there's a tightness about his eyes. If Saix had to choose a word to describe him now, perhaps it would be resigned.

Suddenly the ghost moves towards him, reaching out, and the berserker finds himself backing away. It's not fear, but instinct, a primal itch that warns Saix that if he lets the ghost touch him now, it will undo all the careful threads he has woven. But he hardly needs to exert the effort. Vexen's fingers are already dissolving away by the time they reach his face.

The scientist says something that Saix cannot hear, but he can see IV's lips moving, can almost read the words falling off his lips even as he leans in too fast for a kiss.

"Promise me..." And then he is too close, pressed up too tightly for Saix to read his lips any longer.

Vexen moves in him.

Vexen moves through him.

And then --

Vexen is gone.