Me and Myself (illicitresearch)

[throwingthebook]

Ienzo still didn't know much about the consequences of being recombined as a whole person. Aeleus seemed to be adapting to having a heart again well, if he was ever very much different as Lexaeus. Dilan had horrible nightmares for the first few weeks. Even was quiet, more reserved than how Ienzo remembered him. Not to mention nervous around Axel. Though that was to be expected, considering what happened...

As for Ienzo himself? He didn't know. He felt all right, for the most part. There were things he didn't want to dwell on...couldn't bring himself to think about for very long, if at all. He'd spent half his life in the Organization, led to believe that he was nobody. He'd spent so much time studying the mind that he knew something must be wrong with him. Ten years... That was a long time for anyone. But he was the youngest.

So when strange things begin happening, at first he considers it a side effect. Like Dilan's nightmares. Even's withdrawn behavior. A book out of place. Waking up to the computer on, when he was absolutely certain he'd turned it off. Then it became worse. He would wake up in the middle of the night in the rooftop pavilion, or the gardens, or standing in the middle of the library with no memory of actually going there. It happened during the day, once. That frightened him. One minute he was walking to the kitchen for something to eat, the next he was in the library, at a table, with a half-eaten watercress sandwich nearby and a book in his hand.

But speaking to Aeleus got him thinking. "Are you all right? The other night in the hall... You were speaking like him. Zexion. Are you sure we shouldn't contact Yen Sid?"

He didn't need Yen Sid to tell him what he already suspected. Ienzo made the preparations. A lucid dream was difficult to trigger. The realm of dreams was too unknowable, too risky to go in unprepared in anything other than normal sleep. But he learned more of spells and magic than he ever would had he never become a Nobody. A sachet of herbs under his pillow, a sheet of paper with the proper sigils under his bed, a few other arrangements. It was a very old method, and more the work of a hedge witch, but perhaps the most tried and true, if the older generations had thought to write it down. And it worked. When he had finally drifted off to sleep, he "woke" to his room again. But the signs were there--a few things out of place, but most importantly, the objects he had placed on and under his bed were no longer there. Now the hunt for whoever had been controlling his body without him knowing it.

...Where better to search for another part of himself than the library?

The logic of dreams dictated that his bedroom now opened directly there. It wasn't so much a library of books, here, but of memories. His earliest shelved in a section seemingly meant for small children, the technical manuals and books on psychology that Even had given him to read (and he'd read them ferociously), the newest section mostly vacant and bare.

It was disturbing to see most of his memories were seated on stark white shelves, bound in black leather.

Ienzo took a deep breath, hand pressed against his jaw, hair covering his eye as he slipped in amongst the black-bound books. "Zexion. I know you're here. We need to talk. ....I know what you've been doing."

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[illicitresearch]

It was strange all over again, to be the only one he could trust- Lexaeus had confided in him once before, to that effect, and Zexion had been a little astonished to hear it, then. After all, was he not a schemer, a manipulator, an illusionist? How could he ever be relied upon as someone honest? Perhaps Lexaeus had been the one to con him into trying to honor that trust by pushing himself to become worthy of it

With his counterpart, at least, it didn't feel so very misplaced. Zexion could afford to be selfish, on Ienzo's behalf.

"(As though he needs the excuse to be angry.)" He chuckled below his breath, at the thought of Xaldin's brusqueness. "Yet you have sought me here, after all, because I have become a part of you that shouldn't be pushed to the surface? Isn't that right?" Zexion questions keenly, carefully monitoring Ienzo's body language, all of it speaking to a sense of insecurity. By contrast, the Nobody is aloof and observant, seemingly unflappable.

"Surely by now you understand that I am neither of those things?" He reasons, palms open, gesturing as if weighing darkness and light in each hand like a set of scales. "The darkness and the light reside within your heart, in meager measure, put away in tidy compartments, because you are hesitant to confront them. And I am all that you are, without their influence."

"You need to learn to trust your instincts again, and search your emotions for the guidance of all that I've made do without, for all these years. Perhaps now that you do possess a heart, you may finally unpack the contents of your old memories," Zexion advises, "And decide what you can still do constructively with them, or if they are feelings better let go of, to make room for something new."

[throwingthebook]

Insecure? Yes. Yes, he was. But if he couldn't trust himself, then who could he trust? The others had seen the worst in him. He had seen the very worst he was capable of. Zexion was nothing if brutally honest with him. He couldn't do this alone...but he had to put his trust in someone. Aeleus was the most well-adjusted of all of them... Perhaps he could confide in him, if no one else. Still, something wasn't sitting well with him, in regards to Zexion. Something was nagging at him, unwilling to simply let him go. His body language became far more relaxed, more trusting. If Zexion truly wished to attack him, he would have done so by now.

"...I'll try," he said quietly. "For both our sakes. But...what about you? What is it that you want?"

Ienzo couldn't imagine that Zexion truly wanted to sleep forever. If he truly was gone, if he were truly, fully reincorporated with him, then no amount of imagining or conjuring could summon him up. Not the way he was right now. Zexion was fully sentient, fully himself. Almost like an entity all his own. He didn't read like a tulpa or similar entity, and besides, he would have had to expend a lot of conscious, purposeful energy to create such a being. So here was a mystery, then, and one he was determined to solve.

[illicitresearch]

"Haven't I already told you that I want you to endure?" Zexion smiled, as if wryly amused by the question. Could Ienzo not bring himself to believe that the side of him still swathed in shadow and tucked into subconscious held no self-sabotaging ulterior motives?

"My time has passed." His shoulders sink in resignation, shaking his head. "...and good riddance! If I only could have returned to you sooner. I have robbed you of so many years, and it is my fiercest regret, if a Nobody can truly know such a feeling, that I cannot give them back to you."

The bracing strength of ten years of existing on sheer will to not fade out and become nothing, though, that he could loan forward as a gift.

Zexion's gloved hands rise again to Ienzo's shoulders, where they rest with a slight squeeze, leaning in with an intimate murmur.

"Cherish your wholeness, Ienzo. Explore the unfathomable richness of your heart's senses, and indulge in them to make up for all I have denied you. Be more</> and live well, as I never could, where I fell short of being enough."

[throwingthebook]

And yet for all of Zexion's protests and all his pretty words, Ienzo still had doubts. Not of his intentions, but of his motives. The touch is gentle, reassuring. He doesn't pull away. "That's what you want for me," he said quietly in response. "My question wasn't about me. What do you want for you?"

He reaches up, fingertips laying over where the Nobody's heart would be. He turns his head, looking at Zexion, blue eyes betraying his concern.

"Someone without a heart can't feel fear. You did. That wasn't my influence. It was you."

[illicitresearch]

"We don't need to be reminded of that!" Zexion snapped, glancing aside with a bit of tension straining in his throat. Fear was the primal, instinctive reaction to the unknown of a threat closing in. Of course it was something he could experience for himself, backed into corners and taunted while he could only muster weakness. His eyes darkened.

"How am I supposed to want anything more than that?" He sighed roughly, hanging his head. "I want to be avenged. I want to be forgiven....I want to earn it, not use deceit that can be found out and punished even further. I want to belong to something that, for once, will not fall to pieces all around me!" By the end of that, he's laughing hollowly at himself for how pathetic those wishes sound.

"But I want that all for you, Ienzo, I want you to carry it for me, because I have nothing left in me that you are not greater-than. Do you understand?" For that instant, he almost seems plaintive, reaching to cradle the side of Ienzo's face. "And I want to be able to trust you won't need me any longer, before I am forgotten completely."

[throwingthebook]

Ienzo's heart seized up. It was a reaction rubbed raw and aching from being newly anchored. He accepted the touch, even leaned into it, reaching up in return to touch Zexion's face in kind. "I forgive you," he said quietly. "You're not greater or less than any other part of me. But you're still a part of me."

He moved his hand to the side of Zexion's head, thumb in front of his ear, his other fingers nestled in his hair. "And if I'm going to avenge you, I'm going to need all of me together. Working together. If you'll work with me..."

[illicitresearch]

But did forgiving yourself mean anything at all?

Or maybe it meant the very most of all.

Perhaps that had been Riku's preservering strength. Or perhaps Riku merely had faith that a true friend would... and where Zexion had none he could depend on for that, he would have no other choice to turn to his own Somebody.

"I am yours." Zexion promised, equally softened, fingers moving to mirror Ienzo's, stroking a slow curl behind his ear, against his hair. He pressed into Ienzo's hand in turn, leaning into the touch as a housecat might. "For as long as you need to call upon me, I am here."