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Falls the Shadow

It's so rare for Saix to leave the castle without orders that Xemnas is briefly stunned to discover him gone. The Addled Impasse is empty, with the stillness that comes of being purposefully left.

"Where has he gone?" Xemnas asks of the two Berserkers who stand guard at the entrance in Saix's absence.

/To seek the moon/, they answer. The sky over the World is empty, lit by the ghosts of stars and the faint skeleton of an impossible dream; Kingdom Hearts is nothing fit to be called a moon. Not yet. The Berserkers provide more information, not in words, but in images: broken stone, the ruins of a temple, statues fallen and forgotten, weathered by wind and rain and time.

Xemnas nods. "Thank you," he says. He knows the place. He took Saix there once, perhaps a year ago when the Organization had just become seven instead of six. Perhaps not so strange that Saix should seek it out again.

Summoning a path to take him there is the work of a single thought; only Zexion comes close to Xemnas's facility with the dark pathways. He arrives at the water's edge, at the foot of the stairs up to the old temple. The air is warm, for the middle of the night, and smells of sea salt and citrus blossoms. Xemnas begins to climb the steps, slowly, deliberately. The wash of stars above make it simple to find his footing: light, even in the darkness. The absolutes that made the old man deny them, forswear them, are --

The rage is too familiar, too easy to find even in his hollow chest. Xemnas sets it aside as he nears the summit. There is a fire burning in the temple courtyard, lending warmth to the color of the marble. Saix is there, pacing before the fire. He is, Xemnas realizes, both barefoot and bare-handed, in an almost disturbing display of vulnerability.

"Your soldiers said you were seeking the moon," Xemnas says, gesturing to the sky above them, "and yet I see none. Were they wrong?"

Saix bows in greeting. "The full moon belongs to the warrior," he says, "but the new moon belongs to the oracle. When I was --" He smiles faintly, and corrects himself. "My Other had the gift. I thought I might attempt it."

"An experiment?" Xemnas asks.

"If you like," Saix says. But this isn't an experiment, not for him, if Xemnas is reading him right -- more than any of them, Saix relies on his surviving instincts to shape his voluntary behavior. Xemnas has never been sure whether that distinction comes as a result of differing backgrounds, or if it is the simple fact of Saix's relative youth.

"Should I leave you be, then, to divine in peace?" Xemnas says.

"Quite the contrary," Saix says as he reaches for the zipper of his coat, and Xemnas is struck again by the stark pallor of his skin. "Perhaps you are what I was waiting for. It is the purpose of an oracle to answer questions, after all. If I am capable, then the querent's role falls to you."

He lets his coat slide from his shoulders, baring his skin to the firelight. Xemnas has read descriptions of his scars before; Vexen's examination reports were thorough. Actually seeing them, though, is still almost a shock -- unlike Xigbar's scars, the result of Braig suffering an explosion in the chemistry lab of the Garden, Saix's are clearly deliberate. Crossed lines mark his upper arms, and his thighs; a four-sided geometric pattern centers at his navel and spreads outward from there, up to the base of his sternum and down to the crest of his pubic bone. On his back, according to Vexen's reports, there is a series of diamonds running the length of his spine.

Saix sits cross-legged before the fire, and reaches for a small metal bowl. He anoints himself with the stuff inside, some kind of ointment, it seems -- between his eyes, and then the four corners of the scar pattern. He takes a sprig of some brittle-dry herb from a second bowl and tosses it into the flame. He leans forward, breathing in the smoke. His scars seem to redden, inflamed by the closeness of the fire, perhaps. "What would you ask of me?" he asks, his voice distant and cool.

For a moment Xemnas has no answer: the questions that he most wants to ask seem too important to trust to a method as vague and unpredictable as divination. And yet he must say something. It would be a waste of time, and a disservice to Saix's trust, to ask something frivolous.

"There must be others like us," he says at last, "as Darkness spreads to more worlds. Tell me where we will find another Nobody fit to join the Organization."

Saix doesn't answer immediately; Xemnas waits, and thinks about anticipation, about hope, about faith. If he trusts his memory, he has never been well acquainted with them. Yet for Saix they still seem almost natural.

A shudder runs up Saix's spine and his eyes open, blank white, rolled back in his head. "The city in the river," he says hollowly, "falls to the Heartless flames. From the ashes he comes, and death whirls about him."

Xemnas feels a chill run through him, and for a moment he might understand belief -- and then Saix convulses, arching back from the fire, his body going rigid and a choked sound coming from his throat. Xemnas moves toward him immediately -- this is something he does have experience with, thanks to the experiments in his Other's memories. He kneels, doing his best to bodily restrain Saix's limbs -- how useful Lexaeus would be right now -- and prying open Saix's mouth. Can a Nobody swallow its own tongue, and choke? He doesn't want to find out at a cost this high.

The fit passes as suddenly as it began -- one moment Saix is tense and struggling, brutal in his strength, and the next moment he goes limp against the cracked stone. He opens his eyes again and focuses without apparent effort. "Did I speak?" he asks, when Xemnas releases his mouth.

"You did," Xemnas tells him. "Was your Other trained to interpret afterward, or only to prophesy?" Saix hesitates, and Xemnas attempts to smile reassuringly. "It doesn't matter, I'm sure. Lexaeus can determine the identity of the city in the river."

Saix nods. "Good," he says. He looks tired, perhaps, or possibly at peace. It's a strange expression for a Nobody, unguarded, calm.

Xemnas looks him over -- Saix is, he believes, not unattractive, well-proportioned and clearly strong, even if the scars are unconventional. He remembers attempts at intimacy with Braig and later with Dilan, both experiments relatively unsuccessful in anything more than a physical sense. Even before the loss of his heart, the ragged gaps in his memory prevented him from fully understanding the emotional resonance of the act.

Still, Saix seems to be close enough to his lost heart that he might read meaning into such a thing. If Xemnas understands correctly, it should function as positive reinforcement.

He leans down and kisses Saix's mouth, eyes open, watching. Saix's pupils dilate and then contract rapidly, his expression wary even as he responds to the kiss. And though his response is thorough, almost aggressive, still he pulls back after only a few moments.

"You would ask me to give myself to you?" he asks.

In one sense it is what he asks of all of them, and yet the words still make Xemnas feel...needy, too aware of the hollow ache in his core. "Yes," he says.

Saix nods. "It is your right."

None of the others would accept such a thing without discussion, without /questions/. For all they have in common, Saix is yet strange to him. Xemnas claims another kiss, because he remembers kisses being an important part of these encounters, and because the first seemed to provoke such an intense response. Saix's mouth tastes like bitter herbs, and he kisses as though he has plenty of experience to draw upon.

What Xemnas feels in response cannot be called emotion, but it is enough that he feels at all, enough that his body still remembers this even with all that he has lost. He kisses Saix hard enough to cut his lip against the sharp edges of Saix's teeth, hard enough to taste the bright copper of blood between them. When he shifts to stretch out along the stone, to cover Saix's body with his own, Saix growls into his mouth -- but the sound is an invitation rather than a threat, one more dizzying instance of illogic in the face of instinct. Saix's bare hands slide over the leather of Xemnas's coat, seeking purchase, and he rocks his hips, pushing his hard cock against Xemnas's thigh.

"Spread your legs," Xemnas demands. If he's going to go through with this, he should not hesitate.

Saix complies, parting his legs and reaching toward the fire as Xemnas pulls up the zipper of his coat enough to be able to unbutton his pants. They're going through motions, Xemnas thinks. This can't be meaningful. There is such distance between his mind and the act, more detachment than he can blame on the fact that he is still gloved as he draws his cock from his pants.

Only then Saix takes hold of him, hand slick and warm with ointment, eyes glittering bright gold with the fire, and Xemnas pushes toward the touch without deciding to. "Yes," Saix growls, teeth bared, and the rough edges to his voice now recall the full moon more than the new. "Do it." He guides Xemnas down, between his legs, and his back arches when Xemnas's first thrust breaches his body's resistance.

The connection is only physical, Xemnas reminds himself. The intensity -- the soft, close heat, tight around him -- does not change that, for all that the sensation of flesh against hidden flesh threatens to overwhelm him. He feels raw, too exposed by this, as though he is the one stripped bare. He moves without thought, steady as the crash of waves against the cliff below -- that, also, is governed by the moon, is it not? -- and when Saix's hand tangles in his hair and pulls, he finds himself moaning aloud.

He reaches up to touch Saix's face, and Saix turns to bite at his fingers, to pull Xemnas's glove off with his teeth. "Touch me," he says.

Xemnas runs his hand down Saix's chest, over the rippling pattern of scars, to take hold of Saix's cock bare-handed. Saix shudders, legs wrapping tight around his waist, flexing to pull him in deeper. And if this is no more emotional than Xemnas's memories of the act, it is also no less so. He moves, and Saix moves with him, pressure and friction and harsh ragged breath against his neck, and Saix's grip on his hair. Climax, also, takes Saix more completely than it takes him -- Saix moans and arches his back, and pulls hard enough that the pain focuses all of Xemnas's attention in this moment, and that, at last, may be what makes Xemnas surrender his control.

Afterward, before he withdraws, Xemnas leans down to kiss Saix's mouth. His lips feel tender, bruised. This time, Saix closes his eyes.

It is that display of trust, Xemnas thinks as he draws back from the kiss, that is the most valuable thing he has received tonight.

"It pleased you, then?" Saix asks quietly.

Xemnas suspects that it is inaccurate to ever say that something pleases him; how can he feel such a thing? "It did," he says. A thought occurs to him. "You did," he amends.

Saix nods. "I have nothing else to accomplish here tonight. My," and he pauses, smiling faintly, "experiment appears to have proven successful."

"We still need to test the quality of the raw data," Xemnas reminds him gently, and pulls out. "But that we can do elsewhere." He rocks back on his heels, and rises to his feet. It takes only a few moments for him to clean up, after which he watches Saix gather the ritual tools, douse the fire, and then dress by the light of the stars.

They do not speak as they leave the temple grounds, and walk back down the crooked stairs along the cliff face. There is no need, and neither of them will waste energy on empty conversation.

But when they reach the base of the cliff, the spot where this world's boundary is thin enough for them to pass out of it and back to their own, Saix turns to him. "Thank you," he says.

Xemnas almost asks for what, but in the end he decides not to. He doubts he would be able to properly comprehend the answer. "You're welcome," he says instead, and opens the path for them both to return.