Demyx distractedly taps his fingers on the table next to him, fidgeting and snuggling further into the armchair he's sitting in. A stray drop of water on the table rises into the air, warping in several directions at once. Demyx doesn't notice, and stares irritably out of the window.

Dammit, Zexion.

His fingers tap even faster as he thinks it, and he almost absentmindedly summons his sitar, roughly striking several chords the second it comes into being. The drop of water strains and bursts, leaving several minuscule domes of liquid trembling imperceptibly on the table's surface. Demyx takes only the slightest notice, bringing both hands around to the sitar and running his fingers over the strings with a concentrated, angry tension. The sound reverberates through the room, water drops quivering violently. Demyx lets out a heavy sigh, and the water bubbles lose their tension and spill evenly over the table's surface.

'Melodious Nocturne', the name that he doesn't particularly like because it never seems to suit him – melodious is one thing, but nocturne? 'A pensive lyrical piece of music' – 'a painting of a night scene'. (The former was probably the definition intended, but when something irritates Demyx, he goes all out, and therefore he decides the second applies too.) He is not pensive, nor does he have any attraction to the night. He's Demyx – bright and happy and smiley and possibly the closest one in the Organisation to having a heart.

He curses that almost-heart now, and sinks deeper into thought.

Zexion is the one who is pensive – pensive, serious, always thinking, always reading. He's perhaps the furthest one in the Organisation from having a heart. He's at ease in the darkness, and were it not for the creative nuances of the name Melodious Nocturne – that and the fact that Cloaked Schemer fits Zexion very well – Demyx would have considered the slate-haired Nobody a more fitting recipient.

Demyx considers what else Zexion might be a recipient of, given by himself, and irritably pushes down an unfamiliar – though quickly becoming familiar the more he thinks about Zexion, to his chagrin – burning sensation in his cheeks.

Suddenly he can't take it anymore, sitting there in silence (aside from the low, thrumming notes of his sitar; but those are so familiar to him, part of him, that that they don't count anymore). He abruptly sits straight, sitting there unmoving for a second, and then, as though coming to a decision, gets to his feet and exits the room with a whirl of the Organisation's black cloak.

Zexion is, as per usual, in the library, thick black Lexicon open in his lap. His hair succumbs to the tug of gravity, leaving its common resting place on the left side of his face and falling forward, gently brushing the page, as he leans over the book. The uncovered skin is tickled by a thin breeze that filters inadvertently in through the slightly open window. Zexion continues to read, shutting out any noise Marluxia and Vexen might be making in the secluded corner formed by a few bookshelves – he noticed them when they walked in – hearing only the slight rustle of pages and the imagined sound of the words running through his head.

The door slams suddenly, directly behind Zexion – several meters from the back of the couch he's sitting on, really, but with Zexion's sense of hearing, it could have been right next to him – and someone storms in. Zexion hears Marluxia greet, in between whatever he's doing to Vexen, "Hey, Demyx," and as the blond with the mullet-Mohawk mating dance hair strides around and in front of Zexion's couch, the Cloaked Schemer suddenly finds himself being pulled up roughly by an arm, the Lexicon almost spilling out of his lap until he manages to catch it with his free hand. Calm unperturbed, Zexion looks at Demyx, and tells him clearly, "Let go of my arm."

Demyx doesn't answer, just continues to drag him away from his reading spot and behind a bookshelf – the opposite side of the room to Vexen and Marluxia's, for which the slate-haired Nobody is suddenly grateful for, with a slight mental shudder. Thoughts returning to the situation at hand, Zexion stares up at Demyx – struck, inexplicably, by how much taller the blond is than he – and attempts to understand what Demyx is doing.

"Number IX, what is going on?"

Zexion sees a flash of something pass behind Demyx's eyes when Zexion addresses him as his number.

"What's going on is- screw it, Zexion." Demyx bends abruptly, burying his hand in Zexion's hair and pressing their lips together in a searing kiss. He holds the smaller Nobody close, not letting go until they're both gasping for breath, Zexion more refinedly than he. When Demyx recovers from the moment, he's met with a pair of icy indigo eyes, eyes he's often felt like drowning in when he's accidentally met them from across a room or on a mission. Eyes that are, right now, laced with something he can't quite understand.

"We're Nobodies, IX. We don't have hearts. We cannot love."

"Maybe so," Demyx whispers, leaning in again. "But can't we hope?"

Unconsciously, Zexion has been imitating the other's movement. Their lips are barely a centimeter apart as Zexion answers.

"Maybe so."

With that final whisper, ghosting across both of their lips, they close the distance between them.

They don't have hearts, they cannot love. But they can hope. And maybe, by hoping…

…someday, hope won't be all they have left.

End.