I probably got a zillion facts wrong and they will no doubt be proven wrong with the premiere of 358/2 Days.

Dedicated to archythecockroach and FantasticalQueenEbonyBlack; Both of whose style I idolize.


Eyes

"They say I only have one eye to see with. They're only making fun of me, I'm perfectly aware of that. I've been taunted enough to pick up the cant and rhythm of play. What they aren't perfectly aware of is that I see more with my one eye than they see with all of their eyes.

"Xehanort's brown eyes wander, Ienzo used to notice. First to the front of Master Ansem's pants, for no reason other than unrestrained perversion, then to just about anyone else's. His eyes would glaze over, almost trance-like, and it would become blatantly obvious to any observer that Xehanort was mentally undressing the person before him. Ienzo used to thank any breed of deity that he was too young to catch the man's eye.

"Braig's bloodshot eyes and acrid scent were clear signs of his vice. The disgusting odor was forever-present and heavy on his person. He'd hang off of people in the bars Ienzo walked past on his way home, allowing his genius to be violently mutilated by drink. Sometimes, to Ienzo's amazement, Braig would come into the labratories, drunk. He was a violent drunk as well. Frequently, while Ienzo was attempting to work, Braig would threaten to beat the boy for no transgression whatsoever.

"Unwarrented beatings. I can close my eyes and see Dilan's sin as if it were in front of me. Welts, the size of his fists, on the pale forearms and upper-arms of a late-twenty year old woman. Marks befitting canine teeth the size of a wolf's littering her neck. A faintly accented voice insisting that she was, "Okay. I'm really alright. Don't worry your head over me."

"Evan, simply enough, was a pedarast. Ienozo had been very much in danger of being the object of Evan's bizzare lust for untainted flesh. Like Xehanort, Vexen's pine-green eyes had roamed over Ienzo's neck, arms, legs, anything that he could see on the boy. His touches lingered frequently on Ienzo's person and the younger of the two wanted to choke sometimes. I shudder at the remembrance.

"Aeleus took pills, Ienzo could recall. Red, blue, pink capsules that made his muscles several times what they would ever need to be. The hard skin would push hard against the lab coat, his eyes would sink into the back of his face, and Aeleus would have to buy a new one almost every week. He just got bigger and bigger, getting the painful pressure in Ienzo's heart to swell larger and larger, until there was a boom. "

Zexion closes his eyes, both of them and put his pen down. Yes, Ienzo had been a victim of that "boom" as well. The turning to the darkness. His fellow researchers had only gotten further down the horrid road and Zexion can see it, even if he only has one eye.

Xehanort, Xemnas now, fell into lust with their next recruit. The hold-eyed man had been shoved onto the floor, glaring hatred and snarling death threats through his gag. Xemnas had said that it was to make the recruit compliant. Bullshit, Zexion thought, he would do anything if you would just ask instead of rape him. Zexion had watched them sometimes when Xemnas couldn't wait for a closed door.

One time in particular was scarring. Zexion had gone to prepare sustenance for himself. Xemnas was in the kitchen, Saix was sitting on the counter. Zexion had been wishing that the reason Xemnas was so close to Saix was because he was threatening the other man. Clearly not.

"Why not?" Xemnas mumured low into Saix's ear.

"This isn't my fucking job," Saix hissed. "I didn't come here to fuck you." Xemnas' hand went between Saix's legs. The other one went to his throat.

"Stay."

The newly-named Xigbar could drink to his dead liver's content. One day, Zexion found a pool of alcoholic blood, with a trail streaking off. Against his better judgement, Zexion had flipped open the lid and there was a rather sickly looking organ. Zexion would have gone to see Xigbar except the man was already in the kitchen, putting a knife in the sink to be washed.

That wasn't the worst of it. Zexion had thought that it would be, but it wasn't. The worst was more accidently vouyerism on his part.

Demyx did seem to love the attention he was getting as Xigbar pounded into his lithe body. Luxord looked as though he was having some fun with the situation as well, and Demyx's mouth was just talented enough to provide Luxord with the fun he sought.

Xaldin doesn't have a woman who won't beat him back. He still has what he likes to pretend is anger and will take it out on something that none of us can care about. He brings in emaciated-looking girls from other worlds, dines them, wines them and beats them bloody. After he's cracked something vital and unfixable, he feeds the corpse to the Dragoons. They tend to swarm it likes seagulls.

One of Xaldin's typical visits were shown to Zexion first-hand. She was blonde, skinny and mangy like an alley-cat. But she was still pretty in her red dress and smudged makeup, in the same way that gonnorhea looks pretty stained and under a microscope.

"Did you want any dinner?"

"Leave us."

Two days later, Zexion found five bones and shreads of a red dress littering the front of the castle's grounds.

Vexen's lack of heart rewarded him with a lack of ethics. All the experiments his heart had deemed too inhumane to perform were open to him now. Of all his dispicable endeavours, the most gruesome and his favorite was his insane adoration of reanimating people, creating new ones and fucking them. He could steal a corpse, mostly fourteen to eighteen year old boys, rebuild it and make it his.

Zexion was present during the early days of the Replica's construction. Back when the boy just looked like Riku and didn't really breathe. Back before Vexen gave it life and Namine gave it soul, it had been a Riku-shaped shell.

And Vexen had been screwing the daylights out of it on the examination table.

Zexion's so-called singular eye had seen all of it. Vexen's sweat dripping onto the pale, young back. Vexen hissing and moaning in ecstasy, pumping in and out of the abused little body. Zexion felt a shudder run up his spine because, truthfully, his age wasn't so far from Riku's. Two or three years, maybe.

In addition to his new toys, Vexen made things for Lexaeus. Things to make him even bigger, even faster. The occasional trip to lose some belly fat had become unnatural expansion of his body. Height-wise, Lexaeus grew 2 feet before he died, his final height at approximately 8 feet. If Lexaeus had still possessed a heart, it would have overexerted itself and died at this point.

Lexaeus took pills with dinner and that (concerned) irratated Zexion ever-so-slightly. One night, when they were the only ones left at the table, because Lexaeus ate like a horse and Zexion ate like a bird, Zexion brought it up.

"Lexaeus... Those pills that Vexen creates for you... You don't actually... need them anymore, do you?" A shake of his head. "Lexaeus, I... Nevermind."

The man's response was to pick up three capsules (take after food) and get them down with water.

Zexion scrunched his eyes together to ward off the impending headache that had been building for at least five minutes, and picked up his pen.

"The rest of my castlemates have similar sins but in varying degrees. Axel's pedophilia differs from Vexen's, which is again different from Marluxia's. His, Marluxia's, insatiable craving for nude flesh is dissimilar to Larxene's, whose is considerably different from Xemnas', which was still different from Xaldin and on it goes.

"The worst are the ones like me, I think. The cowards who hide behind what might have been an additude when we lived. Demyx hides behind his music, Roxas hides behind his icy front, I hide behind my books. There is a difference between me and them; I bore witness. "

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