Lying on the creaky twin-sized bed in a certain underground laboratory, in the arms of the slender scientist who resided in it, Marluxia wondered what it was he really wanted. He thirsted for power, hungered for the domination of the Organization, yes, but what about more short-term goals, more immediate wants? He couldn't seem to puzzle those out.

Sighing, he snuggled closer to Vexen. Here, in the eternal night, in the cool laboratory that was for once not offensively bright with harsh fluorescent lighting, he was almost peaceful. He nuzzled the other's shoulder with some pale, diluted form of affection. In the Grand Scheme of Things, did it really matter that none of them had hearts? Could they never truly be satisfied with what they did have-- wealth, power, and dare he say it, beauty? Having a heart would just complicate matters. He'd have to decide whether he loved or hated the man beside him, or perhaps a little of both. Yet knowing that he couldn't truly love, nor could he truly hate, made things simple. He wanted the attention of a higher-ranking member. He did whatever it took to get the attention of said higher-ranking member. He now had the attention of the higher-ranking member. Want. Take. Have. It was a simple life. Why complicate it with such ineptitudes, such weaknesses, as feelings?

The beautiful, vicious pinket traced patterns on his pet scientist's chest with a finger and smiled privately to himself. Vexen wouldn't like being thought of as Marluxia's pet, but at the moment, that's what he was: An unwittingly cuddly toy Marluxia liked to play with. There was no love involved, and as much as they pretended, they couldn't truly hate each other either. Neither of them could get hurt. There was no angst, there were no villains, and there would never be any heartbreak. No torn-up photos, lonely nights, cursing, crying, drawn-out fights… But he'd been listening to too much music again. Music was supposed to evoke emotion, strengthen memories, and all that good stuff. But to a Nobody, it was just pretty notes and poetic words strung together, with meaning to humans but not to them. It wasn't relevant enough to them.

Some people sit around wondering, "When was the last time I was truly moved by something?" For Nobodies, the answer was easy: "I have not been truly moved by something since I lost my heart… and perhaps some time before that, but it doesn't really matter because it doesn't affect the outcome of my pale semblance of a life." Or something like that. In the human world, "real men" rejected emotions while women embraced them. (If Larxene thought human men were any less boring than "men without hearts," she would be in for a nasty surprise if she ever entered the human dating world… that is, if she could be bothered to care.) It was really insulting enough that so many people outside the Organization-- and perhaps a few inside it as well-- considered Marluxia feminine by vice of his pretty hair and graceful movements. When he thought about it, he didn't really want to be able to feel again. There were just so many downsides to it.

He nibbled lightly on Vexen's skin, wondering if Vexen had ever thought of any of this. But of course he hadn't. The man was intelligent, yes, but he was a sickening kiss-up, blindly following whatever orders he was given without questioning whether the Organization as a whole would be better for it, or whether it would best benefit himself. Marluxia could understand that to a point-- no one wanted to be turned into a mindless Dusk, so they were basically forced to follow orders-- but the fact that Vexen acted the kiss-up and worse still, demanded respect for it…. Marluxia almost felt sorry for the man. Hardly a 24-hour period went by during which Marluxia didn't privately question whether it would really be worth all the trouble to get their hearts back-- and whether Xemnas really intended to get them back in the first place. The longer he drew this out, the longer he had power over his subordinates, because the promise of getting the "ultimate reward" (i.e., their hearts) seemed to make the following of every order, the completion of every task, worthwhile.

But when one saw that one had no real need for a heart, one was free to a point. They couldn't exactly quit the Organization, but they could plot from the inside. The real threat, of course, was getting someone to agree to assist with an overthrow, only to be betrayed by them in the end. Marluxia couldn't help the nasty suspicion that something like that might happen with him if he shared his plans and ideas with the others….

But then, wasn't he strong enough to handle anything the other members could throw at him, even if he was betrayed, or worse, revealed as a traitor? Unlike a human, it wasn't as though he could genuinely care what happened to another member if they were to be harmed by his schemes. Xemnas was either a fool or a power-hungry tyrant, and in either case, Marluxia felt he would be a better leader. He understood that Xemnas said a lot of what he said to keep the other members under his thumb, but in all reality, it was foolish to try to force somebody to follow one whom they did not wish to follow, and Marluxia couldn't possibly be the only one who felt-- well, thought-- that way.

Or did he just want the power all for himself? Taking in one of Vexen's nipples and sucking on it contemplatively, Marluxia reasoned that it wouldn't do to preach disillusionment, even privately, while continuing to delude himself. He closed his eyes and tightened his jaw reflexively. Did he really have to think about all of this now?

While Marluxia was busy being immersed in inner turmoil over whether to continue his train of thought or just enjoy the moment with Vexen, predictably Vexen just had to take notice of what was happening with his body.

"No. 11?!" he practically screeched. "What are you doing? How did you get in here? I rest my eyes for a moment and wake up to find you in my bed! This bed was built only for one, you know, and it's not--"

Marluxia chose this moment to interrupt Vexen's rant by throwing a leg over both of the other's and straddling him, raising his mouth from the man's chest to his lips and kissing him. Vexen's large emerald-toned eyes widened in surprise as he pushed Marluxia roughly off of him, throwing him off the bed. "Go to your room, no. 11, I don't have time to deal with this! There are experiments to be done and I have a replica to complete!"

Marluxia merely smirked up at him. "Despite our age difference, you'll find that you are not my father and therefore stand no chance of ordering me around, 'higher rank' or not," he stated simply.

"But why are you molesting me?" Vexen babbled. Marluxia's smirk widened slightly as he said, "You could say that I have a preference for effeminate men."

Vexen could only stare, non-plussed, instincts frozen, as the younger man rose and advanced on him. Marluxia had decided to file away his philosophical musings and instead concentrate on overtaking the higher-ranking member before him now…

~End!~

AN: I know, these are supposed to go at the beginning, but at least it's not sprinkled throughout the fic like in my Harry Potter one.

I'm bothered by the fact that most people tend to characterise Marluxia as being exceptionally effeminate or stereotypically gay. Even Gexegee of Org. VI referred to him as "a conniving, underhanded fruitcake." While he is most definitely conniving and underhanded, he's really not a fruitcake and any obsessing he does about his hair is done between cutscenes. Though I can certainly see how anybody trying to imitate Marluxia's hairstyle would become obsessive about his or her hair. (Been there. Done that. It's harder when you have wavy brown hair that rejects color and, for some reason, bangs.)

So I decided I'd look into why exactly he wanted to take over the Organization. At the time when I had the inspiration for this, I was coming out of a steamy 4/11 dream, so I decided to put some of that in here too. It's only suggestively sexy, with no real "stuff," because with this one project I'm working on, I have had enough of writing sex scenes to last me QUITE awhile.

I don't know if I characterized Vexen or Marluxia exactly right, but I can actually imagine their voices with the dialogue I gave them. Marluxia's musings are written more in my own voice because my brain is failing right now after being out of use for awhile, but his actual dialogue I can imagine him saying.

Kudos to anyone who got the following references: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cruel Intentions, She Wants Revenge (sorry about the music tangent… aposeopesis is apparently an Asperger's trait), Philosophy in the Boudoir (that one's actually obvious) and any other refs you might have seen.

Just to clarify: I love Vexen. I wouldn't be dissing on him in this except I was going into Marluxia's head and that's probably what he thinks… maybe… hell I'd have to watch the cutscenes again to make sure.

I decided to do this without a beta, so it may be drastically horrible. If that's the case, please try to be somewhat diplomatic :P