Disclaimer: Nomura Tetsuya owns the characters and universe contained within.

Author's Note: Written spur of the moment and beta read by the lovely Megs.


Sometimes it's easy to forget he can't really feel emotions anymore. He has memories of having a heart, of having the ability to feel more than the mere shadow of emotions; the ability to feel more than just the physical sensations. Sometimes after release he thinks he feels elated—he remembers that feeling so well from before. Before he was the outer shell of a human being. Before he was a Nobody. The place where his heart should be has the sensation of being full for a moment, sense memory tricking his brain.

No one sympathizes with a Nobody. No one seems to understand that the brain—that memory—can be far more powerful than a human heart. He wields illusions better than anybody (Nobody). Anyone can have a power, but to be able to use it well, it takes practice. Training. The hardest being to fool is yourself. Being a Nobody makes it even harder. It rests in the element of surprise—that jolt sent to your brain when something unexpected happens. It's what allows you to be tickled, what allows you to fall for an illusion.

Seeing is believing and believing is seeing, but can you believe when you've no heart to back it up?

The only time Zexion can fall for his own illusions is after sex. After he comes, when sense memory has a hold of him. He curls around the warm body and tells himself that this is what it feels like to be happy, to be loved, to love. He tells himself he can feel more than just the physical—more than just the endorphins coursing through his body. He's a scientist as much as an illusionist, though, and the second he gets caught up in the technical (it's unavoidable, really) the illusion fades and he clings harder, tighter, for a moment. He buries his face in Demyx's shoulder, inhaling deeply, trying to get the illusion back, to call forward that sense memory again.

More often than not, his last desperate attempts to feel are thwarted by Demyx. The other Nobody is lacking; he forgets too easily that he's supposed to stay quiet after sex, that he's not supposed to speak until Zexion pulls away. So when he speaks up it's always something that throws Zexion out of his illusion and he sighs, pulls away, muttering something to himself about how he can't fool himself—that his brain won't allow it so long as he retains some semblance of sanity.

Demyx says he sounds cool when he uses big words (a lot of words sound big to Demyx), and does he want to have sex again? (He's still horny). Sometimes, Zexion thinks, it's a blessing how simple-minded Demyx is.