For Sasameyuki, I finally caved in to your request... A curious canon AU based on the question, "What if the Organization had actually succeeded in Castle Oblivion and got back their hearts?" Specifically this focuses on the interactions between Vexen and the Riku Replica.

In the very least this will be a fic about companionship. It may grow into a "romance" depending on its development, so a 'maybe' warning in advance if it bothers you, but you have my word as a writer that it will be nothing graphic. I will also WARN YOU if it becomes that in the chapter that it begins. This is quite an experiment, so any feedback or reviews would be most appreciated. Enjoy.

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Specimens and Snowflakes
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"I...We..." He could barely say the words. He wasn't supposed to be able to feel it, but he was in awe.

A voice to the side of him brimmed with pride, "Yes, isn't it amazing?"

"We succeeded..." He wasn't supposed to be able to feel it, but he was relieved.

The voice laughed, "I know, we can finally have our hearts back."

He placed a gloved hand on his chest; a practically forgotten warmth pulsed beneath his fingertips, "Our hearts..."

"Vexen!"

He squeezes his already shut eyes together even tighter. The darkness of sleep is pulled away like a curtain and the muted light of the outside takes its place. He sluggishly raises his hand to the slim bridge of his nose and presses the small dips of the corners of his eyes. He takes a deep breath and the scent of summer blooms mixed with healthy fields and the perfume of polished oak wood fills his lungs.

"Vexen!" The cool voice calls to him again.

He murmurs a yawn to himself. He rubs the back of his bare hand to his heavy eyelids. He can now hear the accompanying footsteps and tired breath of the voice's owner grow louder.

He opens his eyes against the bright photograph of the field he can see from his porch. He shifts about in his cushioned chair, one of his legs is numb from being propped awkwardly against one of the porch's wooden pillars. He doesn't have to turn his sight to know who the person who has been calling his name is.

He hears the automatic intake of air from his familiar companion. "Vex-" the childish voice begins to say. Vexen scoffs loudly and the other silences as though he knows he has done something wrong. The other is right in assuming so, Vexen thinks to himself.

"I told you not to call me that," he curtly tells his visitor.

"But-" the other voice begins in typical beseechment. Vexen points up a ceasing finger. The voice quiets once more.

Vexen cranes away his focus from the earthen quilt of grass and sunflowers. He leans against the flat of his knuckles and points his green gaze at the boy of a companion he created. "It's Even, Repliku, and I suggest you address me as such accordingly or I will conveniently forget that you hate mushrooms."

The silver-haired boy clearly balks at the remark, but he quips back all too wittily at his threat, "Then you have to call me Niseno. -I don't know any better unless I have a good example to follow."

Vexen rolls his eyes to himself at how overzealous his companion can be at times. Specifically when it comes to the boy thinking he is real and constantly pesters Vexen to believe in the paper charade as well.

It happens everyday, it's practically clockwork.

The accustomed routine begins with the prerequisite of the boy calling him by his fake name, him calling the boy by the name he had given him, and then the boy retorting that he too deserved to be called by his reformed name.

And come hell or high water, Vexen finds himself falling into the same sentimental trap each time. No matter what he does, Vexen always winds up looking into those sea-green eyes that always plead with every bargaining sincerity to not be reminded that he is a fake.

It is only natural that today will be no different. Vexen once more succumbs to the tugging sensation in his chest that he calls petty sympathy.

"Fine." The blond grumbles out. He is already adverting his grouchy gaze from the triumphant expression Niseno wears whenever he wins their rigged game of trivial banter.

He can still feel the pride radiating from the boy even though he is trying to focus on the patches of sunflowers by his porch. Vexen and the boy are silent as they revel in the buzzing of insects and whispering leaves. The edge of Vexen's lips twitch from the lack of activity. Irritably he recalls that Niseno was calling him for something.

"What is it that you wanted Niseno?" He manages to ask after noticing a particularly plump dragonfly landing on the railing of his porch.

The boy flinches out of his temporary state of blithe glory. He rubs the back of his head, his unnatural silver bangs dancing about his face as his fingers pull back. He gives a typical chuckle as he smiles at Vexen, "I was wondering if we could have mango ice-cream today."

He feels his face tighten into the rarely absent mold of disapproval. Vexen waves his hand in a dismissive gesture at the request. The boy's posture shrinks down with the weight of impending failure, his mouth drawing out into a thin line of growing disappointment.

Vexen mentally brushes off Niseno's meek demand as something that stems from an artificial sense of immature stubbornness. He reclines back into his wood-woven chair, assuming that now that the boy has been given an answer he'll leave him alone.

The boy does not move from what he can surmise out of the corner of his vision.

He hears the feathery creak of Niseno's joints contracting so that he can step closer to persist in his verbal quest for a treat. Vexen's patience wanes at the realization of the possibility that for once, Niseno isn't taking denial as an acceptable answer.

Vexen always expects this response, but he has never prepared for it since he placed vain hope in its impossibility. He associates the hapless negligence he garners with his possession of a heart. But he cannot find the finality in his conviction on the matter.

Ever since the battle to find his identity had ended, Vexen finds himself without many reasons to conform to the methodology of his previously emotionless incarnation. He constantly buries the murky memory of that part of himself.

But this does not spare him the burden of his personality or the impact of his trials.

He is still very much the same as the Even that had originally studied under Ansem the Wise. He still falls prey to his old habits and his cynical tendencies. He still holds onto faint paranoia that he must fit into the category of being the unrelenting advocate for prude order and prim rules or he will perish for good.

Vexen gladly adheres to this self-inflicted measure as he brings up a hand to flip back his bangs. He knows that it is a feigned distraction, but it provides him with ample time to concoct a suitable excuse for his decision.

It doesn't matter if the boy is the perfect contradiction of a scientifically beautiful abomination. It doesn't matter that he lives up to the definition of being the replica of a boy who was easily led astray. He will not receive any special treatment, not now, not ever.

"Niseno, you haven't done anything to warrant a sudden reward," even to Vexen, his voice sounds too spitefully sardonic. He waits with disguised bated breath for the response he wants to evoke from the boy.

As if following an invisible script, Niseno expresses the dejected medium between a pout and a grimace. He sees the boy turn and hears how his feet heavily retreat back into the abode. He almost feels guilty for using such a tone towards such a mentally young individual. Almost.

Vexen smiles to himself at the achieved solitude. Predictability is his comfort just as logic is his tool.

His heart pricks with a tiny pain that says otherwise.

Though the boy is something he created and can almost be an entity that could be classified as his son, he has to constantly remind his heart to not feel any shred of guilt for coldness towards his puppet.

Niseno is merely a complex plaything, nothing more.

His half-hearted smile fades at realizing how the throb in his chest continues to linger.

Vexen presses his fingers to his forehead. It is a surviving habit of his whenever he is trying to ingrain an idea or elusive fact into his mind. He digs his fingers ever harder into his forehead.

Having a heart is supposed to be the end of his internal battles, not be the instigator of them.

His hand recoils from his face at the sound of metallic clanging and a loud yell. Vexen swerves around in his chair and stares wide-eyed at door.

A feeling of foreboding oozes in the pit of his stomach. A terrible wisp of something organic being burnt wafts through the cracks of the door and window shutters.

Vexen growls at the foolishness of what he assumes is Niseno trying to gain his favor. The blond gets out of his chair and stomps to the door. His hand wraps around the door knob much like he would like to wrap his hands around the troublesome boy's neck for all his taxing worth.

Having a test subject to observe is supposed to enthrall him, not leave him feeling the woeful strife of a floundering parent.

He presses through the door with great haste. He doesn't even bother to remain near the entrance long enough to hear or feel the door shut behind him. He doesn't spare a glance to any of the cardboard boxes that crowd the incomplete living room. Vexen walks speedily forward with grated teeth and brewing vexation to the barely new kitchen.

He shoves open the door, fully unequipped to deal with the sorry sight that the aroma of burning spawned from. He halts just out of reach of the loosely hinged and still swinging kitchen door. An irritated hiss escapes from him despite his best intentions to remain collected and detached when dealing with the boy.

Niseno sits forlornly on the smooth floor, expression skewed in the most jagged characteristics of disapproval. The boy's brilliantly yellow clothing is covered with a thick compliment of tomato sauce. The red substance coats his arms and face in a way that implies it wasn't spilt on him, but rather exploded.

He is too distracted with the task of rubbing off the offending ingredient onto his blue pants to pay any attention to the growing lake of rich vegetable that is spilling out from the capsized pan by his feet. Or even to realize that the stove is very much on with still wildly burning blue flames dancing above the black metal grates.

He doesn't even notice Vexen's frown deepening to a murderous level as the man seethes rigidly in spot at the sight of the chaotic mess. He doesn't even notice that Vexen's emotions make themselves quite apparent in how the stove flame is abruptly extinguished with the acute summoning of solid sleet and ice.

Despite every single mental warning and conscious attempt at restraint, Vexen finds his hand lunging out for Niseno's bare shoulder and forcing him up to his feet. He feels his jaw locking and failing to hold in the spiteful anger that is already boiling over.

"What the hell are you trying to accomplish?! Are you trying to burn the house down with your FOOLISHNESS?! DON'T ACT LIKE SOME PIDDLING CHILD, I DID NOT CREATE YOU TO-."

He feels Niseno rip out of his loosened grip. For a terrible moment he catches sight of the pained glare on the boy's face as he storms out of the room. He hears the boy's retreating footsteps of denial trail up the polished wood stairs.

He silently stands in the kitchen. He doesn't understand why he acted so rashly, so violently, so uncouthly.

Vexen doesn't understand any of the actions that played out all too quickly. He refers to the stove-top encased in ice for answers. It offers him none.

The dark part of his mind coos chidingly to him, tempting him with a long forgotten answer. He nervously shakes off his conscience's baiting and looks at the upturned belly of the silver pan.

"But why Master Ansem?! We're so close in completing our data on the Darkness!"

Vexen feels his chest and throat clenching at his own folly.

"I only wanted back what I lost, nothing more."

He grasps his chest to ease the thorny pain that's beginning to crush his heart.

"Hearts are a fragile thing. Just because you got it back this time doesn't mean its become any stronger."

His vision begins to flicker. The white ceiling and cream tiles stained with succulent tomato become nothing more then blurry shapes of light and dark. He feels his knees buckling and jolting sharply against the tile.

"Are you trying to say I might break my own heart if I'm not careful?"

He feebly braces himself against the cool tile. He feels burning water squeezing out of the corners of his eyes. He presses his hand against his chest even harder to silence the pain that seems to elicit from his heart with every beat. He feels his breathing become more jagged at each increase of horrible agony.

"...Think whatever you want Vexen."

He curls against the floor to block out pain that has no logical origin and seems to possess no end. His eyes are already shut and pressed tightly enough that he can see false light pulsing in the darkness. His breath turns into a more erratic pace with the addition of his own anxiety at recalling what he once read in a book that told him he was having a cardiac infarction.

Vexen feels his own grip on his consciousness slipping through his fingers like ethereal water.

Just as the last drop slides out of his hands, Vexen swears he hears the soft padding of feet near him. He swears he hears a familiar but sullenly cool voice mutter, "So you do care Even."